1. Summary

LCA has been operating as an organization for almost a year. Although the year is not over, the hunting season is, and since our main focus for this year was on the Bow hunting, I decided to do the review now.

Support has been good. In all we had 5 donations, which was either processed into biltong and droëwors, or distributed to families in need.

           
Logistically there were no problems, as the donations were spread over 4 months. If donations should pick up this might become a problem. Processing the meat is also labour intensive, getting butcher involved which will be willing to help with this, will solve this problem.

Organizations that benefited from the donations were:

• Life Christian Foundation
• Kings kids - Vanderbijlpark
• Promise Centre - Mozambique

In 2011 we would like to involve the rifle hunters in South Africa. We had very positive communication with magazines which will help us to promote LCA amongst the Rifle hunters

2.  Goal (s) - Reviewed

We set out to create an organization which spreads the Word of God through helping and supporting individuals as well as organisations in need.

We hope to have achieved this by providing in some way for the following organisations:

• Life Christian Foundation
• Kings kids
• Promise centre

We hope by doing, instead of talking, we are promoting the Word of God.

2.1.  Objectives - Reviewed

• Creating a Legal organisation – This was done thanks to the help and support of Life Christian Foundation, which took care of organizing the bank account, web site development and logo design.
• Involve outdoor sport – We concentrated on the Bow hunting community and will focus more on this objective in 2011.
• Involve bow hunting community – A lot of interaction/discussion were held on 2 well known forums on the internet.  Ads were placed in the Africa’s Bow Hunter magazine.
• Making a difference – We hope by interacting with people, whether they are potential donors or beneficiaries, that we did make a difference.

3. Finance
 
3.1.  Beneficiaries

• Life Christian Foundation – LCA contributed R3500 to the purchase of a Volkswagen Kombi to be used by all projects under LCF.
• Kings kids – We distributed 22kg meat to 10 families, whose children is part of Kings Kids. We have also organised a fishing day for 10 of the children during September.
• Promise Centre – LCA contributed R3000 to the Promise centre which they will use as they see fit.

3.2.  Auditor report

The auditors report will be completed in October 2010. Currently there is only one report for LCF, which contain all the projects as well. This will change in 2011, each project will have its own report then.

4.  Looking to 2011

4.1.  Bow hunters – We would like to keep them involved in 2011 by interacting on the internet forums and magazines available to us. I will also include clubs and organisations like ABO and SABA in my communication, hoping to get them involved as well.

4.2.  Rifle hunters – This is a group on which we would like to focus on during 2011.  Again like we did with the bow hunters, we are currently looking at ways to interact with them.

4.3.  Internet – This is an easy and cost effective way to get in contact with groups. Social networking is making it easy to communicate to big groups. The forum owners, especially on the Bow hunting side were very helpful in this regard.

4.4.  Magazines – I have had communications with a new Archery Magazine as well as two well known rifle hunting magazines which were very positive. We hope to place an article in one of them during the month of November 2010.

4.5.  Hunting farms – This is a group which will have a major impact on our mission if I can get them involved. I am asking for one animal from a farm. LCA will sell that animal to a hunter for an average market price. In doing this we hope that the hunter will shoot more than just the one animal, he will pay for his accommodation, if not included and come back and report on the hunt and the farm on one of the many networks currently running.

4.6.  Butcheries – It will be helpful if we can get butcheries involved, especially if we have more than one donation in ‘n short time. They also need to be reliable and trustworthy.  It will be a bonus if they are willing to process the meat for free.

4.7. Summer activities – We are also going to look at activities to do during the summer months.  Introducing children to fishing is one of the activities we did. We identify children with a keen interest in the sport and would like introduce them to the competitive side of the sport, by joining a local club outing during their monthly competitions.

5. Thanks
5.1.  To GOD
…for making me part of this.

5.2.  To Life Christian Foundation
For supporting the idea and providing the structure and guidance needed to manage a project like LCA.

5.3.  To Supporters
I would like to thank everybody that supported LCA. Whether you donated an animal or bought biltong from us, or whether it was a comment of encouragement on a forum.

5.4.  To Forums on the internet
Special thanks to the owners of two forums which allowed me to use their forums for research and advertising:
Awie Krog – Anchor Point
Lloyd Wyman – Bowhunting Forum

5.5.  To Africa’s Bow Hunting Magazine
I had to find out with a red face how expensive marketing in magazines was, but Africa’s Bow Hunting Magazine was more that willing to let me off the hook for my error and sponsored 9 ads for free during 2010.

5.6.  To WSI Vanderbijlpark
For the development and maintenance of the web site, I would like to thank Friedel and Lérie Coetsee.

5.7. To Graphic designer
To Chantelle Tesner who designed the LCA logo.

6.  Questions asked…

6.1.  Why did you do the hunts?
Eland – I did a proposal which was send to the donor, Johnny Bel and LCF. In this I look at maximizing the income for the organisation. In the proposal I recommended the option which I thought met these criteria. Johnny came back and gave acceptable reasons why he was not willing to accept the proposals. There was also a risk for LCA and LCF in these proposals. He gave us 2 options, I do the hunt, or he will harvest the animal for us. This was relayed to LCF which gave me permission to do the hunt.

Bles buck – This animal was donated by Johan van Zyl for a specific purpose and it was to take it to the Promise Centre in Mozambique. The weeks leading up to the hunt, I did try to contact forum members that were hunting on his farm just before me. My intention was to ask them to shoot the Bles buck for us. This could not be arranged and I therefore did the hunt myself.

6.2.  What happened to the competition?
I received good and free advice from Johan Jacobs, whose profession is marketing research for a well known international company. The long and the short was that people will rather buy something at a good price e.g. an Orix for R3000, than to buy a raffle ticket for R50 where they might win the hunt.

6.3.  Explain the Butchers cost…
We did all the processing of the animals, except the Eland, because of the size and the time it would take to process the carcass, I decided to ask a butcher to do it for us. We had to pay him to process the meat, collected the biltong and droëwors after 2 weeks, dried it and cut to our specifications.

6.4.  Was support as expected?
I think we were supported in many ways, whether it was someone donating an animal, or someone buying the biltong.  There is a lot of trust involved in running a charity and we were not known in the industry we targeted. We will have to build a relationship with the people we are asking to support us.

6.5.  How can hunting farms contribute?
They can contribute by donating an animal - only the carcass after a trophy hunt, or just the accommodation. They can also combine the options mentioned or come with a proposal.

LCA in conjunction with the owner will come up with a solution that will suit both parties.

The hunter which purchase this animal will have to abide by the rules laid down by the owner and will take responsibility like any other hunt he will do.