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2025-08-31-accounts

Trustees Annual Report 2024/2025

Chairs Report

As Chair of The Friends of Ferncumbe, it is my pleasure to present this year’s end-of-year report. It has been another incredibly positive and productive year for the Friends and I am extremely proud of what we have achieved together.

Our goal was to deliver our fundraising goal of £25,000 for our playground project and to exceed previous levels of profit to bolster our reserves and support school with further resources and enrichment activities.

Fundraising and Other activities

We have raised a record-breaking amount of money this year - I won’t spoil the surprise and will let Mal cover this off in his Treasurers report.

We committed to introducing some new events into our fundraising calendar of activities and I’d like to spend a little time sharing with you all what we achieved as it quite was a lot!

Welcome Event - 13[th] September we kick started the new school year and the event gives us the opportunity to welcome our new reception families to the Ferncumbe family. A bouncy castle was a big hit with the children and food was catered for using local business Slice. Lots of fun was had by all.

Halloween Disco - We had lots of requests in previous years to host a school disco and we made this happen on 19th of October at Hatton Park Village Hall. Many children enjoyed their first ever school disco complete with fancy dress and entertainment by a local DJ. Our committee dressed up too and did a fabulous job of providing a safe but fun environment. We are very grateful for Tamara and her personal collection of Halloween stock!

Teddy Zipwire - Inspired by a local village event we held our first teddy zipwire at Hatton church on 9[th] November. Brave Ellen (instigator of this fun event) and her friend climbed to the top of the church tower and helped a steady stream of teddies zip wire down to the graveyard. Whilst the weather may have been a bit damp the smiles on the faces of the children shone bright. We were joined by several non Ferncumbe families and it was wonderful to host an event the wider community could join in.

Wreath Making - Held at Shrewley Village Hall on 4[th] December this was a sell out within weeks of tickets going live. 30 people attended and with the support of Julia Mitchell our attendees made a festive wreath using locally foraged greenery. There was a lot of festive cheer and some wonderful masterpieces hung proudly on doors around the local area.

Christmas Cards and other gifts - this is a firm favourite with all our families, and a learning has been to organise early. Just the job for our very organised Gemma Carver! We ask our families to provide their consent so we can help provide families with treasured memories of

their little ones festive artwork . Thank you to the teaching staff for supporting our children with this activity in school time.

Christmas Fun afternoon at school - lots of fun ideas came together by the committee and the support of school we gave all our children an end of term festive treat. Activities included an Olaf dance off (well done Jen Bradley), throwing snowballs, hook the bauble and guess the name of the elf. Refreshments included mince pies and some magnificent Gingerbread men baked by Monica - they looked amazing and were delicious.

Rags to riches - we had to collections 18[th] November and 14[th] May and this provide as opportunity for our school families to donate preloved clothing and shoes to those that have a greater need for it - typically families based in Ukraine.

FundRaisin challenge - Friends delivered a Valentines Day treat by way of a full raisin box for each child - super design work from Tamara! We challenged the children to ‘show their love’ to school during February half term by taking responsibility for completing jobs at home and in the local community in return for donations into their now empty raisin box. This FundRaising kicked off our school fundraising activities for the new playground and gave the children a chance to actively contribute towards the fundraising for the playground.

Quiz - A firm favourite for our parent we held our annual quiz on 7[th] February at Hatton Park Village Hall. A huge thank you to our quiz master who has supported us for many years but has now officially retired from Ferncumbe quiz duties! Our winning team was our teachers (again!!!). A highlight of the evening was doing the raffle in the car park in the rain!

Easter Bingo - One of our most popular family events - we hosted our Easter bingo on 29[th] March again at Hatton Park village hall. The children donated eggs on a school non uniform day and these provide the prizes to our children. Mal did a super job of collecting chip shops meals for everyone to enjoy.

Break the rules day - held multiple times during the year and firm favourite by our children - who doesn’t love to break rules at school. I'm not sure the teachers love us for this activity!!

Wren Hall cake sale – Our second year of being able to host this event. On 6[th] April the sun shone brightly and our guests enjoyed homemade cakes. We are very grateful for the support of our bakers and volunteers on the day. Wren hall is a superb location to host this event and we're grateful they include us in their every growing list of local charities. I think I have now perfected the gluten free brownie, but I won't be changing career anytime soon!

Spring Raffle - launched early April and tickets were open for 4 weeks. We used People's fund raising for the first time I have to say it was very slick system to use. A huge thank you to Gemma Skinner for her tenacity in sourcing raffle prizes both for this event (and let’s not forget all our other events through the year). We were fortunate to have secured some top prizes including a £500 jewellery voucher and VIP experience kindly donated by Hamlington's based in Warwick and a spa day at Hoar Cross Hall based in Burton. There was

certainly lots of chatter in the playground on who wanted to win the win both top prizes! We were supported by lots of people in the local community buying tickets as we really upped our activity on socials. We’d love to do another one next year so please get your thinking caps on who we can approach for some high value prizes.

Colour run – We had seen lots of schools posting about colour runs on social media and rather than repeat the usual summer fair thought we try something a little bit different. This was a joint event with school whereby we challenged the children for sponsorship of the run for us to split proceeds with a One World Link a local charity supporting educational work in Sierra Leone. With the support of Hand Country World we were able to secure the use of their field which was the perfect outdoor space. Local businesses Just Camp and Lagom Health & Fitness were supportive as event sponsors. This event took a lot of preparation and there was little panic when the powder couldn't be delivered in time. Thankfully I have a husband who at times can be very helpful and flexible with his time and he collected this from East Midlands for us. On 5[th] July Jo and Laura ideas came to life and they created an interesting obstacle course for the children to run around whilst coloured powder was thrown into the air. You only have to look back at the photos of the children and their faces to see how much they enjoyed it. The highlight of this event for me was the collaboration with school where we were supported by lots of teaching staff - manning the obstacles with colour powder and being good sports by running in the teachers race. As you will all know our Headteacher Miss Morris was a good sport on the day and got gunged by several of the children. A huge thank you to Jo and Laura for delivering such a fun family event and this will most certainly be on our calendar of events for next year!

Sports Day - this year we gifted ice lollies for the children after their races. Thank you to Tamson for lending us her freezer for the day!

Preloved Uniform - coordinated by Queen of preloved school uniform Gemma Carver and an opportunity to share preloved uniform with all our school families. We get many donations so please do ask us if you would like uniform to take home.

Facebook page – this year we created our new facebook page. Thank you to Teri for helping us to set this up and for posting regularly about our events. It gives us an opportunity to widen our reach as not everyone seems to read our whataspp messages! We are also pleased to be linking in with the new school facebook page and gives us an opportunity for local families in the surrounding towns and villages to see what a wonderful place Ferncumbe is.

Website - We were very kindly gifted our own website by the wonderful team at Thrive. Such a generous donation and we are so grateful. It pays to network at birthday parties and share the wonderful work we do for the children at Ferncumbe! With the support from Emma and her team and thrive we have created our own branding a dedicated space for us to share the work of our charity. I truly believe having consistent branding and a

professional website has helped us in our approach to local businesses when seeking donations for the playground project. I am confident we can use the website in a more beneficial way to promote greater awareness of what we do and why we do it so watch this space!

Playground project -This must be one of the friends of Ferncumbe’s comes most stretching fundraising project. Jo and I joined forces - one half of us being creative and the other being well connected to the local business community. We had a dream to provide our school with new playground apparatus and create an environment where they could play and learn. Our goal was to raise £25,000. I am pleased we have not billed our time like many professional services firms do on how many hours we have spent on this collectively but safe to say we wanted to deliver it as quickly as possible. Having a professional website and a dedicated campaign page on JustGiving allowed us to reach out to local businesses and ask for support. We are grateful to all our families who have supported our fundraising efforts either by direct donation or by attending our events. We also approached lots of Charitable Trusts and spent lots of evenings completing applications for grants - our tenacity paid off with a handful providing us donations more than £5k. We spent a lot of time nurturing our relationship with our local parish council and by being resilient were successful in a sizable donation helping us to achieve our fundraising goal. Thank you to school for contributing financially towards this project and for dealing with the chaos during the installation period over recent weeks. We still have the gift aid to reclaim which will allow us to support school with maintenance of the equipment. Whilst the journey to get to the finish line has been a

Being part of our local community - Our work this year within the local community has strengthened relationships with lots of local businesses. A special thank you to Hatton Church, Hatton Park WI, Hatton Combined Charity and Hatton Joint Organisation. We are grateful to have met lots of wonderful people keen to support our fundraising endeavours.

Matched Funding – we have had ongoing support from the team at Handelsbanken Leamington Spa Branch and Irwin Mitchell. We are keen to find more individuals within the Ferncumbe family to support us with events. Please spread the word!

Easyfundraising – an easy way to contribute to school via your weekly shop, booking a holiday or doing a bit of online retail therapy. We have 42 individuals signed up and have a number of our committee in the top 10 contributors and would encourage everyone to sign up!

How Funds Have Been Used

We have been able to support the following projects and initiatives across school:

Looking Ahead

Our plans for this coming year

We are always open to new ideas, and we would love to welcome new members to the committee or event teams. Every bit of help, no matter how small, makes a big difference.

Thank you’s

I would like to say a huge thank to our committee volunteers who generously give their time and commitment to make our events and activities possible. Your dedication, energy, and support create meaningful experiences for our school families. Thank you to Mal, Jen, Ellen, Monica, Lucy, Jo, Gemma C, Laura, Gemma S, Tamara, Teri. There are a number of parents and grandparents who regularly provide help at our events - thank you for your continued support. A special thank you to Lucy for continuing to be the glue between Friends and school and to Tamson and Anna in our school office who are always on hand to support our work in school and help us communicate with our school families.

Thank you to all our school families who hopefully find our steady stream of whatsapp messages helpful - reminders to buy tickets, bring in Easter eggs, requests for raffle prizes - I could go on all night!

Here’s to another fantastic year ahead with the aim of improving communication and being more efficient whilst having lots of fun!

Treasurer’s report - 2024/2025 Financial Summary (1[st] Sept 2024 – 31[st] August 2025)

The Friends of Ferncumbe committee Treasurer is pleased to report a record breaking 2024/2025 financial year in terms of income received, which in-turn has enabled significant funding capabilities to the Ferncumbe C of E Primary school to support key enrichment initiatives.

The starting financial position for the 2024/2025 Academic year was as follows, with no liabilities carried forward from the previous year:

HSBC Bank Account Balance: £7,489.90 Paypal Balance: £56.63

Total: £7546.53

During the 2024/2025 academic year Friends of Ferncumbe received a total of £35,821.40 income made up from £31,795.68 receipts into the committee bank account, together with £4025.72 via Paypal income.

Outgoings in relation to all payments, funding requests and reimbursement for event related costs for the year totalled £31,359.15 (£27,608.27 Bank Acct debits + £3750.88 Paypal debits).

A reporting profit therefore of £4462.25 was reported for the year.

A number of year-on-year fund raising events proved once again to be successful, attracting good returns to the overall income generated and separately enjoyed by all. New events were also held proving to be highly successful such as a Spring Raffle, Christmas Wreath making and more lately a sponsored Colour Run which significantly enhanced the fundraising profits achieved across the year. In addition to the standard monies raised from the ever popular quiz night and newly introduced Christmas wreath making event, Friends of Ferncumbe also benefitted from vital local employer match funding receipts which helped maximise the income generated. This continues to be a vital opportunity to enhance fund raising capabilities and as a direct result of dedicated event volunteers in order to secure.

A high-level summary of the fund-raising events held during the academic year including profit generated can be seen as follows:

Event Proft
ColourRun* 3190.19
Rags 2 Riches 185.17
Break The Rules 403.05
Spring Rafe 1806.79
FundRaisin 377.43
EasterBingo 485.82
Wren Hall Teas 1089.67
Quiz Night 1193.19
Xmas Cards
Commission		 161.00
Xmas Wreath Making 1237.78
Teddy ZipWire 233.80
Xmas Fun Day 400.25
Halloween Disco 181.26
Summer BBQ 594.83
Estate Agent Boards** 500

*Excludes match funding contributions (£934) received outside of reporting year and will be included in the 2025/2026 financial return.

**Whilst the event itself was held during 2023/2024 reporting period the commissions received fell during the 2024/2025 reporting period and hence referenced here.

Separately to specific events held across the year a focused drive targeting local businesses and grant applications dedicated to securing extensive funding for a one-off playground regeneration proved an unbelievable success. This was testament to the dedication, time and efforts from committee members to strategise, plan and execute against this initiative and extremely generous donations received in order to achieve the overall target set out.

Due to the ongoing support and generosity Friends of Ferncumbe received throughout the year supporting key events and the playground project coupled with a healthy balance carried forwards from 2023/2024 reporting period the committee was able to fund enrichment initiatives to the sum of £27,474.91 that have and will continue to benefit the entire school. For context this sum was over four times the amount contributed to school funding requests during 2023/2024 (£6787.88).

The following donations were made to school during 2024/2025:

Descripton £
Music enrichment 4200.00
Class Xmas coaches 1185.00
Playground Enhancement 21228.64
Year 6 Leaver Teddy bears 100.00
Tuf Trays 140.00
Year 6 Leaver Hoodies 270.00
Xmas class gifs 351.27

The Friends of Ferncumbe bank balance as at 31[st] August 2024 was £11,677.31 together with a Paypal balance of £331.47. Two financial liabilities are carried into the 2025/2026 year following agreement to support a recent funding request of a new forest school volunteer, equating to £1,326.32. A further 50% of the Colour Run profits (£1,595) are ringfenced to donate to One World Link. This results in a total across both the bank and PayPal account of £9,087.46 being carried forward into the 2025/2026 Financial Year.

Friends of Ferncumbe look forward to another year of successful fundraising activities to support the school in valuable funding needs and would like to thank all those that have supported the charity over the last 12 months, families, friends, sponsors, local businesses, charitable trusts and the Parish Council. A significant mention however to the Friends of Ferncumbe Committee members together with volunteers who helped give up significant time and effort to organise, promote and hold key fundraising events which once again have proved a huge success.

CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLANO ANO WAIES Receipts and payments accounts CC16a For the period To Section A Receipts and payments Unrestricted Restricted funds Endowrnent Total funds La¥tyear tr•lh• n•AMJt É kn th• n•arwtÉ toth? nearvst£ toth• nDar•st£ tothe nearoStÉ A1 Re¢elpt$ Grants and ttonaNons Ev•nt Ineom• 20,3S0 13.067 20JSg 1S,462 10,334 Sub total(Gross income for AR) 35,821 13,834 A2 Assat and in￿Stm*nt sal•s. ($00 table}. Sub totsl 34226 1.595 35,821 13,834 A3 Pa￿nts se￿ fundlno prlects Event expendSture Insurance Website hosting fees Bank choryes 28.101 3,376 162 197 3,376 162 197 2,791 160 60 Sub totsl 9,799 A4 Asset and investm•nt purchaseg.1¥8e table) Sub total 32,600 32,6TrJ 9,799 Net of recelpts/{payn7ents) A5 Transf•rs b0tw••n funds A6 ¢a$h funds last year end Cash funds this year end 1.626 1.S9S 3221 035 7.547 9.173 7,547 10,768 3.S12 7,547 1.595 CCXX R1 ISSI 09ffj6r2028

Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period Unr85trict8d lund$ Re5triGt8d fvnds to n•ar8¥t£ Endowmènt fund5 Categories Dètails B1 Cash funds 8M41 1.05 332 Total cash funds ,173 1,595 Unwe5trict•d funds Re$trl¢ted funds Endowmant funds Details to near•8t £ Ftsnd towhkh rrwiv•lu• Det<irls Cost I￿Ona￿ B3 Invostment assets Fund tr*whK Curr4ntvalufr Ilonal DÈtatls C•st lopyrj 84 Assets retslned for the harltys own use i-111- du• V1h￿ due DeEails B5 Liabilities 1.595 Sign8d byona or Irustees on b8h81fof all the trustses Date of roval SvJnatur8 Print Name HOWARD LANCASHIRE 2510512026 DANIELLE COE 2510512028 CCXX R2 accounts ISSI 0910612026

Independent Examiner's Report to the Trustees of The New Friends of Ferncumbe School 1997

I report to the charity trustees on my examination of the accounts of the charity for the year ended 31 August 2025 which are set out on the attached Charity Commission form CC16a.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the charity’s trustees you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’).

Having satisfied myself that the accounts of the charity are not required to be audited under Part 16 of the 2006 Act and are eligible for independent examination, I report in respect of my examination of the charity’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the Act and in carrying out my examination I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent examiner's statement

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:

  1. accounting records were not kept in respect of the charity as required by section 130 of the Act; or

  2. the accounts do not accord with those records; or

  3. the accounts do not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a ‘true and fair view’ which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination.

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Signed:

Name: Brian Jukes FCA CTA

Address: 46 Shrewley Common, Shrewley, Warwick CV35 7AW

Date: 25[th] May 2026