The charity’s financial and practical support helped 1,296 people. It gave 986 welfare grants, which was an increase of 28% on the previous year. Some beneficiaries were helped more than once.

Across welfare and unemployment support, 724 people were helped – and through its education initiatives, almost 500 people were helped. This included a 56% increase from 2016 in the number of Print Futures Awards given.

The Printing Charity is developing its services, meaning future measures will incorporate its impact, including signposting to specialist services and the number of grants and interventions made.

Neil Lovell, The Printing Charity’s Chief Executive, said: “We work across two extremes, from supporting people in crisis to championing the sector we are proud to represent. We are focused on finding ways to build strong partnerships and greater awareness of the help and support we offer – and 2017 showed the strides we will continue to make.”

At the AGM, Wright and Steve Sibbald were re-elected as The Printing Charity’s Chairman and Deputy Chairman respectively.

Guest speaker Benjamin Charman, a Trainee Project Manager at Paragon Customer Communications and a 2017 Print Futures Awards winner, outlined the advantages of completing an apprenticeship. It led to his current role working on two high profile projects, one which aims to reduce data security risks.

The second guest speaker, Tom Hall, a partner at Future Proof CIC, gave an overview of the process and headline findings of the Impact Report the charity commissioned.

To highlight the practical support the charity gives to young people, the event included an exhibition of work by eight University of the Arts London College of Communication students studying photojournalism and documentary photography.

Tom Barlow Brown, Carola Cappellari, Maxime Cossé, Sebastian Garraway, Claudia Greco, Marcin Nowak, Baldassare Sciacca and Tom Walton produced the work in response to the charity’s brief to capture the essence of what print means to them.