2023-08-31-accounts - Menheniot Pre-school

This text was generated using OCR and may contain errors. Check the original PDF to see the document submitted to the regulator.

– Menheniot Playgroup Trustees Annual Report

Dates: 01 Sept 2022 – 31 Aug 2023.

Address: The Old School, Menheniot, Liskeard, Cornwall PL14 3QS Charities Commission Registered number: 1036235 Ofsted Unique Reference Number (URN): 102924 Website: https://www.menheniotplaygroup.com/

Trustees:

Trustees are governed by the Early Years Alliance Constitution 2011, and elected by Committee.

Kat Harrison - Chairperson
Olivia Martin – Treasurer
Victoria Moore – Secretary
Kerrie Bennet
Ashley Elliott

Menheniot Playgroup is a village playgroup providing childcare services for local residents for children ages 2-4 years – pre-school.

Chairperson report October 2023

A very warm welcome to you all and thank you for showing your support tonight. For those who don’t know me I am Kat Harrison and have been involved with the playgroup committee for several years starting as a committee member, then treasurer and taking over the Chairperson role 5 years ago. We have had a fantastic year as a committee although small everyone helped where they could and always attended the meetings so Liv, Victoria, Ashley and Kerrie thank you for making it easy. Special thanks to Liv who will move on from the committee this year, her and her family have been a massive help to playgroup for a long time, even this year splitting the flower fields money raised with us and we are definitely going to miss Jackies baking!

We have been really well supported by our Bookkeeper Alison Barton this year she has taken to the role really easily and we all appreciate her steady hand overseeing payroll, invoicing and the accounts. We are keen to build Alisons role in the coming year with her taking on more responsibilities that had previously been with the committee to ensure great continuity.

MENHENIOT PLAYGROUP – OFSTED URN: 102924 – CHARITIES COMMISSION #: 1036235

As I have previously said this will be my last year as chairperson of the committee so a main concentration will be the handover process and how to reduce down the responsibilities for the next person. Being the chair of playgroup has been such a positive experience for me and I would recommend it to anyone who wants a new and rewarding challenge in their life to take it on. Even if it sounds daunting it really isn’t there is a huge network around you and the staff massively appreciate the role and support.

This was our first proper year since 2019 without the continuous interruptions from COVID and with all the team back to normal running and it was fantastic. We had a good start to the year with numbers high but that massively increased and by the summer term we were turning children away. We also start this year with very high numbers menheniot playgroup definitely carries on from strength to strength. Although our profit is slim this year we were able to make good investments into playgroup and provide very high staff to children ratios which improves the experience for everyone.

A large part of our success is our baby and toddler group Little Owls, this is children and parents first introduction to our setting. The warm, welcoming, friendly, community-based environment Kerrie creates is wonderful. Little owls is an genuine safe space for people and for many a lifeline connection to others. Kerrie and her family dedicate such a huge amount of their time and we couldn’t be more grateful a huge huge thank you.

This year we have been heavily involved in community events being part of village committees, scarecrow competitions, cherry fayre entries, bunting hanging and even hosting our own coronation party for our friends and neighbours, everyone who attended was blown away by that event and we should all be very proud of our efforts. Including the children who behaved impeccably. This year the community also really supported us with a grant for our Little owls rent to keep the group affordable, grant for the coronation party and gardening. So many local people supported our Coffee shop mornings as well. Also the Local freemasons gave us a grant for £500 big thanks to Victoria for sorting and we are so grateful of everyone’s support.

Fundraising this year has been amazing our biggest year EVER. We are so lucky here to have such wonderful parents here at playgroup, so thank you to all of you for supporting our events and making the effort so worthwhile. This year Kerrie has yet again taken the lead on all our fundraising and given up so much of her time to create such amazing events for us all and the community to enjoy. The Christmas Gift Fayre and the Johnny Cowling concert where the highlights of the year.

My final thank you for this year is to the staff Emma, Anna, Penny, Sharon, Kerrie Lizze and Rachael you are all incredible. You should all be so proud of the wonderful nurturing environment you have created here. Our children truly get to live our their best little lives in the most caring of places. Speaking personally for a moment my daughter Bethany adores you all and has such amazing experiences with you not limited to pet snails, constant face paint demands, walks in the craziest of weathers, all the baking, all the painting and soo many hugs and plasters. We are all eternally grateful to you all for giving our children the best start in life.

Onto this year and all our staff stay with us with Kyliegh joining the ranks as a new qualified member of staff. The experience we have within the setting is absolutely vast and we are so lucky to have each and everyone of them bringing all their individual skills and love. With our next OFSTED

MENHENIOT PLAYGROUP – OFSTED URN: 102924 – CHARITIES COMMISSION #: 1036235

inspection overdue we await that with nervous excitement but all the staff cannot wait to show what a wonderful environment they have created for our children.

Kathryn Harrison – Chairperson

Treasurers report - October 2023

Our financial year runs alongside the school calendar so 1[st] September through 31[st] August. The starting balance for September 2022 was £20,340.00 held in our Santander reserve account and £32,512.06 held in our Co-Operative current account. This year we merged the accounts so end with only the Co-Operative account.

Our accounts ending August 2023 are completed and we made a slim profit of £73.52, everyone should have a copy so please take a look. We had expected to be slightly higher than this but we had some missed payments from April that we needed to accrue for. We have no outstanding financial commitments except the possibility of new flooring which has been previously discussed over several years.

We are a charity so although we need to be financially secure and hold healthy reserves (we have over £50k) we are not profit making.

Income

Our income for the year was the best for 4 years due to very high children numbers especially by the summer term we were having to turn children away. Income now is back to pre COVID levels.

We received £1,500.00 of funding towards Lizzies apprenticeship which she did stop, its unclear if we will ever have to repay some of this.

Our Little Owls baby & Toddler group ran for the year and brought in £463.00 after running costs. We were also successfully awarded £190 for the year from the Parish Council to cover the rental costs for the Old School room. So Little Owls was very profitable this year.

We had the absolute best year ever for fundraising bringing in an absolutely massive £4,475.02 after costs please see your fundraising sheets for the breakdown. Kat will talk more about these events in her report.

Expenditure

Our largest expense is always our payroll costs, these increased by almost 10% this year with the full effect of that going into the 23/24 financial year. These will continue to increase with the rise in minimum wage so we are looking at approximately another 6% increase this year. Funding did increase in September but by only 6.7%.

MENHENIOT PLAYGROUP – OFSTED URN: 102924 – CHARITIES COMMISSION #: 1036235

The rest of the expenses were very comparable with the previous years. We have spent more inline with the fundraising and have been able to invest in a repaint of the internals and fence, new hi viz vests for everyone and coats for staff, new filing cabinet, Gazebos, lots of new toys and tractors!, hats and umbrellas. So a big thank you to everyone involved in fundraising!

Our 2022/23 accounts will be independently audited and filed with the charities commission by end June 2024.

The accounts ending August 2022 are available to see with the Annual Trustees Report on the Charities Commission website.

https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/

If anyone would like any further information on any figures please get in touch.

Olivia Martin – Treasurer

Professional Advisors:

Sue Gillbard – independent Accounts Auditor, and member of the Association of Accounting Technicians.
Early Years Alliance payroll
Early Years Alliance Insurance
Co-op Bank – for operating bank account

Trustees Declaration:

The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees report above. Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees:

Date: 13.06.2024 Name: Kathryn Harrison Position: Chairperson Address: 1 Cowling Gardens, Menheniot, PL14 3QJ

Independent Accounts Audit declaration:

In connection with my examination, no material matters have come to my attention which give me cause to believe that, in any material respect, accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Charities Act. I have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

MENHENIOT PLAYGROUP – OFSTED URN: 102924 – CHARITIES COMMISSION #: 1036235

Signed:

Date: 13.06.2024

Name: Mrs. Susan Gillbard

Relevant professional qualification or body: Member of the Association of Accounting Technicians.

Address: Great Threthew, Liskeard, PL14 3PY

MENHENIOT PLAYGROUP – OFSTED URN: 102924 – CHARITIES COMMISSION #: 1036235