SUDBURY, WEMBLEY and ALPERTON YOUTH PROJECT
The SWAY project
Annual Accounts and Directors/Trustees Report for the period 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2024.
Company registration number 522 4768 Charity Registration number 1108095
SWAY is a registered charity number 1108095 and an incorporated private limited company number 5224768. Registered Office, St John’s Community Centre, Crawford Ave., Wembley, Middlesex, HA0 2HX.
SWAY: Churches working together with young people
SWAY Directors and Trustees’ Annual Report for 2024
The Directors and Trustees’ of SWAY present this report for the period from 1 January 2024 to 31st December 2024.
SWAY was registered as a Charity on 15[th] February 2005
The format and content of this report and financial statement comply with the Companies Act 2006, the Charities Act 2011 and “Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice” SORP (FRS 102).
Reference and Administrative Details
Charity name: The Sudbury, Wembley and Alperton Youth Project (The SWAY project).
The SWAY project is a company limited by guarantee, company number 5224768 and a registered charity number 1108095.
The registered office is; St John’s Community Centre, Crawford Ave., Wembley, Middlesex, HA0 2HX
The Trustees of the charity for the period of the report were; Chairman Rev G Nind Honorary Secretary Carole Bevis-Smith
Honorary Treasurer Rev Alton Bell
Other Trustees – ex-officio Rev F Adu-Boachie
The Directors of the Company also serve as Trustees of the charity.
During 2024 the charity employed no youth workers but engaged a senior self-employed youth worker as lead worker and several ad-hoc workers to fulfil our work commitment. Our lead youth worker is employed for 20 hours per week and the ad-hoc youth workers for 10 hours, depending on the nature of the job.
The charity banks with Santander UK plc, Bridle Road, Bootle, Merseyside, GIR 0AA.
There is no Independent Examiner
Structure, Governance and Management.
SWAY is governed by its Memorandum and Articles of Association.
The members of the company are seven Christian Churches in the Sudbury, Wembley and Alperton areas of the London Bough of Brent. These Churches are: Sudbury Methodist Church, Ealing Road Methodist Church, Sudbury Baptist Church, Wembley Family Church, St James Parish Church, Alperton, St John’s Parish Church Wembley and St Andrews Parish Church, Sudbury.
The Director/ trustees are appointed by the members. The Directors may also appoint any person as a Director. Any person appointed by the Directors must retire at the AGM but will be eligible to be reappointed by the members.
The Directors set the policy and plan the work of the Charity. To assist in the efficient working of the charity the Directors have established an “Executive Group” consisting of at least one director from each member church who are able to meet more frequently and at shorter notice. No Executive Group meetings were needed in 2023. Individual directors also take responsibility for different aspects of the management of the charity such as day-to-day programme management, staff recruitment and appraisal, finance, fund raising, and safeguarding issues.
SWAY work can only proceed with the help and co-operation of volunteers from the member churches who assist our youth workers at events. The Directors would like to acknowledge the work and commitment of these people and especially those who have again helped at the SWAY events this year in addition to their voluntary work with their own youth groups. We also benefit from the free use of the members premises for most of our activities and are especially grateful to St John’s Church who host our office for a nominal charge.
During the year the Directors continued to work at improving our business processes, procedures as recommended by New Foundations via a programme run by Brent Voluntary Services. SWAY also continues as a member of the London Youth quality programme.
Objectives and Activities
The Charity's objectives are:
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to build up youth fellowships in churches within the Sudbury, Wembley and Alperton area; 2. to develop work with young people of all backgrounds from within the Sudbury, Wembley and Alperton area;
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to provide leisure activities and opportunities for personal growth including Christian spiritual growth, and to provide opportunities for the development of responsibility and to develop skills in a variety of fields;
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to liaise with schools and other statutory bodies to further the above ends
To help young people from across the whole local community to develop to their full potential we undertake street work to meet them in the places where they gather, we run a drop-in youth cafe and organise activities which provide them with exciting opportunities for developing social skills and personal achievement. Our community work extends to working with a local high school to help with lunch time activities and workshop sessions for students in danger of exclusion.
To help build up the youth work run by our member churches, we run activities which help develop the skills and knowledge of their volunteer youth leaders and workers which they can then apply in their own youth work. We support the young people by running events and organising trips that the individual youth groups would not be able to do without the help of SWAY thus providing young people with experiences and opportunities that they would not have otherwise.
The Directors are aware of their responsibility under the Charities Act 2006 to have regard to the Commissions guidance on public benefit. In developing their programme of activities, they have sort
to ensure that the activities of SWAY are available to all young people and that they are widely known about in the local community.
Achievements and Performance .
This year was again very successful period for the project. We engaged with well over 250 young people, many of whom were new contacts for the project. We worked more regularly with several local schools, providing mentoring opportunities for them as well as personal development opportunities via a box-a-size class run by one of our ad-hoc youth worker. We saw evidence of personal development and maturity among the young participants.
The directors want to publically acknowledge the hard work of our lead youth worker Samantha Scott who has both devised and organised our programme of activities as well as playing a major role in its delivery. Samantha has been assisted by part-time youth workers, specialist tutors and volunteers from our member churches and para-church organisations, many of whom gave their time freely to help in holiday clubs, with trips.
An important part of our project is the outreach work done after school in Wembley High Road and in Alperton. Youngsters were met “where they are at” and were invited to our youth cafe. During the year we welcomed over 100 different young people to the cafe. Initially, this work was assisted by a grant from Brent Council which supported specific aspects of the work from April 2023 to March 2024 after which it has continued. The cafe has proved particularly popular in recent months as we recover from the closure of various youth facilities and the impact of Covid-19 in the Borough. Attendance has averaged around 30 young people per week.
In the summer of 2024, we again organised 2 weeks of holiday activities for young people. We ran separate programmes for those aged 8 – 13 years and for those 14+. For the older groups, outdoor activities have proved popular such as organised trips to kayaking, paintballing, laser tagging and gocarting. Grant have enabled us to subsidise the cost of attending some of these events enabling more disadvantaged young people to attend. Numbers for some of these activities was sometimes limited by the capacity of the minibus we use or of the adults required to provide adequate safeguarding of the young people.
Activities for the younger group were usually held at the premises of one of our members and included craft, music and dance workshops and some trips. Overall a total of 40+ young people took part in one or more session in 2024.
Football has again proved to be a popular activity and at each holiday we have run football coaching sessions using qualified coaches and the facilities of the GOALS centre at Alperton. In 2024 the programme attracted ~20 participants.
During most of the other principal holiday periods we organised a number of “one off “ days of activities.
Although the emphasis this year has been on our activities in the wider community we have continued to support the work of the youth groups attached to our member churches as resources have allowed. Our role in this area is one of training and networking the individual youth leaders of our members, assisting when the skills of our workers are particularly needed and running our youth friendly Christian celebrations.
Financial Overview
Financially this has been a challenging year for SWAY. Our grant from Brent Council will expire this year with the final tranche was paid in June 2023. We will pursue other avenues to obtain funds to keep the charity afloat.
The outreach and youth cafe have been able to continue using volunteers and youth workers contracted on a strictly sessional basis with the help of funding from some the source outlined above.
We continue to apply for grants to put our activities on a sound financial footing while also reviewing the business model and strategic direction of the charity.
Accounting policy
For the year ending 31/12/2024 the company was entitled to exemption from audit under section 477 of the Companies Act 2006 relating to small companies.
The members have not required the company to obtain an audit in accordance with section 476 of the Companies Act 2006.
The Directors acknowledge their responsibility for complying with the requirement of the Act with respect to accounting records and for the preparation of accounts.
Signed on behave of the trustees/directors
Alton P Bell
Treasurer and Director 29/10/2025.