2020-08-31-accounts

Ashwell Playgroup AGM 30[th] September 2020 Treasurer’s Report Merry Smith

This document serves to highlight some items within the attached pdf summary of our accounts to date (2019-2020), which are presented for approval at this meeting.

Fundraising and Grants

Autumn term 2019:

• The fundraising events this term consisted of a trial car boot sale (this proved to be a worthwhile pilot exercise, and we’ll plan a larger one in the future) and our Winter Wonderland event; the latter did not raise as much money as in previous years, which we believe in part was due to the timing of the event being over a long weekend, with lots of families taking the opportunity to be away for the weekend, as schools were closed on the Friday before. Note the date of this event is not in our control, but depends on a date set by the Parish council, for the village Winter Market. The boot sale and WW events raised £361

• We applied for a grant from the NH county council for marketing purposes and were awarded £700

• As a result of our hard work over a very hot August bank holiday running a messy play and craft tent the Ashwell Show Committee awarded us a grant of £1250

Spring term 2020:

• Our main fundraising event this term was our annual Quiz, which raised a pleasing profit of approximately £1300. Huge thanks to Laura McKie and Holly Smith, whom led on this event.

Summer term 2020:

We were due to hold our annual Duck race at the end of March and had also planned to run a café during the Ashwell at Home day in mid May, but of course these events had to be cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions. Similarly, we were unable to run our summer fund raising events which include a Ladies pamper evening and the running of the popular Messy play and craft tent at the Ashwell Show, which again was cancelled.

However, Andrea and the other settings staff brainstormed, and progressed and ran two very successful fundraising events during lockdown.

• The Village Art Auction raised a staggering £1090

• Hand washing for Playgroup raised £246

I would like to say a huge thank you to the staff for these efforts! In addition, our Happy Bag charity clothing collection progressed steadily over the summer months, generating 754Kg of used clothing, collected on 28[th] September, which converted into £452.40 , which was then match funded, to make a total of £904.80 , which will be received into our account in September/October 2020, and be reflected in the accounts 2020-2021.

Additional grants from the Preschool Alliance (unsuccessful), the Henry Colborn Trust (still to hear) and Tesco’s (still to hear) have been applied for during this time.

We had a good intake of children during the Spring term, and a healthy uptake of our extended sessions which were run on all five working days per week. This income combined with management of a low but thankfully stable staff number as well as the grant above, and our fundraising efforts above meant that when we finished the Spring term two weeks early, we were in a stable financial position.

COVID-19 actions

We, in line with the village school closed for business on Friday 27[th] March 2020, until 7[th] September 2020.

We made the decision to pay our four staff their full usual weekly wage throughout the COVID-19 lockdown, and subsequently we furloughed all four members of staff. I am proud of the committee for unanimously making this decision to pay staff full wages, and feel that it reflects the ethos of Ashwell Playgroup. We applied for and received 80% of our staff wage bill through HMRC’s furloughed workers scheme between 27[th] March and 31[st] August 2020 (See receipt item of £11999). We also made the decision to pay in full, our historic debt for hall hire costs in March 2020, leaving us with no outstanding debts at the time of our reopening date of 7[th] September 2020. NHDC continued to pay us for our funded 2 and 3- year-old children whom were on the register in April 2020, and this income has helped offset the deficit in the staff wages bill.

In summary, for the first time in many years, we have ended the financial year 2019-2020 with a small surplus of £1729.

I believe this positive bank balance is due to a combination of a rise in children attending (likely our opening for a full 5 day week from January 2020 was a positive change, and one which we should maintain), in the face of a critically low staff and therefore wage bill, which has been rebalanced during lock down with the hiring of two additional Level 3 Early Years Educators, both working for Playgroup in a part time capacity. Moving forward, operating with four level 3 members of staff and 1 additional unqualified but experienced member of staff should allow for sickness cover and other unforeseen absence cover during the working week, without any future need to call on committee members to cover shifts, which is simply not an option in the current climate, and with a Management Committee of four, all of whom work.

Looking forward, it will continue to cost us approximately £50,000 per annum to run playgroup, this breaking down as an anticipated wage bill of approximately £40,000 per annum, and expenses of book keeping and hall hire of approximately £10,000 combined per annum. We should assume we will continue to have a short fall of up to approximately £5000 per annum, subject to child attendance, and this amount should continue to be our fundraising goal each year.

Our ability to continue to fundraise in the face of the pandemic, using ingenuity and perseverance should not go unnoticed, and I personally would like to thank everyone very much, whom has helped with this essential fund raising over this past year.

M A Smith

	ASHWELL PLAYGROUP	ASHWELL PLAYGROUP	ASHWELL PLAYGROUP
	Draft Receipts and Payments A/C
	for the period 1/9/2019	to 31/8/2020
				Year to day
	Year	to Date	Adjustments c/f	with adjusted	Last Year 2018/19
				totals
	£				£
	RECEIPTS
	Voluntary Sources
	Fees	28,980		28,980	23,558
	Donations	11,535	-10,100	1,435	2,450
	Milk Grant	0		0	0
	Grants	700		700	0
	Fund-Raising	4,002		4,002	5,483
	SENCO funding	360		365	-991
	Total Voluntary Sources	45,577	-10,100	35,482	30,500
	Trading Activities	0		0	0
	Other Income	11,999		11,999	0
	Income from Assets	0		0	0
	Interest	25	0	25	43
	Total Income from Assets	25	0	12,024	43
	TOTAL RECEIPTS	57,601	-10,100	47,506	30,543
	PAYMENTS
	Charitable Purposes
	Wages	34,715		34,715	28,982
	1-1 Support	0		0	0
	Outside professional fees	2,282		2,282	10
	Milk	0		0	1,840
	Rent	4,273		4,273	4,644
	Equipment	1,462		1,462	972
	Training	292		292	117
	Materials	12		12	384
	Snack	135			0
	Donation	0		0	50
	Xmas Party/Outings etc	0		0	0
	Other (inc Petty Cash)	754		754	628
	Total Charitable Purposes	43,925	0	43,790	37,627
	Publicity, Fundraising, Mgmt & Admin
	Fund-raising	659	0	659	1,458
	Admin	1,329	0	1,329	1,110
	Total Publicity, Fundraising, Mgmt & Admin	1,988	0	1,988	2,568
	Other Payments
	TOTAL PAYMENTS	45,913	0	45,778	40,195
	Net of Receipts/(Payments)	11,688	-10,100	1,729	-9,652
	Money Raised through FR and Grants	15,578		5,478	6,475
	Current A/C funds and Cash b/f	15,685	0	15,685	25,126
	Current A/C funds and Cash c/f	27,373		17,414	15,473
Check	Current A/C funds and Cash
	Deposit A/C	22,983		22,983	14,880
	Current A/C	4,354		4,354	805
	Interest received on long-term reserves	0			0
	Current A/C funds and Cash c/f	27,336	0	27,336	15,685
	Contras	36

Ashwell Playgroup

Unaudited accounts

For Year ended 31 August 2020

Reporting Accountants’ report to the members on the unaudited accounts of Ashwell Playgroup

We report on the accounts for the year ended 31 August 2020. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and FRS 102 The Financial Reporting Standard Applicable in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.

No audit has taken place.

The Wright Accounts Services Ltd