Annual Report 2024

What is The Dylan Howells Foundation?

The charity was set-up by family and friends of Dylan who tragically passed away suddenly in July 2016 aged 41 from a heart arrhythmia, leaving behind him a wife and two children. Passionate about sport in all forms, Dylan competed nationally and internationally in Triathlon and Aquathlon, becoming the Welsh National Aquathlon Champion in 2007 and finishing 6th in age group in the 2010 ITU Aquathlon World Championships in Budapest.

Our aims for our seventh year of operation ending 31st July 2024

Looking back on our seventh year, things remain consistent ni terms of how we operate and our key means of funding. We delayed the gala dinner from Autumn 2023 until Spring 2024 – to give us a larger gap between events and to prevent things becoming ‘stale’ in any sense. The event itself was perhaps our best run so far and we were privileged to welcome Lauren Steadman OBE as a guest speaker. However as with many other charities we were impacted by cost-of-living challenges and did not raise as much as in prior years, despite reasonably strong attendance. As a result of this we will look at other avenues for funding in the year ahead including grants etc, to enable us to continue to fund new and current athletes.

We have retained a good stable of athletes in the current year and are comfortable that these are effectively means tested so that we know that the support is going to where it’s really needed. Our balance sheet remains healthy, and we end the period with enough money on hand to continue to fund our athletes for the coming year. We will however continue to pressure test the needs to make sure our funds are best utilised. Although we no longer support Kinetic we have stepped up our support for local clubs including Abel Karate, Foley Boxing and re-engaging with Elmbridge Eagles. This balance enables us to maximise our impact despite a potentially smaller budget for the year 2024/25.

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