OpenCharities

This text was generated using OCR and may contain errors. Check the original PDF to see the document submitted to the regulator.

2021-06-30-accounts

Trustees’ Annual Report 2020-21

Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue

Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue Trustees’ Annual Report 2020-21

This report covers the financial year beginning 1[st] July 2020 and ending 30[th] June 2021.

Contents Contents Contents
1 Registration and trustees ................................................................................................................ 2
2 Structure and management ............................................................................................................ 3
2.1 Governing document .............................................................................................................. 3
2.2 How the charity is constituted ................................................................................................ 3
2.3 National governing body ......................................................................................................... 3
2.4 Trustee selection methods ..................................................................................................... 3
2.5 Charitable objective ................................................................................................................ 3
3 Activities, achievements and performance .................................................................................... 4
3.1 Overall picture......................................................................................................................... 4
3.2 Callouts.................................................................................................................................... 4
3.3 Fundraising .............................................................................................................................. 4
3.4 Recruitment and membership ................................................................................................ 5
3.5 Training ................................................................................................................................... 5
3.6 Team changes ......................................................................................................................... 7
3.7 Outlook ................................................................................................................................... 8
3.8 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 8
4 Financial review ............................................................................................................................ 10
4.1 Reserves policy ...................................................................................................................... 10
4.2 Independently examined accounts ....................................................................................... 10
5 Declaration .................................................................................................................................... 10
Appendix A
Summary of accounts.................................................................................................... 11
Appendix B
Independent Examiner’s report .................................................................................... 13
Appendix C
Reserves policy .............................................................................................................. 15

Page 1 of 15

Trustees’ Annual Report 2020-21

Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue

1 Registration and trustees

Charity name:
Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue
Charity name:
Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue
Charity name:
Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue
Charity name:
Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue
Other names known by:
CamSAR
Registered charity number:
1118622
Principal address: Unit 1
Mount Pleasant Industrial Estate
Pymoor, Ely
CB6 2DY
Trustees:
Name
Office
(if any)
Dates acted if
not wholeyear
Person/body entitled
to appoint trustee
BarryCarter Chair AGM(term 2019-21)
Paul Barry Vice Chair Trustees(28/5/20);AGM(term 2020-22)
Kristine McLaughlin Secretary To 21 Sep2020 AGM(term 2019-21,resigned)
Louise Wyatt Secretary From 21 Sep2020 Trustees(until next AGM)
Sebastian Palmer Treasurer AGM(terms 2017-19,2019-21)
Stephen Hobbs AGM(term 2019-21)
Matt Brocklebank AGM(term 2019-21)
Lee Sustins To 16 Sep2020 AGM(term 2018-20)
GaryTyler To 16 Sep2020 AGM(term 2018-20)
GillyBamber From 16 Sep2020 AGM(term 2020-22)

Annual General Meeting 2020 was held on Wednesday 16[th] September 2020.

Trustees at end of the reporting period are shown in red.

Page 2 of 15

Trustees’ Annual Report 2020-21

Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue

2 Structure and management

2.1 Governing document

CamSAR is governed by a constitution, adopted 1[st] August 2006 and subsequently amended on 6[th] January 2013, 30[th] October 2014, 29[th] November 2018 and 24[th] September 2019.

2.2 How the charity is constituted

CamSAR is a registered charity constituted as an unincorporated association.

2.3 National governing body

CamSAR is a member unit of Lowland Rescue, registered charity number 1150317.

2.4 Trustee selection methods

The Trustees are the members of the Executive Committee as described in the constitution, which consists of between 3 and 8 members, including the Chair, Secretary and Treasurer (the officers) and a Vice Chair. Trustees are elected at General Meeting for a term length of 2 years.

The trustees may also appoint new trustees and officers subject to conditions set in the constitution. One such appointment did occur in this reporting period, with a term until the next AGM.

2.5 Charitable objective

CamSAR’s objective, as stated in the constitution, is:

The provision of search and rescue assistance, both independently and in association with the full-time emergency services and other voluntary aid societies, and to assist in the relief of suffering amongst persons endangered by accident or natural hazard and the preservation of life, principally in Cambridgeshire but without geographical limitation.

Consequently, CamSAR’s primary role is as a specialist search and rescue team, called by Cambridgeshire Constabulary to plan, manage and undertake searches for high-risk vulnerable missing people. CamSAR trains its members to national (Lowland Rescue) standards as Search Managers, Search Operations Managers, Search Planners, Team Leaders and Search Technicians, and maintains equipment and several vehicles necessary to perform this role.

Page 3 of 15

Trustees’ Annual Report 2020-21

Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue

3 Activities, achievements and performance

Chairperson’s report to AGM, 22 September 2021

3.1 Overall picture

The last 12 months have seen the team make progress in several key areas for which we should be proud of achieving, especially given the ongoing backdrop of the pandemic restrictions that have been in place for most of it. The following will attempt to summarise our status and team developments.

3.2 Callouts

In total the team responded to 73 calls for assistance which included 40 missing persons searches requested of us by 10 different Police Search Advisors (PolSAs). These were marked by the particularly notable 3 days of searches in and around Ely in July last year (2020), 4 days of searches in South Lincolnshire for a murdered teenager during September 2020 and 3 days of searching for a high-risk missing male from Cambourne in November 2020. Two were for children. In addition, there were also three calls for mutual assistance to support searches being conducted in Northamptonshire.

Of the searches we attended in our county, 22 were classed primarily as suicidal, 8 as despondent, 4 suffering with mental illness and 2 of these were for dementia.

As well as completing the third-sector deliveries of food in July 2020 that dominated our work of the previous year, we also provided 8 days of support to the COVID vaccination roll in Huntingdon.

In total we gave over 2,468 volunteer hours to supporting various incidents in the community.

3.3 Fundraising

It has been comforting that the management and oversight of the life blood to all that we do as a charity has been well managed by Seb Palmer as Treasurer with good support from Gilly Bamber as our Fundraising Champion. Their diligence and eye for detail has been key to the team currently being strong financially, despite us weathering the storm of the pandemic which made finding funds a challenge.

Our new Fundraising Team that we put together this year with direction by Gilly has achieved impressive success with grant applications that enabled to purchase another drone, six thermal scopes and the inflatable rescue sled. We had the memorable 19 mile “Pauline’s Pedal for Pounds” bike ride and we still managed to get out in the Santa sleigh to spread some much-needed joy to many in Soham, Little Downham, Pymoor, Milton, Waterbeach and Landbeach. Of course, we could not go knocking on doors at Christmas, but funds were still raised – including online donations - but importantly much joy and Christmas spirit was taken to grateful communities after lengthy periods of lockdown. Finally, at the end of May we were out supporting the Cambridgeshire 100/60/35 bike event with 21 marshals. We hope that the current year continues to offer up fundraising opportunities for us that not only help to raise important funds but also raise our profile to those hitherto unaware of our existence. Next year we should hopefully have the Cambridgeshire County Show, Thriplow Daffodil Weekend and the Land Rover Show back in our events calendar.

In total we gave over 381 volunteer hours to fundraising at 25 different events, though again in truth this is a fraction of that spent as far much more time is not recorded on D4H that goes on grant form-filling, maintaining our events stand, planning bike marshal points and Santa sleigh routes. We

Page 4 of 15

Trustees’ Annual Report 2020-21

Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue

had 15 members spending more than 10 hours in the year on fundraising (of which four did more than 20 hours).

3.4 Recruitment and membership

The overall numbers of operational members remain about the same despite efforts to expand membership to around 60. As such, we have completed another three (3) rounds of recruitment (in November, January, and April) but with natural member attrition these have generally continued to only result in us keeping to about the same team size.

Candidate Evenings and Interviews

Although we had successfully rolled out a schedule of regular candidate open day sessions with groups of potential candidates looking to join the team, COVID forced us to adapt this to being just remote evening presentations, with Q&As and interview sessions with different existing team members. In general, these have worked quite well and have allowed Simon Hale to maintain the well-structured and delivered training programme and provide us with a good standard of trained Search Technician – for which again the team is grateful.

Membership Lead

It was unfortunate that Kris McLaughlin decided to resign from the team last September having helped to implement some good practices and procedures as well as provide guidance to the membership and Executive Committee as Secretary on many aspects. However, Louise Wyatt kindly stepped up to take on this role – and that of Secretary – and so it is pleasing that we can continue to help and support our members in any way that we can.

Status

The current position with team membership is:

3.5 Training

We undertook 126 separate training events of various types (compared to 86 last year and 67 the year before) and this could only be achieved by the time, effort, and dedication that our training team put into making these happen with its planning and delivery.

Online training has continued to play an increasing part in delivering and maintaining training. Whilst it will continue to be a useful medium going forward, it does not and cannot replace face-toface practical training sessions.

COVID

We have upheld the ever-changing COVID precautions throughout the year, and again have benefited from our Medical Champion keeping on top of the guidance and maintaining our approach in a practical safe way.

Medical

Our Medical workgroup has grown in strength and depth over the past year. There is now a good solid knowledge base in the team enabling us to provide varying degrees of pre-hospital care to casualties. A relationship with the third-party training and service provider CMS has meant that we

Page 5 of 15

Trustees’ Annual Report 2020-21

Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue

have started to be supported with medical support to us including the first batch of six team members successfully completing the intense FREC3 training that started in May and completed in June. Indeed, some of these folks have gone on to use this training in their careers which is good for them and the community.

Bike

A night-time training session was organised by Paul Barry for the bike team in conjunction with a MIAS Mountain Bike Instructor and it is great to have this search asset available to the team again – being deployed at the Cambourne search last November. Since then, they have also been used for various CPD sessions and resilience exercises as well as a good, dedicated session around Grafham Water.

K9

In August of last year, we joined the National Search and Rescue Dogs Association (NSARDA) and formed NSARDA Cambridgeshire as a new probationary team. Gilly Bamber and our two (2) trainee search dogs Pip and Penny (and their handlers) have trained for over 64 hours this year and we remain optimistic of them successfully qualifying in this coming year.

Kayak

Thanks to our Kayak Champion the kayak team have been training on ten weekday evenings through summer and working towards their Paddlecraft Search Technicians and Safety qualifications. He himself attended online and weekend training towards becoming our first Paddlecraft Search Instructor. Again, our kayaks have been out in support of bank search training and also been deployed on live searches again.

Drone

The training of four drone pilots was successfully completed by last October allowing us to deploy for daytime searches, and with the team now completing over 52 hours flying time and enough live deployments they will shortly be trained and assessed for night-flying operations. In addition, training is now also being planned with the police for our potential drone observers and the details of that will be made known shortly as soon as they become clear.

CPD Weekend

The CPD Weekend run over the weekend of 18-20 September last year was very well attended and proved a hit with all, its location, food, and organisation. The format worked well, and we were grateful to our hosts and allowing to get our practical team training back under way in a COVID compliant and friendly team environment.

Search Management

Seb Palmer successfully completed the Search Planner training albeit delayed through remote learning and final assessment, and myself and Gilly Bamber completed the Search Operations course held between January and February of this year (making me a fledgeling Search Manager for the future).

Planning with our police colleagues is always difficult given that they have a variable and unpredictable work schedule. However, it is agreed that we will be re-introducing regular postsearch reviews and involve more of the PolSAs than has hitherto been possible to date.

Page 6 of 15

Trustees’ Annual Report 2020-21

Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue

Team Leader

Finally, we are grateful to our trainers for teaching and mentoring five Search Technicians through their Team Leader training this year. Those will all have greatly benefited from his valuable knowledge and experience that he brings to the team.

3.6 Team changes

It is pleasing to report that the restructuring of the team into workgroups with workgroup champions for each area of operational expertise as well as the split of the Executive Committee and the Operations team that exactly 2 years ago in July 2019 we put into place continues to work well. I am most grateful for the input and support from the other Trustees for the help in managing the charity side of the team, its finances, its resourcing, its planning and reporting to the Charity Commission. This could only happen with the trust and faith in those running the operational side of the team and those workgroup champions looking after each of their areas of specialty.

Budgeting

With this re-focussing we have started to make significant inroads into getting the team to forecast and budget for its needs and objectives over the coming year – and beyond. The benefits of this at last mean that we can better manage our future and our growth as a team. We have started to see benefits in the form of having much clearer direction and intent shared with the team, and importantly share these strategies with the rest of the team.

Fundraising Team

Our dedicated fundraising team has worked miracles under the guidance of Gilly Bamber. They have managed to bring in key funds to the team.

Website

Thanks to support from Paul Barry and Simon Jones with the content we at last got our new-look website launched in this March. We must continue to actively its content to achieve its principal goals of fundraising and recruitment – which it certainly already has started to realise for us. We have an active social-media program in place and now also regularly keep our followers and supporters informed on team activities.

Sherp

A chance discussion with Buffaload after the flooding we had in Cambridgeshire around Christmas resulted in him offering the use of his amphibious Sherp vehicle. It resulted in some good press coverage for us in February, and the vehicle will shortly be located with us.

HQ – New Home

As you may all know as I have regularly reported on the progress before, the finding of a new base for the team has been one of my personal background projects for a while now. We clearly needed somewhere we can call our home, where we can consolidate our kit, training and bring our vehicles under cover from inclement weather (and prolong their lives). We almost signed up for a new build in the west of the county but chance discussions have meant that we now have a favourable tenancy of the Unit 1 building in Pymoor. We moved in during March and many of the team have pitched in to help to make it habitable for our needs. We particularly thank Steve Hobbs for his project management and a number of team members contribution of time to building improvement and vehicle upkeep. There is a lot more work we plan to do including fitting a new roof and motorising the shutter door and fitting out the upstairs office space for meetings and training. Though there’s a way to go with our building improvements, we plan to hold a small informal families and friends “house- warming” on October 11th that I hope you will join us for.

Page 7 of 15

Trustees’ Annual Report 2020-21

Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue

Fleet

I am happy that we decided to sell the ICU and RCV and that they have gone to a good home with our neighbouring probationary team in Lincolnshire. This will greatly help them on their way to hopefully becoming a full member team of Lowland Rescue.

Driver availability and the move to Pymoor also meant that the support of the CFRS with the MWU became unworkable and so we cancelled down the SLA that was in place with them.

However, I am extremely happy to report that as of yesterday we collected our new ICU from its fitout. The opportunity to have the vehicle arose out of another chance discussion with Anglian Water. After significant investment by both Anglian Water and the team, we now have a brand-new Vauxhall Movano control vehicle fully fitted out to our specification that included a commitment to support us with a 5-year service and repair arrangement (that includes tyres) that I hope will reliably meet the team needs for many years to come.

3.7 Outlook

The optimism shared with you all last year has proven to be well founded as the team has achieved some great things over the last 12 months. Our planning and perseverance have indeed started to bear fruit that see the team grow stronger and even more capable and effective.

We remain in a financially sound position when many teams and charities are not, though we must anticipate spending some of our reserves on upgrading the new CamSAR HQ as we continue to make it our own. We have found some good support from some local benefactors and the local community, though we must strive to not be over reliant on any individual or organisation to keep our flexibility and independence. We must not allow ourselves to get complacent in our fundraising efforts and we must always maintain our energies in this regard if we are to not only stand-still but continue to build, strengthen, and replenish the team in the years to come. We need to continue to be innovative in our fundraising ideas and relentless in the pursuit of willing sponsors and available grants.

What is next – well the Executive Committee have been exploring the feasibility of adding a flood rescue asset to the team. With a lot of water in our county at the best of times, but also the fact that we appear to be increasingly prone to large areas of flooding, then we would be remis to not consider the need to provide such a capability. Apart from being a significant investment for the team, there is an ongoing responsibility to maintain competency and readiness, and so we must be sure that we have the members able and willing to sustain it. It could not be a one-off round of spending and training to achieve followed by a loss of those skills and kit not being used. Only those serious need apply – and we may have to go outside of the team for its leadership and champion.

3.8 Conclusion

So, in conclusion I believe that the team has started to make some good progress this year. I apologise if I have missed any key event or achievement out, but please forgive me as there have been many. Even though several key objectives for me in my time this stint as Chair have been achieved, I believe that we are still deserving of achieving more. However, this relies on the engagement and commitment of the team. We should be optimistic of continuing to grow and develop – not just by numbers – but in knowledge, skill, and confidence.

Finally, I will of course take this opportunity to record my thanks to fellow Trustees for their continued counsel, support, and diligence in managing the charity – including Kris McLaughlin who stood down as a Trustee and left the team in March and Matt Brocklebank who stood down as

Page 8 of 15

Trustees’ Annual Report 2020-21

Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue

Trustee due to work commitments – both of whom gave valuable contributions to the team over the time spent with us.

Barry Carter, Chair, 22 September 2021

Page 9 of 15

Trustees’ Annual Report 2020-21

Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue

4 Financial review

4.1 Reserves policy

CamSAR has a reserves policy which is annexed to this report – see Appendix C

4.2 Independently examined accounts

CamSAR’s income during this period was £60,386 . Expenditure during this period was £56,572 , including £31,791 for the purchase and fit-out of assets including a new Incident Control Unit vehicle, four professional dual-camera drones for day and night aerial search, six thermal imaging scopes for use by ground teams on night searches, and a water rescue sled.

Within the above figures, income of £4,021 and expenditure of £994 are linked to CamSAR’s work in the COVID-19 pandemic emergency response as part of the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Local Resilience Forum. Between 31 March and 4 July 2020, CamSAR delivered PPE and food across the county; mileage was reimbursed by Cambridgeshire County Council. In early 2021, CamSAR assisted in the running of a COVID-19 vaccination centre for Huntingdonshire NHS primary care network.

Accounts have been prepared on the receipts-and-payments basis, and independently examined. These are annexed to this report, as is the Independent Examiner’s report – see Appendices A and B.

5 Declaration

The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.

Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees:

Signature(s)
Full name(s) Sebastian Palmer Barry Carter
Position(s) Treasurer Chairperson
Date 18 May 2022 19May 2022

Page 10 of 15

Crimbridgeshire Seorch and Rescue Trustees'Annuol Report 2020-21 Appendix A Summary of accounts CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALE5 Combridwhiro 5oorch and R￿cu0 11186ZZ Receipts and payments accounts CC16a LOWLAND RESCUE For the period from 01 July2020 To 30 Junè 2021 Section A Receipts and payments Unrestricted ds Restricted funds Endowment funds Total fut)ds La$1 yoar A1 Recei P￿blIC Donations Parish &T0￿cOun￿ HMRC R#lunds Cwy Dona￿￿ Police Donations CPLRF MilÈa9 Olh8rGraTht Fundir Police Mil8ag8 r& KItSe CFRS D8pIob￿￿S Team SUb￿lp￿￿5 AccwTht Interest InEura￿8 Payouls Marswliw Events TTainiThJ&￿￿9e5 TgarnbuildiTwEvFnl 1112.33 1S112.33 8.736.00 8.628.45 7.450.01 6.000.00 4021.38 3.299.00 17.8fj0.00 0.736.00 832.38 2.5QO.01 0.00 888.20 2.000.00 000.00 4.95D.DD 4.021. 3.299.DD 608.00 1.622.00 4.41&07 Y97.70 .00 S.41 997.70 0.00 5.41 1.588.50 755.00 82.46 1485.00 3.073.00 200.00 Sub to(al(Gross in¢omo for ARI 22.802AS 57.886.35 398.66 A2 Asset and investment sales. (see tablel_ 1500.00 1500.00 1500.00 2.500.00 Sub total Total receipts 27.583.90 2.802. .398.£6 A3Pa nts 7.522.11 8.243.39 3.235.72 7.183.25 1138.82 Vphi&¢ + M$ithWK HèadquÈrtars ctstÈ Team Krt 480.81 i.w.00 1.47&89 1.394.BS 1.875.67 1.569.00 4.47&89 51.94 640.00 967.20 PRArMI IT V8hid8 Tax + Chargj B¢itsl Kil CPLRF 923.27 994.25 1.677.02 40.464.IS 9M23 933.79 933.50 S7S.00 530.40 413.85 2MOO 37.50 933.79 933.50 575.00 530.40 129.80 2MOO 37.50 CFRS Deplo￿￿$ Sq425 270.70 Fundraising Costs Bike Re￿rS C￿DB5 Checks cOmu￿CatiOn￿ 113.60 284.05 Sub total 20.311.04 4069.34 24780.38 a167.20 A4 Asset and investment urchases see table 19A23.23 19.791.34 12.000.00 5Q8.90 6W¥O 541.98 12.W.00 Cofft￿ EqUi￿1￿￿tIOSUlI Sub total 113￿11 19A23.23 31.791.34 10.685.68 Totalpayments 32.679.15 23,892.57 56,571.72 38,851.98 Net of receipts1(payrnent51 A5 Transfers be￿¢•n funds A6 Cash funds last year end Cash funds this Y￿rend CCXX Rl accounts ISSI 4,9M75 1,090.11 3,814.63 9,545.7B 44415.64 49,320.39 3.140.68 2,050.58 47.556.32 51,370.95 38.010.54 47,556.32 2710412022 Page 11 of 15

Crimbridgeshire Seorch and Rescue Trustees'Annuol Report 2020-21 Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period Unrestricted funds to npllre51£ Restricted funds tV￿g￿re9t£ Endowment lunds lo nputv¥t£ B1 Cash funds HBld in malncurr8nt￿￿nt 2,B70.95 H8ld in sécondarycutrontaccount 500.00 Igld in 6svln9$ aCWunl 45.949.44 2.050.56 Total ¢a$h fund$ 49.320.39 2.D50.56 Iw9wbn￿5￿￿￿reC￿Pts 3nd p3ymenls Unrestrlcted fund5 noar•st£ Re5trlcted funds ton•ar88tÉ Endowrnent fund5 io rhoar•st£ Details 82 Other monetary assets Fundt0Wh￿h 47SSOt Won Costloptiona ¢urrInt￿￿o (option￿) Oetails B3 Investment assets Fundt(IwhKh D550t bdongs Costloptionn Curwpnt￿uv 84 Assets retained for the charity's own use Vehid8 UDro51nthd 2&32&42 ￿￿5￿k￿, sIFd, ￿￿er PPE Unrésthc iifjo.fjo nighlvision equipmonl 18.68141 EWprn￿t UDro51nGtwJ Imeo (Ih¢t Equiprn$nl UnrésthC￿I 25.581.73 Fundt(IwhKh 114blllty ￿￿•1$ loptknall 85 Liabilities Signed tyone or th trustee5 on behalf of all the tru5tee5 Date of Slgnawre Prini Name Sebastian Palrner 12/0.4/22 Barry Carter 13105122 XX R2 acrount51551 2710412Q22 Page 12 of 15

Trustees’ Annual Report 2020-21

Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue

Appendix B Independent Examiner’s report

Page 13 of 15

Crimbridgeshire Seorch and Rescue Trustees'Annuol Report 2020-21 Namè: Mark Yard Rèlèvant profèsslonal qualrfleatlon{sl or body lif anyl- Addr•ss: 35 The Eighls Marina, Mariners Way, Carnbridge C84 1ZA Section 8 Dis¢losur• Only cornplete If the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examinab'on of charity accounts.. directions and guidance for examiners). None to ieport. Give here brief detai15 of any Ittms that the •xamin•r wishes to disclos•. IER December 2017 Page 14 of 15

Trustees’ Annual Report 2020-21

Cambridgeshire Search and Rescue

Appendix C Reserves policy

Purpose

The reserves that we have set aside provide financial stability and the means for the development of our principal activity.

Policy

We intend to maintain our reserves at a level which is at least equivalent to the average over 4 years of our annual running operating expenditure (Opex) and the average over 4 years expenditure on capital items (Capex) (replacement of vehicles, drones and other large capital items). For simplicity in these calculations we round results to the nearest £10.

Summary at end of financial year 2020-21

Summary at end of financial year 2020-21
Element GBP
Operating reserve (average spend over last 4 years) 20610.00
Capital reserve (average spend over last 4 years) 15850.00
Additional reserve elements:

Set aside forpremises rental and establishment costs
10,000.00
Subtotal reserves 46,460.00
Restricted funds 2,050.00
Total 48,510.00

Review points

The Trustees review reserves required to ensure that they are adequate to fulfil our continuing obligations annually.

Page 15 of 15