## **Trustees Annual Report From 16.10.20 to 16.10.2021** ## **CHARITY NAME:** Sussex Tornados Cheerleaders **REGISTERED CHARITY NUMBER:** 1140922 ## **CHARITY PRINICIPAL ADDRESS:** 13 Gosden Road, Littlehampton, West Sussex, BN17 6DY The Sussex Tornados Cheerleaders charity is managed by the following Trustees: |TRUSTEE NAME:|OFFICE (If Any)|ACTING TERM:| |---|---|---| |Mr. Phil Jeffery|Chairman|Full Year 2020-2021| |Mrs. Lil Weston|Treasurer|Full Year 2020-2021| |Ms. Stevie Coe|Secretary|Full Year 2020-2021| |Mrs. Helen Best||Full Year 2020-2021| |Mrs. Lianne Jane Blackwood||Full Year 2020-2021| |Miss Carley Pia Johnson||Full Year 2020-2021| |Mr. Peter Weston||Full Year 2020-2021| |Mrs. Tracy Jones|Fund Raising Secretary|Full Year 2021-current| |Mrs Emma Babonau|Parent Representative|Full Year 2020-2021| |Miss Jordan Burdon|Cheerleader Representative|Full Year 2020-2021| ## **STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT** Our Governing Document is a Constitution which was adopted on 4[th] July 2012, and our trustees can be appointed on recommendation from current trustees, with a majority vote to confirm. The documents covering the rules and constitution are published on our website at http://www.sussextornados.com We have a child protection policy, which is regularly updated and Phil Jeffery is our appointed Child Protection Officer; DBS Checks are carried out prior to commencement of trusteeship, and these documents are regularly reviewed. It has been decided that the DBS checks are now to be carried out every 5 years for Trustees and every 3 years for Coaches. This is in order to comply with the requirements of the Competition Event providers, who require coaches to be DBS checked every 3 years in order that the coaches can then accompany their athletes into the warm up area. Sussex Tornados Cheerleaders work closely with local schools and councils to offer our services to children, youths and young adults in the local and surrounding areas. All Trustees give their time voluntarily and receive no remuneration or other benefits. I am very pleased to be able to welcome Tracy Jones onto the trustees team. She has taken over the role of Fund Raising Secretary for which we are very grateful. Welcome Tracy. ## **OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES** The Sussex Tornados are a voluntarily run cheerleading program, who are a registered charity. We have a board of trustees whose aim is to provide a facility for children, youth and young adults in their community, where they will learn championships cheerleading routines and life skills to help them in their future,and to become the best they can be. Covid-19 has continued to affected us greatly and we had to close the gym, in accordance with the Governments instruction, at the beginning of lock down. Consequently, we held our Annual General Meeting, remotely. We have continued to comply with these instructions and the advice we received from Sport England, and were able to reopen, in a limited way, while still obeying the governments rules. We purchased the necessary protection equipment including a temperature checker and fogging machine to fully disinfect the gym and equipment at the end of each day. We have appointed a Covid Officer, Emma Babonau, who keeps herself and the rest of the trustees and coaches fully informed as to the latest developments, and any changes we may need to make to keep the gym open, while complying with the latest advice and instructions. Each gymnast and any trustee who visits the gym continue to have their temperature taken, and a log is kept. We have registered the gym in accordance with instructions, and our QR code is clearly displayed so we ensure that registration is complied with. Parents are regularly updated on our facebook page, and since we reopened on Monday 3[rd] August 2020 we can now allow them in to watch their children training on the first session of each month. We currently have 90 active members, male and female, aged 41/2 to 45, and as we enter our 24th season we will have 11 competitive teams that will travel all over the UK and compete against some of the best teams in the country, as soon as conditions permit. We also have a Cheer 4 Fun team that sees 20+ cheerleaders weekly, who get the opportunity train and move into the competition teams, should they so desire. We have a Saturday morning ‘Flyer Stretch’ and Open Gym, which is available to anyone, not just our current cheerleaders, where everyone can improve their gymnastic skills. Private Sessions with a USASF Qualified Coach are also available The Cheer Gym is now open 5 evenings a week, to facilitate the Tornados 10 teams, then again at the weekends for any additional training requirement. The Facility is also now used at weekends by other youth groups from around the local area. Sussex Tornado Coaches also run elite tumbling sessions and these are open to all comers who have an interest in Cheerleading and/or Gymnastics Our cheerleaders will continue to make new contacts and friends within the cheerleading community as soon as they are able to travel the country to competitions, thus broadening their horizons. There are still no waiting lists to be part of the Sussex Tornados Family, however, we now use the month of July to hold internal try outs for all of our athletes, in order to best assess an individual’s capability, so as to enable them to advance, without unduly pressurising them Our coaching Team, which now numbers 10, continually assess each athlete and placed then in new sub teams, according to their age and ability, which truly maintains our ethic of “sport for all”, and while our aim is, as always, to help our athletes to become the best that they can be, this allows us to take into account each individual, and not push them beyond their ability, before they are ready. . We continue to train new coaches from the existing cheerleaders and will help them to improve their coaching skills prior to their qualification. Our coaches are qualified to the highest level and one of our coaches is now a qualified judge. We are very grateful for all the time our volunteers give, as many hours per week are spent planning, working, listening and teaching the members of the Sussex Tornados Teams. They also continue to increase their skills as coaches, by re-qualifying or taking further courses. Without their time and expertise we would not be able to achieve so much. Emma Babonau, supports the rest of the committee, by listening to, and feeding back any concerns voiced by parents and/or anything that is working well or could be done better. Her acting as a parent coordinator in this way, again, keeps us fully up to date and enables us to address any concerns in a timely fashion. Emmas second role as Covid Officer also ensures we are fully up to date with any restrictions and Government and Sport England guidelines. Jordan Burdon is the Athletes Trustee representative on the committee and she can keep us updated on any problems or queries that they may have. We proactively seek sponsorship from local firms and businesses, in order to assist those athletes whose parent are struggling to pay their fees, in the current financial climate, and constantly encourage parents to come to us with any problems they are experiencing. ## **ACHIEVEMENTS & PERFORMANCE 2020** This year has been very restricted, due to the virus, but we did manage to compete at the BCA Summer Showdown in June, where our 7 Teams that competed took 5 x 1[st] places 1 x 2[nd] place and 1x 3[rd] place in the categories they entered. An incredible achievement considering the restrictions on training that Covid imposed We also competed in July at the Future Cheer FC Internationals, this time with 8 teams. As always, all of our teams did both us and themselves proud. Well done athletes and, of course, your coaches. Our web site has all of the latest competition results, so I will not list them all here, The Littlehampton Town Show 2021 enabled us to attend and display our various talents in the open air arena, for the first time it 2 years. This is the perfect venue for us to display what we do and encourage new talent to joins us. It was extremely well received and our stall raised a massive £500plus We are now looking forward to be able to hold our first ‘showcase event’ since lockdown in February 2022,when we can invite parents and local dignitaries to our gym to demonstrate what we are about, and, hopefully garner further sponsorship. Coaches and trustees have displayed and amazing flexibility,during this crisis, and it is entirely thanks to them that we have been able to continue to the degree we have. As soon as it is possible, we will resume our work within the community and stay in contact with the Town and District Councils, particularly the leisure Departments, in order to keep one another updated as to the services they require and that we can jointly provide. Sussex Tornados will continue do this in the coming years. With our facility on offer to the local community it means that the local authorities can now take more of the public into these events, as before we had this facility places had to be limited due to the space available in schools and leisure facilities throughout the town. We are currently training with a view to competing in February 2022, so we all have our fingers crossed. ## **FINANCIAL REVIEW** At our end of year we held £28,745. This is fully inclusive of a covid grant of £12,000 we received in order for us to stay open this year and the parents payments for upcoming competitions I have listed above for 2022 As always, these funds will continue to be used as part of our running costs, including new and updated training equipment. This ensures the best possible safety outcomes, for all members of the team, and the community who continue to use our facilities. Any remaining funds will be held towards the forthcoming years running costs and the premises rent. Our main source of funds, as always, comes from the fees paid by the athletes and their parents. A full and audited account accompanies this report and is available to view on the charity commissioners website. ## **FUTURE PLANS** It is important that gymnasts attend every week and train as part of their respective teams, in order that the teams develop to their full potential and are competition ready. The fee payment structure is still working well and mean that the subs that are paid will not be supporting those who are attending only intermittently and are not therefore paying, for whatever reason. The new structure is working very well, and if problems are being perceived for parents and gymnasts then the trustees and coaching staff are here to help in any way we can. It also helps us to identify persons who may be struggling financially and allows us to offer interventions eg sponsorship from our neighbouring firms, for which we are very grateful. This coming year we hope we will be able to continue to assist the local Charities with their fund raising efforts We plan to continue opening the facility to members and local community throughout the school holidays. We will also continue to support local charities and schools, by providing our facility and skills along with working with the Local Council to do performances at local events. We will continue to fund raise hard in order to purchase further new tumbling equipment uniforms and competition fees. We will be attending the following competitions in 2022 Legacy Feb 19/20 Essex March 12/13 Crawley April 2/3 Telford May 14/15 Brighton June 4/5 Liverpool June 11/12 Bournemouth Nationals July 2/3 Finally, as always, my personal thanks go to my committee and the coaches, athletes and parents who continue to ensure that the Tornados family goes from strength to strength. ## **DECLARATION** The Trustees declare that they have approved the trustees report above. Signed on Behalf of the charity’s trustees Signed: _________________ Signed: ______________ Secretary Treasurer CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Receipts and Payments Accounts SUSSEX TORNAC(ts CHEERLEADERS Seilion A ReiLiipl$ and payments Sub8cnpbM$ Receipt¥ lor Llnif