## Annual report of Walney Community Trust for 2021
The start of 2021 saw the UK in the midst of its third Covid-19 “lockdown”. In these circumstances, we were able to maintain our well-established two-pronged approach to supporting the local area, roughly split into “youth based” and “community based”, often with considerable overlap between the two.
Youth activities were led by our Lead Youth worker, Paula, her team of Youth workers, and our Youth Development worker, Alysha, until her resignation from the role in summer. With the continuation of lockdown, the more usual youth club sessions and wider group activities beyond our centre were again replaced by one-to-one meetings, especially with our most needy and vulnerable young people, and detached youth work in the community; small group sessions took place at the centre, and sports activities were arranged, when regulations permitted. Online contacts, both individual and group, and activities (quizzes, art groups etc.) were again widely used, striving to meet the ever-growing demands of issues raised by young people’s mental health.
In terms of the community side of our work, led by Ros, our Community Development worker, the work of the food hub continued until May, again providing services to shop, deliver food and collect medical prescriptions, and providing a telephone befriending service, all serving the needs of the most vulnerable; our centre retained the appearance more of a supermarket stock room than a community facility, and it was with great relief when this activity was able to be wound down. We strengthened our partnership with Barrow Borough Council, who provided funding for us to supply gas/electricity funding support to those in particular need with whom we had developed links; we worked in partnership with Spring Mount Church to use further Council funding to supply white electrical goods to local families we identified as being in this particular need. We were able to restart CAP (Christians Against Poverty) Money and Fresh Starts courses and launch our adult mentoring programme.
As lockdown restrictions eased, our staff again led the six-week long summer holiday activities programme for families, again funded by the local council.
From September, more “normal” activities were able to be resumed at our centre. Our well-established youth club was able to re-open, slowly at first with rather lower numbers than were attending pre-Covid, before an explosion of new attendees from October onwards. Sessions were again organised according to age groups, with issue-based sessions as well as more typical youth club activities. The demand for and provision of individual and small-group support, initiated at the height of the pandemic, remains strong. In October, we were delighted to appoint a new Youth Development Worker, Leon.
Community activities aimed at supporting both individuals and families were also able to resume from our centre with community meals, Toddler sessions, a drop in café, Saturday evening family entertainment, as well as the provision of a variety of CAP courses. Individual, one-to-one support for both young people and adults was provided through our mentoring programmes.
Our staff responded wonderfully and with outstanding commitment to the demands on their time and energies caused by the ever-growing and seemingly endless needs of those they serve in the community. They are committed to constantly updating their skills and ability to carry out their role; recent first aid training and enrolment on the Decider Skills course to support others’ mental health, and our plans for a first-ever staff INSET day, are particular examples of this.
The Trustees themselves were active throughout the year, ably supported by our Administrator, Sam. We welcomed a new Trustee onto the Board at the start of the year, bringing a strong professional background in finance and accounting; we also accepted the resignation of a long-standing Trustee who had been part of the Trust since its inception in 2003. The long-standing chair resigned their role at the start of the year, and a successor was elected in the January meeting.
We made a thorough review of our Safeguarding policy and introduced new policies for Health & Safety and Equality & Diversity, both written with external, expert guidance; a new Finance and Risk Management policy is due to be introduced in 2022. We introduced the role of Designated Trustee, giving four Trustees
specific oversight of our four key policies (Safeguarding, Health & Safety, Equality & Diversity and Finance & Risk). We introduced a rolling programme to review Trust policies, meaning that key policies will be reviewed formally annually and others biennially. We completed our work with Turnstone HR, introducing new contracts and job descriptions for all staff; we introduced induction packs for new staff and a new volunteer agreement; we have developed a new system to record staff training; the Trust website has a new secure area for storing policies, minutes from Trustee meetings and other key documents. We continued our Link Trustee meetings with key staff. We were pleased to receive the Gold Quality Mark from Cumbria Youth Alliance. We have striven to maintain and improve our building, which is struggling to meet the demands of increasing use.
Trustees identified the need to seek outside, expert support to review the operation of the Trust and guide us in a strategic planning process to ensure our sustainability into the future. Supported financially by the Francis C Scott Charitable Trust, Trustees and key staff conducted, in November/December, the first of an agreed two stage process, the organisational “Health Check”, led by the consultant Murray Winters. This, and the second stage of the strategic planning activity, will continue into 2022.
The major risks to which the charity is exposed, as identified by the Trustees, have been reviewed and systems have been established to manage those risks.
We continue to be extremely grateful to the organisations who have faithfully funded us for many years and to those who have recently been willing to help us continue our work, especially during the pandemic.
## **Walney Community Trust**
## **Financial Statements**
**For the year ended 31 December 2021**
## **Walney Community Trust**
|**Income**
Grants
196,220
JRS Grant
3,718
Fundraising
1,069
Room hire
170
Youth Club
553
Photocopying
-
Donations
7,233
Who let the Dads out
-
Switch Bonus
2,750
Other income
600
212,313
**Expenses**
Wages and NIC
102,105
Training
2,426
Travel expenses
96
Systems and Safety Checks
658
Professional Fees
756
Payroll Expenses
-
Building repairs and maintenance
2,840
Cleaning expenses
558
Computer expenses
188
Council tax
56
CRB checks
97
Donations
-
New equipment
1,104
Postages
8
Telephone and Internet Charges
1,235
Room hire expenses
-
Licences and subscriptions
754
Sundry expenses
-
Insurance
1,980
Bank charges
-
Printing stationery and advertising
434
Romania Project expenses
-
Alysha Project expenses
1,144
WDF Project expenses
70,380
186,819
**Net surplus/(deficit) for the year**
25,494
**2021**
**Income and Expenditure Account**
**For the year ended**
**31 December 2021**|198,875
12,926
-
2,532
1,353
68
12,557
12
-
40
228,363
109,915
200
220
824
624
492
320
289
101
34
-
-
4,259
-
687
2,107
876
60
3,604
-
593
2,543
1,378
67,651
196,777
31,586
**2020**|198,875
12,926
-
2,532
1,353
68
12,557
12
-
40
228,363
109,915
200
220
824
624
492
320
289
101
34
-
-
4,259
-
687
2,107
876
60
3,604
-
593
2,543
1,378
67,651
196,777
31,586
**2020**|
|---|---|---|
|||228,363
196,777|
||||
|||31,586|
I have examined the books and records of the Trust for the year ended 31 December 2021 and the above Income and Expenditure Account is in agreement with the books, records, and explanations supplied to me J Kelly MAAT 31 March 2022
## **Walney Community Trust**
## **Balance Sheet**
|||**As at**||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**31**|**December 2021**||||
|||**2021**||**2020**||
|**Cash and Bank Accounts**||||||
|**Restricted**||||||
|Dedicated Wage Account|||-||11|
|Grant Fund Wages|13113038||60,264||50,047|
|Walney Development Fund|||39,561||34,513|
|**Unrestricted**||||||
|Current Account|13046063||8,760||7,623|
|Petty Cash Account|||4||-|
|**Designated**||||||
|Emergency Fund Account|13210661|29722.17|3,210||3,210|
|Redundancy Account|13088637||17,749||17,749|
|Job Development Fund|||970||970|
|Alysha Projects|||-||2,599|
|Building/Contingency Fund|||7,701|||
|Co-op Youth Account|||3,997|||
||||142,216||116,722|
|**Capital Account**||||||
|Reserves brought forward|||116,722||85,136|
|Net surplus/(deficit) for the|year||25,494||31,586|
||||142,216||116,722|
|||-|0
|-|0
|
I have examined the books and records of the Trust for the year ended 31 December 2021 and the above Balance Sheet is in agreement with the books, records, and explanations supplied to me
J Kelly MAAT 31 March 2022