2024-03-31-accounts

Hale Community Centre, 130 Upper Hale Road, Farnham, GU9 0JH

Registered Company Number: 06872992 (E W) Registered Charity Number: 1132822 E | info@[e-mail]

Report of the Trustees and Unaudited Financial Statements for the year ended 31 March 2024

For

Hale Community Centre Ltd

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The trustees, who are also directors of the charity for the purposes of the Companies Act 2006, present their report with the financial statements of the charity for the year ended 31 March 2024. The trustees have adopted the provision of 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 FRS102(2015).

Governing document

The Hale Community Centre is a registered charity, limited by guarantee, governed by its Memorandum and Articles of Association dated 2008.

Registered Company number 06872992 (England and Wales)

Registered Charity number 1132822

Registered office Hale Community Centre 130 Upper Hale Road Farnham Surrey GU9 0JH

Independent Examiner Roy Waight, CIMA

Bankers

The Co-operative Bank Business Direct P.O. Box 250 Skelmersdale WN8 6WT

Directors/Trustees

Norma Corkish - Chair Jean Hounsham – Secretary John Cattell –Treasurer Melissa Ellenden (appointed 21[st] November 2023) Pat Evans Joan Juniper (appointed 9th May 2023) Carol McFarlane Simon Porter Catherine Powell Tom Quinn

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

Recruitment and appointment of new trustees Trustees who are also directors of the company are appointed in accordance with the procedures set out in the company’s Articles.

Risk management

The Trustees regularly monitor and review the risks to which the Charity is exposed.

Hale Community Centre a registered charity since 2009 and one for all residents in Upper Hale, is seen as a vital hub for families and people of all ages within North Farnham – with groups for babies to seniors, along with a Youth Centre for 7-19 year olds.

Chair’s Report – 23-24

This is my last year as Chair as I will retire at the coming AGM towards the end of this year.

I have been with the Centre from a little after it was registered as a charity and company limited by guarantee in 2009. Before that, from 1998, activities were taking place in the converted residence of the local primary school’s caretaker. However, with activities outgrowing the space an opportunity was taken by local Councilors, the then local housing association, First Wessex, along with Surrey County Council and other partners to develop a brand-new facility, which officially opened in May 2010.

I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing the Centre grow from what it was then to now a thriving community hub for those from infancy to old age, ensuring accessibility for all, well connected and embedded into the Community. It has been a privilege to be part of its development, for it is a very special space, with feedback showing how much we are appreciated.

Our story is one of recognising needs within our local community and meeting them. We work ‘with’, rather than ‘for’, listening to all those for whom the Centre exists and all those who work within it, for it and alongside it. Essential to our success is strong team commitment, leadership and working in partnership with others. There is a dedicated team effort from our small staff and up to 40 volunteers, with support from Trustees. We have never lost sight off why we are here – for those in our local community. We work as one large family recognising that at times all need mutual support – not just those who make use of activities but also those who provide them.

And in doing all we do we aim to help create lasting positive change.

There have always been challenges to achieving success and this continues to be the case. We have to ensure our governance remains strong and that we do all we can to ensure sustainability. That means being adaptable, agile and able to make changes as and when necessary.

I am confident that the organisation will continue successfully on its journey and will not shy away from difficult decisions it might have to make in the future or how best to meet the challenges it will face.

Norma Corkish

Within our closest community, Sandy Hill, there are particular challenges:

The 2019 Indices of Multiple Deprivation show this community to be overall in the lowest 30% of LSOAs (Lower Layer Super Output Area) in England and in the lowest 20% for education, skills and training.

The 2019 local authority health profile showed that life expectancy is a number of years lower for both men and women in the most deprived areas of Waverley than in the least deprived areas.

2015 Education, Skills & Training LOWEST	2019 10THLOWEST
Income Deprivation 5THLOWEST	13THLOWEST
Income Deprivation Affecting Children (IDACI) 5THLOWEST	16THLOWEST
Employment Deprivation 11THLOWEST	10THLOWEST
Position in Surrey (709) 5THLOWEST	14THLOWEST

Being community led

Our vision

Create lasting positive change with an ethos of working ‘with’, rather than ‘for’

Our mission

to provide a safe, welcoming and inspiring environment where the whole community is encouraged and enabled to thrive.

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Respect
for all
Inclusivity
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Integrity –
honesty,
openness,
transparency,
fairness
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We aim to do this through offering inclusive activities which support the education, training, employment, cultural and recreational needs and aspirations of our local community, holding to values which reflect:

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Excellence
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Numbers we have helped Total number of users through the year

on average 60 individual young people each week

approximately 100 participating in health & wellbeing projects

8 young people have completed the first alternative learning experience offered to year 9/10 Farnham Heath End School students, this ran for 27 weeks

100 regular users of the Fridge & Cupboard

our family holiday activities which welcome many more

50 volunteers

20 for Fridge with 40 collections on a weekly basis from 14 different stores

Our Key Achievements

Our Community Cupboard & Fridge

Whilst this was originally started in order to rescue food from landfill, it now also ensures many are able to put food on the table. The 20 volunteers involved in this activity made 40 collections each week from 14 different stores, whilst also ensuring we were open 3 days/week with an additional evening opening and the outside cupboard open at all times.

Pop up Café

Our Wednesday lunch-time sessions, where people pay what they want (or nothing) has continued to be a great success. Our fantastic volunteer kitchen team provide a

3-course lunch, using our ‘saved food’, for all those attending and for those needing information or advice our Citizens Advice Adviser is on hand. We also welcomed other community organisations to come along and promote other local services and opportunities.

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4X
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Since the beginning of January 2024 we have redistributed +11 tons of excess food which is about the same weight as 2 adult African elephants

and enough to produce The 31 tons of CO2e saved by 27,586 healthy meals not sending the waste to for our community. landfill is equivalent to driving a family sized car 4.5x around the globe.

Youth Provision

This provided open access for 11-19 year olds 2 nights/week, a Junior and Senior Girlz Clubs, 11-14 year olds - 1 night/week, a Boys Night In 14-19 years. A Code Club for 9-14 year olds monthly, Bethel Baptist Church youth group, Kids on the Hill, for 7–11 year olds together with holiday activities during the summer. Activities covered included a variety of educational, craft and physical activities, with participation in Hale Carnival, a visit to Thorpe Park and a Christmas celebration.

Our Key Achievements

Over the last year we have also run MOALE – Might Oak Alternative Learning Experience – for 11-16 year olds who were experiencing barriers to attending school because of social isolation, anxiety or poor mental health for 2 hours/week for 27 weeks. It provided an opportunity to explore the obstacles to school engagement, and work on personal confidence, relationship building, self-care and developing coping strategies to enable young people to thrive.

In addition, we successfully supported a group of parents and young people in their efforts to get a football group up and running by ensuring they could get their DBS checks, first aid and safeguarding training and some coaching training for one of the volunteers.

Stay and Play – Parent & Pre-schoolers Group

ensured we were able to continue to provide early years support (no longer available since the closing of our Children’s Centre) to local families where we regularly see 10 families.

Community Garden & Seed to Plate

Volunteers continue to ensure our Community Garden thrives and provides colour, fruit and vegetables for the various meals we provide and those that are made in our cookery classes. This year we introduced a “Seed to Plate” project for families one afternoon/week to help them understand how they can produce their own food.

Community Engagement

Our Key Achievements

This year we were fortunate to be able to appoint a community development coordinator to support and develop community engagement, well-being and cohesion within Sandy Hill through providing positive and dynamic opportunities that build community resilience and empowerment. This linked well with our Health & Wellbeing Co-ordination work which focused on building physical and emotional strength and resilience, with sessions on cooking, walking, strength and balance and mobile gym.

A successful Fun Day, with the support of SHIP (Sandy Hill Inclusive Partnership) was held offering information and fun activities for all age groups.

Other activities included:

Under our ‘Warm Welcome’ banner: Weekly Seniors Group, Pop In Craft for All, Weekly Craft Group, Weekly Job Club, Swap shop, SEND parents group, BOBS

We also hire out room space to external groups which has included healthy diabetes courses, Slimming World, karate for children, food bank cooking courses, Rainbows and a variety of craft clubs. We also host a range of counselling services and medical sessions in our consulting room.

Impact

It is important that, to the best of our ability, that we monitor and evaluate all our work to ensure that we are making a difference and are:

V Improving health and well-being, and reducing levels of anxiety, stress, depression and associated ill-health

Vv Reducing isolation

Vv Improving confidence and self-reliance

Vv Improving levels of education, skills and training

In our youth work, we have seen many of our young people grow in confidence and self-esteem. The school feedback re MOALE has been very positive, referring to increased level of confidence and resilience, with improvements in attendance. There has been a reduction in challenging behaviours, in particular amongst young men. The young women's confidence and self-esteem has grown considerably and relationships between staff/volunteers and the young people has gone from strength to strength. Feedback includes:

“I love coming down and doing arts and crafts with my friends”;

“I have learned about all different things, like how to treat people with respect”; “Girlz Club and Youth Club has made me feel so much better”.

When asked what we could do better all those participating in the evaluation process emphatically said ‘nothing’.

Feedback on our health and wellbeing sessions has included:

“My fitness has improved and some confidence has returned. My balance has also improved, so quite a change for which I am very pleased.” “I particularly like the social bit afterwards as I live on my own.” “We had THE BEST time today - thank you so much for bringing back the lifeline to the wider community - it makes such a difference to so many!:

Working with Others

In all of the above we have worked with a number of other organisations which included Citizens Advice, local secondary schools, Farnham Youth Practitioners, Farnham Health Inequalities Forum, Barnardo’s Family Centre. We also networked with the Farnham Younger People Task Force, run by Farnham Town Council, VIVID, our local Housing Association, Waverley Borough Council Leisure Services, Voluntary Action South West Surrey (VASWS), Farnham Connects, Sandy Hill Inclusive Partnership (SHIP), The Hygiene Bank.

All of what we achieve is down to the hard work and team effort of our committed staff – 9 (all part-time) – and our over 50 volunteers, which includes our trustees . Training was provided for our volunteers and in recognition of their contribution and of the need to have ‘fun’, we said a BIG ‘thank you’ to all of them in July at a BBQ hosted by one of our trustees at his farm.

The estimate of volunteer contribution is thought to be approximately 13,000 hours . This goes far beyond a financial evaluation of their worth, but it is salutary to note that this is over £148,000 per annum . Our volunteers are supported by the staff team and we hold training sessions for specialist roles. We also hold Christmas and Summer ‘thank you’ events to which all volunteers are warmly invited.

Thanks to supporters

Our achievements are also impossible without the support of our donors, which along with individuals, include:

PR/Marketing

Facebook over 1.1K followers, Instagram and community fridge & cupboard – nearly 1,000 followers.

PR and Marketing

The Environment

Environment

We have continued to implement our environment policy with recycling of all recyclable materials used in the centres, together with milk bottle tops, old pens and ring pulls which we collect for outside agencies who are able to fundraise with these. We also host a textile recycling bank in the garden.

Financial Review

Total income for the year ending 31[st] March 2024 was £306,926. This represented an overall 38% increase in income on the previous year due an increase in grant money received.

Unrestricted income has also increased by about 37% from £56,689 to £90,737, largely due to an increase in room hire.

Financial Review

Of the surplus in unrestricted funds during the year of £21,552 as noted in the SoFA, in order to ensure monies are available for refurbishment of the building, in particular replacement of the roof when it becomes due in approximately 10 years’ time, it has been agreed to put aside £2,400 per annum into a designated fund. This takes the fund for this financial year to £26,400. In addition, £15,000 is being held against the potential need to invest in infrastructure.

&

Reserves Policy

Of the total funds of £261,950 carried forward, £154,183 is restricted and £66,367 unrestricted. The restricted funds have to be used exclusively to finance the cost of designated projects as agreed with the funders.

As indicated above, the majority of our surplus funds are for restricted use, which means we need ready access to them. So whilst we would like to make use of a long-term high interest account, we cannot. Therefore, our present investment strategy is to obtain the best rate of interest from savings accounts and short-term deposit accounts without placing any of our money at risk.

Reserves Policy

The Trustees have agreed to ensure funds are available to cover 6 month’s operational costs, which includes staff salaries and totals approximately £75,000 .

Plans for the forthcoming year

We will review our Business Plan and through that ensure we are listening to and meeting the needs of our community. We will also continue to develop our fundraising strategy to ensure that we continue to diversify our income and so ensure financial sustainability going forward.

At all times we will continue to ensure that we keep our running costs to a minimum, but not at the expense of a quality service. And importantly we want to ensure that we can effectively demonstrate to our funders and all stakeholders that we add value and are making a difference together with a positive impact.

The Trustees are responsible for preparing the Trustees’ Annual Report and the Financial Statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations.

Company law requires the Trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year. Under that law the Trustees have elected to prepare the financial statements in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (United Kingdom Accounting Standards and applicable law). The financial statements are required by law to give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of the surplus or deficit of the charity for that period.

In preparing these financial statements, the Trustees are required to:

• select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;

• make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;

Responsibilities of the Trustees

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

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

Approved by order of the Board of Trustees on 25[th] November 2024 and signed on its behalf by:

Norma Corkish – Chair of Trustees

Independent Examiner's Report to the Trustees of the Hale Community Centre Ltd

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity ("the Trust") for the year ended 31st March 2024. As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 ("the Act”’).

I report in respect of my examination of the Trust's accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5Xb) of the Act.

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination (other than that disclosed below) which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

Independent Examiner’s Report

• the accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Charities Act: or

• the accounts did not accord with the accounting records; or

• the accounts did not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Requlations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a 'true and fair' view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination.

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

R D Waight, CIMA

The Old Vicarage, Church Lane, Rowledge, GU10 4EN 11th November 2024

Statement of Financial Activities Year Ending 31[st] March 2024

	Hale Community Centre Ltd	Hale Community Centre Ltd
	Statement of Financial Activities					SST, , 2, o Fe
	Year Ending 31st March 2024					Cy 2, ec, ' 4 ting loch
		2023-24			2022-23
	Unrestricted Use	Restricted Use	Total	Unrestricted Use	Restricted Use	Total
Incoming Resources
Grants	17,760	214,910	232,670	232,670 3,000	131,672 134,672	131,672 134,672
Donations	6,084	1,282	7,366	7,366 6,430	3,364	9,794
Room Hire	60,242		60,242	60,242 41,713		41,713
Bank Interest & Sundry Income	5,967		5,967	5,967 2,715		2,715
Gift Aid	681		681	681 831		831
HM Government Grants - Covid 19	0		0	0 2,000		2,000
Total Income	90,734	216,192	306,926	306,926 56,689	135,036 191,725	135,036 191,725
Expenditure
Payroll Costs/Project Management	49,654	13,760	63,414	63,414 35,395	12,792	48,187
Group Leaders Fees & Expenses Holiday Events & expenses Consultancy Fees Resources and Equipment	125 0 -168 5,162	85,882 857 15,727	86,007 857 -168 20,889	86,007 1,264 857 0 168 20,889 4,269	43,426 850 0 14,575	44,690 850 168 18,844
Repairs & Maintenance	5,160		5,160	5,160 5,984	0	5,984
Cleaning	13,139	52	13,191	13,191 9,451	49	9,500
Core Costs Recovery	-15,894	15,894	0	0 _-8,539 _	8,539	0
Other restricted fund expenditure		13,867	13,867	13,867 0	3,380	3,380
Other Property Costs	9,799	1,203	11,002	11,002 8,852	1,260	10,112
Events & Publicity	1,310	245	1,555	1,555 334	662	996
Charitable Donations	474		474	474
IT Costs	421		421	421 664	0	664
Bad Bebts written off				44	0	44
Total Expenditure	69,182	147,487	216,669	216,669 57,886	85,533 143,419	85,533 143,419
Surplus/Deficit for the year	21,552	68,705	90,257	90,257 _-1,197 _	49,503	48,306
Reserves Brought forward 1st April	86,215	85,478	171,693	171,693 75,035	48,352 123,387	48,352 123,387
Transfer to Unrestricted Use funds (notes 4&5)				12,377	_-12,377 _
Reserves Carried forward 31st March	107,767	154,183	261,950	261,950 86,215	85,478 171,693	85,478 171,693

Hale Community Centre Ltd Balance Sheet As at 31st March 2024

Balance Sheet as at 31st March 2024

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||||| |---|---|---|---| |2024|2023| |Current Assets| |Prepayments|200|2,975| |Debtors|6,088|5,443| |Cash in Bank|261,012|168,619| |267,300|177,037| |Less:| |Current Liabilities| |Creditors and Accrued Charges|5,350|5,344| |Net Current Assets|£261,950|£171,693| |Representing:| |General Reserve as at 1st April 2023|47,215|53,435| |Unrestricted Use Surplus - year ended 31st March 2024|21,552|11,180| |Transfer to provision for major refurbishment|-2,400|19,152|-2,400| |8,780| |Transfer to Provision for infrastructure| |-15,000| |upgrades|0| |General Reserve carried forward|66,367|47,215| |Provision for major refurbishment (note 2)|26,400| |Provision for Infrastructure Upgrades (note 3)|15,000|41,400|39,000| |Restricted Use Funds|154,183|85,478| |Fund Balance as at 31st March 2024|£261,950|£171,693|

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Hale Community Centre Ltd

Notes to the Accounts Year Ending 31st March 2024

1. The accounts for the current financial year have been prepared on an accruals basis. Specifically, amounts due from customers have been included as well as prepayments and creditors.

Note to Accounts Year Ending 31[st] March 2024

1. Provision for major refurbishment, primarily roof replacement, has been created to set aside funds for this purpose when it becomes due. An amount of £2,400 should be put aside in each year.

2. A need in the near future to upgrade aspects of the Community Centre's infrastructure has been identified. Accordingly a provision for the estimated costs of £15,000 has been set aside.

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Hale Community Centre, 130 Upper Hale Road, Farnham, GU9 0JH

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