Charity Registration Continued

[Rob Spanton]

Hi Guys,

After mostly recovering from the last SR year and then almost
immediately moving house/city, I am now resuming the charity
registration plan that I detailed in February.

### ECS funding

As you may recall, ECS offered us some money back in December. After
some chats with them, they were enthusiastic about funding the charity
formation. At their request, I presented them with a funding
application that was essentially made of two parts: (1) legal goo
relating to charity formation, and (2) kit expansion up to 81 teams.

A few weeks ago, I was informed that ECS was not able to fund the
charity application. This is because the funds they were going to use
have some kind of restriction applied to them. They are, however,
willing to fund the kit expansion.

This is still ongoing, and I am attempting to get that money transferred
to us as soon as possible. (Along with some non-hand-wavey numbers
about the amount of money.)

### Charity Formation Funding Plan

Becoming a charity is an enabling step to being able to talk to new
sponsors about larger amounts of funding, and hence our continued
existence. Forming a charity properly requires funds for legal
wrangling. So there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation.

So, in order to escape this dilemma, whilst not disrupting the cash-flow
for SR2015, three of us (Rich, Jeremy, and I) are going to loan money to
the situation in order to get it done.

The next Motorola Solutions Foundation funding deadline is the 25th of
July. It seems unlikely that we will actually be a charity by this
date, as the Charity Commission website says it takes an average of 30
days for an application to be processed. However, having all the
paperwork filed with the Charity Commission by this date will make
things significantly more straightforward with the SUSU wrangling
situation. So this is what I'm aiming for.

So, I am now engaging with some solicitors to get us registered!

Cheers,

Rob