ILKLEY & DISTRICT u3a ANNUAL REPORTS
2020 – 2021
Registered Charity Number: 1070945
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CHAIR’S REPORT: from Angie Grain
This past year has to be one of the most challenging that we have ever faced as we were faced with extended periods of lockdown and enforced isolation. Our sincere sympathies go out to any members who have really suffered through this time, either through bereavement, illness to yourself or your family or through the impacts of enforced isolation.
It is to the credit of a huge number of volunteers and helpers that our u3a managed to keep as active as was possible within the changing constraints through time to keep us engaged with each other via a range of virtual activities. Many of our Group Leaders managed to run their groups via Zoom and indeed, some are continuing to harness it as a preferred way of operating.
Our Summer Programme 2020 changed into a virtual Talks Programme and provided an excellent menu of on-line sessions to interest and inspire us right through the lockdown period. Thanks are due to all who helped to make that happen, either presenting sessions or behind the scenes managing it all and facilitating the Zoom sessions. For many members these sessions were described as a ‘Life Line’ in the darkest, isolated winter months last year.
Our website and internal and external communications are the envy of many other u3as and we are blessed to have such an active group of helpers who are always open to new ideas and constantly updating our provision in this area. Indeed, they are often called upon to advise others about how to make improvements.
At a national level, our u3a joined with others as a ‘Pathfinder u3a’ in a Third Age Trust (TAT) project to improve ‘Recruitment and Retention’. This was a very valuable experience as we all learned from each other and shared good ideas. We have invested time and funds in raising awareness about the benefits to be gained from u3a membership and this has resulted in us welcoming lots of new members; we hope that they enjoy the u3a experience and will benefit from the social and learning experiences that we offer. We always need the energy of ‘new blood’ to keep our u3a innovative and prevent it growing stale. It is gratifying to see that we have maintained our membership numbers, when many other u3as across the county are really struggling.
We are experimenting with members’ groups of ‘Ambassadors’ who meet to further awareness of our u3a and better activity provision in the wider areas of our district. So far, we have our Otley Ambassadors, but the concept will hopefully spread next year to other discreet towns and villages around our Ilkley core. Look out in the NewsFlash for information through the year.
With regard to our Interest Groups, we accept that every group is very individual and will make its own decisions about how they develop post-lockdown. Some have embraced the Zoom platform as a real asset, whilst others have resumed ‘in person’ meetings. We all recognise that every individual member has their own threshold with regard to concepts of safety and these are completely respected. We just hope that you do find ways of engaging with your Interest Groups and the u3a as a whole in some way.
Acknowledging that some of our groups have reached membership capacity, the Learning Together team has been striving to set up a number of new groups and these are thriving across our area. It is always good to see new and different opportunities – there will be more to come and we are always open to new ideas and can help and support anyone who might consider starting a new group.
All these activities do take time and effort to organise and we are fortunate to have an army of volunteers to help and support us. However, we could always do with more folk, as that would bring more energy and new ideas and improve further what we can offer. If you check out the Action Teams diagram below, you can explore any areas that are of interest to you and you can share your experience and enthusiasms to help us keep our u3a as lively and
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vibrant as it goes forward. The teams are made up of interesting, supportive and lively people who would all welcome new members.
This has been a difficult year for the Trustees because, in addition the Covid pandemic, we have never been at full strength and have had fewer people to share the organisational tasks. I would like to thank all our Trustees for all their hard work and support, especially our retiring or recent Trustees who have all made a huge contribution to the u3a; Lynn Rhodes-Holme and Roger Hawkins resigned during the year. Special mention has to be made of Hugh Bevington who has been a long-standing Trustee and has served as Treasurer, Vice-Chair and, for the last year, as our Groups Coordinator, a major role in keeping our u3a active through the lockdown and manging the emergence of groups in recent months. He will be very much missed by colleagues; we all valued his wisdom, energy and hard work.
Action Teams
All the many and varied activities going on across the u3a could not be managed effectively or realistically by just the Trustees alone. Instead, in typical u3a fashion we rely on many volunteers who give of their time and experience to support our Action Teams; these are themed to cover our main areas of activities, but always keep each other informed of developments and also rely on each other for occasional support.
We are very grateful indeed for the support of all these volunteers who help to make our u3a function and allow it to thrive and retain its dynamism, despite very difficult circumstances.
Communications Team: Coordinator’s report (Peter Mate)
We are very fortunate indeed to have such an innovative, knowledgeable and helpful team to run all aspects of our Communications, both internally to our own members and externally to potential members and the general public.
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They have continued to be very active indeed throughout 2020/21 and responded quickly and well to ever-changing conditions resulting from the dynamic Covid situation through the year. They consistently maintained an extremely high standard for all our Communications formats (e.g. website, NewsFlash, social media, the Eye, press relations etc) which are the envy of many u3as which cannot match this level of achievement.
The Third Age Trust (TAT) launched its new look nationally and we quickly adopted and adapted it so that all our communication formats are now in the new identity and all our publicity materials were refreshed in the new image.
We have welcomed a new editor for the Eye newspaper and have had two excellent editions through the year and the next one is already in the production stages. In addition to informing our own members, this is a valuable recruitment tool, being distributed at public events and to potential members at Drop In sessions etc; it highlights our u3a’s activities and demonstrates our levels of activities and areas of interest.
The Communications Team were actively involved through the year in supporting the other Action Teams, like the Events and the Learning Together teams, in a wide variety of ways and the level of support and collaboration is very much appreciated by all our u3a helpers in many roles across the organisation.
When TAT announced a ‘National u3a Day’ to be held in June (which morphed into nearly a week for us), the Team was hugely supportive in facilitating our activities and helped us in raising our profile and reaching out to members of the public.
Our Team was invited to present to a TAT national project on ‘Recruitment and Retention’ with a presentation on keeping a lively and attractive website, thus demonstrating our good reputation nationally.
Events Team: Events Coordinator’s report (Marten Koopmans)
For most of this extraordinary year we have all been under such lockdown measures that any kind of event where our members could get together physically was not allowed until the spring of this year.
The last AGM in November 2020 had to be held as a Zoom video conference meeting. For this, e.g. special arrangements for voting had to be developed and implemented. The monthly Saturday Talks did continue but also as remote Zoom video meetings. Furthermore the group of volunteers who had put together the Summer Programme in 2020 decided and was able to continue to arrange several presentations per week on Zoom from the summer of 2020 to the summer of 2021 when the lockdown restrictions started to be lifted. This would not have been possible without the assistance by many members of our u3a and other u3a branches being willing and able to give interesting talks on many subjects.
It was only by last June we were allowed to have actual physical meetings. The first of such events we were able to organise were 2 outdoor u3a promotions and an indoor high tea event around the national u3a-day on 2 June. This last event was not only held to attract new members but also to thank existing members for staying with us, in particular those members unable to access our continued activities on Zoom as they had not had any benefit from their membership with us during the lockdown. We were also able to start our two-weekly Drop-ins, as well as having a real Summer Programme again in July. The monthly Saturday Talks became real gatherings again in July and were even free of charge in July and August. The annual Meet the Leaders event had to be postponed from June, but still took place in September.
Since September we have been able to resume our normal events as we used to do before the outbreak of the pandemic and we hope to be able to continue this.
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Governance and Compliance Team: Chair’s report (Angie Grain)
The main achievement in this area has been to address the issue of our constitution review. It is recommended by TAT that a u3a constitution should be reviewed and, if necessary, revised on a regular basis.
This issue was addressed by a small team (Marten Koopmans, Peter Mate, Roger Hawkins and Roy Anderson) after it was agreed in principle by the Trustees that we would use the TAT template as far as possible and minimise any deviation from it. This is because they are important documents and TAT have invested heavily in producing the template with expert legal advice.
The Trustees have agreed to the revised version in principle and it is now being put before the AGM to consider and hopefully, to approve. The Constitution document is available on our website for members to read there. For the sake of economy and saving paper, we are only posting out paper copies to the non-internet users amongst our members.
During the year we revised our policy documents on Accessibility, Equality and Diversity, Privacy, Safeguarding, Trustee Code of Conduct and Members Code of Conduct. We also updated the policy on Data Protection and Neil Stevens has agreed to act as our Data Protection Contact; his expertise is very much appreciated. All our policies can be found via the Members section of the website.
Other policy documents will be reviewed in due course on a regular basis, when we have the resources to undertake the tasks involved.
It should be noted here that your Management Committee of Trustees (MCoT has worked throughout the year under very difficult circumstances; not only did we have to manage and keep running our u3a through the pandemic, it was being done without a complete cohort of Trustees. We can have ten Trustees, which would be ideal for a u3a of our considerable size (>1,600 members) but for most of the year we had to manage with effectively only seven Trustees; not enough if we are to continue to thrive. Succession planning is an on-going problem for us.
I would like to thank all the Trustees most sincerely for their unstinting hard work, energy, enthusiasm, teamwork and support – they are a credit to the organisation.
It is our aim to get the Management Committee back up to full strength as soon as possible.
Learning Together Team: Groups Coordinator’s report (Hugh Bevington)
Despite the impact of Covid on the groups, we arrive at the AGM with the majority of groups operating in some way, many fully back to normal.
During the various lockdowns, groups were very adept at arriving at solutions which allowed them to operate in some format, Zoom being the most popular. Inevitably some groups have not restarted and will not do so in the near future.
The decision was taken to try and open a number of new groups. The Otley ambassadors opened 6 groups all based in Otley but open to all members as normal. This has raised the profile of the u3a in Otley, considerably. In addition the new groups volunteers delivered around 10 new groups with a range of interests from Pilates to Ukulele.
A number of Groups were unable to invite additional members to join them due to lack of equipment, the trustees considered a number of bids and were able to assist these groups to grow and hopefully other groups will follow in the future.
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There is still a long way to go until we are back to a situation where all groups are operating fully, but the excellent group leaders that we have, will make sure this happens.
Social Action Team: Coordinator’s report (Peter Mate)
The pandemic had a major impact on our work as the excellent group which supports reading in local schools had to cease work altogether, in the interest of the health of all concerned. As yet, the group has not been able to re-start but it is hope d that it will do, when conditions allow, as it is a much-appreciated help in the schools concerned.
We continue to maintain close relations with the local Dementia Friends with two of our Trustees undertaking further training and opening briefing sessions for our members. We are also maintaining links with other schemes.
We were invited to speak to a local well-being group, run by one of the local social prescribers and it is hoped this helped raise awareness about the positive effect that membership of the u3a can have on a person’s mental health and problems with isolation etc.
Welcoming and Engaging and Membership Team: Membership Secretary’s report (Jean Smith)
First and foremost, on behalf of our Trustees, I would like to issue a huge ‘Thank You’ to all our members for their dedicated support during the last year. Many u3as throughout the UK closed down during the pandemic, but here, in Ilkley & District, we were determined to keep ‘learning, laughing and living’ in all sorts of different ways. We could not have achieved this without the support of our members. Unbelievably, we actually retained more of our members at renewal time than in previous years! At the end of the membership year on 31[st] July 2021 we had 1627 members who had renewed to 1[st] August 2022. Although approximately 150 members have not renewed (about half the usual number), we have attracted 273 new members since 1[st] August 2020, and in addition, we have 51 WestNet members.
I’m sure that you would enjoy a series of fascinating statistics about our u3a, recently produced by Eric Craigie. Do you know how much our u3a has grown since 2012? Do you know when our members were born, where they live and how they discovered u3a? If you didn’t spot this information in the Newsflash of 18[th] October, I urge you to have a look on our website (ilkleyu3a.org) and click on ‘Members’ and ‘Member Statistics.’
In the Autumn of 2020 we were invited, as a successful u3a, to participate in a National Recruitment and Retention Drive. U3as across the country supported and advised each other in order to keep our u3a active and vibrant for many years to come.
In devising an Action Plan for the Recruitment and Retention drive, it became apparent that there was a distinct shortfall in members from Otley. Therefore, a group of enthusiastic Otley members volunteered to become ‘Otley u3a Ambassadors’, promoting u3a through Drop Ins, the Farmer’s Market, the Buttercross event, the Kindness Festival; beginning new groups and generally raising awareness of Ilkley & District u3a in the Otley area. This initiative, which continues with Steph Lee as its coordinator, has been a huge success.
It is planned to recruit ‘Town Reps’ in every area of our u3a District to raise awareness, form new groups, publicise local events and welcome new members from the area. We hope to publicise excellent outcomes from each area on our new ‘About the Area’ section on our website. This exciting opportunity, which is not expected to be too onerous, may be just the support you can offer. Remember, our u3a can only function if everyone plays a part, however small.
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We are always pleased to support prospective and existing members, and this year has been no exception. Drop Ins in Ilkley, Otley and Addingham have resumed, now organised with thanks to Mark Hall and supported by volunteer Trustees and Group Leaders. These are a popular feature on our calendar and we hope to extend this facility to other outlying areas of the district in the not too distant future.
In addition, we have continued to hold regular New Members’ meetings and enjoy the friendship of our superb ‘Welcoming and Engaging’ team at Saturday talks. We hope to be able to support our new members throughout their first year, when membership of such a large organisation can initially be a little daunting.
Thanks to John Hancock and Pam Harris, we now have a team of volunteers who kindly print off and hand deliver Newsflash to a member who does not use email. This is a fantastic way to keep all our members informed and we do have vacancies for a few more volunteers.
We are always mindful to include all our members, and to this end would like support for the Accessibility for members who may have particular needs resulting from hearing, mobility, sight, social isolation, health etc. If you have expertise or an interest in supporting others in this area, please make yourself known.
Finally, I would like to express sincere thanks to the 1077 members who have agreed to support our u3a by the completion of a Gift Aid form. If your circumstances have changed and you now find that through paying tax you are in a position to offer to Gift Aid your annual subscription, please contact the Membership Secretary. At no cost to yourself, we can claim 25% of your subscription from HMRC. This obviously helps to keep the running cost of our u3a as low as possible for all of us.
Conclusion:
Overall, I hope that members will agree that we have a u3a to be proud of, which has been flexible, positive and supportive through a very difficult period. As we move forward from the lockdown period, we will continue to adapt, learn and endeavour to provide the very best possible experience for our members. We will be making plans, but ready to be adaptable as situations and society change.
Thank you again to everyone who has contributed to the success of our u3a.
Angie Grain
(chair@ilkleyu3a.org; Tel 01943 465059)
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Treasurer’s Report on the Financial Statement for the Year Ending 31st July 2021
I am pleased to present the financial statement for Ilkley & District u3a for the year to 31 July 2021.
For the majority of the year, we have been operating within the Government’s Covid 19 rules, which means that interest groups were unable to operate as they normally would. For many months most groups were unable to operate at all. However, during this time we still incurred a significant amount of fixed and unavoidable costs and so it was fantastic to see that our members continued to support us by renewing their membership subscription at the appropriate time.
While the financial statement shows a surplus of £6,495, we actually only just broke even (a surplus of £271) on what we actually receive and pay out as can be seen on the chart at the end of this report. However, this does mean that the money we have in the bank has remained stable.
Last year, we embarked on a campaign looking for ideas on what we might spend our surplus funds for the benefit of the charity as a whole and/or individual groups. I am pleased to tell you that we spent over £5,300 on such ideas which included
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a new digital tour guide system and supporting microphones
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new croquet equipment for the beginners’ croquet group
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a new booklet for the Ilkley Tree Trail
We continue to look for ideas to spend money for the benefit of our charity and our members. Interest groups can make applications for funding by following the guidance on our website which can be accessed this web page - Ilkley & District u3a Application Form for Funding for Groups (ilkleyu3a.org)
One idea we are currently investigating is the purchase of contactless bank card readers to support members who wish to pay for their membership or other activities by card. These would be used at our monthly Drop-ins and other events that we hold at the Clarke Foley Centre.
I remind appropriate Group Leaders and Group Treasurers that the guidance for paying in cash and cheques into the u3a bank account has been updated following the closure of the Ilkley Branch of the TSB earlier this year. Cash and cheques can be paid into a Post Office and the guidance on how to do this can be accessed on our website via the leaders’ web pages.
While compiling this report it has been really good to see that many interest groups are returning to their usual programme of activities. We all hope for a more normal year this year.
On the following page I have included a second chart that shows what the membership fee is spent on.
Steve Moorcraft Treasurer: Ilkley and District u3a
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----- Start of picture text -----
Total Income and Outgoings (excluding Interest Groups)
£30,000
£25,000
£20,000
£15,000
£10,000
£5,000
£0
Aug-20 Sep-20 Oct-20 Nov-20 Dec-20 Jan-21 Feb-21 Mar-21 Apr-21 May-21 Jun-21 Jul-21
-£5,000
-£10,000
-£15,000
Income Expenses Surplus/Deficit
----- End of picture text -----
What the membership fee of £13.50 is spent on
----- Start of picture text -----
Equipment £2.84
Learning Together £0.68
Events £0.81
Welcoming & Engaging £0.54
Social Action £0
Stripe Fees £0.27
Governance £6.48
Communications £1.35
Miscellaneous £0.41
----- End of picture text -----
NB: 31% equivalent to £4.18 of the membership subscription, is for contributions to our parent charity the Third Age Trust. This includes a contribution for each member and the Third Age magazine.
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Independent Examiner’s Report to the Trustees of Ilkley & District U3A I report to the Trustees on my examination of the accounts of Ilkley & District U3A for the year ended 31st July 2021.
Responsibilities and Basis of Report
As the charity trustees of the Trust 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 Charity’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.
Independent Examiner’s Statement
I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:
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Accounting records were not kept in respect of the Trust as required by section 130 of the Act; or
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The accounts do not accord with those records; or
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The accounts do not comply with the applicable requirements concerning 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 fair 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.
Independent Examiners Qualified Statement
The Northern Towns, Plays & Theatres, Railways, Science & Technology, Travel and Voyagers interest groups, while part of Ilkley & District U3A, have traditionally prepared their own accounts which have been independently examined but not consolidated into the Charity’s accounts. I have not examined these accounts and therefore I am unable to report on them.
Signed: Mike Roberts
Name: Michael Leslie Roberts Address: 1, Bark Lane, Addingham, ILKLEY, LS29 0RA Date: 20[th] September 2021
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Ilkley & District U3A: Accounts for the year ended 31 July 2021 Income & Expenditure Account: Year to 31 July 2021
| Income | Year to 31/7/21 | Year to 31/7/20 | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | ||
| Membership Fees Receivable | 21,167 | 23,118 | 1 |
| Interest Groups | 5,264 | 50,686 | 2 |
| Study Days | 0 | 672 | |
| Saturday Talks | 0 | 493 | |
| Gift Aid | 3,544 | 7,500 | |
| Bank Interest Received | 214 | 420 | |
| Compensation from Bank | 0 | 52 | |
| Summer Programme | 565 | 0 | |
| Total | 30,754 | 82,940 | |
| Expenditure | |||
| Interest Groups | 3,548 | 52,265 | 2 |
| Finance Charges | 445 | 317 | |
| Subscriptions and Licenses | 1,497 | 1,566 | |
| Saturday Talks | 0 | 1,385 | |
| Communications | 2,607 | 6,135 | 3 |
| Governance | 205 | 1,274 | |
| Administration | 0 | 166 | |
| Talks and Summer Programme | 1,179 | 1,026 | |
| Other Events | 1,584 | 0 | 4 |
| Third Age Trust | 7,692 | 8,530 | 5 |
| Membership recruitment | 653 | 0 | |
| Study Days | 0 | 654 | |
| Thank You Supper | 0 | 31 | |
| Leaders and new group meetings | 0 | 129 | |
| Drop-in Meetings | 233 | 1,289 | |
| Miscellaneous | 693 | 674 | |
| AGM | 2,394 | 666 | 6 |
| Depreciation | 1,529 | 290 | 7 |
| 24,259 | 76,396 |
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6,495
6,544
Surplus to the Balance Sheet
| Balance | Sheet as at 31 July 2021 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 31 July 2021 | 31 July 2020 | ||
| Current Assets | |||
| Current Account | 12,782 | 11,728 | |
| Deposit Account | 20,416 | 20,332 | |
| Membership Account | 29,878 | 29,029 | |
| Total Current Assets | 63,076 | 61,089 | |
| Equipment & Other Assets | 6,407 | 1,162 | |
| Total Assets | 69,483 | 62,251 | |
| Current Liabilities | |||
| Membership Fees for 2021/22 | received in | 15,757 |
16,550 |
| 2020/21 | |||
| Depreciation Reserve | 1,819 | 290 | |
| Unpresented cheques | 0 | 55 | |
| Total Current Liabilities | 17,576 | 16,895 | |
| Total Net Assets | 51,907 | 43,356 | |
| Accumulated funds brought forward | 45,356 | 38,812 | |
| Surplus from Income & Expenditure | 6,496 | 6,544 | |
| Account | |||
| Unpresented cheques written off to | 55 | 0 | |
| surplus | |||
| Accumulated funds carried forward | 51,907 | 45,356 |
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ACCOUNTING POLICIES
Accounts have been prepared on an annual basis following the Charity Commission’s Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of recommended practice (SORP), 2005. The financial statements are prepared on a receipts and payments basis with the exception of membership fees which reflect the fees receivable for the 2021/20 accounting year on an accrual’s basis and in accounting for depreciation on Fixed Assets.
THE NORTHERN TOWNS, PLAYS AND THEATRES, RAILWAY, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, TRAVEL AND VOYAGERS GROUPS
For most of the year none of the above groups operated normally due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Appropriate accounts and Financial statements showing their current financial position have been prepared and are consolidated in the main Ilkley & District u3a accounts.
Gift Aid
Gift Aid has been claimed and received for 2020/21.
Fixed Assets and Depreciation
Fixed assets are capitalised and depreciated where appropriate. Depreciation is calculated at 25% of the net book value of the assets brought forward plus any expenditure on fixed assets incurred during the year.
NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS
1. Membership Fees
| 1. Membership Fees Membership Fees received in 2020/21 Plus fees relating to 2020/21 received in 2019/20 Less fees relating to 2021/22 received in 2020/21 Less membership fees refunds Net fees receivable for 2020/21 |
£ 20,496 16,550 37,046 15,757 21,289 122 21,167 |
|---|---|
| 2. Interest Groups Group income (deposits and transfers) Group expenditure (room hire, travel and other costs) Group surplus in 2020/21 Surplus Group balances as at 31 July 2021 3. Communications Postage Printing & Copying Other |
5,264 3,548 |
|---|---|
1,716 13,230 937 1371 299 2,607 |
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| 4. Other Events 2020 Christmas Concert June 2021 u3a Day Other 5. Third Age Trust Membership subscriptions Contribution to Third Age magazine 6. AGM Distribution and postage Printing Other 7. Depreciation Net Book value of assets brought forward Expenditure on fixed assets during the year Depreciation @ 25% Net book value of assets 8. Surplus Income Over Expenditure Operating surplus Group surplus Overall surplus |
165 1,123 296 1,584 5,464 2,229 7,692 1,623 757 15 2,394 871 5,245 1,529 4,587 4,845 1,651 6,496 |
|---|---|
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