Charity Number 1133819
## Annual Report and Accounts to the year ending 31 December 2021
Registered office
Mexborough Life Church New Oxford Road MEXBOROUGH South Yorkshire S64 0JL
Contents
Trustees Annual Report
Independent Examiner’s report
Statement of Financial activities
Report of the Trustees for the year 2021
## Report of the Trustees for the year 1 January to 31 December 2021
## Our purpose and activities
The objective of the charity are for the benefit of the public:
- Promotion of the Christian religion
- Provision of public worship
- Provision of activities for the public benefit
The vision
Our Mission is: Making Jesus Christ known.
To help us put this into practice we have six key values that underpin all our activities:
- Relationships
- Prayer
- Worship
- Word and Spirit together in unity
- Discipleship
- Mission
The activities
To do this we had several activities happening throughout 2021:
- Weekly Sunday services
- Mid-weekly Bible Studies and Worship team
- Monthly Prayer meetings
- Weekly Community Toddler Group “Little Acorns” (started back in Autumn)
- Various Youth Events
- Website and Social Media
- Community giving
- Christmas activities
- Tithing our income
## Achievements through our activities from the year
The church believes that the Christian gospel is good news which should have a positive impact on the local community. Furthermore, the promotion of Christian faith comes on the back of positive intervention in the life of the local community, demonstrating the gospel in both word and deed. The church also believes that a key role it has is to serve the local community in provision of services that may not otherwise be provided and in doing so introduce people to the Christian faith.
In 2021 given the lockdown situation early on and our experience in 2019 we focused on internal relationships and encouraging members back in to fellowship. Several social events were put on (often involving food) to develop new relationships with one another.
Report of the Trustees for the year 2021
Weekly Sunday services
The church maintained its weekly Sunday service throughout the year with services continuing to be broadcast on line. Visiting speakers maintained relationships with other fellowships and internal speakers developed people from within the congregation.
Mid-weekly meetings: Prayer, Bible Study and Worship
A regular pattern of Bible Study and Prayer meetings continued throughout the year - with themed studies being well received. These included 1 Corinthians and
Studies we’re led by both leaders and people from within the fellowship and attracted on average around 12 people.
The prayer meetings were usually held on the first Wednesday of the month and were the culmination of a day of prayer and fasting. The prayer topics were set by the Prayer Coordinator in conjunction with the leadership. Again the average attendance was around 12.
The worship team continued to meet throughout the year and drew new people into this area of church ministry.
Weekly Community Toddler Group “Little Acorns”
We were pleased to be able to reopen our weekly Little Acorns Group, following a long period of closure due to COVID restrictions and its implications, from October 2021. This was possible because of joint working with other churches in the area.
Various Youth Events
We kept the youth meeting together with Sunday morning activities and late afternoon events to strengthen their relationships. Our youth are now mainly primary age given the shift in members since before COVID.
Website and Social Media
We continued to provide our services live online. This was to serve the average 60 weekly watchers.
It is still also a great tool to support our members who cannot get into the building.
## Community giving
Christmas food parcels went out from the congregation with support from the local Coop.
## Christmas activities
We had several member activities to strengthen our relationships as we move forward together. A number of carol singing activities in homes and schools had to be cancelled due to covid restrictions as local levels increased. We did do some carol singing and leaflet giving outside in the area to raise the real meaning of Christmas.
## Tithing our income
The church continued to donate on a monthly basis into the work of a church network in Zambia, pursuing the same objectives as we have. The balance of the income tithe will go to similar objective projects as decided by the Trustees in 2022.
Report of the Trustees for the year 2021
## Future Plans
The leaders continued with the process of seeking a new leader for the fellowship through relational contacts and personal recommendations.
On reviewing the Toddler Group it was decided the group should continue under the partnership arrangement with Mexborough Baptist.
## Volunteers
We cannot run without our volunteers and although the effects of COVID in 2020 were still impacting our volunteers in 2021 we had the following volunteers (some people in more than one role):
- Leaders 2
- 4 active Trustees
- · 5 Key roles and responsibilities
- · 8 Little Acorns Team
## Structure and Governance
Type of governing document: trust deed, Wesleyan Reform Union Reference Deed
How the charity is constituted: A church of the Wesleyan Reform Union
Trustees, Key Volunteers, Staff and Advisors
|**Trustee name**|**Office (if any) – all**
**voluntary**|**Dates acted if not for whole year**|
|---|---|---|
|Jennifer Copley|Treasurer and Payroll
Officer||
|Lorraine Slater|||
|Eric Mugabo|Prayer Coordinator|Since 16 May 2021|
|Sarah Collins||Since 16 May 2021|
Trustee selection methods: Recommendation made by and approved by the Leadership Team and Trustees; approached by the trustees, to ascertain their willingness to serve their appointment; and approved by the members of the church/charity.
|Staff/Volunteer role|**Details**|
|---|---|
|Leaders (Volunteers)|During 2021 the two leaders continued to create the strategy to
enable the church to continue during the challenging times
brought about by the pandemic, without a minister, and to
enable the appointment of a new minister. Since August 2021,
once appointed, they now support the new minister|
|Minister/Pastor/Senior Leader|Employed since August 2021 . Gives the key vision for the church
and high level pastoral care to its members.|
Report of the Trustees for the year 2021
|Report of the Trustees for the year 2021
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Centre|Report of the Trustees for the year 2021|
|---|---|
|Type of adviser|**Name**|
|Legal|AFVS (Now Trust Practice)|
|Wesleyan Reform Union
https://thewru.com/about-
us/confession-of-faith/|Our denomination, which also connects with
CLAS (Churchs’ Legal advisory service)|
## Policies and Procedures
During the year we finalised our large review of our Safeguarding Policy and our Employment policies, contracts and handbook, and did further work on tightening our controls on key holders and access to the building. As well as ongoing COVID-19 risk assessments.
We have the following policies some* of which are still under review after changes in 2019:
- Health and Safety* (including Fire* and First Aid)
- Safeguarding
- Key Holders
- Reserves Policy
- Privacy Notice and Data Protection Policy*
- Conflicts of Interest Policy
- Code of Conduct for Trustees (including Anti-bribery & Corruption)
- Employment Handbook, including disciplinary and grievance policy, and appropriate risk assessments for lone working and homeworking
- Staff expenses policy
## Financial Review
Reserves
## Ongoing ability
As reported last year the ongoing ability to significant increase our bank balances continued until we paid a minister from August 2021. This was done on purpose to take advantage of this time and God’s goodness, to support our pastor recruitment and provide any new minister security.
Also as stated last year due to a sale of a building we have additional financial resource available to us at WRU some for capital purposes and some for outreach. These are not within these accounts and remain with the WRU but have been set aside for us. £50k of this is also set aside for supporting the minsters wages ongoing until we can grow enough to support the wage on our own.
## Overall changes in funds
Overall the increase in general fund, unrestricted, balances has gone from £15.5k to £20.7k (following the receipt of the grants owed to move back the £1.7k). Once the minister was employed there were only two months where we made a surplus (cash basis) and this is because one included gift aid and the other was timing of banking cash offerings.
Also In order to combat the effect of the minister wages we applied in November to get a sum of money towards the ministers wages: this was approved but not paid until January 2022 (and hence shown as owing in the accounts).
Report of the Trustees for the year 2021
Our restricted funds have not moved much in the year, and the small value that came in was spent. The remain balance is mostly for the building project (98.8%), which has had delays and set-backs but the Leaders and Trustees still have a strategy to bring the building into a better state to serve our needs as we outreach to the community.
## Within reserves policy?
So as at the end of 2021 we were well within our reserves policy, and were so even if you include the agreed set aside for wages for the future plans, as explained in the section above.
The trustees aim to ensure the charity will be able to continue to fulfil its charitable objectives even if there is a temporary shortfall in income or unexpected expenditure. The trustees will endeavour not to set aside funds unnecessarily.
Accounts - income and expenditure comments
Our funding this year came purely from: free will offerings and donations mainly from church members (98.7%); some hire rental (0.8%); the remaining was from donations from those who access our weekly activities. Of this income 0.9% of it was given for restricted purposes.
The Trustees designate 10% of the gross unrestricted donations. This is for our biblical tithe principal to organisations doing the same work in promoting the Christian faith.
The restricted income all furthered our charity objectives. Of the unrestricted income we used this to:
_1._ Further our charities activities within our charity (74.4%) – _note we designated a further 7.1% of unrestricted giving to further our same charity aims shares with another charity_
2. For saving towards future minister to further our charitable activities even further (19.6%)
3. To ensure we are insured and following legal requirements for the charity law (5.2%) – _note that due to volunteer services this will be significantly reduced next year_
4. Trading costs to raise further funds (0.3%) which raised about 3x the apportioned cost.
Overall our spending was 93.7% on charitable activities.
## Assets
Covid gave us time to go through the assets we had accumulated over the years and access which ones were not working or not required or just no good anymore. As part of this the following assets – previously (2020) on the asset listing, on page two of the accounts – were disposed of as stated:
|**Asset**|**Why disposed – any value for it**|
|---|---|
|Hoovers (2)|Hoovers were old and not picking up dust in an efficient manner, as part
of getting a new cleaner once opened up we reviewed these cleaning
equipment and disposed of the ones that didn’t work.|
|Table tennis equipment|This had become unsafe and not usable so was all binned|
|Fixed Stage (stored at Mex.Bus.Centre)|Given the time period since we used it and the fact we got it for free (as
second hand) we donated this to the business centre.|
|Office electrical equipment: 2 heaters|These were condemned by a PAT test as badly damaged and unsafe
and sowere disposed|
**CC16a**
**Charity Name**
**No (if any)**
**Mexborough Life Church and Centre (New Oxford Road) 1133819**
**Receipts and payments accounts For the period** Period start date **To** Period end date **from** 01/01/2021 31/12/2021
## **Section A Receipts and payments**
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Unrestricted
Restricted funds Designed funds Total funds Last year
funds
to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
A1 Receipts
Voluntary Income 26,048 278 2,883 29,209 24,157
Activities for generating funds 230 - - 230 350
Charitable Activities 62 - - 62 429
Investment Income - 2 - 2 15
Other Incoming Resources - - - - -
Sub total (Gross
280 2,883 29,503 24,951
income for AR) [ 26,340 ]
A2 Asset and investment sales, (see table).
- - - -
- - - - -
Sub total - - - - -
Total receipts 26,340 280 2,883 29,503 24,951
A3 Payments
Cost of Generating Voluntary
Income - - - - -
Charitable Activities 19,596 1,978 2,070 23,644 13,366
Governance Costs 1,520 - - 1,520 2,098
Fundraising Trading Costs 72 - - 72 50
- - - - -
Sub total [ 21,188 ] 1,978 2,070 25,236 15,514
A4 Asset and investment purchases, (see table)
- - - -
- - - -
Sub total [ - ] - - - -
Total payments 21,188 1,978 2,070 25,236 15,514
Net of
receipts/(payments) 5,152 - 1,698 813 4,267 9,437
A5 Transfers between
funds - while awaiting
approved grants on
restricted spending - 1,700 1,700 - - -
A6 B/f Cash funds 15,546 18,096 - 33,642 24,205
Cash funds this year
end 18,998 18,098 813 37,909 33,642
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## **Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period** ~~a~~
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||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Unrestricted|Restricted|Designated|
|Categories|Details|funds|funds|funds|
|to nearest £|to nearest £|to nearest £|
|B1 Cash funds|Bank Account|18,764|17,018|787|
|CASH|234|-|26|
|Owed back|1,080|
|-|
|Total cash funds|18,998|18,098|813|
|SS|ES|SS|
|(agree balances with receipts and payments account(s))|
|OK|OK|OK|
|B2 Other monetary|-|-|-|
|assets|EF|-|-|-|
|Fund to which|EJ|ES|ES|Current value|
|Cost (optional)|
|asset belongs|(optional)|
|B3 Investment assets|-|-|
|B4 Assets retained for|New Oxford Road Building (legally belonging to|-|-|
|Wesleyan Reform Union)|
|the charity’s own use|
|PA equipment at NoR|-|-|
|Old highthorn PA equipment at NoR|
|Hoovers (2) and cleaning equipment|
|3 old Laptops - various uses|
|2 more recent Laptops|General|960|
|Portable sound/projection/light. equip.|-|-|
|Kitchen and café equipment NoR|-|-|
|Toys and equipment for mums and tots group|-|-|
|Crafts and games|
|Various DVDs and Books|
|Chairs/Tables at NoR|-|-|
|NOR Lecturn and Storage boxes/drawer|
|Heater in NoR|
|Baptism tank: hot tub and pump etc|
|3 TVs (2 on stands)|
|Pool table on lower hall stage|
|Football table on lower hall stage|Youth/Outreach|
|Portable nets and various balls: NoR storage|Outreach|
|Christmas Tree and decorations|
|office equipment: chair cupboard/cabinets|General|380|
|Office electrical equipment: copier, printer,|
|shredder|
|Conference Chairs and desks at MYC|
|Wireless Mircophone|General|106|
|Old Musical instruments that are ours: Old Piano|
|at NoR; keyboard; old drum kit|
|4 Speakers and 1 amp|
|New Piano at NoR|General|478|
|B5 Liabilities|-|
|Signed by one or two|Signature|Print Name|Date of approval|
|trustees on behalf of all the|
|trustees|
|—|—|Jennifer Copley|15/09/2021|
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