2022-03-31-accounts

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

Charity number: 1125029 Company number: 06569993

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

CONTENTS	Pages
Annual report	2 - 22
Report of the Independent Auditor	23 – 26
Statement of Financial Activities	27
Balance Sheet	28
Statement of Cash Flows	29
Notes to the financial statements	30 - 48

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

ANNUAL REPORT

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

INTRODUCTION

This is the Board of Trustees of Woodlands Group of Churches’ combined annual report for the year ended 31 March 2022 under the Companies Act 2006 and the Charities Act 2011 together with the audited financial statements for the year. The charity has followed the requirements of the Charities Statement of Recommended Practice (FRS 102 SORP 2019) in preparing these financial statements.

BACKGROUND

Woodlands Church Family has a shared structure, vision, values, goals and multiple congregations based in various parts of Bristol. To help recognise its multi-congregation nature, Woodlands Church Family is registered as Woodlands Group of Churches with registered charity number 1125029 and as a company limited by guarantee (company number 06569993). The legal entity continues to be called 'Woodlands Group of Churches', with 'Woodlands Church Family' as a working name used on the ground. These names and ‘the Church’ are used interchangeably throughout this report.

Motivated by the Great Commission in Matthew 28v18-20, the Mission Statement of the Woodlands Church Family is:

“to help reach the one million people of the Greater Bristol region, through church planting and regeneration and networking existing churches”

The Goal is to see a light in every street and for every person to have opportunities to hear and see a demonstration of the Gospel.

Shared structure – Woodlands Church Family has four main congregations:

• Woodlands Central , a multi-service resource congregation based in Clifton, with Woodlands Southside as the new South Bristol plant, including All Saints missional community in Hartcliffe.

• Woodlands Community Church , a multi-service resource congregation serving Southmead, Westbury-on-Trym and Henleaze, with Branch, a missional congregation reaching Brentry and Henbury.

• Woodlands Highgrove , a multi-service resource congregation serving Sea Mills, Coombe Dingle, Kingsweston, Stoke Bishop and Shirehampton.

• Woodlands Metro , a multi-service resource congregation based in the city centre.

Woodlands Church Family has three key Biblical expressions of church life through Cell, Congregation and Celebration. Cell is “being church in the home” with small groups. Congregation is “being church in the community”, and Celebration is “being church in the City” through gathering congregations together.

Each of the congregations has its own congregational leadership team and where multi-services exist, there may be service congregational leadership teams. Woodlands Church Family has a Senior Leadership Team and Trustee Board.

Woodlands Church Family has several linked churches around Bristol with whom it partners. Each of these associated and affiliated churches are independently governed charities.

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CHARITABLE PURPOSES, VISION, VALUES, ACTIVITIES AND GOALS

The declared charitable purposes of Woodlands Group of Churches are:

• “The proclamation and furtherance of the Gospel of God concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord and the preaching and teaching of the Christian Faith throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and elsewhere”

• “The organisation, sponsorship, promotion and continuing support of unincorporated bodies of Christians recognised by the Trustees as Christian churches or Christian fellowships meeting and functioning in various places in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and elsewhere as the

• Trustees may decide for the worship of God, the instruction and edification of Christians, the care and instruction of young people and children, the evangelisation of non Christians, the relief of poverty and sickness and the advancement of the Christian Faith generally.”

The shared vision of the Woodlands Church Family is to continually reproduce the life of Jesus . We seek to achieve this vision through the following strategic aims and objectives:

1. Commitment To help an increasing number of people become committed Christians and part of the life and worship of the Church.

2. Discipleship

3. To disciple each member in an atmosphere of love, prayer and Bible teaching to follow and become like Jesus.

4. Service To release every member into ministry and mission in the power of the Holy Spirit, with opportunities to discover, develop and fruitfully use their gifts.

5. Unity

6. To build together in unity with other churches to reach the whole city and region with the gospel, to be a salt and light in the region and to bless the nations of the world, especially the poorest and persecuted, and to care for the planet.

This shared vision is motivated by the Great Command of Matthew 22v37-39, expressed in a set of shared values of Word and Spirit, Intimacy in Worship, Passion in Prayer, Depth of Discipleship, Infectious Witness, Love & Faithfulness in relationships, Forming and being Community, Care for the Poor, the Persecuted and the Planet.

Our principal activities to achieve our charitable purposes for the public benefit are:

• The establishment of Global Partnerships with Christian overseas missionaries and organisations;

• Local City and Community Outreach activities and events, including making charitable loans to enhance the outreach of congregations into local communities;

• The provision of Gathered Church services and events for the general public;

• The provision of services, events and programmes for Children and Youth ;

• The provision of services, events, programmes and community living opportunities for Students

• The provision of programmes of Discipleship, Teaching and Leadership Development and associated resources;

• Pastoral Care for those of any age or background associated with Woodlands Church Family.

More detailed descriptions of the activities of the Church, together with how these deliver public benefit and our achievements for the period, are under the heading of Achievements and Performance, below.

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There are overall shared goals for each aspect of our vision, with regular reviews with each congregation leader. Goals prayerfully encourage:

• Commitment - net growth for committed adults, made up of new adult joiners less movers and leavers. This includes committed new or returning to faith believers. This has been measured by the congregational leader tracking movers, joiners and leavers, gathered church counts and Newcomers & Alpha Course follow up.

• Discipleship is measured through baptisms and mentoring, small group membership, Wholeness, leadership development and other courses involvement and financial giving.

• Service is measured through engagement in church rotas for internal service and community outreach ministries

• Unity measured through involvement in city wide and global partnership ministries. This is part of building Bristol as a ‘City of Hope’ and reaching the one million people of the Bristol region. Globally this involves the encouragement and support of a growing number of Woodlands Global Partners who are blessing the nations of the world, especially the poorest and the persecuted and the care for the planet.

Five Year Goals

Each congregation also has their own local goals for the next five years within the overall vision of the Woodlands Church Family. For example:

• Woodlands Central to plant a significant resource congregation in South Bristol in partnership with the West of England Baptist Network, which will multiply missional communities across South Bristol

• Woodlands Highgrove to become a multi-service resource congregation and “lengthen its chords and strengthen its stakes” in developing ministry and missional communities in surrounding areas.

• Woodlands Community Church to develop missional communities in the new Filton, Brabazon and Cribbs Causeway communities and to consolidate Branch in reaching Henbury & Brentry meeting at Emmanuel.

• Woodlands Metro to significantly develop its own city centre hub to facilitate multiple missional communities in the Bristol region.

ACHIEVEMENTS AND PERFORMANCE

The Woodlands Church Family is committed to enabling as many people as possible to attend our services and become part of the life of the church. As such, we operate no formal membership structure and all are welcome, whether ‘just visiting’ or wishing to get connected and involved. In practice, the opportunity to attend services and take part in other activities in person is most accessible to those who live in Bristol and the surrounding region.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been an accelerant in developing a significant presence online which

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means that many throughout the world can and do benefit by being able to receive teaching, inspiration and interaction with the Woodlands Church Family. We have maintained this presence online even after the return of in-person services and activities.

In addition, our prayerful and financial support of national and international institutions, individuals and projects which advance the Christian faith, means that the Church does impact and bring benefit to sections of the public well beyond Bristol and the surrounding region.

In previous reports, we have described the significant impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic from midMarch 2020 on the activities of the charity and its pursuit of its charitable purposes

With high local infection rates in early 2021, congregational leadership teams deemed it appropriate for all in-person gatherings to be paused and most then resumed on Easter weekend 2021.

The Trustees continued to monitor local leadership teams in carrying out regular risk reviews of ongoing

arrangements and the Senior Leadership Team regularly shared together best practice in the implementation of fresh worship, ministry and outreach strategies in the midst of the restrictions that social distancing has brought.

Worship is now mostly in-person again but a hybrid of in-person and online engagement across all congregations and ministries is here to stay to varying degrees.

The Church has also provided significant voluntary and financial assistance to meeting the needs of the city at this time, not least in the area of food poverty. In addition, the conflict in Ukraine has meant that much energy in the final few weeks of the financial year has gone into responding in prayerful and practical ways to the refugee crisis.

The following are examples of our key ministry activities throughout the year as we sought to put faith into practice in a variety of ways:

Global Partnerships

One of our strategic aims is ‘to bless the nations of the world, especially the poorest and persecuted and to care for the planet’. The Woodlands Church Family actively supports a number of individuals and charities who we refer to as ‘global partners and global associates’. They work in a variety of countries all over the world.

This past year has seen an increased connectivity with our Global Partners as they have been able to join in with on-line services, training and courses. This has been a particular encouragement to those working in more remote and religiously challenging locations.

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During the year:

• We made grants totalling £242,086 (2020/21: £209,120) to a significant number of individuals/families and institutions. Further details can be found in note 7 of the accounts.

• We took special offerings to respond to the crisis in Ukraine in early 2022 and were able to send grants totalling £22,721 to two Christian agencies working to provide relief for Ukrainian refugees;

• We regularly contacted our global partners and associates to hear news of their work and ask how we might best support them through prayer;

• We held regular prayer meetings where news of global partners and associates was shared and pertinent needs prayed for and we have established regular geographically focussed prayer meetings. The proliferation of Zoom as a platform for prayer meetings has meant that many overseas partners have been able to join in too!

• In June 2021, Global Partnership Weekend included a number of special events and training opportunities around the theme of ‘Global Partnerships and Care for the Planet’.

• Our partnership with Hands at Work in Africa has continued to develop, with grants in total given of £35,627 (2020/21: £57,330, including some large one-off gifts);

• A number of short term mission trips were again not possible this year because of continued recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, but further trips are planned for 2022/23;

• Woodlands People and Planet are a group of people who have continued to meet regularly to pray for the world and

• to seek ways of how Woodlands can reduce its impact on the environment as a church, in our communities and in our personal lives.

• The Woodlands Highgrove congregation was given the Bronze Eco Church award this year.

City and Community Outreach

The Woodlands Church Family is committed to social action and evangelism in the Bristol region through our own activities and in partnership with many local agencies. This includes work with the homeless, those in debt, urban regeneration and more. Much of this work is with the most marginalised members of the local community and we aim to support them through practical expressions of support as well as offering them the opportunity to get involved in Church life and come to faith. The way in which such

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activities took place was of course significantly impacted by the pandemic, but in many ways the need and our responses to it have increased this year.

Examples of this during the year were:

• Woodlands has continued to run two men’s football teams and one women’s football team. There has also been a women’s netball team. These have been particularly appreciated as a means of physical exercise as well as helping people’s mental health through camaraderie and team activities.

• The Noise ran in May 2021 but due to the pandemic and the “Rule of Six”, there were reduced activities and no Fun Afternoon gatherings as usual. But it was wonderful to join in with Christians across the city in showing the love of Jesus in practical ways.

• The basketball outreach ‘Bristol Brickers’ took place in Southmead and Henbury engaging teenagers from the community and giving them a safe space to interact with other teens, get some exercise and hear some uplifting team talks.

• Our Life Recovery Group has been meeting regularly to provide much needed support for those recovering from addiction.

• The Foodbank outlet provided much needed support throughout the pandemic and, with the lifting of restrictions, was able to return to the Greenway Centre and meet people face to face again.

• A highlight of the year came in November 2021 when we were able to hold our annual Single Parents Fair again to bless the single parents in the community. We weren’t able to do all that we would usually, but we were able to provide second-hand clothes, a family portrait and lots of fun activities for the children.

• It has been wonderful to move our Alpha Courses back to ‘in-person’ from September 2021 as well as also running an online course for guests who aren’t able to come along to in person. This followed the Woodlands Central Spring Alpha which remained online in May 2021. Despite the uncertainties of COVID-19, we have been thankful that we have managed to sustain Alpha courses each term. It has been so great to see guests join post-Alpha groups and to hold our first post-lockdown baptisms on Easter Sunday 2022, which included 3 guests who had come through these Alpha courses.

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A key strategy being employed by the Church to see thriving churches in local communities is to provide short-term secured loans to enable key workers and volunteers to be able to purchase a house in those communities. Our experience is that having people living in the heart of communities, getting involved in community life and resourcing local outreach makes a significant difference in fruitfulness and

growth. These loans are typically 3-5 years in duration and, once repaid, are being recycled to enable further loans to be made. These loans are classified as programme-related investments in these accounts because their purpose is not to generate a commercial financial return but to enable people to live and serve Christ in the community to which they are called. The Church has made significant funds available to pursue this fruitful church growth strategy. These are designated funds, which have accumulated over many years and are occasionally supplemented by specific earmarked giving. The capital for this fruitful church growth strategy continues to grow through earmarked gifts and interest from the loans and the fund investments with the vision of keeping in step with housing costs and church growth. There were five such loans outstanding at the year end (2021: seven), with two loans having been repaid and with a number of others in the pipeline ready to be disbursed in 2022/23. The value of the outstanding loans was £1,556,725 with a further loan of £36,860 having been made to support a needy local family, and a further £1,693,475 earmarked for use for future loans.

Gathered Church

The Woodlands Church Family offers a range of services during the week and over the course of the year that are open to all members of the public and which many people of different ages and backgrounds and with different preferences find to be beneficial and fulfilling. Over the years, significant changes have made to the services to adapt to growing numbers of people attending.

Gathered Church has been a vital area of our ministry even with all the restrictions imposed by COVID-19 regulations. With the lifting of restrictions our congregations have maintained many of the features incorporated in ‘lock down Church’, to

facilitate increased accessibility to all, as well as offering the possibility of engagement in worship for those still shielding or otherwise nervous about in-person worship. Our congregations have worked hard to deliver a blended range of public worship online and in-person, streamed, pre-recorded and via Zoom in our varied locations, to ensure that as many people as possible were able to engage in Christian worship. While we made stringent efforts to keep our various congregations connecting with familiar faces, we have also attracted and maintained a new audience of people from different parts of the country and overseas who had connections with us or otherwise found out about us. People are still able to ‘tune in’ on an equal basis with locals, as are housebound folk who now were able to worship without feeling disadvantaged from the mainstream.

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For many of those who found our Churches on-line, the next step has been to show up in person at a Sunday service and we have seen a steady stream of newcomers attending and joining over the last year. Many of those new people have been young adults, and a highlight for Woodlands Central was a weekend away, the first for three years, with over 90 young adults in attendance.

One noticeable effect of COVID-19 and lock down has been to strengthen the neighbourhood emphasis that is part of our vision. As a City church we aim to be both gathered and dispersed, or in the words of Jesus to his followers ‘Salt and Light’. In January, Woodlands Central launched weekly afternoon services in Bedminster with our ‘Woodlands Southside’ Congregation. The congregation is a partnership with ‘webnet’, the West of England Baptist association who have seconded Rev. Richard Pollard and his wife Nikki to be on team at Woodlands. A core of 50 adults and 20 children have committed to this new work which not only serves Woodlands members living in South Bristol, but has a strong emphasis of caring for some of the most marginalised in this area of the City.

One manifestation of this care has been the partnership of Woodlands with TLG (Transforming Lives for Good). Bristol City Council has encouraged churches to support schools particularly where already vulnerable children have fallen behind with disruption from COVID-19 school closures. Woodlands Central is now in three schools with training and support from TLG which is a national charity. Volunteers commit to sitting with an individual child one on one every week and improving their confidence and self-esteem.

Rural neighbourhood ministry has also been served by regular monthly gatherings in North

Somerset, bringing Christians together from more dispersed contexts to be a witness and encouragement in village settings.

Over the last 26 years, the Woodlands Church Family has also expressed smaller community through a growing network of community houses. The vision for this way of living is simply to be ‘Church’ every day, and to ‘set the lonely in families’ with up to twenty people living under the same roof and sharing a ‘rule of life’. The proximity of several large houses to Woodlands Central used for Christian community purposes has allowed a number of vulnerable people to be housed alongside Church members, and facilitated a pipeline of volunteering and leadership development, as well as providing non institutional room space for a wide variety of Church usages.

It was wonderful to celebrate Christmas and Easter services in person this year and to see large numbers attending our suite of services, as well as following on-line. We ran two ‘folky’ Christmas services at Woodlands Central, with fiddles and banjos, watched by 1,200 people online as well as by many in the building. Our Carols by Candlelight ran over three services but in addition was streamed by 1,000 people. Our Easter Day services included the baptism by immersion of 13 people around the Woodlands Church family from a wide variety of ages and backgrounds, and great was the rejoicing!

The Community Church new evening service is now an established meeting, giving prominence to younger people in leading in an interactive dynamic.

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Our church plant Branch Community Church started meeting in Emmanuel Chapel in Henbury on Sunday afternoons and gradually the small church that was meeting there in the mornings has merged with our afternoon service. The new Branch@Emmanuel Chapel officially launched on Easter Sunday 2022 following a week of community outreach activities.

Across the congregations, prayer meetings have largely stayed on Zoom which is especially helpful in the early morning, but there has been a return to in person 24/7 prayer weeks around

the Church family, as well as some large prayer and worship gatherings which have been particularly well supported by our younger members.

The 9.15am Family Service at Woodlands Central moved off Zoom to meet again live in the church building. Since gathering back in person, we’ve launched a new ‘All In’ service once a month and we’ve had new families joining us throughout the year. We celebrated Easter Sunday by having an outdoors Easter trail for all the families to experience as part of our worship service.

When permitted by the prevailing regulations, Woodlands Metro pioneered several ‘pop-up’ venues across the city during lockdown. The Metro Sunday evening service was broadcast live weekly from the studio at Woodlands Christian Centre and into smaller communities gathered in local community buildings, using large screen projection. This has helped us to innovate new models for church planting and community engagement that we aim to develop further in the coming years. Once lockdown measures eased, Woodlands Metro were able to meet again at We The Curious but, as with other congregations, continue to broadcast online and reach a wider group of people.

Children and Youth Ministry

The Woodlands Church Family offers a wide range of activities which children and young people join in with to make friends, discover and use their gifts and talents and learn more about being disciples of Jesus. Inevitably, most inperson children and youth activities needed to be suspended during the pandemic, but there were significant continued activities, connections and discipleship opportunities online and in-person, when the regulations permitted.

The following are examples of key activities and developments that took place this year:

• Children’s Church has also been welcoming children back into the building on Sundays. All the Sunday groups have restarted, including football church with over 150 children regularly connecting across the groups. We’ve also started new groups - a Sunday dance ministry and a monthly mid-week group called ‘T Club’ for older children. All of these groups have been focussing on helping children reconnect with church, grow in faith and re-building relationships with one another.

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• At Woodlands Community Church, it has been wonderful to be able to restart our Sunday morning children’s groups and a number of our community groups.

• It was so encouraging to see consistent in person youth gatherings once the lockdown ended. There have been a large number of non-church youth engaging with our regular programmes, which has been encouraging.

• Mental health continues to be a real challenge for many young people. The team have adjusted well to continuing the best they can to connect with young people. A residential weekend away happened in the autumn which again gave a sense of returning to “normality”.

• Woodlands Highgrove is co-ordinating the chaplaincy in their local secondary school. We are also involved in running discussion groups in their well-being unit as well as co-ordinating volunteers from churches in the area to listen to students read each week. The team is also continuing to provide assemblies for the local primary school, as well as extra events around the church calendar.

Student Ministry

University students are at a strategic time of their lives in terms of experiences that inspire and shape the rest of their lives but we are aware that thousands of students in Bristol have little involvement with Church or the Christian faith. We want to play our part in reaching this demographic with the gospel. Our Woodlands Christian Centre building is strategically located in the midst of Bristol University and our Woodlands Metro community is located near much of the new student accommodation in the centre of Bristol. We want to see students become Christians, to grow in their faith and be inspired and equipped to serve God with their lives.

Our Student ministry continued throughout a very challenging time for students. An immediate effect of the pandemic was on international students, many of whom left Bristol and have not been able to return. We followed the example of Bristol University by offering significant rent rebates to those students in our church accommodation who were advised to return home, but kept in touch with them via Zoom. Woodlands Metro again experienced its highest ever number of first year connections and we have a strong core of students in Metro, Central and Highgrove congregations. The mental health and wellbeing of students both in and outside our congregations has been a priority. Training has been offered to our student pastoral workers and one of our team has been piloting and researching implementation of mental health and well-being groups in the University contexts where we work.

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Together with other local churches, Woodlands Highgrove have been running a Wednesday drop-in time on the North Campus of the University of Bristol. This has involved detached work chatting to people around the campus then a programme of events in the Monica Wills Chapel including a Carol Service, Prayer Space and an Alpha course.

Discipleship, Teaching and Leadership Development

We are committed to raising up a new generation of leaders to impact the city, the region and the world with the gospel. A key part of ‘continually reproducing the life of Jesus’ is discipleship. This involves learning to imitate and obey Jesus Christ in every aspect of our lives.

Examples of how we have encouraged this during the year are:

• The Bristol Westminster Theological Centre Hub held their sessions via Zoom and in-person and their two residentials were held in the new venue at Nottingham University. There have been 24 students in this year’s hub with an additional 3 students already signed up for next year. WTC faculty delivered two theology events for staff team, Associate Church leaders and church members. A number of the church staff team have been studying with WTC and it has had a positive impact on their confidence in handling the Bible.

• Woodlands Bible School has run in person since the Autumn and it has been good to have a number of visiting speakers who have brought some great insights. This year’s cohort of 11 leaders on the Leadership Learning Community have met in-person and the discussion and learning has been greatly appreciated. Recording the video sessions has been helpful for those who have missed a meeting.

Pastoral Care

Sunday Church services carry a sense of celebration together, but we see Church as community, built from the bottom up via small groups and pastorates which usually take place mid-week. We see small groups as the first line of pastoral care and initial development of gifts and the primary place to get to know others and to be known. We try to provide a range of groups meeting in different locations, at different times and aiming at different age groups. Most of these have needed to meet online throughout the year, but these have provided valuable connection.

Pastoral care has been expressed in the following ways:

• The Wholeness Course offers an opportunity to identify and remove barriers to growth in our personal lives, deal with gaps in our emotional development and repair hurts from the past. We had nearly a hundred people sign up for our Spring

• course from several churches around Bristol as we gathered for six weeks at Woodlands for evenings of testimonies, teaching and prayer ministry. Each week, the team of 25 prayer ministers shared things they sensed God had been saying to them for people attending the

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course and there were some amazing moments of connection with God and healing as people paired up for prayer ministry. We have had many follow up emails with wonderful stories of freedom and healing from people who attended and the whole team were as always very encouraged by taking part.

• This year we launched a new mental health website, Whole Minds. The website has articles, stories and creative content designed to support and encourage good mental health and spiritual growth. The idea for the website came out of a survey about mental health across the Woodlands Church Family. It was felt that there was a growing need to acknowledge the increased mental health pressure that many people are experiencing, particularly following the pandemic. Following the survey we felt that it would be good to develop an online space to collect articles and stories that would encourage people across the Woodlands Church family in their mental, emotional and spiritual health journeys, and also to develop an online presence that would be accessible to people from outside the church seeking spiritual solutions to mental health pressures. We acknowledged the need to talk more openly about mental health in church life and followed the website launch with a mental health sermon series across the church congregations. Alongside the website there is a growing social media presence and articles on mental health for teenagers, eating disorders and overcoming anxiety have been shared widely.

• We operated a ‘needy saints fund’ throughout the year enabling us to give gifts totalling £5,935 to those facing financial hardship through redundancy, loss, relationship breakdown or low income.

Charging Policy

The Woodlands Church Family is committed to making its activities accessible to as wide a range of people as possible and so seeks to minimise the cost of events and, where a charge is levied, subsidies are offered by congregational leadership teams where appropriate to ensure that money is not a barrier to people participating in activities. Church services are entirely free with no obligation to pay or give and the church offers many activities, courses and services without charge.

Fundraising

Whilst the primary source of income for the charity is voluntary donations, the Church does not regularly engage in significant public fundraising. Most of the giving is from committed attenders who express their ‘belonging’ and commitment to the congregations through regular and one-off giving to share in the ministry costs of church life. The Church prayerfully teaches about the biblical principles of financial stewardship and generosity in the context of discipleship. From time to time, the leaders encourage giving towards particular global partners or mission projects and, very occasionally, hold offerings for special projects such as building developments. The charity does not subscribe to any particular fundraising scheme or standards but regularly reviews the charity’s practices to ensure that any incidental fundraising is carried out appropriately.

Each congregation has monthly Sunday service offerings to support global and local mission. All gifts collected, including any attributable Gift Aid and Gift Aid on Small Donations relief is used to support our

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global and local mission partners. In addition, a discretionary 50% is added from free reserves to each offering.

Contribution of volunteers

Most of what happens in the congregations is driven by volunteers, whether that is worship, youth and children's work, practical jobs or roles requiring specialised skills. It is not possible to quantify the contribution of volunteers to the Woodlands Church Family except to say that we would not be able to carry out many of our activities without them. The Church seeks to provide as many opportunities as possible for volunteers to grow in their gifts and abilities and has hundreds of people volunteering in at least one role within Church. The way in which volunteers have continued to serve faithfully and creatively throughout the pandemic is something we are so thankful to God for.

FINANCIAL REVIEW

The financial position and performance of Woodlands Group of Churches is in line with the expectations of the Trustees, based on their planning and monitoring of income and expenditure throughout the year.

Total income was £1,654,686 in the year compared to £1,556,145 in the prior year, a rise of 6.3%. This overall increase is driven primarily by an increase in investment income and charitable activities income, reflecting the bouncing back of these income streams as we continue to emerge from the pandemic. Whilst donations received have risen overall by 1%, core giving to general funds is at the same level as the previous year, which is a remarkable and encouraging result with all the economic and social challenges brought about by the pandemic and continued global economic uncertainty.

Income from charitable activities rose from £137,235 in the prior year to £196,127 but is still much lower than pre-pandemic levels.

Investment income rose from £132,116 in the prior year to £159,287 which is comparable to prepandemic levels. Investment income includes the income both from financial investments and from a number of interest-bearing charitable loans classified as programme related investments in the accounts and interest-bearing loan stock classified as mixed purpose investments.

Total expenditure was £1,265,887 (2020/21: £1,121,986); a rise of 12.8%. A total of £315,869 (2021: £278,828) was spent on grants for mission and blessing the poor and persecuted both in the UK and overseas.

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT POLICIES

Reserves

Free reserves available for use by Woodlands Church are deemed to be those that are readily realisable, less funds whose uses are restricted or else designated for particular purposes. The

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calculation thus excludes £2,315,614 representing tangible fixed assets that will continue to be used in the day-to-day running and restricted funds of £125,161. The calculation also excludes the carrying value of charitable loans held as programme related investments of £1,593,585, which are not readily realisable assets and are held in designated funds. It also excludes other designated funds of £4,869,617, including the Property Purchase Fund of £1,895,266, which exists to enable the opportunistic purchase of a new property.

The purpose, balances and movements of each designated fund are explained clearly within note 18 of the accounts.

As a matter of policy, each year the Trustees review the level of free reserves. The Board considers our exposure to major risks in terms of their likely impact on its income sources and planned expenditure in the medium term. They also consider the opportunities available to them for expansion and growth in the facilities and activities of the Woodlands Church Family.

The present target range for free reserves is £230,707 to £461,413, equal to between 3 and 6 months of reported expenditure in the Free Reserves fund. At the year end, the actual free reserves, as clearly shown within the accounts, were £352,424 (2020/21: £567,688), which is equivalent to 4.6 months of reported expenditure in the Free Reserves Fund. This is within the target range. The Trustees recognise that the operating environment has significantly changed in the last couple of years and are planning to undertake a thorough review of the reserves policy later in 2022 in light of this. The graph below shows a six-year history of free reserves against the policy target:

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YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

Financial Impact of Significant Events

The Trustees are conscious of the challenging economic and social conditions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and the continued global uncertainties caused by geopolitical events in Europe. As well as seeking to use the charity’s resources to meet some of these needs, the Trustees are thankful to God that we have not seen a drop in giving income or a sustained drop in other sources of income so far. The Trustees will be budgeting carefully for the coming financial year given these factors but are satisfied that the level of reserves held by the charity will enable the continuation of the charity’s activities into the future.

The Trustees confirm their assessment that the charity is a going concern as at the date of the signing of the accounts, despite the ongoing global uncertainty.

Investment powers and policy

The Memorandum and Articles of Association allow the Trustees to invest in any stocks, funds, shares, securities or other investments of whatsoever nature as the Trustees shall, in their absolute discretion, think fit.

The Trustees have an Investment Policy covering the charity’s Financial, Programme Related and Mixed Purpose Investments. In particular, the Trustees have sought to ensure that the time horizon of the likely use of all funds is matched well to the investment vehicle used.

In the case of Financial Investments, the Charity seeks to produce the best financial return within an acceptable level of risk and taking into account the social, ethical and environmental impact of investments. The investment objective for funds needed in the medium to long term is to generate a return in excess of inflation over the long term whilst generating an income to support the ongoing activities of the Charity. For funds needed in the short term, the investment objective is to preserve the capital value with a minimum level of risk. Assets should be readily available to meet unanticipated cash flow requirements.

Grant making

The Charity has a grant making policy and makes grants to individuals and organisations engaged in mission and ministry and primarily with whom we have developed long term partnerships. Most of these partners are members of the church family serving on short term, medium term or long-term mission trips. With the exception of members of the church family going on short term mission, there is not a formal application process for grant funds. Missionary financial support is instead just a part of a wider range of on-going communication and prayer support for the work.

The Charity also makes grants from the ‘needy saints fund’ to individuals in the church facing financial hardship as a result of redundancy, loss, relationship breakdown or low income.

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Development of buildings

The Trustees continue to review the buildings used and/or owned by the Woodlands Church Family to ensure that they are meeting the developing needs of the congregations. During this year, the Trustees have investigated options for purchasing buildings close to Woodlands Central to expand capacity. We are also taking the opportunity to explore the development of city centre space for the development of Woodlands Metro. Woodlands Highgrove secured planning permission for developments to the building this year and Woodlands Community Church continue to increase their use of Alberts Place for additional activities. Branch Church are now meeting at

Emmanuel Chapel in Henbury in partnership with the existing congregation there and are exploring improvements to that building to enhance its charitable use.

FUTURE PLANS

The Woodlands Church Family is continuing to plan not just for recovery from the pandemic, but for renewal with a renewed sense of vision for the future. There have been new opportunities for mission and growth, and this has already been the experience so far with a new blended approach of in-person and continued online activities. Our online platforms and social media channels are continuing to grow in reach and influence and more people than ever are engaging with us online. We will continue to explore fresh ways of engaging with a post COVID-19 society. We will continue to engage with the needs of the city through food poverty relief and

family care, including encouraging fostering and adoption and addressing mental health issues.

The Woodlands Church Family is also continuing to further develop the organisational and administration structures appropriate to a growing group of congregations in the current environment. The IT infrastructure has been improved and is in the process of being embedded. The key operational leads have met a number of times throughout the year to revise and update the Charity’s risk management process. The Woodlands Church Family is embarking on a rebranding exercise and hope to complete this by Easter 2023.

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

The Charity was formed in 2008 by the merger of four previous charities: Highgrove Christian Charitable Trust, Highgrove Fellowship Centre, Woodlands Church and Henleaze & Westbury Community Church.

The Charity is governed by its Memorandum and Articles of Association adopted on 18 April 2008.

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Under the Memorandum and Articles of Association, all members of the Company are Trustees, and all Trustees are members. No other formal membership is operated. The minimum number of Trustees is three; there is no maximum. Trustees are required to meet at least once a year.

Alison Dawson and Steve Bodley were appointed to the Board in July 2022. Rachel Clark stood down as a Trustee in January 2022. The Trustees are so grateful for all that Rachel contributed during her period as a Trustee.

Any new Trustees are recruited in light of the mix of skills and experience needed on the Board and on the basis of the knowledge of the existing Trustees of suitable candidates and after prayer and listening to the leading of the Holy Spirit. In selecting persons to be appointed, the Trustees take into account the benefits of appointing a person who is able by virtue of his or her professional qualifications or experience to make a contribution to the pursuit of the purposes or the management of Woodlands Group of Churches. Selected candidates are appointed by a simple majority by Trustees at a meeting or by a formal resolution.

Any new Trustees receive an Induction Pack appropriate to their level of existing knowledge of and involvement with Woodlands Group of Churches. As a minimum, new Trustees receive a copy of the Charity Commission publication CC3 – The Essential Trustee together with the Charity’s governing document and the latest Annual Report and Accounts.

The Trustees are aware of the importance of maintaining their knowledge of current charity and related legislation and best practice so Trustees take advantage of external trustee training sessions and, where not all members of the Board of Trustees are present, circulate any relevant information and guidance to the other Trustees for due consideration.

The role of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and the Trustees

The SLT is responsible for the overall spiritual and day-to-day operational leadership of the Woodlands Church Family. The Senior Leader of the SLT provides apostolic input to the SLT, which operates as an Ephesians 4 ministry team (Ephesians 4v11-12). The Trustees have overall legal responsibility, taking account of the spiritual direction of the Woodlands Church Family set by the Senior Leadership Team, who themselves are always to act in accordance with the Memorandum and Articles of Association and the general law.

Rob Scott-Cook stood back as Senior leader of the Senior Leadership team from 1 July 2022 and intends to stand down as Chair of Trustees from December 2022. Rob and Pam are so grateful for God’s faithfulness in the planting and growth of the Woodlands Church Family over 40 years (1982 – 2022). In prayer, by the Spirit, they helped to build Bristol as A City of Sanctuary & A City of Hope, remembering the poorest of the world in 52 years of ministry, 1970 - 2022.

The Key Management Personnel of the Charity consists of the Trustees and the Senior Leadership Team. Where such individuals or those closely connected with them are remunerated by the Charity, their pay is set by the non-remunerated members of the Trustee Board at a meeting each year.

Church leaders and teams

The Woodlands Church Family has delegated the day-to-day oversight and direction of the four congregations to congregational leadership teams. These teams meet regularly to oversee delivery of activities in accordance with the vision and purposes of the Charity. Members of the Trustee Board and

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Senior Leadership Team regularly meet with the congregational leaders to review progress, provide any advice and assistance as required and provide accountability around goals, vision and values.

PUBLIC BENEFIT

The Trustees have taken account of the Charity Commission’s guidance on Public Benefit where appropriate when exercising their powers and duties, planning and reviewing the aims, objectives and activities of the Woodlands Church Family. Throughout this report, the Trustees have sought to demonstrate the many ways that it delivers benefit to the public – whether they are members of one of the congregations that are part of the Church, another church or have no church /religious affiliation.

STATEMENT OF TRUSTEES’ RESPONSIBILITIES AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

The Trustees (who are also directors of Woodlands Group of Churches for the purposes of company law) are responsible for preparing the Trustees' Annual Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom accounting standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

Company law requires the trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year, which give true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charitable company and of the incoming resources and application of resources, including the income and expenditure, of the charitable company for the year. In preparing these financial statements, the Trustees are required to:

• select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;

• observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP 2019 (FRS102);

• make judgments and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;

• state whether applicable United Kingdom accounting standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements; and

• prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charitable company will continue in operation.

The Trustees are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charitable company and to enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charitable company and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

In so far as the trustees are aware:

• There is no relevant audit information of which the charitable company's auditors are unaware; and

• • The trustees have taken all steps that they ought to have taken to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the auditors are aware of that information.

Corporate Governance

Internal controls over all forms of commitment and expenditure continue to be developed to improve efficiency and enable the Trustees to discharge their responsibilities around safeguarding the Charity’s assets. Processes are in place to ensure that performance is monitored and that appropriate management

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information is prepared and reviewed regularly by both the Senior Leadership Team and the Board of Trustees.

The systems of internal control are designed to provide reasonable but not absolute assurance against material misstatement or loss. They include:

• an annual budget approved by the Trustees;

• regular consideration by the Trustees of financial results and variances from budgets;

• delegation of day to day management authority and segregation of duties; and

• identification and management of risks.

Charity Governance Code

The Trustees have reviewed the Charity Governance Code. The Trustees consider that the Charity is already applying most of its recommendations and is working towards further application of its recommended practice.

Risk Management

The Trustees have a formal risk management process, which has been reviewed, revised and improved during the current financial year. This involves identifying the types of risks the Charity faces, prioritising them in terms of potential impact and likelihood of occurrence, and identifying means of managing or mitigating the risks and the individual responsible for managing each risk.

The Trustees have a formal incident recording process to identify incidents that can inform the risk management process.

The Trustees carry out an annual review of the principal risks to which the charity is exposed and systems have been established to manage those and other risks.

The principal risk facing the Church at this time is the possibility of an ineffective transition of senior leadership undertaken in July 2022 following 40 years from the founding of the Church. Planning and preparation for this transition has been taking place over the last five years and the Trustees and Senior Leadership Team have been working on the leadership structure and teams needed to help the Church to thrive in this new era.

The Trustees have been continuing to closely manage the risk of further cyber attacks following a serious incident in 2019/20 and especially in light of the extra risks the COVID-19 pandemic has presented. This has included training and new guidelines issued to charity staff and a charity-wide IT infrastructure review project, the recommendations of which are currently being implemented.

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This report has been prepared in accordance with the special provisions of Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006 relating to small companies.

Signed by order of the board of Trustees:

Mr R L Scott-Cook (Chair of Trustees)

Mr E J Marsh (Vice Chair of Trustees)

14 July 2022

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ANNUAL REPORT

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REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION

Company registration number: 06569993 Charity registration number: 1125029

Members of the Board of Trustees

The trustees, who are also directors for the purposes of Company law, that served during the year and since the year end, are:

Mr R L Scott-Cook (Chair) Mr E J Marsh (Vice Chair and Treasurer) Mr D J Mitchell Mr T J Dobson Mrs A Addison Mr W Matthews Mr D Roderick Mrs R Clark (resigned January 2022) Mrs A Dawson (appointed July 2022) Mr S Bodley (appointed July 2022)

Senior Leadership Team (SLT) of the Woodlands Church Family

Mr R L Scott-Cook (stepped down in July 2022) Mr D J Mitchell Mr R Pollard Mr T J Dobson Mr E J Marsh Mrs D A Marsh Mr N Savage Mrs R Riddall Mr P O Jinadu Mr D Roderick Mrs N Pollard Mrs H C Thompson

Principal Professional Advisers

Bankers

Lloyds TSB, High Street, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol, BS9 3DA Bank of Scotland, 2[nd] floor, Pentland House, 8 Lochside Avenue, South Gyle, Edinburgh, EH12 9DJ.

Auditors

Haines Watts Bristol Limited, Bath House, 6-8 Bath Street, Bristol, BS1 6HL

Registered office address: Woodlands Christian Centre Belgrave Road Clifton Bristol BS8 2AA Website addresses: www.woodlandschurch.net www.thecommunitychurch.net www.highgrove.church www.woodlandsmetro.church www.woodlandssouthside.church www.branchchurch.co.uk

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WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

INDEPENDENT AUDITOR’S REPORT TO THE MEMBERS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

INDEPENDENT AUDITOR'S REPORT TO THE MEMBERS

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of Woodlands Group of Churches (the ‘charitable company’) for the year ended 31 March 2022 which comprise the Statement of Financial Activities, the Balance Sheet, the Statement of Cash Flows and notes to the financial statements, including a summary of significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including Financial Reporting Standard 102 The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

In our opinion the financial statements:

• give a true and fair view of the state of the charitable company’s affairs as at 31 March 2022, and of its incoming resources and application of resources, including its income and expenditure, for the year then ended;

• have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice; and

• have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006.

Basis for opinion

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the charitable company in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC’s Ethical Standard, and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

Conclusions relating to going concern

In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the trustees’ use of the going concern basis of accounting in the preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.

Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the charitable company's ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.

Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.

Other information

The trustees are responsible for the other information. The other information comprises the information included in the trustees’ annual report, other than the financial statements and our auditor’s report thereon. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, except to the extent otherwise explicitly stated in our report, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon.

In connection with our audit of the financial statements, our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial

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YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

statements or our knowledge obtained in the audit or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether there is a material misstatement in the financial statements or a material misstatement of the other information. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.

We have nothing to report in this regard.

Opinions on other matters prescribed by the Companies Act 2006

In our opinion, based on the work undertaken in the course of the audit:

• the information given in the trustees’ report (incorporating the directors’ report) for the financial year for which the financial statements are prepared is consistent with the financial statements; and

• the directors’ report has been prepared in accordance with applicable legal requirements.

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

In the light of our knowledge and understanding of the charitable company and its environment obtained in the course of the audit, we have not identified material misstatements in the directors’ report.

We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Companies Act 2006 requires us to report to you if, in our opinion:

• adequate accounting records have not been kept, or returns adequate for our audit have not been received from branches not visited by us; or

• the financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records and returns; or

• certain disclosures of directors’ remuneration specified by law are not made; or

• we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit; or

• the trustees were not entitled to prepare the financial statements in accordance with the small companies’ regime and take advantage of the small companies’ exemptions in preparing the directors’ report and from the requirement to prepare a strategic report.

Responsibilities of trustees

As explained more fully in the trustees’ responsibilities statement set out on page 19, the trustees (who are also the directors of the charitable company for the purposes of company law) are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the trustees determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are responsible for assessing the charitable company’s ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the trustees either intend to liquidate the charitable company or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

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WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES INDEPENDENT AUDITOR’S REPORT TO THE MEMBERS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

Auditor responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor’s report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.

Irregularities, including fraud, are instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations. We design procedures in line with our responsibilities, outlined above, to detect material misstatements in respect of irregularities, including fraud. The extent to which our procedures are capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud is detailed below:

• We obtained an understanding of the legal and regulatory frameworks applicable to the charitable company and the sector in which it operates. We determined that the following laws and regulations were most significant: The Companies Act 2006, UK GAAP, The Charities Act 2011 and the Charities SORP.

• We obtained an understanding of how the charitable company is complying with those legal and regulatory frameworks and made enquiries to the management of known or suspected instances of fraud and non-compliance with laws and regulations. We corroborated our enquiries through our review of board minutes, other relevant meeting minutes and review of correspondence with regulatory bodies.

• We assessed the susceptibility of the charitable company’s financial statements to material misstatement, including how fraud might occur. Audit procedures performed by the audit team included:

• Identifying and assessing the controls management has in place to prevent and detect fraud;

• Understanding how those charged with governance considered and addressed the potential for override of controls or other inappropriate influence over the financial reporting process;

• Challenging assumptions and judgments made by management in its significant accounting estimates and judgments,

• Identifying and testing journal entries, in particular journal entries posted with unusual account combinations; and

• Assessing the extent of compliance with the relevant laws and regulations.

Because of the inherent limitations of an audit, there is a risk that we will not detect all irregularities, including those leading to a material misstatement in the financial statements or non-compliance with regulation. This risk increases the more that compliance with a law or regulation is removed from the events and transactions reflected in the financial statements, as we will be less likely to become aware of

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YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

instances of non-compliance. The risk is also greater regarding irregularities occurring due to fraud rather than error, as fraud involves intentional concealment, forgery, collusion, omission or misrepresentation.

A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Council's website at www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our Report of the Independent Auditors.

Use of our report

This report is made solely to the charitable company’s members, as a body, in accordance with Chapter 3 of Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the charitable company’s members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor’s report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the charitable company and the charitable company’s members as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

Matthew Bracher BSc FCA (Senior Statutory Auditor) for and on behalf of Haines Watts Bristol Limited, Statutory Auditor Chartered Accountants and Statutory Auditors

Bath House 6-8 Bath Street Bristol BS1 6HL

14 July 2022

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WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES (INCORPORATING INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT) YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

	**Unrestricted **	**Unrestricted **	Unrestricted
		Free	Designated	**Restricted **	Total funds	Total funds
		Reserves	funds	funds	2022	2021
	Note	£	£	£	£	£
Income from :
Donations and Legacies	2	1,033,112	52,716	213,444	1,299,272	1,286,794
Charitable activities	3	44,259	151,868	-	196,127	137,235
Investments	4	-	159,287	-	159,287	132,116
	Total	1,077,371	363,871	213,444	1,654,686	1,556,145
Expenditure on :
Charitable activities
Global Partnerships		44,961	50,027	166,052	261,040	229,199
City and Community Outreach		113,146	12,370	43,037	168,553	151,642
Gathered Church		251,692	26,348	1,730	279,770	239,155
Children and Youth Ministry		157,946	8,005	-	165,951	148,270
Student Ministry		133,833	18,379	2,844	155,056	128,061
Discipleship and Leadership Development		155,625	4,073	939	160,637	157,977
Pastoral Care		50,589	1,183	6,517	58,289	56,890
	5	907,792	120,385	221,119	1,249,296	1,111,194
Raising funds	8	15,034	1,557	-	16,591	10,792
	Total	922,826	121,942	221,119	1,265,887	1,121,986
Net gains on investments	15	-	184,249	-	184,249	557,034
Net income/(expenditure)	9	154,545	426,178	(7,675)	573,048	991,193
Transfers between funds	18	(369,809)	369,504	305	-	-
Other gains/(losses)		-	-	369	369	(1,986)
Net movement in funds		(215,264)	795,682	(7,001)	573,417	989,207
Reconciliation of funds
Total funds brought forward		567,688	7,983,134	132,162	8,682,984	7,693,777
Total funds carried forward	18	352,424	8,778,816	125,161	9,256,401	8,682,984

The Charity has no recognised gains or losses other than the results for the period as set out above.

Fund comparatives are disclosed in note 20.

The notes on pages 30 to 48 form part of these financial statements

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BALANCE SHEET

AS AT 31 MARCH 2022

Note Fixed assets: Tangible assets 12 Programme related investments 13 Mixed purpose investments 14 Financial Investments 15 Current assets: Debtors 16 Programme related investments 13 Mixed purpose investments 14 Cash at bank and on short term deposit Liabilities: Creditors : Amounts falling due within one year 17 Net current assets Total assets less current liabilities Total net assets The funds of the charity: Unrestricted income funds Free reserves Earmarked Giving Funds (designated) Fixed asset NBV (designated) Charitable Loans NBV (designated) Available for Charitable Loans (designated) Capacity Development (designated) Property Purchases (designated) St James/UPA (designated) Mental Health and Wellbeing (designated) South Bristol Church Planting (designated) Unrealised Investment Gains (designated) 19 Restricted income funds 19 Total charity funds	2,315,614 1,191,297 200,000 3,153,248	2022 £ 6,860,159 2,396,242	2,312,110 1,110,100 200,000 2,470,556	2021 £ 6,092,766 2,590,218
	64,274 418,724 300,000 1,646,425		67,565 485,026 400,000 1,667,427
	2,429,423 (33,181)		2,620,018 (29,800)
	352,424 150,562 2,315,614 1,593,585 1,693,475 259,537 1,895,266 40,024 29,152 66,000 735,601		567,688 205,213 2,312,110 1,578,960 1,580,481 262,437 1,467,080 25,501 - - 551,352
		9,256,401		8,682,984
		9,256,401		8,682,984
		9,131,240 125,161		8,550,822 132,162
		9,256,401		8,682,984

These financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the special provisions of Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006 relating to small charitable companies and were approved by the Trustees on 14 July 2022 are signed on their behalf by:

Mr R L Scott-Cook Mr E J Marsh FCA DChA Chair of Trustees Vice Chair and Treasurer

Company registration number: 06569993

The notes on pages 30 to 48 form part of these financial statements

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STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

Note Operational cash flows Cash flowsfor operating activities Receipts from Donations and Legacies 21 (A.1) Payments for Raising funds 21 (B.1) Net inflow for operating activities Cash flowsfrom operating activities Receipts from Charitable activities 21 (A.2) Payments for Charitable activities 21 (B.2) Receipts from Programme-related investments 21 (C.1) Receipts from Mixed Purpose investments 21 (C.2) Additions to Programme-related investments 13 Repayments from Programme-related investments 13 Additions to Mixed purpose investments 14 Repayments from Mixed purpose investments 14 Net inflow of operating activities Non-operational cash flows Investing activities: Receipts from Financial investments 21 (D.1) Purchase of investments 15 Purchase of tangible fixed assets 12 Net cash used in investing activities Net cash inflow for the year 22	Total funds Total funds 2022 2021 £ £ 1,305,986 1,285,796 (15,034) (10,792)
	1,290,952 1,275,004 192,534 132,421 (1,227,038) (1,087,601) 68,127 56,059 30,000 36,000 (416,057) (546,675) 401,582 213,630 (300,000) - 400,000 424,000
	(850,852) (772,166)
	440,100 502,838
	62,756 40,840 (500,000) - (23,858) (25,658)
	(461,102) 15,182
	(21,002) 518,020

Charity law prohibits the use of net cash flows on any restricted fund to offset net cash outflows on any fund outside of its own purposes, except on special authority. In practice, this restriction has not had any effect on cash flows for the year.

The notes on pages 30 to 48 form part of these financial statements

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NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

1 Accounting policies

a) Basis of preparation

The financial statements have been prepared on the historical cost basis with the exception of financial investments which are shown at fair value. The financial statements are prepared on a going concern basis and in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2019) – (Charities SORP (FRS 102)), the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) and the Companies Act 2006.

The charity is a Public Benefit Entity as defined under FRS 102. The presentation currency is pounds sterling.

The Statement of Cash Flows has been prepared on the gross/direct basis, as permitted by the Charities SORP. Cash has been defined as Cash on hand and short term deposits of less than 3 months for the purposes of the Statement of Cash Flows. The Balance sheet additionally includes short term deposits of less than one year within Cash on hand.

There are no material uncertainties about the charity’s ability to continue as a going concern, despite the ongoing uncertainty and inflationary pressures arising from the continued impact of the worldwide COVID-19 crisis and the geopolitical crisis in Europe. Whilst the Trustees expect there to be a continued impact on the charity’s operations over the next year or two, the charity has sufficient reserves to be able to meet these challenges.

There have been no management judgements or any key sources of estimation uncertainty at the reporting date in the accounts that give rise to a significant risk of causing a material adjustment to the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities within the next reporting period.

b) Funds

Unrestricted free reserves are available for use at the discretion of the Trustees in the furtherance of the charitable purposes of the charity.

Designated funds form part of unrestricted funds and have been identified as being for particular purposes by the Trustees. They are not restricted and can be transferred to free funds at any time at the discretion of the Trustees. Material designated funds are identified and explained in note 18 to the financial statements.

Restricted funds can only be used for particular restricted purposes within the objects of the charity. Restrictions arise when specified by the donor or when funds are raised for particular restricted purposes. Expenditure which meets these criteria is charged to the fund. The purpose and use of each material restricted fund is set out in note 18 to the financial statements.

(c) Income

All income is included in the Statement of Financial Activities when the charity is legally entitled to the income, when the amount can be quantified with reasonable accuracy and receipt is probable. The following specific policies are applied to particular categories of income:

Donations and Legacies are included in full in the Statement of Financial Activities when receivable, except as follows:

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NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

1 Accounting policies (continued)

• i. Income from offerings is recognised when received;

• ii. Income from ‘planned giving’ is recognised only when received;

• iii. When the donor specifies that donations given to the charity must be used in future accounting periods, the income is deferred until those periods;

Gift Aid relief on eligible donations is recognised on an accruals basis at the same point as the original donation.

Investment Income represented by interest on bank deposits, dividends receivable, interest on programme-related investments and interest on mixed purpose investments is recognised when receivable. Investment income from Charitable Loans and Mixed Purpose Investments is added to the ‘Available for Charitable Loans’ fund, with the remaining investment income recognised in the ‘Property Purchases’ designated fund. The purpose these funds is described fully in note 18.

Rental income is recognised within Income from Charitable Activities as the promotion of student community living and the hiring of the buildings for weddings and other Christian conferences and events is considered part of the activities the charity undertakes to achieve its objects. The rental income on student rooms is recognised when invoiced (usually on a monthly basis) and, for events, is recognised in the period the event takes place. Rental income is apportioned to the Property Purchase Fund.

Donated services and facilities are included in the Statement of Financial Activities at their value to the charity at the date of the gift. Donated assets which are capitalised are included in the accounts at fair value. In accordance with the Statement of Recommended Practice, no amounts are included in the financial statements for services donated by volunteers.

(d) Expenditure

Expenditure is recognised on an accruals basis as and when a legal or constructive obligation arises.

Expenditure is allocated to the identified Charitable Activities directly, where applicable. Support costs relating to engaging church workers, administration costs and premises costs are allocated to Charitable Activities as follows:

Support cost Basis of allocation Church workers Estimated time spent on each activity Administration costs Estimated usage of the resource Premises costs Estimated usage of the resource These estimates are reviewed on an annual basis.

Grants payable are charged to the Statement of Financial Activities in the accounting period in which communication of the award is communicated to the recipient.

Governance costs include those costs associated with meeting the constitutional and statutory requirements of the charity and include the audit fees and costs linked to the strategic management of the charity. Governance costs are included within Support costs.

31

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

1 Accounting policies (continued)

(e) Foreign currency

The microfinance element of the charity’s programme related investments are managed in US$. In view of there being a very large number of small loans, the transactions are not converted to £s at the transaction date but the US$ balances at the year-end are converted to £s at the year-end rate. Gains and losses on exchange are treated as other gains and losses within the Statement of Financial Activities.

(f) Tangible fixed assets and depreciation

Fixed assets are stated at cost and new items costing more than £1,000 are capitalised. Depreciation is calculated so as to write off the cost of fixed assets on a straight line basis over their estimated useful lives on the following basis:

Freehold property: No depreciation charged (see below) Audio, Visual and office equipment: 20% Furniture and Fittings: 20% (with some assets being depreciated at 10%)

No depreciation is charged in the year of acquisition and a full year’s depreciation is charged in the year of disposal. No provision for depreciation has been made for freehold property as it is the view of the Trustees that the estimated residual value of each property is not materially different from the carrying value. The Trustees undertake an impairment review whenever they identify any indicators that impairment may have occurred.

Donated properties have been included in the Balance Sheet at their current value at the date of the gift.

The charity owns three residential properties located adjacent to two of its church buildings. These properties were purchased and are held for the charitable benefit derived from their proximity to the church. Such benefits include better parking and access to church premises, the use of gardens for church events and activities and the ability to offer housing to staff and volunteers, where the proximity to the churches is to the benefit of its operations. Where vacancies arise, the charity seeks to rent rooms to such volunteers or staff. Where no such tenants are in prospect, the charity makes short-term lets to other members of the public in order to steward its resources well. As the charity holds the properties primarily for the benefit of its charitable purposes rather than for rental, the properties are held as functional fixed assets and not as investment properties.

(g) Financial instruments

A financial asset or a financial liability is recognised only when the charity becomes party to the contractual provisions of the instrument.

Basic financial instruments are initially recognised at the amount receivable or payable including any related transaction costs.

Debt instruments are subsequently measured at amortised cost.

Where investments in shares are publicly traded or their fair value can otherwise be measured reliably, the investment is subsequently measured at fair value with changes in fair value recognised in income and expenditure. All other such investments are subsequently measured at cost less impairment.

32

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

1 Accounting policies (continued)

Other financial instruments, including derivatives, are initially recognised at fair value, unless payment for an asset is deferred beyond normal business terms or financed at a rate of interest that is not a market rate, in which case the asset is measured at the present value of the future payments discounted at a market rate of interest for a similar debt instrument.

Any reversals of impairment are recognised immediately, to the extent that the reversal does not result in a carrying amount of the financial asset that exceeds what the carrying amount would have been had the impairment not previously been recognised.

(h) Debtors

Trade and other debtors are recognised at the settlement amount due after any trade discount offered. Prepayments are valued at the amount prepaid net of any trade discounts due.

(i) Financial investments

Listed investments are held in a common investment fund and are stated at market value at the balance sheet date. The Statement of Financial Activities includes the net gains and losses arising on revaluations and disposals during the year.

(j) Programme-related and mixed purpose investments

Programme-related investments consist of charitable loans; some of which carry an interest rate and some which are interest free. These investments are carried at cost less any provision for impairment less any repayments received. Mixed purpose investments are held for a financial return but also contribute to the charity’s purposes.

(k) Lease contracts

Rentals applicable to operating lease agreements where substantially all of the benefits and risks of ownership remain with the lessor are charged to the Statement of Financial Activities on a straight-line basis over the period of the lease.

(l) Creditors and provisions

Creditors and provisions are recognised where the charity has a present obligation resulting from a past event that will probably result in the transfer of funds to a third party and the amount due to settle the obligation can be measured or estimated reliably. Creditors and provisions are normally recognised at their settlement amount after allowing for any trade discounts due.

The charity makes grants to financially support global partners overseas and to UK-based missionaries and mission organisations. Where an individual or organisation has been supported by the charity for a number of years, strict compliance with the Charities Statement of Recommended Practice may regard some arrangements as constituting constructive obligations such that future years’ support is accounted immediately as a liability.

The Trustees are confident that the individuals and organisations supported would not view their support as an open-ended obligation on the part of the charity as they are aware that all support is reviewable annually.

(m) Pension costs

The charity contributes to a defined contribution pension plan on behalf of its eligible employees. The contributions are recognised as an expense in the period in which the related service is provided.

33

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

2 Donations and Legacies

Donations and Legacies
	**Unrestricted **	Unrestricted
	Free	Designated	Restricted
	Reserves	funds	funds	Total funds
Year ended 31 March 2022	£	£	£	£
Tithes, offerings, donations and legacies	844,442	48,938	183,167	1,076,547
Gift Aid tax reclaims	188,670	3,778	30,277	222,725
	1,033,112	52,716	213,444	1,299,272
Previous year ended 31 March 2021
Tithes, offerings, donations and legacies	850,392	44,594	147,092	1,042,078
Gift Aid tax reclaims	189,888	1,566	26,084	217,538
Grants receivable	22,178	5,000	-	27,178
	1,062,458	51,160	173,176	1,286,794

No government grants were received in the current year. In the prior year, grants receivable included £22,178 in respect of government grants. This consisted of £12,378 from the government's Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and £9,800 from Bristol City Council with respect to COVID support.

3 Income from Charitable Activities

Income from Charitable Activities
	**Unrestricted **	Unrestricted
	Free	Designated	Restricted
	Reserves	funds	funds	Total funds
Year ended 31 March 2022	£	£	£	£
Student rooms rents	-	84,143	-	84,143
Other rents and building hire	-	67,725	-	67,725
Church events and weekends away	44,259	-	-	44,259
	44,259	151,868	-	196,127
Previous year ended 31 March 2021
Student rooms rents	-	59,955	-	59,955
Other rents and building hire	800	65,773	-	66,573
Church events and weekends away	10,707	-	-	10,707
	11,507	125,728	-	137,235

34

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

4 Income from Investments

Income from Investments
	**Unrestricted **	Unrestricted
	Free	Designated	**Restricted **	Total funds	Total funds
	Reserves	funds	funds	2022	2021
	£	£	£	£	£
Bank deposit interest	-	552	-	552	4,939
Loan stock interest	-	28,875	-	28,875	33,995
Programme related investments return	-	67,656	-	67,656	57,281
Dividend income on financial investments	-	61,702	-	61,702	35,593
Feed in Tariff	-	502	-	502	308
	-	159,287	-	159,287	132,116

All prior year Income from Investments was incurred in Unrestricted Designated Funds.

5 Expenditure on Charitable Activities Year ended 31 March 2022 Global Partnerships City and Community Outreach Gathered Church Children and Youth Ministry Student Ministry Discipleship and Leadership Development Pastoral Care Previous year ended 31 March 2021 Global Partnerships City and Community Outreach Gathered Church Children and Youth Ministry Student Ministry Discipleship and Leadership Dev't_(restated)_ Pastoral Care	Church Grant Activities worker and funding of undertaken support activities directly costs Total funds £ £ £ £ (note 7) (note 6) 242,086 - 18,954 261,040 57,372 15,230 95,951 168,553 - 37,313 242,457 279,770 - 16,256 149,695 165,951 - 14,424 140,632 155,056 8,963 23,214 128,460 160,637 7,448 - 50,841 58,289
	315,869 106,437 826,990 1,249,296
	209,120 1,851 18,228 229,199 59,140 2,761 89,741 151,642 - 12,942 226,213 239,155 - 4,482 143,788 148,270 - 1,673 126,388 128,061 4,808 24,830 128,339 157,977 5,760 - 51,130 56,890
	278,828 48,539 783,827 1,111,194

Prior year costs of £4,808 have been reclassified from 'Activities undertaken directly' to 'Grant funding of activities'.

35

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

6	Church worker and Support costs
	Church worker		Admin	Premises
		costs	costs	costs	Total funds
		£	£	£	£
	Year ended 31 March 2022
	Global Partnerships	15,881	3,073	-	18,954
	City and Community Outreach	73,765	4,610	17,576	95,951
	Gathered Church	164,468	7,684	70,305	242,457
	Children and Youth Ministry	111,468	3,073	35,154	149,695
	Student Ministry	99,332	6,147	35,153	140,632
	Discipleship and Leadership Development	106,274	4,610	17,576	128,460
	Pastoral Care	49,304	1,537	-	50,841
		620,492	30,734	175,764	826,990
	Previous year ended 31 March 2021
	Global Partnerships	14,985	3,243	-	18,228
	City and Community Outreach	64,615	4,865	20,261	89,741
	Gathered Church	137,062	8,108	81,043	226,213
	Children and Youth Ministry	100,023	3,243	40,522	143,788
	Student Ministry	79,380	6,486	40,522	126,388
	Discipleship and Leadership Dev't (restated)	103,213	4,865	20,261	128,339
	Pastoral Care	49,508	1,622	-	51,130
		548,786	32,432	202,609	783,827

Included in Admin costs are Governance costs of £4,680 (2021: £4,440).

Church worker costs are allocated to activities on the basis of time spent on each activity. Admin and Premises costs are allocated to activities on the basis of usage estimates.

36

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

				Discipleship
7	Grant funding of Charitable activities		City and	and
		Global	Community	Leadership	Pastoral
	Year ended 31 March 2022	Partnerships	Outreach	Dev't	Care	Total funds
		£	£	£	£	£
	Grants to Institutions	129,155	51,192	-	-	180,347
	Grants to Individuals	112,931	6,180	8,963	7,448	135,522
		242,086	57,372	8,963	7,448	315,869
	Previous year ended 31 March 2021
	Grants to Institutions	92,507	50,647	-	-	143,154
	Grants to Individuals_(restated)_	116,613	8,493	4,808	5,760	135,674
		209,120	59,140	4,808	5,760	278,828

Analysis of grants to institutions

Institutions receiving over £2,500 in either the current or prior year or with Trustee links have been disclosed.

Institution name Charitable activity Beloved City and Community Outreach Bristol Noise City and Community Outreach inHope (Bristol) City and Community Outreach Sixty One City and Community Outreach Urban Pursuit City and Community Outreach City Road Baptist Church City and Community Outreach Feeding Bristol City and Community Outreach Community Initiatives South West City and Community Outreach Counterslip Foodbank City and Community Outreach North Bristol & Bristol NW Foodbanks City and Community Outreach Sea Mills Community Initiatives City and Community Outreach South Bristol Methodist Church City and Community Outreach The George Muller Charitable Trust Global Partnerships & City/Comm'ty Outreach Tearfund Global Partnerships ForEthiopia Global Partnerships The Bridge Trust Global Partnerships Friends of Asha GB Global Partnerships Hands at Work (UK) - see below Global Partnerships Bristol International Trust (BISC) Global Partnerships International Justice Mission Global Partnerships Other Institutional grants Global Partnerships & City/Comm'ty Outreach

Total funds Total funds 2022 2021 £ £ 9,848 4,792 1,000 - 11,485 8,431 2,621 2,603 4,650 4,650 - 2,813 - 4,659 648 3,427 - 3,427 1,898 11,495 463 250 3,000 - 66,018 77,548 21,049 - 3,250 - 8,000 - 8,166 - 4,169 3,000 3,265 638 15,000 5,000 15,817 10,421

180,347 143,154

Institutional grant recipients marked * have at least one trustee in common with Woodlands Group of Churches: R L Scott-Cook is a Trustee and A Dawson is the Director of Bristol International Trust (BISC) T J Dobson is a Trustee of Bristol Noise

E J Marsh is a Trustee of The George Muller Charitable Trust

S P I Marsh (brother of E J Marsh) is a Trustee of Sea Mills Community Initiatives

37

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

7 Grant funding of Charitable activities (continued)

The George Muller Charitable Trust facilitates prayer and financial support for a number of global and local mission partners. Woodlands Group of Churches partner with The George Muller Charitable Trust in supporting many of these partners, who also have a close partnership with our churches.

Included within the grants made to The George Muller Charitable Trust are grants totalling £31,458 (2021: £54,330) in respect of the charity's two partnerships with Hands at Work in Africa. This is in addition to the gift of £4,169 given directly to Hands at Work (UK).

8 Expenditure on Raising funds

Expenditure on Raising funds
	**Unrestricted **		Unrestricted
		Free	Designated	**Restricted **	Total funds
		Reserves	funds	funds
Year ended 31 March 2022		£	£	£	£
Online donation processing fees		15,034	-	-	15,034
Investment management fees (see note	15)	-	1,557	-	1,557
		15,034	1,557	-	16,591
Previous year ended 31 March 2021
Online donation processing fees		10,792	-	-	10,792
		10,792	-	-	10,792

9 Net income

This is stated after charging:	Total funds	Total funds
	2022	2021
	£	£
Depreciation (see note 12)	20,354	23,034
Auditor's remuneration for statutory audit services	4,680	4,440

10 People resources

A summary of the cost of church workers for the current and preceding financial year is below:

Wages and Salaries Social Security Costs Pension costs Payments under consultancy contracts	2022 2021 £ £ 573,618 530,504 29,350 26,448 8,980 8,324 - 4,325
	611,948 569,601

In the year to 31 March 2022, the average number of staff employed was 42 (2021: 41)

No employee received employment benefits of more than £60,000 in the current or preceding year.

38

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

10 People resources (continued)

The charity is heavily dependent on volunteers to conduct its activities and achieve its mission and aims. As voluntary involvement is encouraged for all those who consider themselves a part of the churches, it is impossible to reliably quantify the numbers of people or hours that the charity receives. The Trustees' report further illustrates the impact that volunteers have on the work of the charity.

The key management personnel of the charity includes the Trustees and the Senior Leadership Team. The employment benefits paid to key management were £220,355 (2021: £208,388).

The charity operated a defined contribution pension plan for its employees. The amount recognised as an expense in the year was £8,980 (2021: £8,324). The defined contribution liability is allocated between activities and funds on the same basis as the salary of the individual to whom those contributions relate.

11 Taxation

Woodlands Group of Churches is recognised as a charity for UK tax purposes and is therefore exempt from Corporation Tax on its income and gains provided that these are used for charitable purposes only.

**12 **	Tangible fixed assets		Audio,
		Freehold	Visual
		Property and	and office	Furniture
		Improvements	Equipment	& Fittings	Total
		£	£	£	£
	Cost
	At 1 April 2021	2,254,766	166,579	56,518	2,477,863
	Additions	-	17,183	6,675	23,858
	Disposals	-	(1,540)	-	(1,540)
	At 31 March 2022	2,254,766	182,222	63,193	2,500,181
	Depreciation
	At 1 April 2021	-	133,368	32,385	165,753
	Charge for the year	-	15,237	5,117	20,354
	Disposals	-	(1,540)	-	(1,540)
	At 31 March 2022	-	147,065	37,502	184,567
	Net book value
	At 31 March 2022	2,254,766	35,157	25,691	2,315,614
	At 31 March 2021	2,254,766	33,211	24,133	2,312,110

39

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

Programme related investments	Global	City and
	**Partnership **	Community
	Microfinance	Outreach
	loans	loans	Total
	£	£	£
At 1 April 2021	16,166	1,578,960	1,595,126
Additions	22,932	393,125	416,057
Written off loans (charged to Charitable Activities as grants payable)	(98)	-	(98)
Exchange rate gains	518	-	518
Amounts repaid	(23,082)	(378,500)	(401,582)
At 31 March 2022	16,436	1,593,585	1,610,021
Included within:
Fixed assets	-	1,191,297	1,191,297
Current assets	16,436	402,288	418,724
	16,436	1,593,585	1,610,021

13 Programme related investments

Global Partnership Microfinance loans include small short term loans to entrepreneurs in poverty.

City and Community Outreach loans include short term loans to local charities and individuals to assist in their ministries linked with the charity's City and Community Outreach activities. A fuller explanation on the nature and basis for these loans is included within the Trustees' report.

14 Mixed purpose investments At 1 April 2021 Additions Amounts repaid As at 31 March 2022 Included within: Fixed assets Current assets	Loan Other Stock Loans Total £ £ £ 600,000 - 600,000 300,000 - 300,000 (400,000) - (400,000)
	500,000 - 500,000
	200,000 - 200,000 300,000 - 300,000
	500,000 - 500,000

Mixed purpose investments includes £500,000 of interest bearing loan stock issued by Green Pastures Community Benefit Society (an exempt charity). The funds are used to help house the homeless and are unsecured. Under the charity's investment policy, from 2021/22, the maximum that can be invested for this purpose is limited at any one time to £500,000.

40

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

15 Financial Investments Market value brought forward Acquisitions at cost Investment management fees (see note 8) Gains/(losses) in the year Market value carried forward 16 Debtors Other debtors Gift Aid tax reclaims Prepayments and accrued income 17 Creditors: amounts falling due within one year Other creditors Taxation and social security Accruals and deferred income	2022 2021 £ £ 2,470,556 1,913,522 500,000 - (1,557) - 184,249 557,034
	3,153,248 2,470,556
	2022 2021 £ £ 33,648 35,854 23,292 23,472 7,334 8,239
	64,274 67,565
	2022 2021 £ £ 1,853 7,235 8,857 7,069 22,471 15,496
	33,181 29,800

41

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

18 Movement in funds

Movement in funds
Year ended 31 March 2022 Unrestricted funds Free reserves Earmarked Giving Funds(designated) Fixed asset NBV(designated) Charitable Loans NBV(designated) Available for Charitable Loans(designated) Capacity Development(designated) Property Purchases(designated) St James/UPA(designated) Mental Health and Wellbeing (designated) South BristolChurch Planting (designated) Unrealised Investment Gains(designated) Restricted Funds Hands at Work (Bhandeni) Hands at Work (Houtbos) Hands at Work (Missionary support) Highgrove Global Partner Fund Local Care and Mission Fund Metro Special Offering Microfinance Needy Saints Reach (Single Parents Ministry) Sunday Evening Offerings Sunday Mission Offerings(Branch) Sunday Mission Offerings(Community Church) Sunday Mission Offerings(Highgrove) Sunday Mission Offerings(Metro) Sunday Mission Offerings(Woodlands Central) Woodlands Global Partner fund Other restricted funds (see description) Total funds Previous year ended 31 March 2021 Unrestricted funds Free reserves Earmarked Giving Funds(designated) Fixed asset NBV(designated) Charitable Loans NBV(designated) Available for Charitable Loans(designated) Capacity Development(designated) Property Purchases(designated) St James/UPA(designated) Unrealised Investment Gains(designated)	At Transfers At 1 April Income Expenditure between 31 March 2021 and gains and losses funds 2022 £ £ £ £ £ 567,688 1,077,371 (922,826) (369,809) 352,424 205,213 51,711 (76,362) (30,000) 150,562 2,312,110 - - 3,504 2,315,614 1,578,960 - - 14,625 1,593,585 1,580,481 139,722 (12,103) (14,625) 1,693,475 262,437 8,603 (11,503) - 259,537 1,467,080 140,019 (11,833) 300,000 1,895,266 25,501 23,816 (9,293) - 40,024 - - (848) 30,000 29,152 - - - 66,000 66,000 551,352 184,249 - - 735,601
	8,550,822 1,625,491 (1,044,768) (305) 9,131,240 5,167 10,643 (12,414) 258 3,654 6,405 16,596 (13,809) - 9,192 142 27,503 (27,947) 319 17 3,705 7,425 (11,670) 3,318 2,778 15,624 24,886 (29,664) 3,451 14,297 11,175 712 (4,739) - 7,148 16,182 369 (98) - 16,453 26,959 6,850 (5,935) (60) 27,814 15,688 10,308 (2,157) - 23,839 - 2,155 - (2,155) - - 6,119 (5,435) 216 900 - 7,447 (7,447) - - - 3,767 - (3,767) - 558 6,808 (7,306) - 60 - 5,828 (332) (5,496) - 16,776 54,152 (64,923) 1,339 7,344 13,781 22,245 (27,243) 2,882 11,665
	132,162 213,813 (221,119) 305 125,161
	8,682,984 1,839,304 (1,265,887) - 9,256,401
	At Transfers At 1 April Income Expenditure between 31 March 2020 and gains and losses funds 2021 £ £ £ £ £ 287,316 1,073,965 (796,365) 2,772 567,688 220,772 46,160 (77,744) 16,025 205,213 2,309,486 - - 2,624 2,312,110 1,248,884 - - 330,076 1,578,960 1,771,114 151,386 (11,944) (330,075) 1,580,481 296,504 14,863 (48,930) - 262,437 1,425,271 71,446 (5,637) (24,000) 1,467,080 9,222 25,149 (8,870) - 25,501 - 557,034 - (5,682) 551,352
	7,568,569 1,940,003 (949,490) (8,260) 8,550,822

42

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

18 Movement in funds (continued)

Movement in funds (continued)
Unrestricted funds total(from previous page) Restricted Funds Hands at Work (Bhandeni) Hands at Work (Houtbos) Hands at Work (Missionary support) Highgrove GP Fund Local Care and Mission Fund Metro Special Offering Microfinance Needy Saints Reach (Single Parents Ministry) Sunday Evening Offerings Sunday Mission Offerings(Branch) Sunday Mission Offerings(Community Church) Sunday Mission Offerings(Highgrove) Sunday Mission Offerings(Metro) Sunday Mission Offerings(Woodlands Central) Woodlands GP fund Other restricted funds (see description) Total funds	At Transfers At 1 April Income Expenditure between 31 March 2020 and gains and losses funds 2021 £ £ £ £ £
	7,568,569 1,940,003 (949,490) (8,260) 8,550,822 4,566 13,264 (21,831) 9,168 5,167 12,324 20,521 (26,440) - 6,405 1,208 27,021 (28,087) - 142 1,500 8,935 (10,108) 3,378 3,705 5,244 21,302 (12,291) 1,369 15,624 15,568 250 (4,643) - 11,175 18,168 - (1,986) - 16,182 24,225 6,898 (4,164) - 26,959 10,563 5,337 (212) - 15,688 - 2,033 (809) (1,224) - - 383 (278) (105) - - 8,684 (7,926) (758) - - 3,403 (5) (3,398) - 5,387 6,774 (11,603) - 558 - 2,040 (35) (2,005) - 13,022 30,763 (28,094) 1,085 16,776 13,433 15,568 (15,970) 750 13,781
	125,208 173,176 (174,482) 8,260 132,162
	7,693,777 2,113,179 (1,123,972) - 8,682,984

Description and purpose of funds and transfers

All funds with an opening balance, closing balance, income, gain, expenditure, loss or transfer greater than £10,000 have been separately disclosed. With the exception of monthly mission offerings which are disclosed in full regardless of size, all other funds have been included within 'other restricted funds'. The Charity accounts fully for all restricted funds and a summary of the movement on any smaller fund is available upon request.

Free reserves

These funds represent the free reserves of the charity. Transfers out include £23,858 to the Fixed Asset NBV Fund representing assets purchased with free funds. Transfers into the fund include the annual depreciation charge of £20,354 met by the Fixed Assets NBV fund.

The Trustees agreed to transfer £300,000 to the Property Purchases fund to ensure this fund is maintained at a level that enhances the prospects of being able to purchase of a building in the vicinity of the Central congregation's campus. In addition, £75,000 was transferred out of free reserves to create a designated fund for the monthly contribution towards the stipend being paid by the West of England Baptist Network to R&N Pollard to work with Woodlands to plant a congregation based on South Bristol.

Earmarked Giving Funds (designated)

From time to time, the charity receives unrestricted donations and allows the donor to express wishes as to their ultimate application within the charitable purposes of the charity. The application of these funds is at the full discretion of the Trustees, but they take account of the expressed wishes of the donor. The Trustees have determined that it appropriate to hold these 'earmarked' funds in a designated fund.

43

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

18 Movement in funds (continued)

Fixed asset NBV (designated)

This fund represents the net book value of tangible fixed assets held by the charity. The transfers in and out of this fund relate to additions and depreciation.

Charitable Loans NBV (designated)

This fund represents the carrying value of the charitable loans held by the charity. These consist of global partnership microfinance loans and charitable loans held locally to further the City and Community Outreach dimension of the charity's work. Transfers are made to and from the 'Available for Charitable loans' fund as and when new loans are disbursed or repayments are made.

Available for Charitable Loans (designated)

This fund is used to hold the funds from repaid Charitable loans ready for recycling into other loans. Up until the end of Quarter 2, net rental income and the investment income on Charitable loans and Mixed purpose investments was added to the fund to enable it to keep pace with property inflation. From October 2021 only the investment income on Charitable loans and Mixed Purpose investments is added to the fund to keep the balance at a reasonable level for requirements.

Capacity Development (designated)

This fund enables major capital developments of existing buildings that provide increased capacity or usage. Income and expenditure this year includes the income and costs associated with the Central congregation garden development project and improvements to the Emmanuel Church building that Branch has taken on.

Property Purchases (designated)

This fund exists to enable the opportunistic purchase at short notice of a property nearby our Woodland Road building to enable much needed extra capacity and facilities to support the ongoing ministry of the church. To avoid the need for significant loan finance, the Trustees have determined it appropriate to hold funds ready to respond to such purchase opportunities as they arise, and to use investment income from Listed and Cash Investments and make appeals where appropriate, to keep this fund broadly in line with property inflation. During the year, the Trustees transferred £300,000 from accumulated free reserves into this fund having considered the current market prices of local buildings which would be of a location and size needed to fulfil the needs identified

South Bristol Church Planting (designated)

A fund of £75,000 was created this year for the monthly contribution towards the stipend being paid by the West of England Baptist Network to R&N Pollard to work with Woodlands to plant a congregation in South Bristol.

Mental Health and Wellbeing (designated)

The fund was created from a gift of £30,000 received from a donor for 'use by the trustees as deemed fit'. As Mental Health is a key priority for the trustees, they have set aside this gift for this purpose.

St James/UPA (designated)

The charity started renting out accommodation in their St James building last year. The net rental is included within this designated fund in order to help meet the costs of future upkeep liabilities for the ageing building.

Unrealised Investment Gains (designated)

This funds represents the cumulative unrealised investment gains from the charity's equity investment portfolio.

Hands at Work (restricted)

Woodlands Group of Churches has two partnerships to support the work of the charity Hands at Work in two needy communities in Africa. These funds represent the monies raised from our congregations in support of these partnerships. Additional funds have been raised to support missionaries serving with Hands at Work.

Highgrove Global Partners Fund (restricted)

This fund arises from offerings and is held to enable Highgrove Global and Local mission partners to be supported both on a regular and on an ad hoc basis, as needs arise.

44

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

18 Movement in funds (continued)

Local Care and Mission Fund (restricted)

This fund was established for the Trustees to make discretionary gifts to Local Mission and Care Projects and organisations. The funds arise from regular offerings at the Woodlands Central congregation.

Metro Special Offering (restricted)

This fund was established following an offering to support the vision of the Metro Campus to reach the many university students in Bristol who are unconnected with church.

Microfinance (restricted)

These are funds given specifically for the purpose of investing in Microfinance initiatives. Any microfinance repayments received are reinvested as part of the same restricted fund.

Needy Saints (restricted)

The Trustees have established a fund to be spent at their discretion on grants to those who are in financial hardship or particular need. Other members of church are invited to give into this fund.

Reach (Single Parents ministry) (restricted)

This fund arises from restricted giving to support the activities of Reach, a Single Parents outreach and includes the activities associated with the annual Single Parents Fair. It is anticipated that the fund will be used to meet the cost of a community worker to reach and support single parent families in the coming financial year.

Sunday Offerings (restricted)

Across the church, an offering is taken once a month during the morning and evening services. These offerings are taken for the benefit of global partners serving overseas or for nationwide or city-based community care and outreach initiatives. Gifts are either sent directly to recipients from these funds or transferred to other funds as appropriate to their ultimate application.

Woodlands Global Partners Fund (restricted)

This fund arises from offerings and is held to enable Woodlands Global Partners to be supported both on a regular and ad hoc basis as needs arise.

19 Summary of assets and liabilities of each fund category

At 31 March 2022	**Unrestricted **	Unrestricted
	Free	Designated	Restricted	Total
	Reserves	Funds	Funds	funds
	£	£	£	£
Tangible assets	-	2,315,614	-	2,315,614
Programme related investments	-	1,593,585	16,436	1,610,021
Mixed purpose investments	-	500,000	-	500,000
Financial investments	-	3,153,248	-	3,153,248
Cash, Deposits and other current assets	385,605	1,216,369	108,725	1,710,699
Other current liabilities	(33,181)	-	-	(33,181)
	352,424	8,778,816	125,161	9,256,401
At 31 March 2021	**Unrestricted **	Unrestricted
	Free	Designated	Restricted	Total
	Reserves	Funds	Funds	funds
	£	£	£	£
Tangible assets	-	2,312,110	-	2,312,110
Programme related investments	-	1,578,960	16,166	1,595,126
Mixed purpose investments	-	600,000	-	600,000
Financial investments	-	2,470,556	-	2,470,556
Cash, Deposits and other current assets	597,488	1,021,508	115,996	1,734,992
Other current liabilities	(29,800)	-	-	(29,800)
	567,688	7,983,134	132,162	8,682,984

45

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

20 Prior year fund comparatives for the Statement of Financial Activities

	**Unrestricted **	Unrestricted
	Free	Designated	**Restricted **	Total funds
	Reserves	funds	funds	2021
	£	£	£	£
Income from :
Donations and Legacies	1,062,458	51,160	173,176	1,286,794
Charitable activities	11,507	125,728	-	137,235
Investments	-	132,116	-	132,116
Total	1,073,965	309,004	173,176	1,556,145
Expenditure on :
Charitable activities
Global Partnerships	46,579	49,048	133,572	229,199
City and Community Outreach	101,563	23,109	26,970	151,642
Gathered Church	202,661	35,877	617	239,155
Children and Youth Ministry	133,521	14,749	-	148,270
Student Ministry	103,846	21,179	3,036	128,061
Discipleship and Leadership Development	147,187	7,477	3,313	157,977
Pastoral Care	50,216	1,686	4,988	56,890
	785,573	153,125	172,496	1,111,194
Raising funds	10,792	-	-	10,792
Total	796,365	153,125	172,496	1,121,986
Net gains/(losses) on investments	-	557,034	-	557,034
Net income/(expenditure)	277,600	712,913	680	991,193
Transfers between funds	2,772	(11,032)	8,260	-
Other gains/(losses)	-	-	(1,986)	(1,986)
Net movement in funds	280,372	701,881	6,954	989,207
Reconciliation of funds
Total funds brought forward	287,316	7,281,253	125,208	7,693,777
Total funds carried forward	567,688	7,983,134	132,162	8,682,984

46

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

21 Reconciliation of the Statement of Financial Activities to the Statement of Cash Flows

A.1 Receipts from Donations and Legacies Decrease in debtors A.2 Receipts from Charitable activities Increase in debtors Increase in deferred income and other creditors B.1 Payments for Raising funds Investment management costs B.2 Payments for Charitable activities Depreciation eliminated Non-cash grant on microfinance loans Increase in prepayments and other debtors Increase in creditors and accruals C.1 Receipts from Programme-related investments Non-cash foreign exchange movement Decrease in debtors C.2 Receipts from Mixed Purpose investments Decrease in debtors D.1 Receipts from Investments Income from programme-related investments Income from mixed purpose investments Balance sheet movements 22 Analysis of changes in cash and cash equivalents Cash at bank and in hand Notice deposits (less than 3 months) Total cash and cash equivalents Cash at bank and in hand Notice deposits (less than 3 months) Total cash and cash equivalents	Statement of Financial Activities £ 1,299,272 196,127 (16,591) 1,557 (1,249,296) 20,354 98 67,656 (149) 28,875 159,287 (67,656) (28,875) 2022 £ 153,276 1,493,149	Debtors Creditors Cash flow £ £ £ 6,714 1,305,986 (4,328) 735 192,534 (15,034) (840) 2,646 (1,227,038) 620 68,127 1,125 30,000 62,756 3,291 3,381 2021 Change £ £ 204,825 (51,549) 1,462,602 30,547 1,667,427 (21,002) 2020 Change £ £ 91,731 113,094 1,057,676 404,926 1,149,407 518,020
	1,646,425
	2021 £ 204,825 1,462,602
	1,667,427

47

WOODLANDS GROUP OF CHURCHES

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

23 Commitments

The charity had no capital or non-cancellable lease commitments at the end of the current or preceding period.

24 Payments to Trustees and other related party transactions

Remuneration and benefits paid to Trustees and other related parties

Under the Memorandum and Articles of Association, the Trustees have the authority to employ or engage under a contract for services a Trustee or any person connected with a Trustee as long as certain conditions are met and procedures followed. Below is a summary of these payments and those made to other related parties:

	Payments	Salary
	for services,	from	Pension
**Gifts and Grants **		employment	costs	Total
	£	£	£	£
Year ended 31 March 2022
D J Mitchell	-	36,608	911	37,519
T J Dobson	-	28,846	678	29,524
D Roderick	-	17,271	331	17,602
Close family members of Trustees	1,280	30,052	405	31,737
Senior Leadership Team(if not included above)	9,000	97,106	2,164	108,270
Year ended 31 March 2021
D J Mitchell	-	34,640	852	35,492
T J Dobson	-	27,656	643	28,299
D Roderick	-	16,112	296	16,408
Close family members of Trustees	675	23,610	362	24,647
Senior Leadership Team(if not included above)	-	91,301	1,991	93,292

Close family members of Trustees comprises: D J Mitchell (son of D Mitchell), C Mitchell (spouse of D Mitchell), D A Marsh (spouse of E J Marsh), M Dobson (son of T Dobson), S Mitchell (daughter-in-law of D Mitchell)

The above disclosure of payments to Senior Leadership Team members comprises the following individuals who were not Trustees or close family members of a Trustee during the year: N J Savage, R Riddall, P O Jinadu, H C Thompson, R Pollard and N Pollard. Included in the current year is grants of £9,000 to the West of England Baptist Network as a contribution towards the stipend received by R and N Pollard.

R Riddall, a member of the Senior Leadership Team and Key Management, is in receipt of a charitable loan from the charity. The outstanding balance of the loan was £402,288 at the balance sheet date and is secured on a property. The rate of interest charged is on the same basis as that charged to the charity's other loan holders.

Donations from Trustees and related parties

The aggregate donations received from Trustees, SLT and related parties were £85,118 (2021: £48,544).

Trustee expenses

Three trustees were reimbursed a total of £562 for travel expenses and training (2021: £78 paid to one trustee).

25 Company limited by guarantee

The charity is incorporated in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee having no share capital and, in accordance with the Memorandum of Association, every member is liable to contribute £1 towards the costs of dissolution and the liabilities incurred by the charity in the event of the company being wound up.

48