Revive Newport
Trustees’ Annual Report 1[st ] April 2024 to 31[st ] March 2025
ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION
TRUSTEES/DIRECTORS
Robert White (Chair)
Sharon Bollen
Andrew Pearmain (until 12[th ] June 2024)
Ian Peters
Alison Price
Rebecca Savage (until 31[st ] December 2024)
SENIOR STAFF
Pete Luther, Development Officer
REGISTERED OFFICE
82-83 High Street, Newport, Isle of Wight, PO30 1BH
BANKERS
The Co-operative Bank plc HSBC Bank plc
STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT
Constitution
Revive Newport is a company limited by guarantee, number 07588420, and a registered charity, number 1143377; it is governed by articles of association.
Governance
The charity is governed by a board of trustees who are also directors of the company. All references to trustees in this report can also be read as directors. The trustees are responsible for the effective governance of the charity, its strategic direction, and setting the policy framework. Responsibility for day-to-day running of the work of Revive is delegated to the Development Officer though major or contentious issues are referred back to the trustees, or the chairman (who line-manages the Development Officer) as appropriate.
Trustee Selection
Trustees are elected by the members of the charity at the annual general meeting and a third of trustees must retire from office each year but may be re-appointed to serve a further term. The existing trustees make recommendations to the meeting regarding suitable candidates who have the necessary skills, experience and abilities required to ensure the board of trustees is able to offer effective governance. The trustees may also co-opt new trustees during the year who serve until the next AGM when they retire but may be reappointed by the members.
CHARITABLE ACTIVITIES
Purpose
Revive Newport is a Christian organisation founded to enable individual Christians and churches in the Newport area to demonstrate love for our community and the individuals within it. Through providing care in practical ways, having fun with people and getting to know them we aim to work towards wholeness for individuals and our community, making a difference in all aspects of life; material, emotional, social, financial, environmental and spiritual. To this end we work closely with local agencies including the council, police and community groups in order to provide activities which go some way to meeting these needs.
The charitable objects of Revive Newport are:
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To promote social inclusion for the public benefit by preventing people from becoming socially excluded, relieving the needs of those people who are socially excluded and assisting them to integrate into society. For the purpose of this clause ‘socially excluded’ means being excluded from society, or parts of society, as a result of one of more of the following factors: Unemployment; financial hardship; youth or old age; ill health (physical or mental); substance abuse or dependency including alcohol and drugs; discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, disability, ethnic origin, religion, belief, creed, sexual orientation or gender reassignment; poor educational or skills attainment; relationship and family breakdown; poor housing (that is housing that does not meet basic habitable standards; crime (either as a victim of crime or as an offender rehabilitating into society).
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To help young people, especially but not exclusively through leisure time activities, so as to develop their capabilities so that they may grow to full maturity as individuals and members of society.
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To advance the Christian faith for the benefit of the public, principally through offering care, compassion and relevant practical and spiritual help.
ACTIVITIES IN PURSUIT OF THE CHARITABLE OBJECTS UNDERTAKEN FOR THE PUBLIC
BENEFIT
In planning the activities of the charity, the trustees have had regard to the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit. Revive Newport is a project-based organisation. Our work has been delivered for benefit of the public through The Living Room, Newport Youth Cafe and detached youth work delivered by dedicated staff and volunteer teams:
The Living Room
The Living Room café closed at the end of October 2024. This was not a reflection of the superb efforts of Rachel and Drew as managers, and also their team of wonderful volunteers, who did their absolute best to try and make The Living Room work. In fact, its customer base was increasing. However, rising costs and an attempt to keep the food ‘affordable’ combined with confusion over its purpose in relation to the Charitable Objects such that it became unviable.
From 23[rd ] October 2023 to closure on 31[st ] October 2024, we saw 5942 customers come through the doors. We gave away 152 meals, 488 drinks and 635 refills, and 350 free drinks through our loyalty card scheme.
Rachel’s and Drew’s hard work and generosity were very much valued by all those who came to The Living Room, and they were blessed by their service. The Living Room was a unique safe haven and a place of comfort to lots of vulnerable people, and is being missed by many people in Newport who still make contact with Rachel, largely through the Wednesday morning coffee morning at True Vine Church
Newport Youth Café
This year our Newport Youth cafe had a tough start to the year with our Director Pete Luther catching Pneumonia and being off for 3 months. This is reflected in the numbers as we had to run fewer sessions and not take on any new members for several months. Despite this, over the year we were able to run 74 drop-in youth café sessions in our Newport High Street premises, as well as going out into the town to do detached youth work 65 times.
The number of young people that signed up as members this year was 146. This was less than last year because of a slow start to the year. However, in the first quarter of 2025 we had up to 45 young people attending any given session, with an average of 35 a night, ending at a point we were beginning to run out of space again.
Despite the challenges we faced, we feel our impact on these young people has been great and has had a massive knock on effect on our town as we have been able to work with some of the most difficult young people in regards to anti-social behaviour and trouble caused at school. We have seen a distinct improvement on these young people’s mental health, feelings of loneliness, and behaviour, although there is much need for further improvement.
This year we recorded 2,420 meaningful conversations with young people, meaning that we engaged with each person and learnt something about them. This includes 1,316 attendees at Newport Youth Cafe and 1,104 positive connections through detached youth work. In many of these conversations we were able to significantly help them with the issues they are facing.
These issues include:
Relationships and isolation: talking through issues concerning their emotional and family relationships and their complications. This also included addressing bullying, both online and in person.
Education: talking about their school work, their school behaviour, GCESs and A level support, with this helping them to get additional support when needed at school. It also included advice and support in what to do after GCSEs, especially to those that failed and were not getting the support they needed. We are also developing a homework club that we will trial next year.
Youth Task Force: as part of our plan to make the café a better space and to help some of our young people with life skills to improve their employability, we started a Youth Task Force with some of our young people who meet to plan how we could design and improve the space as representatives of our members. This worked well for a while but dissolved due to the young people stepping down, largely due to life challenges.
Behaviour: within and out of the café, we seek to address anti-social behaviour, anger management, following rules, shop lifting and fighting. Within the context of the café we had to ban several people and later to reintegrate them to teach them about following rules and addressing their behaviour head on. Outside the café it was more asking them to think about why they are behaving that way. This year we connected better with the Police and on one occasion they came to speak to our young people about drugs, vaping, missing school and how to get into the police. This was well received.
Mental Health: this has been a big issue for many of our young people this year and we have addressed issues of anorexia, attempted suicide, ADHD medication issues, not sleeping and a lot of genuine struggles with life and coping. We walked our young people through these challenges, encouraged positive outworkings, such as football and swimming, and challenged the destructive paths they were taking.
Many of our young people also attended part of an Alpha course put on by the Newport Youth Project which was really surprising and exciting for us to observe.
These are some of the comments we have received this year from our young people:
“It is a very good place to have fun and hang out with friends.”
“It's well good."
"L.O.V.E!!"
“When I talk to the youth club workers about school, you gave me advice.”
“I can talk to you guys when I have personal problems.”
MAIN ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE YEAR
One of the main achievements of the year has come out of the sadness of closing all our non-youth focused projects, which included The Living Room and or Acts of Kindness. This change has enabled us to once again have a purpose designed youth centre in the centre of town, which we have re-designed with the young people to be more inviting for young people. This re-focus has meant we can be in a better position to help the young people and give an opportunity to potentially expand in the forthcoming year, should we be able to secure additional funding. Our foundations have been significantly improved on many fronts and is in part responsible for the end of year growth in numbers.
VOLUNTEER SUPPORT
The Trustees and staff at Revive Newport wish to extend their sincere thanks to all the volunteers who have supported and generously offered their time to The Living Room while it was open and Newport Youth Café throughout the past year. Their assistance and commitment are vital to the ongoing success of the charity.
FUTURE PLANS
Following the closure of The Living Room and our other non-youth related projects, our plans are to double down on the success of this work by finding more funding and expand the work to a level similar to other local towns that have far more youth provision, to build a bigger team, attract more volunteers and aim to open Newport Youth Café more nights as we as expand our time out on detached. We also want to explore the possibility of opening a homework club.
The desire to explore the potential to establish a purpose-built youth centre in Newport remains in our minds as we are still limited by the space we have and the cost of renting a building
Our commitment still remains to maintain the excellence of both Newport Youth Café and our detached youth work operations, demonstrating God's love to the young people of Newport and on the Isle of Wight.
FINANCIAL REVIEW
Reserves Policy
In order to ensure the sustainability of the charity the trustees aim to hold three months of operating costs in free reserves. Three months of operating costs based on expenditure in 2024/25 equates to £26,411 while our reserves stand at £18,013 (equivalent to two months). This is a cause for concern and is being addressed.
Investment Policy
To date the charity has not had sufficient free funds to consider investments. As the charity develops, we will continually review this position.
Main Sources of Income
Our income this year has come from a variety of different sources. Unrestricted donations represented 26% of income while restricted donations (grant funding) represented 54%. Income from charitable activities and trading income accounted for 20%. Trading income primarily came from sales of gifts in The Living Room).
Expenditure Supporting Charitable Objectives
Income has been used for charitable activities in furtherance of Revive’s objects.
The costs related to the running of Newport Youth Café (NYC), detached youth work and The Living Room (TLR). NYC and detached were funded principally from grants received for those activities, with a small amount of income from general funds. TLR expenses were largely employee costs.
LOOKING AHEAD
Over the next year we need to secure continuation funding for Newport Youth Café. This is once again a key financial priority for the year. Alongside this, we will continue to improve our efficiency and effectiveness, increase the income generated by The Living Room and look for other sources of income to achieve a more stable and sustainable ongoing financial position.
PREPARATION OF ACCOUNTS
The accounts have been prepared in accordance with the small company regime (Section 419(2)) of the Companies Act 2006. This report, including the following financial statements, was approved by the trustees on 25[th ] November 2025 and is signed on their behalf by:
Robert John White (Chair)
FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
Statement of Financial Activities for the year ending 31st March 2025
FUNIS Furyjs tknaiiL CharilaLle kliNilies i Othef Tral kIltreS 24Th) 18.7( 493 74773 1&7( 9&121 Al 1&795 A2 Y)5 A3 111,281 493 Raisi 205 118.257 &1 11&462 47n 51.873 104644 ofFu Total fLxxJs L¥(xthi forbwd 28,607 17.924 Y1076 14ln3 37.257 076 Balance Sheet as at 31st March 2025 i•xY¢ B3r aKICathin hwKI tld)t(TS 12692 2&4 C2 Cwr•ntiiabiliti•s Cr(xlt(xs Told Uab11111•È 25T2 Z5n Iqo 076 Fundedty. UeS1Ctj FK FWticl£xJ Inc(MT TO Chffity FwK 17,924 Dl 14013
Notes to the Financial Statements for the year ending 31st March 2025
| NOTE | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Accounting Policies |
The principal accounting policies are summarised below. The accounting policies have been applied consistently throughout the year and in the preceding year.
(a) Basis of accounting
The financial statements have been prepared under the historic cost convention and in accordance with the Statement of Recommended Practice ‘Accounting and Reporting by Charities’ published in 2015, applicable UK accounting standards and the Companies Act 2006.
(b) Fund accounting
Unrestricted funds are available for use at the discretion of the trustees in furtherance of the general objectives of the charity. Restricted funds are subjected to restrictions on their expenditure imposed by the donor or through the terms of an appeal.
(c) Incoming resources
All incoming resources are included in the statement of financial activities when the charity is entitled to, and virtually certain to receive, the income and the amount can be quantified with reasonable accuracy. The following policies are applied to particular categories of income:
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Voluntary income is received by way of grants, donations and gifts and is included in full in the Statement of Financial Activities when receivable. Grants, where entitlement is not conditional on the delivery of a specific performance by the charity, are recognised when the charity becomes unconditionally entitled to the grant.
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Donated services and facilities are included at the value to the charity where this can be quantified. The value of services provided by volunteers has not been included in these accounts.
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Investment income is included when receivable.
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Incoming resources from charitable trading activity are accounted for when earned.
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Incoming resources from grants, where related to performance and specific deliverables, are accounted for as the charity earns the right to consideration by its performance.
(d) Resources expended
Expenditure is recognised on an accrual basis as a liability is incurred. Expenditure includes any VAT which cannot be fully recovered, and is reported as part of the expenditure to which it relates:
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Costs of generating funds comprise the costs associated with attracting voluntary income and the costs of trading for fundraising purposes.
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Charitable expenditure comprises those costs incurred by the charity in the delivery of its activities and services for its beneficiaries. It includes both costs that can be allocated directly to such activities and those costs of an indirect nature necessary to support them.
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Governance costs include those costs associated with meeting the constitutional and statutory requirements of the charity.
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All costs are allocated between the expenditure categories of the SoFA on a basis designed to reflect the use of the resource. Costs relating to a particular activity are allocated directly, others are apportioned on the basis of activity size.
(e) Fixed assets
Fixed assets (excluding investments) are stated at cost less accumulated depreciation. The costs of minor additions or those costing below £1,000 are not capitalised. Individual items exceeding £1,000 are depreciated on a straight line basis over the estimated life of the asset, which for equipment is considered to be three years.
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