We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
Maya Angelou
On Friday 27th April, the Aurora team made our way to the Royal Beach Hotel for our very first AGM.
Each member of the team – from the frontline IDVAs, ISVAs, and admin officer to the management team and Chair of the Board – spoke movingly about their individual experiences of Aurora’s first year.
We were delighted that so many agencies, organisations, groups and individuals came along to the AGM – the function room was filled to capacity and all seats were taken. We were surprised to find that so many people came along, several had to stand!
After the speeches, the team relaxed and mingled with our guests and we were all very pleased with everyone’s positive feedback about the day.
One of our guests told us, “I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to hear the F-word spoken so many times in a row – I think it’s more and more rare to hear it openly spoken these days…”
She was, of course, referring to the word ‘feminist’ – a word that Aurora holds very dear and which is at the centre of our work.
Although everyone seemed to enjoy the speeches, there was no doubt that everyone loved the catering – the key to a successful AGM is definitely to be found in the quality and quantity of the cake…
Speeches from the day
SHONAGH DILLON, CHIEF EXEC: “This has been simultaneously the most challenging and the most rewarding year of my career to date. I cannot overstate how privileged I feel to work alongside survivors of abuse; I am humbled by the trust they place in us, and always overwhelmed and inspired by their bravery.”
Read the full text of the Chief Exec’s speech
OPERATIONS MANAGER: “Aurora’s Facebook page recently received over 120 likes in the first 48 hours of going live, and is proving a fantastic way of connecting us with others. It’s not often you can say you spent some of your working day facebooking and tweeting! We’re certainly having great fun with it at the moment but, most importantly, we hope it makes the Aurora service accessible and helps us to connect with our clients and partner organisations in real time.”
Read the full text of the Operations Manager’s speech
VOLUNTEER CO-ORDINATOR: “What I will take most from supporting survivors at court was not necessarily about the result, but about the survivor having the opportunity to stand up to the perpetrator and say ‘what you did to me was wrong’. Survivors were constantly surprising me, and I believe themselves, with the strength and determination that they had in relation to taking back the control that the perpetrator had taken from them.”
Read the full text of the Volunteer Coordinator AGM speech
MARAC and Probation IDVA: “I believe the major success of the [probation] project which, within its first four months had a 100% take up rate from clients, has been down to the existing relationship and…how the service is offered to clients.”
