The South East Cancer Help Centre (SECHC) provides support services for about 500 people affected by cancer each year. The membership is constantly changing as people in remission are encouraged to move on with their lives and new members join. 24 different therapies and groups are provided resulting in around 5000 sessions of care to members each year.

The aim of our charity is to: 

• continue as the leading provider of cancer support within the area.
• be known to all new patients diagnosed with cancer in our area.
• achieve over 95% capacity utilisation at our main Purley site.
• continue to increase membership and usage levels.
• remain substantially run by volunteers.

The Centre has only three members of staff: a full-time Centre Manager, a part-time Fundraiser and a part-time IT Officer. They are most ably supported by a team of over 60 volunteers who provide a range of services, including fundraising, administration, general support and professional expertise, to ensure that the Centre maintains the highest standards. 

How we spend our income

The Centre relies entirely on donations, legacies and fundraising income to provide its services with no funds coming from local or central Government. Our main item of expenditure is on the direct costs of our charitable activities. This includes salaries and related costs for our staff, fees paid to therapists, counsellors and group leaders for the services they provide and costs of drama, outings and other events. As an example each individual one-to-one therapy costs us £40 to provide.

Both our income and our expenditure include an amount of £20,000 which represents our valuation of the rent that we would pay for our premises if they were not provided rent free by Tesco. This has no impact on our financial performance.

The net assets held by the Centre at 31 March 2011 were £154,900 compared to £208,900 at 31 March 2010. The decrease reflects the net outgoing over the year (£53,800) plus a small decrease in the value of our investments (£200).

The financial performance for the year reflects a decline in our fundraising income caused by the difficult economic circumstances. Strenuous efforts continue to be made to improve our financial position for this and future years and to enable the work of the Centre to be maintained.   In this respect legacies are of vital importance for us.