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## Annual Report 2023
01/01/2023- 31/12/2023 Charity Number: 1122830
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'So then, just as you received Jesus Christ as Lord, continue to live in Him, **rooted** and **built up** in Him, **strengthened** in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with **thankfulness** .' - Colossians 2 : 6-7 Wherever we meet youth and children's ministry, of any size, whether it's brand new or well established, we want to help root it, build it up, strengthen it and give thanks for it. Our hope is that every bit of our own ministry will point towards these aims. We do this by running a variety of events, hosting weekends away, holding support groups and mentoring sessions, providing training, consultancy and more. 2023 saw the growth of ‘The Collective’, a group of youth leaders seeking unity and collaboration. Our ‘Illuminate’ events have grown from strength to strength. We continue to explore creative ways to encourage and resource ministry across our network. _We are committed to promoting the well-being of all young people, leaders and children through upholding the Safeguarding Policy_
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## Training
**Podcasts. Blogs and Vlogs:** 2023 was full of opportunities to encourage youth and kids leaders in a whole host of ways. We recorded some great podcasts including a challenging one as we tried to unpack the Soul Survivor story a bit, Joe Butler from YWAM was our guest. Mike continues to write a monthly blog and has lots of interest in this.
**Encouragement:** Mike led a retreat for Phase Hitchin and The Souster Youth Project, he also spent time with a church team to offer them support, training and insight.
**Special Delivery:** We know everyone loves post and so 267 continued to mail out physical 'encouragement packs' to various people. We delivered to youth leaders, young people, church leaders, kids workers, Uni students and the 267 team. While it was still incredibly difficult to meet face-to-face these little connecting points were hugely fruitful. **St Mellitus** : Mike also visited St Mellitus again which runs a training course for youth ministry. This year he is visiting twice to share about 'budgets and planning' and also 'creating a 10-year vision for youth ministry'
**National Youth Ministry Weekend** : This is a highlight of the year for the youth ministry tribe. We had a great time attending along with the STEP team. Lots of great input, conversations and team time.
YSE: Youthscape Essentials is an incredible piece of youth ministry training and in 2023/24 we partnered with Youthscape and St Albans Diocese to deliver this to 40+ leaders.
Mike and Lizzy also went on a coaching course called ‘Transforming Conversations’.
Mike also had the opportunity to go to the Church of England ‘Vocations Conference’ - this was to share with 60 church leaders about the importance of youth work.
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## Youth Ministry
**FUEL:** We went on tour again with Verso Vineyard, St Pauls and St Marks, hosting our Fuel events.
**The Haven** : A growing team, a growing need. The Haven went into more schools this year and even started looking into a ‘Haven Schools Course’ for primary schools. It was great to have Lizzy and Maddie on the team to really help Claire push into new spaces with the incredible Haven ministry. ‘Haven Taster’ Sessions have also been running in five secondary schools.
**The Collective and Illuminate:** Unity, collaboration and ‘tribe’ are key to our ministry and The Collective is a beautiful example of it. A bunch of leaders from different organisations and churches choosing to give time to something outside of their usual. We had Illuminate at Verso Vineyard which gathered 200 young people, we spent the evening playing games including glow-in-the-dark crazy golf, basketball, duck shooting, waffles and panna football. In the summer we had Illuminate Prom and in the autumn we hosted another Ninja Warrior event, both events really well attended and giving us more opportunities to build relationships.
**Prayer Summit:** In June we joined with 70 leaders from 33 youth organisations to pray and connect. It was an incredible time of unity.
**Residentials:** We had a New Years Houseparty with 32 young people, and 6 of the leaders were previous Houseparty attendees. The 678 weekend was our last at Felden Lodge (as it is closing), it was a weekend of mixed emotions, but also included the invention of ‘Whizzball’! We have been going to Felden for over 12 years and in that time we have run 30 residentials and taken 850 kids and young people away.
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**BOOM:** After an truly wonderful time away with the 3-4-5 age group at our March residential, we felt it important to gathers these guys again. So ‘Boom’ was born, it’s a little like a holiday club with a flavour of X:site and a weekend away put together. 14 kids from 3 churches came along and we really hope to do more of these events in the future.
**Residentials:** In 2023 we ran a hugely joy-filled weekend for school years 345. 25 kids and 12 leaders joined us at Felden Lodge. Felden is such a great venue and we shall miss it, but the kids loved our final trip. We hope to find a new venue for the future. **Gathering** : We still encourage kids workers out to our Tribe breakfasts. Even though we have a larger group of youth leaders we feel it is vital and great unity to gather all together often. **Year 6's** : We have noticed a lot of Year 6's coming to our Illuminate events, which is great. The link between kids ministry and youth work is essential and we want to make it an easy space for young ones to join. There are so many changes when you go to secondary school we wanted to make the transition to ‘youth’ an easy one.
## Children's Ministry
## 6 2023 Fundraising Events
In 2023 our Wine Tasting took place at Porters Park Golf Club. It was a stunning event with some excellent food to accompany the selection of wines. We also had live music and a great raffle. All together we raised £8500!!!
## **Wine**
## **Tasting**
In July Old Fold Manor hosted our Golf Day, and even with a A huge number of people joined us again and over c£6,000 profit was raised to continue and grow the ministry of 267.
**Golf Day**
A team of 12 decided to take on ‘2 Peaks in a Day’ so we climbed, Jacobs Ladder and Kinder Scout. When Mike tested this route it took him around 4 hours, some how our group of 12 individuals took nearly 10 hours! But we did raise £3,500 :)
## **Peak District Climb**
To launch a new exciting season of Haven Ministry, Claire and the team embarked on some amazing new ways to communicate and fundraise. With Claire ‘jumping’ off the Tottenham Stadium and our friend Ellie shaving her head, Haven raised £8,000!! The Haven also hosted a sumptuous Cream Tea which also helped loads towards their fundraising target for the year.
**Haven Fundraising**
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## KEY EVENTS
## **TEAM**
It has been so exciting to see our team grow. With Lizzy joining The Haven, and having an intern - Maddie, our office has had a real buzz to it. We have plans to add another team member to The Haven as well as a ‘social media and comms’ person for the whole ministry.
## **267 Vision Evening**
In July 2023 we gathered around 60 of our supporters for a night of cheese, pudding, AND vision! 267 is 16 years old and one of the things that have been at the heart of all we do, is COMMUNITY. We love to gather people, whether it is for Tribe Breakfast, at Fuel, on our residentials, on training evenings, and in loads of other spaces. We long to create spaces where people can connect, network, cheer one another on, collaborate, encourage and share deep relationship and community. 267 longs to have a space for oursleves where we can grow this ‘gathering’ ministry. It will be a place where we can offer support, community, inspiration, like-minded leaders, a space for young people to connect, and SO much more. This vision is where we feel God is taking us in this next season. We are on the look out for a space which will enable us to host groups, offer food and coffee to leaders, it will have a chapel space for gathering, a resource centre to support leaders, a place to allow youth groups to come visit and a home for the ministry we are seeking to begin in the coming year. This ‘Third Space’ is where we sense God leading us.
## **Tedx St Albans**
**Mike was chosen, out of a group of 190 entering and auditioning, as part of 14 individual selected to give a Ted talk live at the first Tedx St Albans event. Mike received some amazing coaching and support and In October gave his 13-minute Ted Talk in front of a live audience of 100. You can check out his talk here:** _**https://www.youtube.com/watch? v= = iyzWPiRbnl0&list PLJNsHJpiZkkzsJLhACP = HrUVkNllYHmds9&index 8**_
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**Fundraising Climb In April 2023 a group of 12 intrepid explorers set off to climb ‘2 peaks in a day’ to raise funds for 267. It was such a great day, even if it took a little longer than planned. But we had lush weather, met amazing people and raised loads of our ministry. Ninja Warrior Our 2nd trip to Ninja Warrior was as much fun as the first, and we sold out even quicker. 120 young people from our network joining together for a lot of bouncing, chasing and falling. These Illuminate events are so easy for youth groups to bring friends and fringe people, we will keep offering them as a way to invite people in.**
**Last 267 Residential at Felden Lodge** It was really hard to say goodbye to Felden Lodge. Over the last 12 years we have made 30 trips there and taken 850 young people. It is truly a site of significant 267 memories. So many young people made friends there, grew in faith there, laughed till they hurt there and connected with their group there. It was an incredible space and we will miss it hugely.
## **The Collective**
The Collective or Tribe, as we are affectionately called, is made up of a bunch of likeminded, but very different, youth leaders. Over the year we have met to share stories, pray, eat food and of course plan excellent youth events. The Collective continues to grow and we are always open to anyone joining us. The
collaboration and unity we have been a part of this year has been mind-blowing. Our ‘partnership in the gospel’ has been a source of huge life and joy, long may it continue.
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## 2023 Key Highlights
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Income £152.1k Expenditure £144.2k
Other
Gift Aid Fundraising Costs
£5.7k
£13.4k
£9k
Donations and grants
Activity Fees
(includes churches and
£12.6k Other £16.8K
individuals)
£90.8k
Activities &
Events
Team
Fundraising £19.4k
Staff Costs
£34k
£84.4k
Equipment,
Resources &
Travel
£10.2k
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## 2023 Finances
_267 aims for a minimum bank balance at all times of £9,000. The calculation of this reserve is based on an expected ability to meet one month's staff costs, worst case timing of the quarterly liability to HMRC, coverage of a quarter of contracted overheads (eg rent, insurance) offset by assumed unclaimed gift aid of one quarter. 267 does not hold funds as a Custodian. Full Accounts and Examiners Report to be found in Appendices / on Charity Commission website._
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**Claire Banham** The Team Project Youth Worker and Haven Director
**Mike Palin** Director
**Lizzy Plummer** Haven Growth Developer
**Liz Buckley** Project Administrator
**Maddie Hunter** Haven Intern
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## The Trustees
## Jane Munroe
Dec 2007
## Alan MacKinnon
June 2020
## Nigel Bretton
Aug 2011
## Ben Fitzsimons
Jan 2023
## Hannah Puddefoot Rob McNerney Apr 2017 July 2022 Dec 2007
## Sean Ryan
## Lydia Slater
Jan 2022
## Claire Oliver
Sept 2021
The 267 Project is a Charitable Trust which has been governed according to its Trust Deed since Dec 2007 and registered with the Charity Commission since Feb 2008. New trustees are elected by existing trustees and team members. Trustees regularly meet with the team for monthly meetings and inspiring Strategy Days.
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## A Word From Us
## **Sean Ryan** Chair of Trustees
It was a year of exceptional Haven growth, a final farewell to Feldon Lodge – our weekend away venue for the last decade – an incredible fundraising climb in the Peak District, The Collective thrived, our team grew in size, we launched a new kids event and Mike, 267 Director, had the opportunity to give Ted Talk about the importance of community. It was also a year where Mike was able to ‘encourage youthwork’ in wide variety of spaces, this included leading retreats for Phase and Souster (schoolswork ministries), he shared with 60 church leaders about the importance of youthwork and got to speak at St Mellitus College again. Fundraising has been hard but The Haven had some incredible success with a cream tea, a head shave and a jump off a stadium! God is using 267 and our team to breathe life into youth and kids ministry, to encourage the leaders, to gather the kids and young people and to host exciting, lifegiving events. For me a couple of standout moments from the year are when we gathered for our Illuminate event at Vineyard St Albans – 200 young people – and nearly all of them took part in our glowin-the-dark crazy golf course. My second standout moment was on our 6-7-8 weekend away. It was beautiful sunshine and we spent the afternoon slinging young people down a slip&slide – safe, fun, exhilarating, joyful and a real memory maker. Feeling thankful and up for the next season but also aware of the challenges ahead. Praying for God to firmly place our feet in His steps.
In last year’s report I remember recounting how dynamic and flexible the charity had to be since the pandemic, which brought fresh change but new challenges also; 2023 has continued in this vein and it’s a been at time of new activities and initiatives in addition to opportunities for the project to have a wider reach, for example the TedX talk and continued and strengthened links with larger youthwork organisation such as Youthscape. We are seeing buds of new growth with respect to young people being able to re-establish community: since the pandemic there has never been a greater need for this but post-pandemic habits and ways of interacting have been difficult to change and break – but changing they are thanks to the work of 267.Whilst the project has been engaged with ‘coal face’ children’s and youth work ministry there has also been a shift from directly leading groups and events to jointly facilitating with other organisations. Mike has been able to negotiate often competing desires and had been able to lead when needed and facilitate and enable when required, which could easily have been a challenge for a director less able to view the bigger picture.
**Mike Palin** Director
Driven by Mike and sanctioned by the trustees, there is an ever-stronger calling towards finding a more permanent ‘home’, a multi-purpose centre where current activities can thrive and where new ventures are made possible; this has taken a back seat this year in favour of new core ministry activities, not to mention mainstays such as The Haven, but we feel sure this will be progressed with vigour in the year ahead.
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## Looking Ahead...
## **Our hope is for growth...**
**The Collective and Illuminate** - it is clear that God is blessing both The Collective and Illuminate. We want to grow this work so we can have greater collaboration and unity, but also to reconnect with more young people and walk with them.
**The Haven** - As the team has grown so has the need. The Haven is reaching out to support more young people with their mental health story. We want to be able to spend time in primary schools which may help avoid some of the challenges teenagers face as they get older.
**Partnership and Collaboration** - We love working with other, supporting others and cheering other ministries on. We hope to always be a charity that is about unity and collaboration.
**Impact and Visibility** - One of the areas we feel we need to work on is the profile of 267 and The Haven. How do we get words out about this amazing work we do. Our hope is to grow our marketing and communications and so raise our visibility and impact.
**Stability of Finances** - As a charity we are always aware that fundraising is difficult at time. It would be great to get to a point where there is a little less pressure on finding funds and so allow the team to fully involve themselves in the front line ministry and purpose.
**A New Home:** More and more we are sensing God calling 267 to host a permanent ‘gathering place’. This would be where we could gather leaders to encourage and support them, resource groups in new ways, host events and activities, offer a space that can be used for retreats, collaborative work spaces, a chapel and hopefully a youthwork apprenticeship scheme.
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_“The 267 project has had a massive impact on my life with me being involved in events and weekends away for about 13 years now! 267 has been a steadfast foundation for my faith and has provided me with great opportunities to learn, grow and serve in my faith in Jesus. Through the project I have met some of my best friends who have been instrumental in my wellbeing and faith journey. I have had such an amazing experience with everything that 267 does and I always come away from events and meet ups with such a great sense of joy and excitement about life and I want others to have the same great experience. I am so grateful to God for the blessing that the267project is and I am hopeful about the many more lives the project will touch!”_ **Katie C (267 Alumni)**
_"267 has consistently been a positive influence in my faith journey; they have become my best friends and a family."_ **Alex, 18**
_"From a Mum's point of view, 267 provides amazing activities and outreach in a safe and fun setting for youngsters. It's so important for our kids to know other Christians and to be able to strengthen their faith through exploring and challenging it. From a trustee point of view: I'm incredibly proud to be part of a team who are striving to provide Christian activity and support for young people that is so needed in our modern world"._ **Claire, Mum and Trustee**
_""The team at 267 are simply fantastic. The energy, enthusiasm and love for sharing the gospel with young people is inspiring. As young persons leader within our church, having access to all of 267's amazing resources, events and input has been a huge blessing. All the young people who attend their events come back glowing, they have always learnt something about the bible, themselves and have taken another step in their journey with Jesus."_ _**Oliver, Parent**_
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267life
The 267 Project
the267project
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07789 815516
director@the267project.com
www.the267project.com
www.thehaven.uk
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c/o St Albans Diocese Holywell Lodge 41 Holywell Hill St Albans AL1 1HE Charity Number: 1122830
CHARITY COMMISSION
FOR ENGLAND AND WALES
Receipts and payments accounts
CC16a
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from
To
Section A Receipts and payments
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funds
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90.780
9,018
9,246
32,465
10,598
6M9
IZ,56Z
5,682
12,562
6,682
Sub total(Gross inGome for
AR)
152.09B
152,09
124,56r
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Ise• tablèl.
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152,098
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124,567
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Office rent
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Travel
84,379
5,20D
84.379
79.730
5A73
2.718
8,199
6,2ZO
3,695
512
2.954
13,509
10,897
8.858
142,763
2,257
6,029
1,939
527
1.077
18,326
13,376
8.214
144,164
2.257
6.029
1,939
527
1,077
18,326
13,376
8.214
144,164
Telephone
Fud Team }sts
Youth ev¢rtC08L8
FUndrain9 ¢0sts
otherrthts
Sub total
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Sub total
144.164
144,164
142.783
Net of r8celpts/(paym•nts)
A5 Trdnsler8 between funds
A6 Cagh lunds last year ond
Cash funds this yearend
7,934
7.934
18.196
7.236
15.170
7,236
15,170
25,432
7,236
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## **Independent examiner's report on the accounts**
## **Section A Independent Examiner’s Report**
**Report to the trustees/** Charity Name **members of** The 2:67 Project **On accounts for the year** 31 December 2023 **Charity no** 1122830 **ended (if any) Set out on pages** 1-2 attached (remember to include the page numbers of additional sheets)
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended **31/10/2023**
**Responsibilities and** As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the **basis of report** accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”).
I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 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 material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:
- the accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Charities Act; or
- the accounts did not accord with the accounting records; or
- the accounts did 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.
* _Please delete the words in the brackets if they do not apply._
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Signed:
Name: Stephen D. Smith
Relevant professional ICAEW - ACA
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Date: 20 10 2024
Stephen D. Smith
ICAEW - ACA
1 Oct 2018
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**IER**
## **qualification(s) or body (if any):**
|**Address:**|Millswood, Old Neighbouring|
|---|---|
||Chalford|
||Glos GL6 8AA|
## **Section B Disclosure**
Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight material matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).
**Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose** .
Not applicable
**Oct 2018**
**IER**
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