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← New Oxford Road Church

2024-12-31-accounts

Registered as NEW OXFORD ROAD CHURCH, Charity Number 1133819

Annual Report and Accounts to the year ending 31 December 2024

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 2024

Report of the Trustees for the year 1 January to 31 December 2024

Our purpose and activities

The objective of the charity is for the benefit of the public:

The vision

Our Vision is: L.I.F.E.

We do this by · Relationships · Prayer · Worship · Word and Spirit together in unity · Discipleship · Mission

The activities

The vision underpins the full range of our led activities, in 2024 we had the following activities, some of which were started in the year as annotated:

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. To do so we need to provide discipleship and family support to our congregation. 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.

Report of the Trustees for the year 2024

All the structure put in place and activities below led to a more sound, growing and financially and spiritually stable church in 2024.

Weekly Sunday services

The church maintained its weekly Sunday service throughout the year with services continuing to be broadcast on-line and in-person. The second full year of our new minister saw not only growth but has continued to see increase in the spiritual development and involvement of people in church life and its activities from within the congregation.

Mid-weekly meetings: Prayer, Bible Study and Worship

A weekly pattern of Bible Study and Prayer meetings continued throughout the year meeting with two groups that developed in numbers reaching more of the congregation and including and reaching some of those outside the congregation asking questions on the Bible. One group is more introduction questions/themes and the other for those needing more depth.

A further monthly women’s bible study was ongoing that includes, time for fellowship, and has been attending by women from other congregations or those seeking God.

The prayer meetings were usually held on the first Tuesday of the month. The prayer topics were set by leadership and Pastor. The average attendance was around 10.

The worship team continued to meet throughout the year and again drew new people into this area of church ministry and involved more those who joined in 2023.

Sunday School and Youth

Our Sunday School, called ‘Roots’ now meeting weekly Sundays, except over the summer and special family meetings.

We also held a Summer event for Primary school children, bringing back something we haven’t done since COVID. We also again did the 31[st] October event to provide an alternative for those turning away from the darkness of the season.

The new minister was invited again to the local Secondary School and conducted 4 Christmasthemed assemblies.

Our Rooted Youth sessions, starting last year, have strengthened the team and enabled us to meet almost every week in term time. Although numbers stay small we have good feedback and deep discipleship of the attendees.

Weekly Community groups “Cedars” and “Little Acorns”

Our ‘Little Acorns’ toddler group continues to thrive each Thursday (during term time) with an average attendance of 25 children and their parents/carers.

“Cedars” continued it’s fortnightly Wednesday drop-in. We provide free hot meals and drinks, food, games, quiz and an opportunity to chat. More people have joined our regular congregation from our “Cedars” community group in 2024. And some of them being baptised in 2024.

Christmas activities

We did do some carol singing and leaflet giving in some care homes and in the streets around Mexborough to promote the real meaning of Christmas. We held Christmas activities for families and for the Little Acorns children. As stated, the minister undertook some assemblies on a Christmas theme at the local secondary school.

Other Community action

Report of the Trustees for the year 2024

We also held other outreach specific family services at Easter and Harvest, which have started to be a real connection between our community activities and the church.

We continued to collect food to support Rotherham Food Bank (who also cover our area) and some needy individuals/families who attend our community and Sunday services.

We took to the streets at 3 different times in 2024: once at Easter as part of the Churches in Mexborough; another at Christmas; and once, including a team from a local bible training college. Several people were within earshot and responded to our message and stopped to talk with us as we told them the good news we have.

Website and Social Media

We continued to provide our services live online despite all members now being in the building. We have found that several Christian’s and even non-Christians have been listening in and so we still provide this service for a few we are in touch with online, it also supports members who are on holiday or unable to attend the Sunday service to keep in fellowship.

Tithing our income

The church donated to a few ad-hoc projects in 2024, and are looking in 2025 to determine more projects to support with our designated giving.

The 2024 projects were:

  1. £1,260 for a motorbike for a pastor in a rural area in Nigeria for discipleship and pastoral care, and there was a balance that went towards their first building to provide shelter during the raining season for the Christian’s there to meet together.

  2. £500 sent to Albania toward building a new base for a charities ongoing children’s work, which our church visited and worked within 2024.

  3. £150 to sponsor children to attend the Christian summer camp with our friends in Albania.

Our balance as at 31/12/24 will be allocated and sent in 2025/2026 as projects are identified.

Other congregational news

We held another 2 baptisms and 1 dedication service.

Future Plans

Our strengthened position not only stability and spiritually wise, but also on member numbers and financially, has enabled us to support further our ongoing activities and increased outreach events in 2024 by having an activity based requested budget in 2024, which we were able to fully provide for without going into deficit.

The strength of our financial position from new members started giving enabled us to decide at the end of 2024 to employ a Children’s worker in 2025 to go into the primary schools more often and create a weekly primary age group (the only age group currently not in place mid-week) and do more key events for this age group throughout the year.

Our 2024 plans were all put into place and we were able to meet the new things at the end of 2023 within the finances available to us from the members and small ways we raise funds internally.

2025 has also just seen the plans for the extension on it’s building at New Oxford Road, to have a proper infracture/space to support our ongoing work. We hope the building work will start in 2026. At the end of 2025 we just announced the employment of another part-time employee to support the pastor, making 1 FTE, to meet the needs of the growing congregation and activities.

Report of the Trustees for the year 2024

Volunteers

We cannot run without our volunteers, and we had the following volunteers (some people in more than one role):

Structure and Governance

Type of governing document: trust deed, Wesleyan Reform Union Reference Deed, we are set up as a Charitable Trust.

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 Acting Chair, Treasurer
and Payroll Officer
Sarah Collins Secretary
Kit Owen-Smith Started January 2024
Les Meadows Started January 2024

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 congregation of the church.

Report of the Trustees for the year 2024

Report of the Trustees for the year 2024
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4 4 Centre		 Report of the Trustees for the year 2024
Staff/Volunteer role Details
Paid Pastor and Volunteers
Leaders		 During 2024 the paid Pastor (employed status since May 2023)
continued the strategy of the church working with and
answerable to the two volunteer leaders working on the vision
and thinking about all our activities.
This enabled us to do all the activities reported above in 2024.
Pastor – additional Provides the main teaching and high-level pastoral care to its
congregation.
Support from volunteers in teaching the bible studies, Sunday
meeting and pastoral care is to be recognised.
Trustees Can challenge the decisions of Pastor/Leaders if necessary, but
their main role is to ensure the decisions made by them and the
activities conducted by the church are done so in a legal way and
with good governance and financial management.
Volunteers Listed above for various activities, some supervise the activity
and others attend to support the team in various ways.
We also have volunteers for various roles needed as part of the
administration and governance of the work done at the church.
Type of adviser Details – same as previous years but more
details given
Legal CLAS – see below
Safeguarding is supported with a contact officer
from the WRU
Trustees also have roles in this matter, including
our Treasurer who works in the financial field,
including payroll and HR for a living.
Wesleyan Reform Union
https://thewru.com/about-
us/confession-of-faith/		 Our denomination, which also connects with
CLAS (Churches Legal advisory service)

Policies and Procedures

We have continued to review our larger policies and better practice within the ongoing activities. In 2025 we have done more training to ensure all the new supervisors are aware of what is required.

2024 saw our volunteers update their food hygiene training and we also did the safeguarding training provided by our denomination.

(2023 trained our full range of volunteers in these policies and procedures.)

2024 has been again more putting the policy in practice by getting specialist training and undertaking a plan to undertake risk assessments for all activities, including new ones.

We also kept under review our Safeguarding Policy.

Report of the Trustees for the year 2024

We have the following policies some* of which are still awaiting formal approval since changes in 2019:

Financial Review

Reserves

Ongoing ability

2024 the growth in numbers since late 2022 enabled us to grow financially and strengthen from the 2023 position, the first year for a while we have had full activities and made a large surplus without external support.

2024 large surplus was mainly from the backdated 3 year gift-aid claim made in the year, and so ongoing resources more of less breakeven.

2023 was the first year for a while we had the ability for us to set a balanced budget and not need the reserves, and 2024 grew in the same way.

This has enabled the building project to be less constrained by finances as we still have unused the reserves that we thought we would need.

The 2024 growth also enabled us to feel secure in agreeing to set on another worker to increase the primary schools age work.

Our unrestricted funds, as at 31/12/24, stand at £43,319 (2023 = £30,882), and we have £5,784 set aside to meet our tithing target (2023 = £1,223) – explained in activities above). These funds have been built up and preserved as at the end of 2024 as explained above.

These reserves are being used as follows:

Our normal needed reserves are 3 months regular (including monthly proportions of annual/quarterly costs) are: just over £11,000. We updated the reserves policy in 2024 to identify at which point we should start actions so that we do not get to this position.

For the 2025 budget £1,132 needed for overspend planned, £2,500 set aside for ad-hoc spending and almost £4,000 on extra costs not currently covered by our income and committed. There are also some items we are saving towards for when they will need replacing such as the lower-hall boiler.

Report of the Trustees for the year 2024

At present, until the detailed costings of the building project are known, most of the remaining general reserves are being kept high to support that as it enables us to do more of what we want rather than be restricted.

Restricted reserves

The restricted funds, mainly for the building improvements, stand at £23,520 (2023 = £19,903).

The additions this year were:

Reserves held elsewhere

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. Around £55k of this has been set aside for supporting the building improvements and the rest as at 31/12/24 is still thought to be going to be used towards new posts and future outreach activities if not needing more for the building plans.

Overall changes in funds

Overall the increase in overall funds has gone from £52.0k to £72.6k, with unrestricted balances from £30.9k to £43.3k. This is despite expenditure increasing by £13,000 and a planned £2,000 overspend, mainly because of ongoing regular income from members covering the increased costs from having more members, but also the one-off increase to income from the backdated 3 year giftaid claim made in 2024.

Our restricted funds movements have been discussed above.

Within reserves policy?

So as at the end of 2024 we were well within our reserves policy.

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. The thoughts behind using our current reserves are explained further in the above comments.

We praise God for this glowing financial report and position that has enabled us to back our pastor/leader vision for the year, yet again, without any grant funding.

Accounts - income and expenditure comments

Our funding this year came almost purely from: free will offerings and donations mainly from church congregation (90.7%) some of which being gift aid; 4.1% from a community grant; hire of the building (3.4%); donations from those who access our weekly activities (0.8%) and interest (1%) other. Of this income 8.8% 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 (68.3%)

  1. Surplus generated as increased giving and backdated GA claim outstretched increased spending (18.3%), supporting our move in 2025 to employ another outreach worker

  2. Trading costs to raise further funds including voluntary income (2.9%) which made profit

  3. Designated for giving away for the same charitable activities (9.5%)

Overall, our spending was 95.2% on charitable activities.

Assets

Movement of assets compared to the previous year (2023), listed on page two of the accounts:

were disposed of as stated:

Asset Why disposed – any value for it
Replacement of Dishwasher Both were broken and needed replacement
Replacement of hot-water boiler
We purchased the following assets:
New catering equipment Following food hygiene training, including gluten free toaster
Microwave Due to needing a normal microwave for “Cedars”

We purchased the following assets:

CC16a

No (if any)

Mexborough Life Church and Centre (New Oxford Road) 1133819

Charity Name

Receipts and payments accounts

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||||||| |---|---|---|---|---|---| |For the period| |Period start date|To|Period end date| |from| |01/01/2023|31/12/2023| |ee|Section A Receipts and payments| |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|57,753|6,265|6,421|70,439|41,539| |Activities for generating funds|2,521|-|-|2,521|1,550| |Charitable Activities|620|-|-|620|966| |Investment Income|453|263|50|766|515| |Other Incoming Resources|-|-|-|-|-| |Sub total|(Gross income| |6,528|6,471|74,346|44,570| |for AR)|[ 61,347 ]| |A2 Asset and investment sales, (see table).| |-|-|-|-| |Sub total|-|-|-|-|-| |_————|bf FF} Ej]| |Total receipts|61,347|6,528|6,471|74,346|44,570| |Co)|Cee)|CEEST LL)|CS| |A3 Payments| |Cost of Generating Voluntary Income| |248|-|-|248|-| |Charitable Activities|46,337|2,911|1,910|51,158|38,342| |Governance Costs|663|-|-|663|1,084| |Fundraising Trading Costs|1,662|-|-|1,662|752| |-|-|-|-|-| |Sub total|[ 48,910 ]|2,911|1,910|53,731|40,178| |A4 Asset and investment purchases, (see table)| |-|-|-|-| |Sub total|[ - ]|-|-|-|-| |——|EF Fj ES]|EE| |Total payments|48,910|2,911|1,910|53,731|40,178| |Co ES|ee|ES|||CESS)|DES)| |Net of| |receipts/(payments)|12,437|3,617|4,561|20,615|4,392| |A5 Transfers between funds|-| |reversal last year cash basis| |of grant spending|-|-| |A6 Adjustments|-|-|-|-| |47,616| |A6 B/f Cash funds|30,882|19,903|1,223|52,008| |Cash funds this year end| |43,319|23,520|5,784|72,623|52,008|

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Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period ~~ee~~

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|||||| |---|---|---|---|---| |Unrestricted|Restricted|Designed| |Categories|Details|funds|funds|funds| |to nearest £|to nearest £|to nearest £| |B1 Cash funds|Bank Account|43,071|23,520|5,784| |CASH|248|-|-| |-| |Total cash funds|43,319|23,520|5,784| |(agree balances with receipts and payments account(s))| |OK|OK|OK| |B2 Other monetary assets|-|-|-| |-|-|-| |SS| |—| |Fund to which asset|Cost (only items|Current value| |belongs|since 2019)|(optional)| |B3 Investment assets|-|-| |B4 Assets retained for the|New Oxford Road Building (legally is ours but we|Restricted|-|-| |cannot sell, only use for furthering the gospel)| |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|General| |Heater in NoR|General| |Baptism tank: hot tub and pump etc|General| |3 TVs (2 on stands)| |Pool table on lower hall stage|General|Donated| |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 equipment: small lockable files (1)|General|23| |Office electrical equipment: copier/printer (2),|General|65| |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| |Signs and Banners|General|69| |H&S equipment inc fire and FA kits|General| |B5 Liabilities|-| |Signed by one or two trustees on|Signature|Print Name|Date of approval| |behalf of all the trustees| |yp|Jennifer Copley|18/10/2024|

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Signed by one or two trustees on Signature behalf of all the trustees

Independent examiner's report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner’s Report Report to the trustees/ New Oxford Road Church (Mexborough Life Church and Centre) members of ~~a Pr~~ On accounts for the year 31/12/2024 Charity no 1133819 ended (if any) ~~eeee ee~~ Set out on pages CC16A Sections A and B ~~P|~~ Respective The charity's trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. responsibilities of The charity’s trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year trustees and examiner under section 144 of the Charities Act 2011 (the Charities Act) and that an independent examination is needed. It is my responsibility to:

Basis of independent examiner’s statement

My examination was carried out in accordance with general Directions given by the Charity Commission. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking explanations from the trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit, and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a ‘true and fair’ view and the report is limited to those matters set out in the statement below.

Independent In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention examiner's statement 1. which gives me reasonable cause to believe that in, any material respect,

  1. which gives me reasonable cause to believe that in, any material respect, the requirements:

  2. to keep accounting records in accordance with section 130 of the Charities Act; and

  3. to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and comply with the accounting requirements of the Charities Act

  4. have not been met; or

  5. to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Signed: A Mumford Date: 20/10/2025 ~~a~~ Name: Andrew Mumford ~~Pe~~ Relevant professional qualification(s) or body: ~~PT~~ Address: 30 Haigh Court, Brampton Bierlow Rotherham, S63 6LP ~~__—~~

1

March 2012

IER