2024-03-31-accounts - The Seahorse Trust

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The Seahorse Trust End of year report

TRUSTEES REPORT AND ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR TO 31[ST] MARCH 2024

WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP WITH NATURE

Registered charity no 1086027

1 ~~a~~ Annual report 2021/2022

The Seahorse Trust Year to 31[st] March 2024

INDEX

Index	Page No.
Officers, advisers and details	3
Report of the Trustees	4-5
General and Financial Review	6-10
Facebook	9-10
Adoption and membership scheme	10
Website	10
Patrons	10
Financial policy	11/12
Statement of financial activities	12
Notes to the accounts	14

Annual report 2021/2022

Officers,	advisors and details during 2022/23	advisors and details during 2022/23
Trustees	Tim Haywood (Chairman), Dr	Barbara Gainswin
	(Treasurer), Lydia Morrison
Director	Neil Garrick-Maidment FBNA
Patrons	Kate Humble	Chris Packham
	Kirsty Jones	Mark Carwardine
	Ellie Harrison	Sir Hugo Swire MP
Registered Charity No	1086027
Registered Address	36 Greatwood Terrace
	Topsham,
	Devon	EX3 0EB
Tel. no	07876513628
E-mail	theseahorsetrust@gmail.org
Facebook	https://www.facebook.com/groups/theseahorsetrust/
Twitter	https://twitter.com/seahorsecharity/with_replies
Web sites	www.theseahorsetrust.org
Independent examiner	Anthony Roberts FTCA
	7 Totnes Road
	Paignton
	Devon	TQ4 5JX
Bankers	Lloyds TSB
	234 High Street
	Exeter
	Devon	EX4 3NL

Annual report 2021/2022

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES FOR 2023 -2024

The Director and Trustees have the pleasure in presenting their Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 31[st] March 2024, which have been prepared in accordance with the Charities Act and The Statement of Recommended Practice.

STATEMENT OF TRUSTEES RESPONSIBILITIES

Charity law requires the trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year, which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of its financial activities for that year which properly presents the charity’s income and expenditure for the year together with its assets and liabilities at the end of the year and adequately distinguish any material special trust or other restricted fund of the charity. In preparing those financial statements the trustees are required to:

Select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently.
Make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent.
State whether the policies are in accordance with the appropriate SORP on Accounting by Charities and the Accounting Regulations and with applicable accounting standards, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements.

The trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time, the financial position of the charity, and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with applicable Accounting Standards and Statements of Recommended Practise and the regulations made under s44 of the Charities Act 1993. They are responsible for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud or other irregularities.

ADMINISTRATION

The Charitable Trust and its property shall be administered and managed by the Trustees under the name of THE SEAHORSE TRUST or by such other name as the Trustees from time to time decide with the approval of the Charity Commission for England and Wales.

There shall be at least two trustees and future trustees shall be appointed by a resolution of the trustees passed at a trustees meeting.

Annual report 2021/2022

Trustees who acted during the year were: Tim Haywood, Dr Barbara Gainswin, Lydia Morrison

The Trust’s bankers are:

Lloyds TSB 234 High Street, Exeter. Devon EX4 3NL

The Independent examiner is : Anthony Roberts FTCA. 7 Totnes Road, Paignton, Devon. TQ4 5JX

OBJECTS

The Trustees shall hold the trust fund and its income upon trust to apply them for the following objects (‘the objects’):

To promote for the benefit of the public the preservation and conservation of rare and endangered species of marine and terrestrial flora and fauna and in particular but not exclusively, seahorses and related species.
To advance the education of the public generally about wild flora and fauna.
To conduct research and enquiry into endangered species of marine and terrestrial flora and fauna, and in particular, but not exclusively, seahorses and related species and to publish the results for the benefit of the general public.

LEGAL STATUS

The charity is a registered charity No. 1086027 and governed by the Declaration of Trust dated 12[th] August 2000 as amended by a supplemental deed dated 27[th] January 2001.

Annual report 2021/2022

GENERAL AND FINANCIAL REVIEW 2023/2024

Below is a round-up of some of the news and occurrences during the 2023/24 year; there have been many more but there is just not enough space in this report to fit it all in. We would like to say a massive thank you to everyone involved who has made this happen.

For ease of reading, we have put the highlights of the projects as bullet points, please see our Facebook page and websites for full details of our work.

British Seahorse Survey

We now have a number of sites that fall under the British Seahorse Survey
Torbay is new in 2024 and kindly funded by the BSAC Jubilee fund. It has already been successful in finding a larger seagrass meadow than we expected and both species of Seahorse.
Weymouth is being overseen by Chris brown from the Sealife Trust and his daughter Chloe under our licence. They are having great results and have formed a large team to assist.
Studland Bay is being overseen by Dr Ken Collins from Southampton University under our licence. Ken has over 50 volunteers and has had approximately 48 seahorse sightings this year.
Ali Mayor is overseeing Selsey Bill under our licence and will be involved in the new 3 Harbours Project.
It is the largest running project of its kind and was founded in 1994 by trust founder Neil.

Media coverage

Every year we are lucky enough to get incredible coverage in the media and this year has not been any different.
The BBC has featured us on radio and TV, and we have been in lots of mainstream and local programs.
The online Scubaverse featured us online which targeted a specific audience for us.
We have lost count of the number of newspapers and magazines we have featured in or assisted by providing information or pictures to. It is great that the trust is considered to be a reliable source for information and pictures
We featured in Dorset Coast and Country on Channel 5 which showcased the work of the trust at Studland and Weymouth Bay.

Annual report 2021/2022

The Sealife Trust filmed the Seahorse Trust and Chris and Chloe in a short documentary about the work of both organisations, which will be shown throughout the world at Sealife centres.

Teaching

Beccy taught a large group at the National Trust in Studland about our work
Chris and Chole attended the Porcupine Conference and other events and talked about our joint work

Awards

Chloe was awarded the Young Coastal Champion by Dorset Coast Forum for her work with the trust in surveying for seahorses in Weymouth, at the time she was only 16.

Patrons

Lord Swire has now entered the House of Lords and is still asking questions in the House on Seahorses and Conservation.

Fund raising

Blue Reefs aquariums raised almost £1,500 through the coin collectors in four of their aquariums, which is incredible and a great ongoing partnership.
Salcombe Brewery sells Seahorse Ale and raises funds for us through the sale of their bottled ale which raised just over £2,000 this year.
The Annual Studland Bay Seahorse Swim raised £1,000 for us, which is the highest yet.
Richer Sounds made a donation of £15,000 towards ecomoorings for Studland Bay which was an amazing donation, helping seahorses and conservation.
Conservation Foundation also donated £1,000 towards the Ecomoorings and here at the Trust we managed to match fund it from smaller donations.
Mermaid Atlantic did an incredible feat to raise money for us by rowing across the Atlantic and though doing this raised about £7,000, Xavier and his incredible team earned every penny in this grueling race.
The BSAC Jubilee Trust donated to hire a boat 3 times to start our project in Torbay. This project is already a success and a massive thank you to them for this donation.
We now have a QR code so that donors can donate to our work online and already we are finding people using this way of donating which is great news. A massive thank you to Ellen from Seahorse Communications for putting it together for us.
An unusual fund raiser for us was to collect Ferrero Roche boxes to keep dried seahorse specimens in which we use for our ongoing research. We ended up with over 150 boxes and luckily some of them came with chocolates in.

Annual report 2021/2022

Events

The Boat show in Southampton has become an annual event with our partners Boatfolk marina and boating services company. They have been an incredible support to us and it is great to work with them on a variety of projects.
We attended Open day at Studland Beach where trust director Neil did a survey dive and when he came out of the water he shared images and knowledge with members of the public.

Projects

Hydrophones were placed by student Annabelle from Southampton University into Studland Bay and initial results have shown it to be the noisiest place on earth underwater
With our partners in Denmark we have proven seahorses are in the North Sean including in countries such as Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland and France.
As well as our ongoing projects we started a new one this year in Torbay and have already discovered it is a larger seagrass meadow than originally thought and has both species of seahorses, congers ells, various crabs and so many others species in it. We aim to use it as a compare and contrast site to Studland for so many reasons and hope to study it for the next 5 years at least.

Volunteers

Volunteers are the backbone of the trust and every year we have hundreds of them working in various capacities but a special mention should be made to Kim, Paul, Chris, Chloe and Ali in diving here in the UK and Teresa and Kim for their work on the curio trade.

Malta project

The Malta Project is going from strength to strength and volunteers Kirsty-Jo and Susie have done an incredible job in getting divers out there looking for seahorses but more crucially in getting them to report the record back to us. The Malta Seahorse Project is going to develop and become much larger over the next few years.

Curio Project

Kim and Teresa have worked hard on the Curio trade project this year and managed to get many items taken off the internet. Sadly, Facebook has failed to communicate with us for over 3 years, even though we are a Trusted Partner. Where we are failing on Facebook we are succeeding strongly on eBay and luckily now have a personalized contact who removes items for us.

Annual report 2021/2022

Seahorse eco course

Have you ever wondered why a seahorse is like it is? What makes these ‘little horses of the sea’ so unique and so well adapted to their watery world? Are they a fish, a monkey or a chameleon? seahorses show so many traits from so many different species, it is hard to decide exactly what they are; the Victorians thought they were insects. In this unique online course, you will find out the answers to these questions and many more. Our new online Seahorse Biology, Ecology and Conservation course allows you to learn about this enigmatic species at your own pace and includes 12 sessions on topics such as Taxonomy and Diversity, Camouflage and Colour Change, Migration, Human Impacts and Conservation Measures to name but a few, along with an online Learners Community.

The full online course costs just £65 – giving you unlimited access to 13 learning modules. The Introductory Session is free to access, so if you wish to learn more about the course and what we do at the Trust please click the image above and to get in touch with is please email Beccy seahorsesurveycourse@aol.co.uk

This course was kindly funded by Sea Changers ,

Seahorse Survey Course

Like the ecology course above we have designed an online course to teach about how to survey for seahorses and what to do and most importantly what NOT to do, when you find one in the sea. This vital course directly helps to conserve seahorses by stopping stress and disturbance to seahorses when divers do a survey for seahorses.

In the UK it is a legal requirement to have a license issued by the Marine Management Organisation to seek out seahorses in the wild.

This course is £65 but if you choose to do both courses together it is £120.

Thanks goes to the Postcode Local Trust who kindly funded the writing of this course.

Wildwood Trust

Thank you so much to Wildwood Trust who kindly hosts our office free of charge at their centre near Ottery St Mary in Devon. Wildwood Escot has a number of native British and European species such as Wild Cat, Lynx, Red Squirrel, Boar, Fox, Beaver and now Wolves.

They are a progressive charity that supports Rewilding projects throughout the UK and are involved in bringing back former native species to our countryside, such as Red squirrel and Beavers and hopefully in the future Lynx.

Facebook

Spreading the word about Seahorses, the natural world and the work of the trust is very important and we have a website with a newsletter page (The newsletter is sent out to over

Annual report 2021/2022

2,000 people by email each time we publish one. We no longer send newsletters out by post due to costs. We also have a highly interactive Facebook page which now has over 6,000 members (5,400 last year).

Thanks go to all who kindly administer this site for us as well as holding down full time very busy job

Adoption and membership schemes (UK only)

Our adoption and membership scheme has increased considerably this year in numbers mainly because we are becoming internationally recognised now for our work with seahorses and because we have changed the format of how to adopt or become a member.

The figures for Adoption and Membership are encouraging, in 2022-2023 it was £9,955.21 whereas in 20223-2024 it was up to £11,401.37 which is up by £1,446.16.

It averages at £950.11 per month and the average donation per month is £7.89.

The average number of adoptees and members has risen per month to 120 from 116.

It shows that although the scheme has been and is successful in terms of funds, but we need to increase numbers of adoptions and memberships. more work needs to be done on this.

Website

We would like to say a special thank you to Gavin who often does work for us for free and without his input we would not have such a great website. Here at the Trust, we highly recommend him, and he can be found on his website at http://www.gslsolutions.co.uk/

Patrons

We are very lucky here at the trust in having the support of some well-known names as patrons and I would like to thank one and all for their superb help and support over the last twelve months.

Kate Humble http://www.katehumble.com Chris Packham http://www.chrispackham.co.uk Kirsty Jones http://www.kirstyjones.com Mark Carwardine http://www.markcarwardine.com Ellie Harrison http://www.ellie-harrison.com/ Monty Halls http://www.montyhalls.co.uk/ Sir Hugo Swire https://www.hugoswire.org.uk/

Annual report 2021/2022

FINANCIAL POLICY

RESERVES POLICY

It is the intention of the Charity only to maintain reserves at the level required to fund its ongoing commitments.

RISKS ASSESSMENT

The Trustees have reviewed the major risks to which the Charity may be exposed and consider measures have been taken to mitigate such risks.

INDEPENDENT EXAMINERS REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES

I report on the accounts of the trust for the year ended 31[st] March 2024, which are set out on pages 14 to 15.

RESPECTIVE RESPONSIBILTIES OF TRUSTEES AND EXAMINER

As the charities trustees you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts; you consider that the audit requirement of s43(2) of the Charities Act 1993 (the Act) does not apply. It is my responsibility to state, on the basis of procedures specified in the General Directions given by the Charity Commissioners under s43(7) (b) of the Act, whether particular matters have come to my attention.

BASIS OF INDEPENDENT EXAMINER’S REPORT

My examination was carried out in accordance with the General Directions by the Charity Commissioners. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the Charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and the seeking of explanations from you as trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit and. Consequently, I do not express an audit opinion on the view given by the accounts.

INDEPENDENT EXAMINER’S STATEMENT

In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention:

That gives me reasonable cause to believe that, in any material respect, the requirements:
To keep accounting records in accordance with s41 of the Act; and
To prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and to comply with the accounting requirements of the Act.
Have not been met; or
To which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Annual report 2021/2022

INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st MARCH 2023

Annual report 2021/2022

The Balance Sheet below and annexed Income and Expenditure Account for the year have not been audited but are prepared from the records information and explanations supplied to us and are in accordance therewith

Anthony Roberts FCPA - Chartered Accountant for The Tax Shop Limited 7 Totnes Road PAIGNTON Devon 29[th] July 2024

NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR TO 31[ST] MARCH 2024

• ACCOUNTING BASIS

These accounts have been prepared under the Historical Cost Convention, applicable accounting standards and the Statement of Recommended Practise, accounting and reporting by charities.

• INCOMING RESOURCES

Income is credited in the period it is received.

• STAFF EMOLUMENTS

Total cost of administrator’s fees inclusive was £35,072.13

No employee received emoluments above £50,000

• INDEPENDENT EXAMINATION

Cost £348

• VOLUNTEERS

No value is placed on volunteer’s time.

• TRUSTEES

No trustee received any remuneration or reimbursement of expenses in the year.

Annual report 2021/2022