At its annual general meeting last week the charity revealed that it helped 1,646 people last year. This included 496 people helped through welfare grants, 98 residents in its two sheltered homes for retired people, 537 young people through its education work, 439 people with CV and job search training and 76 through charity partnerships.

“In the last year the main growth has come from people impacted by redundancy and undertaking CV writing and job skills workshops delivered by one of our partners. We have also grown some of our activities in education and will continue to do this. A key element of this work is to support young people into the sector as well as developing within it,” said Neil Lovell, chief executive of The Printing Charity.

“Although the number of people we reach is important, we are increasingly focused on looking at the impact we have. We want to have a meaningful impact across our programmes and activities. In parallel we will also continue to grow by extending our networks and relationships with a range of organisations so that we are accessible to people who need our help.

“We have been helping people in the industry since 1827. Much has changed since then but the call on our support is as important today as it has always been. We know our help makes a difference to people’s lives. If someone has three or more years’ experience in the sector and is in need of financial help and support, we want to hear from them.”

He added: “Our work supporting young people through our education and partnership initiatives has also grown and includes our own flagship Print Futures Awards, which help people aged 18 to 30 years fund their training or develop their existing workplace skills.

“Last year our education activities and partnerships helped 537 young people and we aim to increase this through growing existing and new industry partnerships in future. We focus our funding on having a positive impact on someone’s pathway into employment or progression in their chosen career. We are looking forward to seeing this talent grow and sharing their successes in future.”

At the AGM Jon Wright and Steve Sibbald were elected as The Printing Charity’s chairman and deputy chairman respectively for a fifth term while Pauline Blake, internal audit director at FT, was elected as honorary treasurer. The appointments of Brett Lawrence and Peter Coley as trustees were also confirmed at the event.

Georgia Irving, who is currently in the first year of a paper making apprenticeship at Iggesund Paperboard, shared insights into her apprenticeship with guests at the AGM.