AGM Meeting Minutes
Tuesday 21st October 2025
Village Hall
Present: , Sharon Hooper, Sarah Williams, Helen Barham, Leanne Laird, Chrissie Toft, Megan Boxall, Hannah Venning & Rosie Kierle.
Apologies:
1 Welcome
Chair welcomes everybody and thanks to everyone for coming.
2 Minutes of the previous meeting
The chair reads and signs them.
3 Pre school Manager Report
Well, we hit the ground running at the start of the year, numbers of children were excellent, partly due to the new extended funding for 2 yr olds, with lots of new families joining our Little Steps family. We decided to do something a bit different for our Xmas fundraising, holding a complimentary Cheese & Wine evening with the emphasis on giving back to the lovely community that supports us through good times and bad. Having said that, we still managed to raise £250 through donations, raffle and our now famous Unlock the Box challenge. We then progressed through our usual festive period of madness with the children being able to participate in a Nativity play & visit from a very special visitor and then Xmas Lunch for 80 people which was delicious.
As the rest of the year went on, we maintained our excellent program of activities with a staff team who were focused, motivated and refreshed after the summer break. We completed a sponsored walk along the canal to Maunsel Lock, a distance of 1.2 miles. All the children managed admirably and had a lovely reward of an ice cream at the end. We managed to raise over £1000. We had a lovely trip on the canal from Somerset Boat Centre, it took a bit of organising due to max numbers on the boat at any one time, but we managed four trips over two mornings which allowed 99% of our children to join in regardless of their booked day.
Sadly Nina decided to leave for pastures new and Tash stepped into that vital support role that keeps the cogs turning behind the scenes allowing the keyworkers to do their stuff! She worked hard on furthering her development by achieving English level 2 and was rewarded by an opportunity for her to start an apprenticeship Sept 2025, which she quickly decided was where she saw herself developing.
Registered Charity No. 1021256
The school leavers had their transition visits, and all settled in well in September and I was immensely proud of them all. We continued to rebuild our good links with the school and they seem keen to share resources with lots of joint ventures planned. By working closely we are able to develop a strong partnership which pays dividends not only during the year but when it comes to the transition for the children starting full time education, in the same way stay & play has helped with the transition into preschool. Stay & Play will be back on a Thursday as this is our quietest day.
It was very evident the need for inclusion does put constraints on a setting and its team, I think we are all aware of the signs & symptoms now and the effects it has on an individual’s health & well-being. I must commend everyone on their dedication and strategies for coping with our very diverse Little Steps family. I get the easy bit co-ordinating the special educational needs programme, everyone else does the work on the ground with the children, aiding them to reach their full potential and getting them ready for the transition into full-time education. As a staff team we had the opportunity to complete a self-learning programme called Dingley’s Promise. A selection of units, mandatory & optional need to be completed by a high percentage of staff in order for us to be an accredited setting. Each unit comprises of learning, understanding & strategies for working in an inclusive way, all of which enhances our working practice. I’m pleased to say we very quickly met the criteria and we now have a sticker in the window as an acknowledgement for our setting’s achievement.
We had a lovely day out at Greatwood at the end of the summer term and were joined by many parents, yet again the weather was extremely kind to us. The last day was concluded with a great performance from Krazy Kev & Dinky Dinosaur and then I think one of the largest Leavers Presentation we have ever had. It was so lovely and rewarding to see them all sat up at the front looking very grown-up and proud of themselves. I have to keep a lid on it on the day but afterwards, on reflection, its very emotional and rewarding to think I played a small part which shapes that child’s learning journey for the rest of their life.
I would to thank you, the committee for your efforts in helping me take Little Steps forward in a very professional manner. Without their support & understanding of the early years requirements, we wouldn’t be able to achieve this. I say this every year - I sometimes feel I am just repeating what I said last year (or copying & pasting!) but in all honesty we have a formula that works and I mean every word.
Going forward in Sept 2025, with everyone having recharged their batteries, we are very much looking to fine tune our Keyperson skills, parent partnerships & planning, to make our working practice even better.
Saving the best till last, and most importantly, I must say a big thankyou to all the staff team who always give 110%, and are a real asset to Little Steps always going “above & beyond”. I really appreciate and value their input, enthusiasm & motivation in making Little Steps a place for us to be proud of!
4 Treasurers Report
In this report I am looking at the financial year of September 2024 to August 2025. Our income has increased from £120,000 in the 2023-2024 year to nearly £150,000 in the 2024-2025 year. An increase of 25%. There are several factors in this. We had a rises to the grant funding, even more children through the door, good fundraising and we also received nearly £4000 SEN funding within this year.
Our outgoings for the year also increased with wages rising to nearly £111,000 - an increase of 13% from the previous years £97,000. This is to be expected as we have even more members of staff now, all working more hours than previously and their hourly rate increased during the year.
Registered Charity No. 1021256
Fundraising for the year brought in £4429 as opposed to the £3800 from the previous year so an increase of nearly 15%. Hundred club was again a big success and we find a lot of the participants donate their winnings back to us. We also were given £2300 that was left in the pot from the newt beer festival.
Rent increased along with the cost of electricity and other household goods so we have seen our rent and utilities payment increase to just under £6600 in comparison to £6200 last year so approx 6% increase which we had budgeted for.
We have seen the cost of food increase from £1661 in the previous year to nearly £2300 this year.
We decided to transfer the entire £2300 that we were given from the newt beer fest into our savings along with £10,000 that we had as our profit from last year.
The books for this past financial year are now ready to go into the auditor but the figures at the moment show us turning a profit of £16534 which is great however we do need to try and reinvest some of that into the pre-school. Helen has already asked to increase the staffing slightly which has already happened and we can look to replace some of the more expensive resources and enroll staff onto more training.
We opened September 2024 with a bank balance of £14127.40 and we closed August 2025 with a balance of £18361.55.
We also at the end of August 2025 had £25745 in our savings account.
We talked about how much we need in our ‘rainy day account’ with regard to redundancy pots in case of emergencies etc, which Sarah calculates to be £16k currently. We like to keep 6 months of funds to cover us in terms of any emergency closures.
Helen showed a graph that shows the peaks and troughs of children intake at the pre-school and showed how it appears to be a ten year cycle. She feels that we hit our peak in 2023 and are now on a downturn for a few years and reminded us all of the time in 2019 that we were really low on numbers. Which is while we feel justified in keeping so much money in our savings account.
5 Chairs Report
Sharon agreed that it has been another great year for the pre-school and thanked Helen and Sarah for helping her with her job. She praised the staff that we have as being a lovely group of ladies that make an excellent team.
She thanked the committee for all their help and for continuing on with the pre-school committee. Sharon explained her role to the new member of the committee.
6 Election of New Committee
| Position | Nominee | Proposed by | Second by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chair | Sharon Hooper | Helen Barham | Leanne Laird |
| Treasurer | Leanne Laird | Sharon Hooper | Helen Barham |
Registered Charity No. 1021256
Committee Members
Sharon Hooper Helen Barham Chrissie Toft Leanne Laird Megan Boxall Hannah Venning Rosie Kierle
Sarah Williams – Bookkeeper/Accounts administrator/Secretary
7 AOB
Safeguarding report for 2024-25 – all staff have read it and understand the changes. Sarah and Helen have recently updated all the policies and it made Helen think about the website as they need to be updated onto there. Helen has contacted the website developer, he has confirmed that he would charge us £4 per edit. He has said that we can take it on ourselves but he would therefore not help us if we were to have any issues with it. Megan has said she will see if her husband could help us with that.
Policies – lots of changes with the EYFS for September 2025. Major changes are to the safeguarding policies.
Sharon happy for all the policies to be adopted as of today 21.10.2025.
Helen discussed the changes made to the hall and middle room and how it is all working really well.
Christmas festival on 5[th] December – decided to change the locked box prize to cash this year and see if that gets more interest.
Next meeting – Weds 17[th] November at 7pm
Registered Charity No. 1021256
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CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examiner's report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner's Report Report to the trustees LIThLE STEPS PRE-SCHOOL On accounts for the year ended 2025 Charity no (if any) 1021256 Set out on pages I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity ("the Trust") for the year ended 31.08.2025. As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 ("the Act"). I report in respect of my examination of the Trust's accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act. Responsibilities and basis of report Independent trhe charity's gross income exceeded £250,000 and l am qualified to examiner's statement undertake the examination by being a qualified member of [insert name of applicable listed body]]. Delete [ ] if not applicable. I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination (other than that disGlosed below ") which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect: the accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Charities Act; or the accounts did not accord with the accounting records; or the accounts did not comply with the applicable requirements Conrning the form and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a 'true and fairf view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination. I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. Please delete the words in the brackets if they do not apply. Date: Signed: Name: Relevant professional qualification(s) or body IER Oct 2018
(if any): Address: Section B Disclosure Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight material matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners). Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose. IER Oct 2018