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← Scouts Association Polyapes Scout Camp Site

2025-03-31-accounts

Apolyapes" Scout Campsite AGM 3:30pm 09111125 Polyapes Scout Campstte

POLYAPES MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Sunday 10[th] November 2024

AGENDA

  1. Introduction and welcome

  2. Apologies for absence

  3. Governance topics

  4. a. Approve the Minutes of the Polyapes Annual General Meeting held on Sunday 10[th] November 2024

  5. b. Confirm the number of Members that may be appointed to the Management Committee/Trustees

  6. c. Discuss the quorum for future Meetings of the Management Committee/Trustees (excluding this AGM)

  7. d. Matters Arising

  8. Review of the previous year/Reports

Treasurer – Annual Report & Accounts

Wardens – Simon and Hannah Clarke

Chair – Chris Daley

  1. Appointment/Election of Officers:

Chair

Treasurer

Independent Examiner of Accounts – Peter Runacres

Appointing any other Members of the Management Committee/Trustees

  1. Awards

  2. AOB

  3. Closing Remarks

  4. Date of next Polyapes AGM – Remembrance Sunday 2026****

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Polyapes Management Committee/Trustees

Minutes of AGM – Sunday 10th November 2024 @ 3.30pm - held up at Polyapes Scout Campsite

Present

Andrew Creasey, Graham Myatt, Steve Myatt, Emily Leach, Phil Atkins, Chris Daley, Steve East, Chris Manning, Tom Wilkinson, Tina Baker, Richard Baker, Lisa Cross, Barry Hitchens, Simon Clarke, Hannah Clarke, Laurence Chenery, Mike Parr, Jack Voice, Camille Lobjoit, Iain Lobjoit, Andrew Burns, Steve Muckian, Carole Needham, David Weedon, Kevin Browne, Sarah Swann, Bill Swann, Dave Voice.

Chris Daley, Chair of the Polyapes Management Committee/Trustees welcomed everyone to the AGM meeting and thanked those who attended the remembrance service.

1) Apologies for Absence

N Finley C Chambers

2) Agreement of Previous Minutes 2022

Proposed by Chris Daley

All attending – in favour

3) Matters Arising

None.

4) Reports

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Treasurer’s Report – Please see the 2023 AGM Brochure for the full Financial Report and Accounts.

Oversight on accounts that there was no profit made in the reserves due to the spending on improvements and provision of new activities. Thanks, given to Barry and the examiner of accounts.

No questions were raised regarding the accounts.

The new transformation has thrown up anomalies, due to being under 2 sets of district rules. Secretary cannot be a trustee. The AGM is not currently in line and another AGM is required within 6 months. To achieve this, it is proposed to extend the financial year by 6 months. The new financial year will potentially run from August to September. This technicality to be discussed further over the next 2 months.

Wardens’ Report – Please see the 2024 AGM Brochure for the Wardens’ Report which highlights the hard work completed by the Wardens’ and Polyapes SASU. Simon thanked the service crew for their immense time giving and efforts for all the work they do. There are plans in the making to create a bouldering wall. The chair then reiterated his thanks to the service crew's hard work. No questions were put to the Wardens.

Tom Wilkinson gave thx to Simon, the Polyapes Service Crew and Lisa for all their hard work. This was also supported by Dave Weedon.

5) Election of Officers

The chair informed the meeting that Lisa Cross was resigning from the board of trustees with effect of this meeting and he thanked her for the tireless work she had done. Hannah presented Lisa with gifts as a token of thanks from everyone at Polyapes. A new secretary will be sought in the coming period.

The Chair, Treasurer and Auditor would remain in place and there was no change to the current board of trustees.

Although There is a new notetaker Steve Muckian who has volunteered himself to the role which was accepted by the meeting.

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Additionally, Jack Voice is taking on the under 25 rep for young people and Craig Chambers, Phil Atkinson and Chris Manning were also accepted on to the board by the meeting.

There was unanimous approval for all the Officers by those present.

6) Thanks, and Closing Remarks

Question was raised regarding the membership numbers. The chair explained this is not confirmed yet due to the changes in the governance document not being in a final form yet but will be in place soon.

7) Any Other Business

None

Meeting closed at 4 pm.

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Treasurer’s Report 2024/25

Treasurer’s Report to the members of The Scouts Association Polyapes Scout Camp Site for the year to 31[st] March 2025

RECEIPTS:

Our SASU team has generously provided services to various users of the site, Grants and Donations: £3,365 (2024- £2,190)

Camping Fees: £83,713 (2024 - £70,204)

£10,000 up on last year (2025: £65,000 - 2024: £54,954) and the shop revenues have almost doubled

At year end we have taken almost £12,000 (2024: £10,000) in deposits for future bookings which

Hutchison 3G: £2,750 (2024- £2,750)

The Hutchinson 3G contract covering this income was signed in April 2002 and ran to 31[st] March

agent has paid us fees in line with the terminated contract. The new contract provides us with fees of £2,750 per annum for the next 10 years with cost-of-living adjustments every 3 years. Legal costs related to the renewal were £3,215 being in excess of the first year’s fees (£1,200 this year and £2,015 in 2023).

EXPENDITURE

4 - £ 3,119). We are likely to have to accept this cost to remain high in the future. General

come. Our expanded SASU team requires sustenance while working on site plus appropriate clothing and training for the jobs undertaken. This has cost £6,147 this year (2024: £8,039).

we replaced the print cartridge for the printer (£660).

Other Expenditure – Major Improvements: £42,076 (2024- £29,337)

I leave it to the warden to elaborate on the wide range of major projects undertaken by the team over the last 12 months. The most expensive project was the building from scratch a Tuck Shop

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incurred.

Ac�vi�es (net of cost): £6,173 (2024 - £4,162)

The Range and the Crawler are in demand and require con�nual maintaining. The cave bus is cos�ng £2,600 a year running from October to October. Going forward we have nego�ated a 50% reduc�on in annual rent. We share 50/50 the fees for the Holiday Bus. It generated around £2,000 in rent this year.

OVERALL

The site began the year with reserves of £19,503. We spent £13,564 (2024: - £13,732) more than we received in the year leaving us with reserves of £5,940 at the period end. This represents a li�le under 5% of total expenditures in 2025. The trustees reserve policy is to have 6 months of running costs in reserve and to begin building a designated reserve to replace buildings, being 10% of site fees per year. We do not meet this objec�ve at 31[st] March 2025.

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Polyapes Cash Control

The Shop sales are recorded using “Square” which is a free Inventory Management System. The System records sales between the Card Machine and items paid in Cash

No Cash has been banked during the year; cash is just kept in a tin. (which is a security risk)

The current Treasurer, Barry, does not keep a formal record of Cash Balances except annually which means that errors will not be noticed promptly.

Stock for the Tuck Shop is purchased, presumably, by the Warden some using his Credit card or Paypal and some using the cash takings.

In the Accounts to 31/3/25 there is a cash anomaly because the amount of cash used to purchase Stock exceeds the cash recorded as being taken in the Tuck Shop.

Opening Cash Balance £300

Shop Sales in Cash £2,932

Stock Purchases £3,713

Closing Cash Balance £150

Overspend £631

There is no easy explanation as to how this has happened, Square may not be accurate (Unlikely but remember Horizon and the Post Office) The Warden may have forgotten to claim all the money (also Unlikely) Cash has been taken for Tuck Shop sales or other activities and not recorded, Barry says this is unlikely but is probably the most likely explanation.

I recommend Barry starts a proper Cash Recording System. Square has a printout of sales analysed between Cash & Credit card which can be taken at any time, most systems have a mechanism where the totals can be Zeroed, I recommend that this is done monthly and the cash taken recorded, any cash purchases made in the month deducted and the cash reconciled also monthly.

So, it would look like

Opening Cash balance £xxx

Shop sales £xxx

Purchases £xxx

Closing Cash balance £xxx

This will very quickly highlight any discrepancies which can be investigated in a timely fashion rather than at the year end.

I also recommend that Polyapes opens trade accounts with it’s suppliers to make it easier to pay if there is insufficient cash balances to make the necessary purchases.

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THE SCOUTS ASSOCIATION POLYAPES SCOUT CAMPSITE Statotncnt of assets and liabilitios at the end of the 3111 htsr¢h 2025 ear 151 Awfl 2014 rj Cash fund5 Nai Wes18¥ 13.854 168 150 Joo 624 Non 4JJots for charltys own us• bB MEf ASSET5 AT END OF YEAR Iclty 1WI131 a£court•i and 4ir*d oft lJJ¥li lythll ty

THE scoirrs ASSOCIATION POLYAPES SCOUT CAMPSIYE Receipts and P•ym•nts Account To ZQ2S Re¢eip15 paymÈrtts .. t(4tJ 2025 24 3r 2.1 GAMPING FEE¥ SWJLS & Gumaès 42.089 JJA85 13A39 Actyfft$ . Ra Sho cont￿ R￿1 . Ca¥è Bu HLrt¢hFMon 3G 2.7SO 2.7$0 Cknlm

TrIE SCOLrrs ASSOCIATION POLYAPES Scolll CAMPSITE Re￿6p￿ ahd PayrThents Account l*t

J24 Recoipts and payments i blbb461Ji 20a5 R•currln Coryts Sil Ènèrdl mntenBnce Uiilities. clean InsurAftt¢ SASU 21.092 7,SOI 6,147 B,Q39 I feJs . PAa&t AG•A.OSM arKI Iriislèè è 1,200 800 TLKk Sho Fè 16,9 8.930 ikri WartlèA HLrt Car ParkldfiVelA 727 J.447 1,517 Atarm ¥¥e OKshoi s Hel OLrt D4 156 1.323 11A90 Tree contr ltyarrÈn 2.272 AdrU1b'￿ . Ra . Cta*ièr. ¢av¢ &J5 6.173 1.457 4.182 (thirknP￿ for r￿lat

I f￿r￿ •)ty ofthE amrity ftt ** 31 2025. kr È5 rrfA )ryr X¢1k￿ 142) Ortr￿ A ZIII I 2011 Adi j¥ nxdcd. 1115 k¥itknibility ￿,. tlDts145 diir 201 I A¢ urth 1451SXblqf & 201 l A¢ r2J kn) thy Tjbxw lft

Wardens Report 2024/25

A few stats to start you off (a bit like last year) … 196 hours of Instructor led Activities (8.29% increase) 390+ hours of self-led activities (11.43%)

7962 YP attending the campsite, be it day visitors, mid-week bookings or camping (6.81% increase) 11841 nights of camping provided to those staying at Polyapes (6.27% increase) £6138.90 Tuck Shop Sales (compared to £5639.27 23/24)

Our service crew have worked hard this year on the following projects.

It is always hard to put down on paper what the crew have been up to as each week something new comes up and it doesn’t get written down, we have put in a job management solution to try and help us with maintenance and projects, however trying to get everything that is done is not an easy task.

We always need more help and would love the districts to be more involved, trying to get engagement from all the users of site is a big thing for us.

We still have had an issue with Oak processionary moth and have had to have all of our oak trees treated yearly, we have also identified that all of the Lawson Cyprus trees between the car park and memorial need to be removed due to limbs being dropped and lots of die back, this is scheduled to be completed later in the year when the site isn’t as busy, however may be completed sooner if required.

The Wardens are still looking at the viability of moving into the crew hut and creating more accommodation space for crew members, this would allow us to give more time to the site and give the site some additional income which we believe could be very useful, we are needing the support of the districts on this.

None of the above would have been possible without the support of our amazing crew, they give up many hours and weekends between them to keep the place running and improve facilities so that the site is safe and future proofed for our young people.

Please come and speak to us if you have any spare time that you could give, we can find jobs for anyone to do!

Finally, I’d like to thank everyone who uses the site and all the positive (and even negative) feedback we receive, Polyapes is your site, we are just keeping it going and trying to improve what we have for the generations to come, without your support and utilisation of our site, this would not be possible.

Simon & Hannah Clarke

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Chairman’s Report 2024/25

It has been another successful year at the campsite. The site is being used extensively by many groups for all sorts of activities. The number of bookings is up substantially and consequently the site’s income has also risen. The increased use of the camp site over the last two or three years has been outstanding, and this has no doubt been driven by the wider range of activities available and the improved site facilities.

For anyone that has been up to the site recently you have no doubt seen the new office/tuck shop building. The facility has been almost entirely built by the site crew and now provides a muchimproved office/reception area and a significantly larger tuck shop. The improvements to the shop area have already led to a rise in the shop’s income, which will add to funds for maintaining and improving the site.

The successes mentioned above have been largely achieved by the work of the Warden, Simon Clarke and his wife Hannah and the rest of the service crew. I would like to thank them on behalf of Esher District for all their hard work over the last few years.

The owners of the fields adjoining the camp site have made an application to Elmbridge Council to develop their site for housing. We had known for some time that this situation was going to arise, and this has been a tricky issue for the site trustees. As some of you will know, there has been considerable local opposition to the plan, and the residents of Oxshott and Stoke d'Abernon have no doubt expressed their views to the Council.

The Trustees at Polyapes have decided to remain neutral regarding the proposal, but we are in some negotiations with the developer to protect our legal interests. In that regard the trustees have recently appointed a solicitor to act on behalf of the site, and over the next few months this matter will develop further.

Finally, because of other commitments I am standing down as the Chair of the Polyapes Trustees Committee and Niel Findlay from Royal Kingston District will take over in the short term. Traditionally the chair position has been held jointly by a representative of both owner Districts. It would therefore be sensible at the Polyapes AGM in November that the two Districts each to nominate one representative to become joint chair.

Chris Daley

Chris Daley

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MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE/TRUSTEES REPORT AND ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31ST MARCH 2025.

Polyapes is a registered charity (1044613) that provides and maintains the camp site and buildings. The site was acquired in two separate transactions, in 1928 and 1937, by trustees acting on behalf of the then Kingston on Thames Boy Scouts Association (the “Founding District”). The purpose of the acquisition was that the site be a camping ground.

There being no evidence of an original trust deed or appointment of trustees in 1928 or 1937, in order to regularise the ownership of Polyapes, Trustees were first formally appointed in 1948 when the Founding District was reconstituted into four separate Districts, namely Kingston, Malden & Coombe, Surbiton and Esher (“the Original Owner Districts”).

In the period since 1948, further reorganisations have occurred and the Original Owner Districts are now reduced to two, namely Royal Kingston (incorporating, after intervening reorganisations, the District of Kingston, Malden & Coombe and Surbiton) and Esher (‘the Current Owner Districts’).

The current Trustee of the site is the Scout Association Trust Corporation (‘the Current Trustee’), having been appointed on 5th February 2018 and is duly registered at H M Land Registry under the number SY780840.

The Original Owner District together with the Owner Districts, following subsequent reorganisations, managed Polyapes through a Management Committee/Trustees appointed in accordance with the Constitution and rules in place. The powers, duties and rules have been governed by the constitution since 1975 or thereabouts and amended from time to time subsequently. The last such amendment was in 2019.

Polyapes is registered with the Charity Commission with the number 1044613. The objective of the charity is to provide a natural space for Scouts and other young people to camp in unspoiled surroundings.

The governance of the charity is provided by a Management Committee/Trustees made up of appointed representatives from Esher District and Royal Kingston District. Traditionally, the Management Committee/Trustees are confirmed at the Annual General Meeting of Polyapes annually. The management committee meets 4 to 6 times a year to oversee the running of the site.

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Trustees during the 2024-25 reporting year were:

Chris Daley Committee Chair (Esher Trustee) Barry Hitchens Treasurer Simon Clarke Warden and Bookings Secretary Stewart Nash Royal Kingston District Commissioner Neil Findlay Royal Kingston District Chairman David Weedon Royal Kingston District Trustee – Responsibility for Polyapes. Tom Wilkinson Esher District Commissioner Chirs Manning Esher Rep Jack Voice Independent under 25 Phil Atkins Esher Parent and Polyapes Rep Craig Chambers Independent Stephen Mackian Polyapes Rep

Bankers

National Westminster Bank Plc, 10 Victoria Road, Surbiton, Surrey KT6 4JY and

Lloyds Bank plc, 15 Blackheath Village, Blackheath, London, SE3 9LH.

Independent Examiner

Peter Runacres (F.C.A.), 8 Waldegrave Road, Bromley, BM1 2SP

Risk Assessment

The Management Committee/Trustees maintain an on-going assessment of the major risks confronting the charity that might restrict its ability to meet its objectives.

Specific risks include the ability to maintain buildings to an adequate standard to meet changing health and safety standards and to keep the site secure both when occupied and when not.

The Management Committee/Trustees regularly reviews current regulations and the status of the buildings to ensure compliance with regulations and to identify and commission repairs and improvements to buildings.

The site does not employ permanent staff. To operate an effective camp site requires considerable commitment by volunteers. There is a constant risk that the demands on volunteers will exceed the needs of the site. The Management Committee/Trustees continues to explore the facilities available through the wider Scouting community to attract competent volunteers to meet the needs of the site.

Reserves Policy

The Management Committee/Trustees have resolved to create reserves for the eventual replacement of buildings as and when funds are available.

Investment Policy

The charity generally does not have sufficient funds to invest in longer term investments. All funds are held in cash.

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