Annual Report 2010
| Annual Statistics 2010: figures to year end 2009 (PowerPoint document) UKSPA continues to provide a number of key services for its members each year in return for an annual subscription fee which has remained at the same inflation-proofed level for the last eight years. I should report that the Association finances remain in good order but remain critically dependent on membership subscriptions. Association finances during 2009-2010 had been complicated by the management of our 25th Anniversary event in Manchester, which represented in the region of a 40% increase in our normal turnover. As this was such a high profile event for the Association, we planned to keep the costs at a minimum for Members and to invest a contribution from Association reserves to the event. Delegate numbers for the event were higher than expected and overall revenues from the exhibition were also slightly higher than anticipated resulting in allocating just under £3,500 from our reserves. The event in Manchester was extremely well received and this annual report provides the final opportunity to place on record the thanks of the association to Manchester Science Parks and so many others who contributed to the success of the conference, reception, 25th anniversary dinner, as well as the UKSPA awards. Overall our financial position is stable, but it should be noted that over the last year the £60 000 'funding gap' between the costs of running the Association and revenues from Member subscriptions is becoming increasingly difficult to close. In the current economic climate corporate sponsorship has all but dried up, and revenues from advertising have also been hit hard. In terms of expenditure, 78% of our costs are attributed to staffing, 16% to running the UKSPA office, and 6% to staff travel and subsistence. On the operational side of our business, the key performance indicator is the number of Members retained, and although we have had a small number of casualties this year that have been unable to renew their membership, we have also been able to attract a modest number of new Members. We hope to continue building our core business over the next year, and believe our Membership offers good value for money. Membership Matters Our core revenue from Member subscriptions has been dented by a reduction in Membership income but I am pleased that we have managed to sustain a healthy level of membership during these difficult times. We have also welcomed the following new Full and Associate Members to the Association over the last 12 months:
UKSPA Services We continue to produce our e-newsletters so that we can keep Members up to speed with Association activities. From the web monitor we know that an extremely high proportion of recipients open the newsletter before deleting it, which encourages us to continue to produce it every month. Our magazine 'Innovation into Success' is published three times a year and we are currently looking at ways of improving its appeal as well as its content. Our Annual Directory was published in a slightly revised format while our website seen a number of improvements to areas of the site such as the Park Profile page which now consolidates content to show property, jobs, events, news as well as a simple contact form. New features being delivered include a 'Facilities' area to promote Members’ commercially available conference space. We have never previously sought to exploit the potential value of the 'real estate' on the UKSPA website with advertising material, preferring to keep the site clean and to concentrate on providing rich content that offers excellent profile for our Members and their tenants. However, due to high volumes of traffic through the UKSPA website, we have decided to extend some discrete and appropriate advertising opportunities onto our website in an attempt to generate revenues for the Association. Good Practice Guides The current series of UKSPA Good Practice guides are being revised with the first revised guide by David Leon on Building Refurbishment published this year and the first of the new UKSPA Case Studies series being was well received. 'Networking' by the team at Daresbury Science and Innovation campus is available from the Website. UKSPA Statistics/Database Development We are grateful to Webropol, a tenant at Warwick Science Park for their generosity in providing the technical support to deliver our annual online statistics. Webropol have joined the Association as Business Affiliates which will allow us to develop this relationship over future months. The UKSPA Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system installed by RA-IS is beginning to prove valuable and will help the Executive Team deliver better targeted and more effective communications in the future. UKSPA Member Meetings We are grateful to the Parks who hosted our Member Meetings this year (Manchester Science Parks, Surrey Research Park and Pentlands Science Park) and I would like to thank them and all the Members who have taken time from their demanding day jobs to attend, participate and support the Meetings. We will certainly continue to play our part from the UKSPA offices in Chesterford Research Park to support the Sector and if there are any services you believe we could be delivering better, or in a different way, please let us know. Paul Wright September 2010 |