2025 Chairman’s Report 10[th] January 2026
Welcome and thank you for being here for the 2025 AGM. I want to thank all of you here, and those who sent their apologies, for supporting the village and me for my first year of being chairperson. Thank you for all the effort you have put in to keeping the Little Woodham going, whether you’re in the village teaching the public about 17[th] century life, manning the shop making hot drinks and selling souvenirs, or if you have helped with the maintenance. This report aims to recount the things we have achieved over the last year, and outline what’s on the cards for next year.
You might be wondering why, in 2026 we are having out 2025 AGM. This is of course because we started 2025 with a special general meeting in which we agreed to move the date of the AGM to January. This is so that our treasurer and the external auditor have a little more time to prepare the accounts before they are presented at the AGM. The additions to the constitution also now specify that the committee may use email to carry out existing business or communicate in an emergency, which is helpful in the digital age. We followed this SGM with a wonderful Twelfth Night celebration and I hope to see some of you later for this year’s one.
This year we opened to the general public on 37 days in 2025. We have had people from the local area, other parts of the UK, as well as much further afield such as Ireland, the Netherlands, the USA and even Australia. During the latter half of the year Helen produced a short visitor’s questionnaire. From this we know most people come with family, though we did have some group visits such as U3A and a camera club. A lot of people hear about us through people they know, others have said that they saw our signage on the main road, or from the garden centre. Many people are re-visiting us – which is encouraging.
Our continuing search for the best way to spread our open days to ensure villager attendance meant that this year those 37 days were on weekends or bank holidays – no weekday openings, with us opening four of the five weekends in August. As a result, we had only one instance of very low attendance this year, below five people, in which we had to open for free and rely on donations. This is excellent news and great progress. However, we did have frequently has less than 10 villagers throughout the year, particularly in August. This is something we need work on next year.
On these open days we have had some special events. On the easter bank holiday we had soldiers from Lord Brook’s Regiment of Foote and Militias of Anglia billeting the village for the second year. This was well received, but unfortunately, we were left with very few soldiers on the Monday as many travelled back, which was not anticipated. The weekend did not generate many more visitors than we generally have, but it did give us the opportunity to spend some quality time with each other in the evenings, and allowed us to meet some new re-enactors and old friends.
May Day this year was a great success. Whilst it was rainy, we sold 450 tickets and made more than £2000. We had morris dancing by King John’s Morris, and storytelling by Michael O’Leary, as well as the presentations, games, and procession by the
villagers. The villagers I spoke to felt that the reduced visitor numbers reduced the stress of the day.
We also had our second Resident’s Day in partnership with Rowner Community Trust. This helps promote us to families in the local area and build a relationship with another local charity.
This year we had to make the difficult decision to cancel craft day. This was despite the very hard work of Helen, Erika and Claire. The Hampshire Open Studios weekend which has been held over the same august bank holiday weekend has been gaining in momentum, and this meant that a lot of traditional crafts people were already committed to that event.
This year we welcomed four local schools to the village, all of whom have visited before. This year home ed groups were encouraged to visit on our open weekends.
Outside of our public open days we have had several other events. In April we were invited by English Heritage to attend a St George’s Day weekend event at Fort Brockhurst, where we wandered about and engaged with the public, our participation was well received and we may collaborate again with them in the future.
MP for Gosport Caroline Dinage visited the village with some Warner Brothers executives, and they were very impressed with the village. Thank you again to all who came along – on a weekday!
We were also kindly invited by Lord Hopton’s Regiment to an event at Titchfield abbey which some members attended and greatly enjoyed.
The village players this year performed Much Ado About Nothing in July. We once again ran our tuck shop in the Alehouse – thank you to Helen for organising this. We are very grateful to the Players for their kind donation to the village, from the proceeds of their performances.
In September we attended Fernhurst Furnace open weekend where we met lots of fellow re-enactors and members of the public. We also learnt how to put up our large event tent!
Chris, Lewis and myself attended Alverstoke Michaelmas Fayre where we handed out lots of leaflets and generally made a jolly good nuisance of ourselves.
Bev and Charlotte attended a local volunteer fair put on by Community First on Gosport High Street to try and drum up some more villagers. I have done three radio interviews. In December Roger and myself represented the village at a reception for local charities by Caroline Dineage at the houses of parliament. We met lots of people from other local charities. Events like these are very useful for making locals aware of our existence.
This year we have also had two lots of student filming from local universities.
Maintenance and improvement of the village has continued this year and we have made a lot of progress. We had the removal of the old thatch by us – a great team effort and lots of fun, and rethatching by Chris Dodson and his team on Jane’s cottage.
Clearing and tidying of overgrown areas by Mel and Andy means Little Woodham is looking as beautiful as ever. This is a lot of hard work, so thank you for all the effort. The installation of new local hurdle fencing around the gardens was organised by Lewis and overseen by David. This means that our gardens are now starting to come to life again – thank you to Mel, Erika and everyone else who has helped with planting these up. Thank you also to Charlotte and Pete for giving Eve’s Hovel a spruce up and some new flower beds.
The Potting Shed roof leak which has been a problem for a couple of years has now been fixed, thank you Bev for organising this.
We also now have a removable gate post by the Potter’s. This will make a huge difference to vehicles coming on to site such as log deliveries, workmen, or even an ambulance. Thank you very much to Bev, Andy K and Andy S for sorting this.
I want to say a special thank you this year to Andy S who outside of village openings has been repairing the fencing around the pond, tidying the yard behind the shop, and many other things. We really appreciate all the work you are doing behind the scenes.
Thankfully, whilst we have had some trespass on to site, these events have not been as bad as last year. Anti-vandal paint was re-applied to the perimeter, and higher fencing panels installed behind the shop by David. Lewis has added trail cameras in the village that will capture good quality footage in the event of a break in (and means we won’t have wires from house to house). David is also currently in the process of adding some additional decorative bars to the main pedestrian gate to prevent people squeezing through.
As you may have seen if you read the minutes of the committee meetings, we have been working behind the scenes to flesh out some of our documentation. This has included an equality policy, a whistleblowing policy, and a safeguarding policy. We have also updated and expanded our risk assessments. All of these will be provided again before we open. A filming location contract is also being finalised. This year for the first time we also took out trustees indemnity insurance. Because we are an unincorporated charity, the trustees (committee members) are personally liable for GLHS, the insurance help protect us.
Helen will speak more about finances in her report, so I will keep my comments brief, but there are a couple of points I would like to mention. This year has been an expensive year. Re-thatching, and re-fencing the site have not been cheap. You may also have seen from the minutes that the committee took the decision to purchase the contents of the forge. However all these things will help to preserve and safeguard the village for the future, and we do not anticipate spending this amount every year.
Our plans for 2026. The calendar of dates for next year is here to be viewed. As well as opening to the pubic we have filming already booked in for February and a Photography Event going ahead in April. We have maintenance and repair of the site to continue, and this year we will be re-thatching the Apothecary’s cottage. Behind the scenes this year I think the main aims of the committee should be to advertise ourselves in more places – this is something that had been done in the past, but has fallen away in the last couple of years. We also need to focus on recruiting more volunteers. Re-thatching has up till now been funded through our savings however for 2027 and beyond we will be looking into some alternative funding such as grants or public donation drives.
Finally, as some of you may know, Claire is stepping down from the committee at the end of this AGM. She had been on and off the committee I believe for well near 10 years. She has, along with the other committee members steered us through some difficult times. She had also personally been a great support to me. I’m sure you’ll all join me in thanking her for all the effort she has put in over the years. Thank you, any questions?
Date: 03/12/2025 Time: 20:20:22
Page: 1
Gosport Living History Society Balance Sheet
From: Month 1, November 2024 To: Month 12, October 2025
| Chart of Accounts: Default Layout of Accounts [PARTIAL] Period Fixed Assets 0.00 Current Assets Debtors (119.00) LLoyds Bank Deposit 17,693.99 Sum up account 1,000.00 Fixed Term Deposits (57,000.00) Bank Account 14,607.62 (23,817.39) Current Liabilities Creditors : Short Term (33.58) (33.58) Current Assets less Current Liabilities: (23,783.81) Total Assets less Current Liabilities: (23,783.81) Long Term Liabilities 0.00 Total Assets less Total Liabilities: (23,783.81) Capital & Reserves Reserves 0.00 (23,783.81) P & L Account (23,783.81) |
Year to Date 0.00 0.00 44,049.29 1,000.00 28,000.00 17,249.60 90,298.89 (33.58) (33.58) 90,332.47 90,332.47 0.00 90,332.47 114,116.28 (23,783.81) 90,332.47 |
|---|---|
Date: 03/12/2025 Time: 20:16:09
Page: 1
Gosport Living History Society Profit and Loss
From: Month 1, November 2024 To: Month 12, October 2025
Chart of Accounts:
Default Layout of Accounts [PARTIAL]
| Period | Year to Date | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| gra | ||||
| Income - Memberships | 330.00 | 330.00 | ||
| Income - Schools and groups | 434.00 | 434.00 | ||
| Income - Public Admissions | 14,514.98 | 14,514.98 | ||
| Income - Souvenirs | 2,046.10 | 2,046.10 | ||
| Income - Tea Shop | 932.56 | 932.56 | ||
| Income - Filming | 680.00 | 680.00 | ||
| Income - Donations | 1,152.15 | 1,152.15 | ||
| Income - Lottery | 174.00 | 174.00 | ||
| Income - Other Events | 2,532.72 | 2,532.72 | ||
| Deposit Interest Received | 2,693.99 | 2,693.99 | ||
| 25,490.50 | 25,490.50 | |||
| Purchases | ||||
| 0.00 | 0.00 | |||
| Direct Expenses | ||||
| 0.00 | 0.00 | |||
| Gross Profit/(Loss): | 25,490.50 | 25,490.50 | ||
| Overheads | ||||
| Buildings | 27,360.00 | 27,360.00 | ||
| Tea Shop | 1,258.31 | 1,258.31 | ||
| Food and Consumables | 1,627.18 | 1,627.18 | ||
| Costumes/Artefacts | 972.60 | 972.60 | ||
| Souvenirs | 1,057.25 | 1,057.25 | ||
| Maintenance | 3,358.86 | 3,358.86 | ||
| Miscellaneous Expenses | 396.88 | 396.88 | ||
| Tools and Equipment | 8,416.85 | 8,416.85 | ||
| Garden Expenses | 381.99 | 381.99 | ||
| Advertising | 909.24 | 909.24 | ||
| Postage and Stationery | 62.95 | 62.95 | ||
| Books | 29.00 | 29.00 | ||
| Insurance | 2,602.71 | 2,602.71 | ||
| Professional Fess | 100.00 | 100.00 | ||
| Accountancy Fees | 150.00 | 150.00 | ||
| Sum Up Charges | 226.49 | 226.49 | ||
| Eventbrite Fees | 14.00 | 14.00 | ||
| Event Expenses | 350.00 | 350.00 | ||
| 49,274.31 | 49,274.31 | |||
| Net Profit/(Loss): | (23,783.81) | (23,783.81) |
Date: 03/12/2025 Time: 20:25:49
Page: 1
Gosport Living History Society Period Trial Balance
To Period: Month 12, October 2025
| N/C 1200 1210 1220 1250 2100 3100 3200 4000 4001 4002 4004 4005 4006 4008 4009 4011 4901 5000 5001 5002 5003 5100 6200 6201 6900 7104 7501 7503 7602 7604 7800 7802 7803 7902 7903 |
Name Lloyds Bank Current Account Lloyds Bank Savings Account Fixed Term Deposit SumUp Debt Card A/c Creditors Control Account Reserves Profit and Loss Account INCOME - MEMBERSHIPS INCOME - SCHOOLS/GROUPS - DEPT 8 INCOME - PUBLIC ADMISSIONS INCOME - SOUVENIRS INCOME - TEA SHOP INCOME - DONATIONS INCOME - FILIMING INCOME - LOTTERY INCOME - OTHER EVENTS DEPOSIT ACCOUNT INTEREST RECEIVED BUILDINGS CONSUMABLES/FOOD TEA SHOP COSTUMES/ARTEFACTS Event Expenses SOUVENIRS ADVERTISING MISCELLANOUS Expenses INSURANCE POSTAGE & STATIONERY Books ACCOUNTANCY FEES Professional Fees MAINTENANCE/REPAIRS TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT GARDENS SUM UP CHARGES Eventbrite Fees Totals: |
Debit 17,249.60 44,049.29 28,000.00 1,000.00 33.58 27,360.00 1,627.18 1,258.31 972.60 350.00 1,057.25 909.24 396.88 2,602.71 62.95 29.00 150.00 100.00 3,358.86 8,416.85 381.99 226.49 14.00 139,606.78 |
Credit 29,516.42 84,599.86 330.00 434.00 14,514.98 2,046.10 932.56 1,152.15 680.00 174.00 2,532.72 2,693.99 |
Credit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 139,606.78 |
JACKY SPARKS, 26 INVERNESS AVENUE, FAREHAM, P015 6AS Gosport Living History Society Flat 3 Jubilee House 39a Park Way Havant P09 IHH 22 November 2025 To whom it may concern. I can confirm that today, 22nd November 2025,1 have produced from the records supplied the Sage accounts and associated Profit and Loss report for the Gosport Livin8 History Society. forthe year ended 31 October 2025. Observations: The records supplied were in a really good order. Overall Income this year has fallen again as the filming, and event income that you had last year ha5 not been replicated in 202412025. Public Admissions has risen slightly, but they are spending less when on site as income from Souvenirs and Tea shop have both fallen from last year Tea shop on paper has actually made a loss asthe income £932.85 15 much less than the outgoings of £1258.31- maybe there's a closing stock at 31.10.25 or sale prices need to be relooked at. le are you takin8 into consideration the cost of the disposable cups/lid5. There are several large one off costs this year- Re thatch Janes Cottage. Hazel Hurdles and Installation . and large spend on Blacksmith Tools. These large expenses has therefore resulted in an overall substantial deficit this year Yours Sincerely Jacky sparks