2025-06-30-accounts

Trustees’ Annual Report for the period

From 01 July 2024 Period start date To 30 June 2025 Period end date

Charity name: Association of Lighthouse Keepers

Charity registration number: 1089142

Objectives and Activities

	SORP reference
Summary of the purposes of the charity as set out in its governing document	Para 1.17	The advancement of education of the general public in Pharology, defined for these purposes as the study in the history and current practice of coastal and inland aids to navigation, through the provision of information, educational activities and the maintenance of a physical and online archive.
Summary of the main activities in relation to those purposes for the public benefit, in particular, the activities, projects or services identified in the accounts.	Para 1.17 and 1.19	The Trustees have taken due regard to the Charity Commission guidance on public benefit and have undertaken the following principal activities:-  The scope of all our activities is driven by the statement in our ‘branding’, “Keeping Lighthouse Heritage Alive”. A decreasing number of our members, the original founders of the charity were former lighthouse keepers. The membership is open now to anyone who wishes to join.  The charity operate an interactive museum at Hurst Castle (owned by English Heritage and managed by Hurst Marine) which is open to the public and included in the castle entry fee. The museum includes the history of lighthouses and other aids to navigation through time and is visited by members of the public, school parties and other groups.  The organisation continues to produce the professional, quality journal ‘LAMP’ which is sent quarterly to all members of the Association and a number of other interested parties including the

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General Lighthouse Authorities [GLA] for the British Isles. It includes news, information articles and photographs on issues relating to lighthouse heritage.  The ongoing management and development of an archive of documents and artifacts from lighthouses and former keepers. This is used to assist researchers and answer requests for information on specific lighthouses and lighthouse operation and other maritime aids to navigation. The aim is to make much of this information available online taking account of the requirements of the GDPR and cybersecurity.  The provision of speakers, on request to external bodies including schools, to present on lighthouse related topics including operation, engineering, history, architecture and cultural. Our Education Team has expanded to cope with the increasing demand. Contact with former keepers willing to undertake media interviews is offered.  Provision of a programme of events including visits to lighthouses are offered to all members at cost. This can include access to the interior of lighthouses not open to the public and special events with speakers often on-line via Zoom.  Many of our members provide their services free of charge to lighthouse visitor centres across the UK and Ireland.  We are pleased to have close relationships with the Museum of Scottish lighthouses and are looking to support Bexhill Maritime in their ambition to develop a lighthouse museum on the south coast of England. In addition we are fostering closer working relationships with the three statutory GLA’s for the UK and Ireland. Our charity is entirely run by volunteers and has no paid staff. Its major cost each year is the production and distribution (currently by post) of the quarterly journal LAMP. With the annual membership cost increase in 2024-25 the cost of production is being covered.

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		We do not seek to generate a surplus and will seek grants for continuing archive digitisation. We were lucky enough to secure a £1.0k contribution toward digitisation via a prize draw offered at the Museums and Heritage exhibition.
Statement confirming whether the trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit	Para 1.18	“Keeping lighthouse heritage alive” is all about public benefit to both our members, external bodies and individuals who seek information and advice. We believe that the Charity Commissions guidance on public benefit has been fully observed throughout the year and since its foundation in 1988. We do not seek to make a profit on our activities but simply cover our costs.

Additional information (optional) You may choose to include further statements where relevant about:

	SORP reference
Policy on grant making	Para 1.38	We do not offer grants to any outside organisation
Policy on social investment including program related investment	Para 1.38	None
Contribution made by volunteers	Para 1.38	Our organisation relies on volunteers for its very existence and without them we would fail to achieve our objectives. We have no premises, no paid staff or Trustees, and all officers and regional representatives provide their time and effort free of charge.
Other

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Achievements and Performance

	SORP reference
Summary of the main achievements of the charity, identifying the difference the charity’s work has made to the circumstances of its beneficiaries and any wider benefits to society as a whole.	Para 1.20	 Trustee meetings continued on the basis of one every quarter. There were two face to face meetings, one in London and the other at the AGM venue in Stranraer, Scotland. Where trustees were unable to attend in person they were able to join the meetings on Zoom. The other two meetings were online for all.  Our membership subscription increased in the year under review from £18 to £25 for single membership. Other membership categories were also increased by a similar percentage. The reason for the increase was the increased cost of production and postage of our quarterly journal LAMP.  We continue to receive requests for interviews with former lighthouse keepers including from academia which we fulfil. We are supportive of various initiatives from other organisations e.g. a recent contact was from the Royal Northumberland Yacht Club who have the Light Vessel 50 as their club house. They are in contact with a musician who wishes to write some songs about keepers and light keeping. We respond to requests from all over the world for information on lighthouse history and light keeping. A number of media interviews have also taken place with our members.  While we have a consistent number of Corporate members the Trustees have decided to review our Corporate membership to look at the potential benefits and potentially increase the number of organisations participating.  To cope with the increasing importance of social media we have now increased the size of our media team to deal with the volume of ‘traffic’ through this medium.  Our quarterly journal LAMP continues to thrive under the volunteer editorial team. The quality is of a professional standard and is eagerly awaited by the members when it is published.  Our now annual Archive Weekend held at Bidston Lighthouse took

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place in March 2025. Accommodation limits the number of spaces available to the members but those who attended made a significant contribution to the ongoing digitisation of the archive. A local team of volunteers also meet weekly and have brought considerable order to the documents and artifacts over the last twelve months. The contribution of £1.0k towards digitisation of documents by Automated Document Services following a prize draw win in May has enabled digitisation of a significant but selected number of large scale drawings/documents for which otherwise the ALK would have had to pay. That work has now been completed.  Following the successful trial of the Box online platform for the storage of much of their information the Archive team, are continuing to look to utilise this system as part of the access for Members and ultimately the public to the searchable online archive.(subject to the requirements of GDPR and cybersecurity)  On the personnel front, sadly our long standing President, Ian Duff passed away in November 2024. He has been replaced by Gerald Butler whose appointment to the role will be confirmed at the September 2025 AGM. One of our patrons Captain Richard Woodman also passed away in October 2024 after a long illness. John Beamish one of our Trustees resigned in March for personal reasons. This brought our number of Trustees back to our constituted number of twelve.  With the ‘retirement’ of our long standing Secretary, a team approach [The Secretariat], has now been adopted with the former Secretary role being split into three: administration, data related issues and constitutional matters. To date the new structure has worked well with the benefit of the former secretary taking on the data role in the Secretariat and thus providing some continuity and mentoring to

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		the Team.  We continue to monitor the progress of the site redevelopment of a heritage centre of our corporate member Chance Heritage Trust. This could provide a new home in the short to medium term if it becomes necessary to relocate our collection of displays and artifacts from Hurst Castle due to coastal erosion of the spit on which it is located.  In a similar vein we are fostering a new close working relationship with Bexhill Maritime as a possible future home for surplus artifacts currently held in storage at Hurst Castle. One of our members is a Trustee for that registered charity and they too could provide a replacement home for all or part of the display items at Hurst should the need arise.  Our Annual General Meeting for 2025 is scheduled to take place in Folkstone, Kent on the 27 September. The meeting will be part of a four day event including visits to several lighthouses not generally open to the public thanks to Trinity House and Ramsgate Harbour Board. We are expecting over one hundred members to attend the weekend.  In the last twelve months we have continued to offer lighthouse orientated trips for members. Two trips to the island of Anglesey in May and June and two boat trips to the Eddystone Rock in June, one of which included lighthouses and breakwater lights in South Devon took place. The trips were self- funded by the participants.  We continued our programme of online events in the autumn of last year which were enjoyed by our members and included some members of the ALK ‘family’ from across the globe.

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Additional information (optional) You may choose to include further statements where relevant about:

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Achievements against Para 1.41
objectives set
Performance of fundraising
activities against objectives Para 1.41
set
Investment performance Para 1.41
against objectives
Other
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Financial Review

Financial Review
Review of the charity’s financial position at the end of the period	Para 1.21	At the end of June the cash balances in our bank accounts totalled £30,992. A 10.3% increase on the previous year. The balance sheet and independent inspection of the Associations accounts are at the end of this report as appendices, pages 15-18
Statement explaining the policy for holding reserves stating why they are held	Para 1.22	N/A
Amount of reserves held	Para 1.22	There are no formal reserves other than cash in the bank
Reasons for holding zero reserves	Para 1.22	The cash balances held in the bank are considered to be adequate to cover any reasonably foreseeable adverse impact on income or an unexpected increase in unavoidable expenditure.
Details of fund materially in deficit	Para 1.24	N/A
Explanation of any uncertainties about the charity continuing as a going concern	Para 1.23	N/A

Additional information (optional) You may choose to include further statements where relevant about:

The charity’s principal sources of funds (including any fundraising)	Para 1.47	 Membership subscriptions are the principle source of our income. Any events organised are on a ‘not for profit’ basis.  Occasionally we receive small legacies from the estates of deceased members.  We are looking at grant applications to facilitate the digitisation of our online archive but to date we have not been successful in our applications.  The one-off chance win in a prize draw to the value of £1.0k towards digitisation services provided a boost to the archive digitisation project.
Investment policy and objectives including any social investment policy adopted	Para 1.46	The only financial asset ALK has is cash held on deposit with Barclays Bank and Saffron Building Society (transferred in May from Monmouth Building Society due to a higher interest rate).
A description of the principal risks facing the charity	Para 1.46	ALK does not own or rent any property. Nor does it hold any significant other assets, other than archive artifacts. The latter are impossible to value and insure due to their irreplaceability. We do not incur asset related costs e.g. rent or energy. As we do not employ staff there are no staff costs.

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There are risks associated with third party contractors failing to supply services to the ALK e.g. transport on trips. The total amount of money involved with any one contractor is insufficient to pose a significant risk. Members face risks when visiting properties that are not insured for public access. ALK holds liability insurance to mitigate this risk. It also covers volunteers working at e.g. Hurst Castle Museum and the archive at Bidston Lighthouse. A recently identified risk is cybersecurity. ALK are undertaking a review to identify the risks to the various systems and databases that are used to manage the charity and its archive. Having Identified the risks the intention is to obtain insurance cover for those risks that are insurable (not all are) and put into place action plans to be implemented in the event of a cyber attack or breach. Other

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Structure, Governance and Management

Description of charity’s trusts:
Type of governing document (trust deed, royal charter)	Para 1.25	Constitution registered with the Charity Commission
How is the charity constituted? (e.g unincorporated association, CIO)	Para 1.25	Unincorporated association
Trustee selection methods including details of any constitutional provisions e.g. election to post or name of any person or body entitled to appoint one or more trustees	Para 1.25	We currently have 12 Trustee positions, all of which are currently occupied. The positions are ratified at the Annual General Meeting by the members.

Additional information (optional) You may choose to include further statements where relevant about:

Policies and procedures adopted for the induction and training of trustees	Para 1.51	Mentoring and support is offered to new Trustees by the Chairman and former Secretary (still a Trustee and member of the Secretariat).
The charity’s organisational structure and any wider network with which the charity works	Para 1.51
Relationship with any related parties	Para 1.51	We are constantly working to maintain close relationships with the following organisations in order to assist in the organisation of events for our members and to help occasionally with archive queries:-  Trinity House  Northern Lighthouse Board  Commissioners of Irish Lights  Chance Heritage Trust  Museum of Scottish Lighthouses  English Heritage and Hurst Marine (Hurst Castle)  National Piers Society  National Trust (South Foreland Lighthouse)  Bexhill Maritime
Other

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Reference and Administrative details

Charity name	Association of Lighthouse Keepers
Other name the charity uses	N/A
Registered charity number	1089142
Charity’s principal address	54 Wilton Avenue Chiswick London W4 2HY

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Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20	Trustee name	Office (if any)	Dates acted if not for whole year	Name of person (or body) entitled to appoint trustee (ifany)
	Neil Hargreaves	Chair
	Dave Wilkinson	Vice Chair
	Jill Murphy	Constitutional Secretary
	David Taylor	Data Secretary
	Bridget Box	Administration Secretary
	RodneyJagelman	Treasurer
	John Best	Hurst Castle Museum Team Leader
	Ian Hogarth	Media/Publicity
	Sarah Kerr	Events Coordinator
	Stephen Pickles	Archive Team
	Lin Sunderland	Events Team
	RoyThompson
	John Beamish		1 July 2024 – 03 March 2025

– Corporate trustees names of the directors at the date the report was approved

Director name N/A

Name of trustees holding title to property belonging to the charity

Trustee name	Dates acted if not for whole year
N/A

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Funds held as custodian trustees on behalf of others

Description of the assets N/A held in this capacity Name and objects of the N/A charity on whose behalf the assets are held and how this falls within the custodian charity’s objects Details of arrangements for N/A safe custody and segregation of such assets from the charity’s own assets

Additional information (optional)

Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)

Names and	addresses of advisers (Optional information)	addresses of advisers (Optional information)
Type of adviser	Name Address
Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)

Exemptions from disclosure

Reason for non-disclosure of key personnel details

N/A

Other optional information

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APPENDICES

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