FESTIVE
Annual Trustees’ Report Year ending 31[st] August 2024
Festive
Trustees:
Charity No: 1123966 Pauline Kendall (Chair) 487 Coed-y-Gores Alex Forrest Llanedeyrn Jon Fortnam Cardiff Joshua Kendall CF23 9NU Jess Stinton
Organisation Overview
Festive was formed by a small group of people with a big heart for Further Education. They had experience of ministering in FE Colleges and Sixth Forms and were aware of the lack of support available to Christian students, staff and chaplains. Working in partnership with Scripture Union and UCCF, through much prayer and God’s great provision, Festive was launched in 2007. Festive currently works across the UK supporting Christian students, chaplains and those in FE through prayer, advice, resources and training. The mission is to inspire and support Christians in FE to live for Jesus and to equip them as they share their faith through their words and actions. The vision is to see an ongoing vibrant witness of Jesus in every FE College and Sixth Form in the UK. The charity is run by the Trustees named above in close relationship with the Director, Peter Carrington, with a team of 6 other staff members, 20 volunteer workers and a network of partners and supporters of the work.
Summary of Activities 2023-24
During this academic year, 2023-24, Festive has kept in touch with, prayed for and supported around 750 students – our busiest yet. Our staff team and volunteer Student Engagement Team have prayer for, emailed regularly, sent text messages, and engaged with the students on a variety of social media platforms. In addition to this, we have had a significant number of students from both within and outside of our network joining us for our online ‘Scattered’ events that continue to be beneficial to the students who attend.
Festive has continued to play an important role in ‘Amplify Academy’: a young people’s evangelism training course run in partnership with Hope, The Message, Scripture Union and Youth For Christ amongst others. Pete our director continues to sit on the core leadership panel, with other members of the team being involved this year with leading talks, seminars, sitting on the Q&A panel and mentoring students throughout the course. This has been a great opportunity to offer to our existing students, as well as meeting new students and inviting them to join our network. Various members of the team have also made the most of other opportunities throughout the year to lead seminars and talks at youth events across the country throughout the year, along the themes o f Festive’s mission to equip and inspire young people in their evangelism and running Christian Unions.
Alongside student engagement activities, the other key area of our work is resources. At the end of this year we successfully launched our podcast series ‘Beautiful Feet’. This series is a collection of interviews with experienced evangelists, packed with inspirational stories and plenty of advice and top-tips to equip students in a variety of aspects of evangelism and living for Jesus in sixth form/college. The initial episodes
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Year end 31-08-2024
Festive
have been enthusiastically received and we have been encouraged by the engagement stats, and by the feedback so far.
Our existing online and print resources continue to be reviewed and updated where necessary, and we have held two evangelistic giveaways this year at Christmas and at exam time. The idea behind these giveaways is that students can order a gift package to give to a non-Christian friend, that will contain something of the gospel as well as some treats. The exam package also has some practical bits in to help with exam time and a little stress-busting prayer card. These have both been popular again this year with all 30 packs being ordered each time.
For the second year, Festive took an active part in FE Sunday , an initiative run by West Midlands Churches’ FE Council, to promote and encourage prayer in churches across the country for their local FE colleges and sixth forms, for their staff, students and any Christians they know in the field. Alongside this we held an online prayer gathering for supporters for the second year, a blessed evening to pray with those who stand with us for the mission.
As always, the summer was full of recruitment activity ready for the 2024-25 academic year. This kicked off with a training day for the Student Engagement Team, an excellent opportunity to bring together our volunteers for a day to invest in them, train them, thank them and encourage them as they look back over their year on the team and look forward to serving again next year. A number of our volunteer team also represented Festive at various youth festivals over the summer, taking an active role in recruiting the students they would be supporting over the next year.
Finance
Festive received £20,000 in grants for the 2023-24 financial year. Festive has grown a surplus of funds over previous years that will provide funding to continue staffing and operations at our current capacity into the following financial year. Grant funding for the 2024-25 year has been successfully secured, with multiple grants awarded towards the appointment of a Student Connect Worker in early 2025. These funds will be drawn in accordance with the appointment timescale and will be spread over 3 years.
Festive is grateful to its ongoing and its new regular givers, and to those churches and individuals who have increased their giving during this financial year. Festive has also benefited from a number of one-off donations from individuals, churches and Trusts. Ultimately, encouraging further new regular supporters, both individuals and churches, remains an important financial priority going forwards as current income levels do not support the organisation’s ambition to grow its work and ministry.
As always, the trustees keep a close eye on the finances with financial reports and projections provided and reviewed at quarterly Trustee meetings. A summary of the accounts for the financial year ending 31[st] August 2024 is included below.
Future Developments
For the next academic year we will continue with all our student engagement activities including both Scattered and Amplify, and the regular support-work of our Student Engagement Team. In response to the significant growth we have seen, we are planning to increase the size and scope of the staff team in 2024-25. At the start of that period our Operations Manager, Rhian, will be moving on to a new role with our mission partners Scripture Union. Her role at Festive will become two separate part-time roles: an Operations Manager, and a Finance & Admin Assistant. We anticipate these roles playing a significant role in shaping our ongoing financial and operational strategies. We will, in accordance with our successful grant applications, follow these recruitments with a full-time Student Connect Worker role in early 2025. This pioneering role will give us the opportunity to increase our in-person ministry opportunities, with the successful candidate working across the UK to support, train and encourage Christian Unions, young leaders, youth workers, chaplains and churches. They will develop training resources, and work alongside our Student Engagement team to increase our online training events also. We anticipate this role marking
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Festive
the start of an exciting season for Festive, as we will be able to significantly increase our in-person impact and raise our profile within the UK accordingly.
We have put a considerable amount of work into recording new episodes of our Beautiful Feet podcast for release in 2024-25, and have secured several guests who have a high profile within the UK. Led by our Resource Manager, Claire, and hosted by Pete & Karen, we see the podcast as an important means of equipping the young people in our network to live on mission in their colleges and sixth-forms, whilst also reaching and resourcing a wider pool of 16-18 year olds.
The Trustees will continue to monitor closely the activity and finances of the charity, and ensure that all relevant policies and procedures are kept up to date and are adhered to accordingly.
Closing Remarks
The trustees wish to thank all of Festive’s staff and supporters for all their work, prayer and support over the last 12 months.
Annual Trustees Report
Year end 31-08-2024
Festive
Accounts Summary Forflnanda yeOI•IIJ to Openlng Bthee £64237.58 Experbdltsre Staff Wage5 Staff & vOnteer Expenses Trusts/Grant Money Indwidyalsupporters Churthes £ .1).0) £ 24.?) £ 832Q82 £ &1.274.01 £ 285L67 7.10 GiftAid £ 4897.25 Cash & Cheques £xtemal Wages & Contractual Work Re50urungStudents Partnefshlps Website/tT pa(*agès CommunicatK)ns Othergeneralcosts Insurance £ 14.259.19 £ 1449.50 £ 625.Q) £ 745.34 816.78 £ 1022.52 £ 1017. Safewèrdin8Training £ 40130 Totsl Intome £ TA.14(6 Total Expendthwe Q&91L87 8eyond Bean5 on Toast £175 Independent Exwrfn•ffs Reprt. I have examined the accounts of FestNe forthe yearending31°Au8ust2)24 in accordan WTth the general dIrectn$ gwen by the CharrtyComms•9n. In connettrt wrth my eXaMinat)ft. no matter has come to my attentK>n which 8Trs me reasonable ¢ause to believe that In any material respect the requirements to keep accountin8 records and prepare accounts have not been met. I have notfound anythlngto which, in my opinion, attention 5houkl be dTrwn in orderto enab ¥ proper understandinB ofthe accounts to be athed. Name: Signature: 17.02.? Address: 6 3£1W.- ReVant professional quatlfKatK)n or bo. yearerwJ3I-zo24