Funds & Finances

The CA Hospitalité collects money at its two services for The Sick Pilgrim Fund and also receives donations from members. Lack of sufficient funds should never prevent a Sick Pilgrim from coming on pilgrimage. Hospitalité members need to be aware that grants from the Sick Pilgrim Fund are made almost exclusively on recommendation by Hospitalité members. The CA Hospitalité Treasurer can advise and provide a simple application form. The Council delegates authority to the Treasurer to make grants within the traditional but unwritten guidelines, namely that the pilgrim, or someone on their behalf, provides a reasonable part of the fare, say, a third or more. Much depends on what the recommending member is able to tell us. The Treasurer will confer with the President and, if appropriate, with other members of the Council.

The Hospitalité Treasurer also administers the John Way/Philip Donnelly Fund, initially established with a legacy from John Way, a brancardier and Hospitalier who died from kidney failure and added to by donations in memory of Phillip Donnelly, a nurse who died in a motoring accident.
By resolution of the Council, the Way/Donnelly Fund is used to assist young helpers by making grants up to 50% of their pilgrimage costs to members of the Young Helpers’ Group. Recipients must be agreed by one of the Heads of Service and this will only be in cases where it is known that the recipient is having difficulty finding their fare (perhaps because they are students for instance). A recipient must normally be either a student in full time education and under the age of 21, or unemployed and under the age of 25. Recipients are asked to say a prayer in Lourdes for John and Phillip.

All grants (Sick Pilgrims’ Fund and Way / Donnelly Fund) are reported to the CA Treasurer for formal ratification by the Trustees. Since the ex-officio members of the Council mentioned above are appointees of the CA, it is a requirement of law that the Hospitalité accounts are part of the CA accounts. The Hospitalité Treasurer sends the accounts annually to the CA’s auditors with a copy to the CA Treasurer for inclusion in the total CA accounts. By this means the Hospitalité is able to accept donations under Gift Aid.

As to banking, the Hospitalité operates its own account within the CA Group accounts at Cafcash, the banking arm of Charities’ Aid Foundation.

The CA pays the majority of the Hospitalité’s running expenses with an amount based on the previous year’s costs. The CA is not, however, a bottomless pocket and the Hospitalité does try to keep its outgoings reasonable. It is hoped that, in the future, members of the Hospitalité will engage more actively in fund-raising.

Also under the umbrella of the Catholic Association are a number of smaller groups, including the Glanfield Children’s Group and the Cambridge Lourdes Fund, all of whom run themselves financially in a way very similar to the CA and Hospitalité.