2022-11-30-accounts

TRUSTEE AND DIRECTOR ’ S REPORT

Year ending 2022 Dilston Physic Garden

Corbridge Northumberland , NE455QZ

07879 533875 [e-mail]

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Dilston Physic Garden Trustee Report

Year ending 30 November 2022

Dilston Physic Garden continues to flourish, progressing its educational and research aims and achieving income to support this. A sustainable income and increased workforce would be beneficial to help sustain the charity and continue its educational aims into the future.

This is the Dilston Physic Garden Trustee Report for the financial year ending 30 November 2022. The aim of this report is to list the charity’s activities, developments, finances and concerns over the 2022 year.

OUR MISSION

The Dilston Physic Garden charity was set up for the sole purpose of education for the public benefit. Scientifically verified plant medicine, health education, wellbeing and conservation are at the heart of Dilston.

Our vision is to raise awareness of the benefits of science-backed

• Medicinal plants, that when taken as plant medicine carry few if any side-effects to treat common ailments and as an adjunct to general medicine

• Foodstuff medicinal plants as essential preventative medicine that is vital to maintain health and prevent disease

• Medicinal plant chemistry as a source of medical drugs

• Utilisation of the natural world and tranquil outdoor environments as a key facet to support the population’s mental wellbeing

We aim to contribute to, and raise awareness of, the significant scientific research showing plant medicine is safe and efficacious, and so help bridge the gap that has grown between plant medicine and general medicine.

Our mission includes heightening public awareness and increasing public engagement in the

• natural world and conservation of it

• importance of biodiversity

• growing and using of medicinal plants especially in urban areas

• study plant medicine, scientific research, botany and conservation

The charity’s vision is to spread this knowledge to the public, community groups, schools and educational institutions in order to reduce the incidence of physical and mental disease, thereby lowering the burden on the NHS and improving the long-term health and mental well-being of humankind.

Creating a financially sustainable business is key to enable the Dilston Physic Garden charity to achieve this vision.

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WE ACCOMPLISH OUR MISSION BY

• Maintaining a physic garden open to the public containing over 700 medicinal plants, each with a signboard detailing the history, plant medicine and science and with a specific focus on plant medicine for the mind and brain

• Providing the public, community groups, schools, colleges and universities with an expanded program of onsite tours, talks, trails, workshops and courses centred on plant medicine and mental wellbeing

• Providing a Foundation in Plant Medicine course to educate the public on maintaining health with plant medicine

• Projects such as our Help Children Flourish campaign raising funds to expand facilities to offer curriculum tailored workshops and material for schools, colleges and universities

• Collaborating with local schools, community organisations and groups, giving talks and providing information to help create a Plant Medicine Outreach Program to increasing on site and outreach talks and presentations to visitors and community centres and groups in the North East region.

• Reviewing and expanding physic garden information available onsite and online targeted to plant medicine and mental health interests and needs

• Providing a Dispensary of Plant Medicine to ensure an awareness of the effective use of plant medicine, with medical herbalists registered with the National Institute of Medical Herbalists

• Maintaining a program of residencies focused on the natural world, plant medicine and mental wellbeing to expand public workshops and opportunities to connect with the wider community

• Continue and expand scientific research into plant medicine for the brain by collaboration with universities and organisations, from pilot studies to randomised controlled clinical trials, including University of Durham and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

FINANCIAL REPORT

• The financial summary is at the end of this document.

• Admissions and Shop Sales were up from the previous year £33k compared to £27k yearend 2021. Top selling items, aside from trade sales, were :

• Admission Adult £8,182.20

• Grow Your Own Physic Garden Book £1,177.91

• Admission Season Pass £15 £1,110.00

• Magical Botanical Book £1,064.93

• Spiced Cacao £890.00

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• The reserve for year-end 2022 was up £5K from 2021 to £30K. This reserve includes the funding for the ongoing clinical trial, leaving £20K contingency.

• Our expenditure was relatively in line with previous years (please refer to summary tables of income and spend at the end of this document for more detail). Consultancy for managing director, horticulturalist and garden maintenance totalled £44,500K in 2022.

• The charity is currently reliant on a limited number of generous donors and volunteers.

• It is still in need of a larger workforce in order to maintain it and to develop the charity’s mission and in order to create a sustainable business. The charity requires a higher income, funding or donations to allow this.

ITEMS

• The Memory trial was started in the spring. Pilot explorative scientific studies included Sleep-Dreaming-Altered-States and other memory pilot studies continue.

• The new website continues to be updated so it can continue to bloom with educative information about plant medicine for the public. The Physic Shop online, developed in March 2020, continues to develop to achieve its mission of helping provide science based botanical products, plant medicine and of helping to generate a sustainable income stream for the charity.

• The Foundation in Plant Medicine 2022 course was fully booked and received excellent feedback. We continue to provide this course as a ‘grow your own medicine’ course to inspire and educate on the health benefits of medicinal plants.

• The test Tea Plantation was established thanks to a generous donor in 2019, and subsequent donations in 2020 and 2021, to assist in making the charity a more sustainable business and to provide locally grown, fresh, scientifically standard botanical products. It has progressed substantially over the year, with the development of a test stripes of Tea Plantation and with a consultant gardener post and horticulture apprenticeship the WFGA.

• DPG Teas are designed and developed by pharmacognosist Dr Nicolette Perry for the physic garden, alongside a team of volunteers who harvest, dry, process, blend and pack the teas. Most of the botanicals are grown in the tea plantation were possible. The teas are rooted in the science of what they do, and serve not only to develop an income stream, but also to increase the awareness of science behind plant medicine and how to take plant medicine effectively. Our current range of science-backed botanical teas includes: Calm, Sleep, Happy, Memory, Inspire, Pain and Physic. Each tea packet has an important ‘Did you Know’ caution labels which have been designed to raise the awareness of:

• a) Medicinal plants with science based medicinal effect

• b) the fact that there is a medicinal level to take in order for plant medicine to be efficacious.

• c) the importance of consulting a NIMH medical herbalist when taking a plant medicine at a medicinal level if pregnant, taking medication, with any medical condition or allergy, or if taking a plant medicine for the first time, and in order to ensure the correct

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prescription for the individual that gets to the root of the problem – the key asset of plant medicine.

• Tinctures and other products made from DPG botanicals provide the public with scientific quality Traditional Plant Medicine products and also help build a sustainable income. Our current range of medicinal products includes Digest Tincture, Echinacea & Honey Tincture, Elderberry Tincture, Valerian Tincture. Other products also help bring income, such as Smudge Sticks, Face Creams and Happy, Lavender and Calm Balm Sprays.

• Hire of our Herbology House Classroom and/or the whole garden for workshops and events continues to help as an income stream. However, access, hot water, insulation, access for winter hire, adequate covered space outdoors and adequate space for school groups continue to be an ongoing issue that is pending funding.

• Instagram and Facebook continue as DPG’s predominant social media platforms alongside our annual newsletter to 1700 contacts enabling us to share information on the physic garden and science backed medicinal plants in more regularly regular posts. This helped to increase visitor numbers, raise education by an increased number of posts and newsletters.

• Reaching schools/education continues through the development of an outreach programme and an educational children’s game app is underway and awaiting completion as time allows, led by a head teacher, NIMH medical herbalist, pharmacognosist and programmer and through links with a local school to pilot the scheme.

• Children's Potion Club continues to prove popular and is run successfully by NIMH medical herbalist Davina Hopkinson.

• Junior Herbalist Club, one and two years courses, run by Davina Hopkinson in association with the NIMH, has proven very popular and continues to encourage and inspire children into the world of medicinal plants.

• Volunteers continue to play an essential role in the existence, growth and development of the physic garden. We are still in need of many more volunteers to assist with gardening/horticulture, to attend to The Physic Shop, to open the garden more per week and to assist in the botanical harvesting and preparations. We also require volunteers for several other key and fundamental roles such as book-keeping, fund-raising, social media communications, administration, management, front of house management, volunteer management, videography, accounting and marketing.

• Declarations; The Physic Shop sells products from trustee Ross Menzie ‘Heavenly Herbs’ and trustee and pharmacognosist Nicolette Perry ‘BrainBalms’. One trustee is employed on a full-time consultancy basis and the total consultancy for year-end 2022 was £37.7K which is an increase in the number of hours from £35K for year-end 2021.

• The managing director continues to manage the scientific research and oversee trial management, the administration and execution of the physic garden and shop, charity governance, health & safety, residencies and the FPM course. This does not include voluntary hours. This role is employed on a consultancy basis.

• The assistant manager appointed in 2020 continued to work 2-3 days per week and assist with customer service, marketing, physic shop, online sales, charity governance, health &

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safety, grant applications, events/workshops and volunteer management. This role is employed on a consultancy basis.

• The weatherproof Sitooterie shelter has proved helpful and is utilised by school and group visits.

• The Physic Garden relies on volunteers. This is apparent in the following, which shows the time/work completed by volunteers, that would otherwise be an additional outgoing cost. Gardening (30 hrs per week), harvesting and botanical preparation (20 hours per week), shop (20 hour per week), scientific research and development / presentations (5hr/wk)

• Business development: The charity’s aim is to become sustainable in order to educate into the future. It aims to diversify its income streams to help enable future sustainability beyond relying on donations. We plan to continue to work towards this in 2023 by continuing to develop our ‘Tea Plantation’, expanding and stream-lining our product range and by increasing marketing as possible to target visitor numbers and venue hire.

• Our Policies & Procedures, Safeguarding + Health & Safety documents were kept up to date throughout the year and all necessary legislative changes were implemented. Health and Safety of our team, volunteers and customers is paramount. An External Examiner’s report on the accounts was obtained and submitted as required by the charity commission.

• Risk assessments were completed for venue hire, school visits, visitors and volunteers.

• There were no serious incidents.

• Emails were collected for our Database from forms located in the physic shop and on our website. Information collected was stored according to Data Protection, is used for 12-24 newsletters a year and stored for 2-4 years.

• New garden areas such as the Time Space Zone remain to be finalised.

• Trustee Meetings to be scheduled - updating, raising items and addressing roles and giving due diligence to the new requirements for accountability in terms of individual roles input.

• Amenities, space, facilities and staff continue to be an issue: a lack of space, limited amenities and basic facilities limits and impacts our current reach (such as 1 WC, no disabled facilities, small classroom space with limited capacity, carpark size and lane and path access, electricity, water and electricity independence), a Fund-raising Trustee, PR and Marketing Trustee and Book-keeping Trustee need to be appointed to maximise business economy and growth. Business report analysis could be significantly aided by a volunteer or trustee which would allow for productive analysis of revenue streams, costs and moreover grant funding availability.

• An increase marketing budget would assist in raising awareness and in growing visitor numbers and workshops to schools to expand the reach of educative information.

• We continue to endeavour to build engagement with community groups and other groups such as drug rehabilitation groups, autism groups, other mental health groups, asylum seekers and schools.

• The Physic Garden continues to receive very positive and kind feedback, though it is appreciated that we lack volunteer support to maintain the whole site to the standard we would wish and all the plant collections to a high standard at any one time.

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• Writing and working on relevant Grant/fund proposals is ongoing, though lacks personnel support. All proposals incorporate the issues highlighted above and below and aim to help achieve our mission of education by increased public and educational reach :

• Improve visitor facilities 2x WC incl. wheelchair access and weatherproof/light current WC.

• Carpark - streamlining use of Top-up Carpark (shared with Dilston Scouts) – with its flat (as opposed to steep incline) for all event/workshop visitors (due to confusion access for workshop) and potentially all parking. Surface underfoot.

• Access lane down private scout lane still needs resolving.

• Current visitor carpark and lane surface hogging - currently impassable in heavy rain.

• Paths replace all garden grass and gravel paths to enable safe all-weather surface.

• Pathways expanded to allow wheelchair access to most areas

• Amenities: transfer of all amenities to enable independence as a charity from DMH (see below); would require significant cost to separate supplies.

• Signage - end lanes / garden entrance signs need updating. Brown signs on road - a significant number of visitors (25%) are getting lost and arriving frustrated!

9. Children’s area and items and information signboards

1. Educational outreach: combined with increasing in-house education, aim to find funding to increase reach into more schools/groups unable to visit to DPG with program of innovative practical information.

2. Funding for salaries for fund-raiser, accountant, managerial assistant and gardeners.

Financial Summary

Dilston Physic Garden Limited Profit and Loss Comparison December 2021 - November 2022

Income Admission & Shop Sales Income Consultation Income Do Not Use PayPal Shop Sale Transfer Do Not Use Shop Cash Income Do Not Use Shop Sale Transfer Donations and legacies DPG Product Stockist Foundation Course Refund On Goods Purchased & Returned Sales of Product Income School Visit School Visit Income Services Uncategorised Income Venue Hire	Total
	Dec 2021- Nov 2022 Dec 2020 - Nov 2021 (PY)
	33,205.11 27,662.54 305.00 0.00 0.00 2,263.31 0.00 5,872.00 0.00 905.38 29,325.00 24,170.00 3,368.80 1,679.24 10,276.00 5,763.32 9.90 4.76 235.97 0.00 217.00 0.00 -133.52 0.00 136.00 20.00 85.64 0.00 3,016.99 3,176.99

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Workshop Income BBB Total Income Cost of Sales Cost of sales Foundation course tutor cost Product Materials Shop Outsourced Stock Supplies and materials - COS Total Cost of Sales Gross Profit Expenses Accounts Companies House Register Advertising/Promotional Book-keeping Clinical Trial Computer Costs Conference Attended Consultants Development Asset Addition to Garden Development Item Product Development Item Service Garden Plants and Equipment Insurances Office/General Administrative Expenditures Office/General Administrative Expenses Other Professional Services Phone Costs Printing, Postage and Stationery Repair & Maintenance Signboard Update and Repair Travel and Accommodation Uncategorised Expense Volunteer Expenses Website Total Expenses Net Operating Income Other Expenses Reconciliation Discrepancies Total Other Expenses Net Other Income Net Income	479.50 310.00
	£ 80,527.39 £ 71,827.54 12.50 0.00 3,000.00 2,975.00 6,965.80 7,263.00 2,610.81 4,747.41 595.13 0.00
	£ 13,184.24 £ 14,985.41
	£ 67,343.15 £ 56,842.13 13.00 13.00 194.40 411.60 57.60 0.00 23.12 0.00 0.00 949.00 292.61 0.00 44,463.49 35,250.61 110.59 4,311.36 4,412.20 2,367.00 0.00 3,858.65 1,096.23 93.59 1,136.53 708.11 60.00 0.00 2,353.93 4,542.89 563.00 960.00 411.84 347.66 576.91 626.32 584.94 690.14 1,573.08 936.18 -280.83 0.00 0.00 85.20 123.44 0.00 41.09 19.34
	£ 57,807.17 £ 56,170.65
	£ 9,535.98 £ 671.48 44.86 0.00
	£ 44.86 £ 0.00
	-£ 44.86 £ 0.00
	£ 9,491.12 £ 671.48

Monday, Sep 25, 2023 03:58:59 pm GMT+1 - Cash Basis

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Management Report

Dilston Physic Garden Limited For the period ended 31 December 2023

Prepared on 25 September 2023

For management use only

Table of Contents

Profit and Loss ................................................................................................................................................3 Balance Sheet .................................................................................................................................................5

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Profit and Loss

December 2021 - November 2022

Profit and Loss December 2021 - November 2022
	Total
INCOME
Admission & Shop Sales Income	33,205.11
Consultation Income	305.00
Donations and legacies	29,325.00
DPG Product Stockist	3,368.80
Foundation Course	10,276.00
Refund On Goods Purchased & Returned	9.90
Sales of Product Income	235.97
School Visit	217.00
School Visit Income	-133.52
Services	136.00
Uncategorised Income	85.64
Venue Hire	3,016.99
WorkshopIncome BBB	479.50
Total Income	80,527.39
COST OF SALES
Cost of sales	12.50
Foundation course tutor cost	3,000.00
Product Materials	6,965.80
Shop Outsourced Stock	2,610.81
Supplies and materials - COS	595.13
Total Cost of Sales	13,184.24
GROSS PROFIT	67,343.15
EXPENSES
Accounts Companies House Register	13.00
Advertising/Promotional	194.40
Book-keeping	57.60
Clinical Trial	23.12
Conference Attended	292.61
Consultants	44,463.49
Development Asset Addition to Garden	110.59
Development Item Product	4,412.20
Garden Plants and Equipment	1,096.23
Insurances	1,136.53
Office/General Administrative Expenditures	60.00
Office/General Administrative Expenses	2,353.93
Other Professional Services	563.00
Phone Costs	411.84
Printing, Postage and Stationery	576.91
Repair & Maintenance	584.94
Signboard Update and Repair	1,573.08
Travel and Accommodation	-280.83
Volunteer Expenses	123.44
Website	41.09

3/5

Dilston Physic Garden Limited

	Total
Total Expenses	57,807.17
NET OPERATING INCOME	9,535.98
OTHER EXPENSES
Reconciliation Discrepancies	44.86
Total Other Expenses	44.86
NET OTHER INCOME	-44.86
NET INCOME	£9,491.12

4/5

Dilston Physic Garden Limited

Balance Sheet

As of November 30, 2022

Balance Sheet As of November 30, 2022
	Total
FIXED ASSET
Tangible assets
Fixtures and Fittings Cost	34,000.00
Other Tangible Assets	1,500.00
Total Tangible assets	35,500.00
Total Fixed Asset	35,500.00
CASH AT BANK AND IN HAND
Checking (9638)	36,342.52
Total Cash at bank and in hand	36,342.52
NET CURRENT ASSETS	36,342.52
CREDITORS: AMOUNTS FALLING DUE WITHIN ONE YEAR
Current Liabilities
Accruals	3,000.00
Total Current Liabilities	3,000.00
Total Creditors: amounts falling due within oneyear	3,000.00
NET CURRENT ASSETS(LIABILITIES)	33,342.52
TOTAL ASSETS LESS CURRENT LIABILITIES	68,842.52
TOTAL NET ASSETS (LIABILITIES)	£68,842.52
CAPITAL AND RESERVES
Prior year adjustment	8,642.92
Retained Earnings	50,708.48
Profit for theyear	9,491.12
Total Capital and Reserves	£68,842.52

5/5

Dilston Physic Garden Limited

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