Brian Ovenden
Tresurer

My arrival on earth was celebrated in Hollywood with the release of the first "talkie", The Jazz Singer. My early years were spent in Margate. I spent many days, accompanied by the family dog, walking through the sand to a rocky outcrop, Here, I would collect winkles to take home. This came to an abrupt end shortly after the outbreak of war. I was uprooted and evacuated to Rugely in Staffordshire. After the summer holidays, I joined my brother in Stafford at the grammar school. In 1942 my brother completed his studies and we moved to Barry in South Wales. For complex reasons, there was no third year at the local grammar school, so I did another second year, followed by a "third". Returning to Margate in late 1944, I rejoined my classmates in the fifth year. I am in the unique position of completing five years education, but never doing a fourth year.

Most of my National Service was spent with the RAF in Hamburg at the main equipment depot. I was in charge of the arms store and can remember the furious activity shipping out rifles during the Berlin airlift.

I married my late wife, Margaret, in 1951. We had two children. The family has grown to four grandchildren and four great grandchildren. We sold up and moved to Suffolk in 1975 where we took over a boatyard. Over the years the business evolved and slowly changed. It is no longer based in a boatyard and is run by my son and his son and daughter. Margaret had a heart attack in 1995, which led to my involvement in HeartCare. After over 50 years of marriage, she died in 2003. Life has gone full circle and I am, once again, alone with my dog.

I took over from Neville as Treasurer in 1999, some18 months after joining the committee. During the intervening period I wrote the Carers' Handbook. The inclusion of a card detailing medication and other details was the inspiration of Pauline Aguss. My main task is to maintain complete and accurate records of all receipts and payments. The computer program we use is ideal for a charity like ours as it caters for many different categories and provides excellent reports. I am no computer wizard, but I had to devise a means of checking that all entries were correct. The other thing in my mind was to make it simple and straightforward so that all the reports produced are easily understood by everybody.

The Charity Commission lay down a strict code of practice that all charities have to follow

Cash and cheques are banked at regular intervals and recorded on the computer. Cheques paid out are also recorded. When I get the monthly bank statement I reconcile with the computer accounts.

Money pain in by members for outings, trips etc., do not form part of HeartCare's income and it is held in a building society. It is set up on the computer program and is dealt with the same as HeartCare's accounts.

On a personal note, I should like to thank my fellow committee members for the trust that they show in me, as I would trust all of them.

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