2020-12-31-accounts

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Newham YOUTH FOR CHRIST 2020 Annual Report & Finances Registered charity number 1145371

THE TEAM

Simeon Burnett Rev Amy Stott Kwaku Gyamerah Centre Director Centre Director Youth Worker TRUSTEES (from Sept 2020) (until Aug 2020)

Eric Boateng Keith Dixon Church Liaison/Asst Youth Worker Administration (from Jan 2020) & Finance Officer

ORGANISATION DETAILS

Rev Jeremy Fraser (chair) Rev Dave Chesney (Treasurer) Christine Bollans Nigel Weekes Annette Gordon Chinedu Udonsi Bianca Parish (stepped down Jan 2020) Rev Bruce Stokes (co-opted member until Apr 2020)

Trustees (Pictured to the right)

Council of Reference

Jayne Bazeley Andy Campbell Sally Mann Matthew Porter Peter Ngugi Jennifer Essu

Full Time Staff Part Time Staff

Simeon Burnett (from Aug 2020)

Rev Amy Stott (left Aug 2020) Kwaku Gyamerah Eric Boateng (from Jan 2020) Keith Dixon

Voluntary Staff Bank

CAF Bank

Office Address (NOTE: up until May 2021)

Newham Youth for Christ Woodgrange Baptist Church, Romford Road Forest Gate, London, E7 8AA

Telephone Email Website

020 8534 2000

info@newham.yfc.co.uk newham.yfc.co.uk

Facebook NewhamYFC Twitter newham_yfc Instagram newhamyfc

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Page 2 The Team & Organisation details

Page 3 Contents
Page 4 Visions and values of the organisation Page 5 Reports from the Chair & the Treasurer Page 6 Report from the Centre Director
Page 7-18 Projects
Page 19 Development Strategy Page 19 Strategy, Governance and Management Page 20 Statement of Benefit to the Community Page 21 - 25 Finances

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VISIONS AND VALUES OF THE ORGANISATION

Newham Youth for Christ seeks to help young people to discover and deepen Christian faith and equip local churches across Newham to develop sustainable, effective youth ministry

In line with this and due to the national rebranding project undertaken by British Youth for Christ in 2018, our DNA and values as an organisation have been reimagined. Everything we do as Newham Youth for Christ endeavours to be reflective of these values. It is our hope and drive to ensure Newham Youth for Christ operates always with a Christ-like character. In doing this we hope to be:

Courageous - Taking steps of faith, striving for growth - we want to operate with courage, not out of fear. We want to encourage young people to take bold steps for Jesus and step out in their potential

Helpful - reliable, supportive and nurturing

Relational we want to actively seek out partnerships and work together with Newham’s churches and groups

Innovative - we want to be creative, pioneering and explore new ways of introducing young people to Jesus and to be supportive of churches working in their communities

Spiritual committed to seeing young people grow in their faith, supporting them and their churches in youth ministry. We are committed to prayer and to evangelism.

Together - united in our mission and partnerships with all who wish to work with us across denominations and across ministries all over Newham.

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REPORT FROM THE CHAIR

We have all gone through a weird and anxiety making year. In such strange times it is a very brave organisation that plans ambitiously for the future. However if God is with us who can stand against us?

So we have adapted as we all have had to do, and planned and got ourselves ready for the new future. We can not just think that our ways of working are never to be adapted, we need to change and challenge ourselves. So our new Centre Director Simeon has had the hard job of furloughing our staff and trying to plan and help local churches, youth workers and young people with the good news of Christ in isolation and not meeting.

This he has achieved through prayer, but also by partnerships, looking at who we can walk with and mutually learn from. Simeon will set out these ideas soon, but pray for him and others in the team as they embrace the uncertainty because of the certainty he has in Christ. I am proud of their response .

Finally this is my last year as chair. I had always planned to step down but COVID delayed the actual date. Best wishes to Nigel Weekes as he takes over.

Love and prayers for them, the work and for the young people of Newham.

Rev Jeremy Fraser - Chair of Newham Youth for Christ Trustees REPORT FROM THE TREASURER

‘Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.’ 2 Timothy 1:14

It would be easy to understand this message from Paul to his young charge Timothy as something that is simply spiritual. The treasure he speaks of is of course the good news of the Gospel, the Word made flesh. However, it can also be given that it is for ‘all things’ that are entrusted by God to Him, and indeed to us.

This year has been challenging in so many ways, not least as we have had to grapple with the impact of COVID-19 on the ministry at Newham Youth for Christ, and indeed on our whole lives. It is a time when difficult but necessary decisions have had to be made concerning our financial welfare. It has meant that we had to focus more than ever on our stewardship of the gifts that were entrusted to us.

It has been a tough year for individuals and churches and we are thankful for the continued generosity of all those who support our work. We are not out the woods, however we move forward in the spirit of thankfulness and hope.

Through this tough year, I want to give my personal thanks to the supreme efforts of the team. Special thanks as always to Keith Dixon, who has remained steadfast and diligent in his service. We look forward together to the challenges of 2021 as we share the treasure that has been entrusted to us with the young people of Newham.

Rev Dave Chesney - Newham Youth for Christ Treasurer

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REPORT FROM THE CENTRE DIRECTOR

Let me begin by thanking everyone who has continued to support us during this unprecedented year. We have been humbled by the continued generosity of our regular givers, particularly during these challenging times, and have been equally blessed by those who have presented us with one off gifts to sustain us. Without this support, all that we have achieved this year would not have been possible.

As a charity we have entered into a season of transition. In August this year I took on the role of Centre Director on a full-time basis, replacing my predecessor Amy, who diligently served in the role part-time for four years. She will be sorely missed by the trustees, the staff team and all the young people she has impacted over the years. The good news is that Amy continues to serve in our community in her role as Curate of a local Anglican church and we look forward to partnering with her and her church in youth ministry. This is also Jeremy’s final year as our Chair of Trustees, who will be equally missed. He has brought a wealth of wisdom, experience and a strong sense of vision to the charity since 2013. We aim to find his replacement by the summer of next year and are praying for the right person. Finally, in January we employed Eric to be our Church Liaison Officer with a view of expanding our network of partner churches. Having made a brilliant start, the pandemic meant that Eric could unfortunately no longer fulfil his role to maximum capacity and he has therefore been on furlough to varying degrees throughout the year. Since my arrival I have been extremely encouraged by the attitude of the staff and the trustees who have shown real faith and trust in God as they embrace this new season.

Much of our year has been defined by the global pandemic, and I have been nothing short of amazed by the team’s ability to adapt to the circumstances and to tackle the challenges head on. Knowing that the needs amongst young people and local churches would be greater than ever before, the trustees and the team strongly felt that it was “for such a time as this” that we exist as a charity. Amid the global panic and uncertainty, young people needed the hope of the Gospel and the support of caring adults who are interested in the holistic care of young people. We were determined to offer this hope and care, and so under the leadership of Amy, the team decided to adapt our projects for online participation and usage. Access, our biggest monthly worship event featuring an evangelistic talk, was viewed/attended over 1900 times throughout the year! Hosting some of our usual evangelistic/ discipleship events online offered a sense of continuity and stability to the young people that usually attend and helped sustain their faith during the isolation of lockdown. These projects also allowed us to share the gospel with young people that wouldn’t normally attend our events. The team also created over 120 videos of original content for churches to use with their youth groups, which is simply incredible looking back. Youth workers expressed that they felt held and supported during the uncertainty of the pandemic and the ever-changing guidelines.

I am extremely proud of what the team have achieved this year and am hopeful for the future. We are committed to continuing and further developing our online projects until we can return to face-to-face ministry. We are also committed to supporting young people’s physical and mental health in the coming year which has been negatively impacted by the pandemic.

Simeon Burnett - Newham Youth for Christ Centre Director

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PROJECTS

Introduction

What started out as another year was abruptly halted and turned on its head with the arrival of COVID-19 in March. Like everyone else, our projects were totally impacted by COVID and the ensuing lockdown and social distancing restrictions in 2020.

For some of our projects this meant a re-think and a re-imagining of how we continued and engaged with the young people. For other projects it meant putting them on hold. Most exciting of all, these new challenges brought about opportunities to come up with new projects that make full use of the internet. By focussing our efforts on developing our online presence through the use of social media, we were able to use our platforms to connect the young people of Newham to our new online projects and resources. We were also able too connect with, support and resource a large number of local churches through these online developments .

So, for this report we have split our projects up into three sections:

Existing projects: those projects that started the year as ‘normal’ but were then adapted to continue online once COVID restrictions were implemented

New projects: those projects that were created as a response to the restrictions placed on us, local churches and our young people in order that we could continue to encourage them in their faith journeys as well as also offering a point of contact and on-line community for friendship and mutual support.

Paused Projects: those projects that rely so heavily on meeting face to face, be it one-to-one or in groups, and were deemed impossible or implausible to adapt for online usage and that we fully intend to restart in person when it is safe to do so.

Lockdown and social distancing restrictions

To save repetition when outlining details of our projects (whether adapted or new) please note that all online and project activities and events were done with strict adherence to any and all lockdown and/or social distancing restrictions that were in place at the time of live broadcast, recording etc

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Existing projects:

ACCESS

ACCESS is our borough-wide youth worship event for young people aged between 11 and 18 years old. It’s contemporary, it’s relevant, it’s real and it’s fun!

A typical ACCESS consists of an opening icebreaker game, a local youth worker/leader sharing a story about God’s work in their life, a time of worship led by the ACCESS band and then the guest speaker sharing with the young people. This is followed by a time of reflection and response with some further worship. After this, it’s social time where the young people can enjoy some food and some games and activities together. Our team and volunteer leaders can also spend time with them and get to know them.

In January, we picked up where we left off from 2019 (which saw over 250 young people attend throughout the year from over 30 Newham churches covering a range of denominations) with over 60 young people from 17 different churches attending and our guest speaker was Ellie Hughes

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we sadly had to had to cancel all of the remaining 2020 borough-wide ACCESS events - four more were planned with the next one due at the end of March

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ACCESS ONLINE

With young people being in lockdown and following the cancelation of the March ACCESS event we knew that they needed ACCESS more than ever before. During the early months of the pandemic many churches were struggling in transitioning to effectively worshiping together online. Amongst those that had, provisions for their young people and youth friendly worship was often not a priority and in many cases it was effectively non-existent.

After much thought and planning we transitioned to hosting an Access type event online. Running ACCESS ONLINE initially live via our Instagram and Facebook pages meant young Christians could worship together online with other young people and also interact with us and their friends via the comments section and they could be encouraged in their faith, which was inevitably tested greatly during these trying times!

As it became obvious that levels of social distancing were going to be in place during the whole of the summer we staged ACCESS ONLINE monthly with the help of a few volunteers (trusted local youth leaders/ workers) as well as our team. In September, with the start of the new academic year we dropped back to two ACCESS ONLINE events for the Autumn term.

ACCESS ONLINE also gave the opportunity for young people who were not Christian to join us and sample it from the safety of their homes. We were able to reach young people with the gospel who in “normal times”, may not have attended. We made some adaptations to the programme to make it conducive to online streaming, but on the whole the main elements were retained, making the event recognisable as ACCESS to those that normally attended.

It is difficult to fully measure and gauge the impact of ACCESS ONLINE, as well as tracking how many young people engaged, both by tuning in live or watching the stream in their own time. But we were extremely encouraged by the amount of views our posts/videos received across our platforms (Facebook, Instagram and YouTube). In total, ACCESS ONLINE was viewed 1,910 times across the three platforms!

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BIG QUESTIONS

BIG QUESTIONS offers young people aged 11-18 the opportunity to ask a panel of trusted Christians (usually church leaders and youth leaders/workers) any questions that they have about God, faith, the Bible, Christianity and all aspects of life. We give the young people the opportunity to ask their questions anonymously, and the panel is made up of trusted Christians from the wide range of churches and denominations in Newham.

In a normal year we would stage a BIG QUESTIONS evening once a term (3 times a year). Our very final event before the arrival of COVID and the nation going into lockdown was a BIG QUESTIONS evening (in March) at Custom House Baptist Church, E16 with 20 young people attending from 8 different churches

BIG TOPIC

BIG TOPIC is a ‘spin off’ from Big Questions. The format is exactly the same but we devote the evening to just one topic so we can delve deeper into it and explore it in more depth. The topics are selected mainly based on the number of questions the young people submit at Big Questions about a particular subject/ topic. Previous BIG TOPICs have included such subjects as ‘Christianity and other religions’ and ‘God and relationships’

Again, as with Big Questions, in a normal year we would stage a BIG TOPIC evening once a term. In February, we hosted BIG TOPIC at St John’s Church, E15 and a special guest on the panel for that evening was Rt Rev Peter Hill, the Bishop of Barking. The Topic for the evening was “How do I know what God wants me to do with my life?”. 35 young people from 11 churches attended.

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BIG QUESTIONS ONLINE & BIG TOPIC ONLINE

Similar to Access, we strongly felt that our young people needed to have access to online versions of both BIG QUESTIONS and BIG TOPIC during the lockdown - more than ever before!

Inevitably, young people had lots of questions about life and faith as a result of the global pandemic and the impact of lockdowns and social distancing on them, their families and friends as well as the world at large.

On top of this they also had questions about race and justice, following the murder of George Floyd in the USA. The topic of race is extremely important and is of great relevance to the everyday lives of our young people in Newham as our borough is statistically one of the most diverse places in the world!

So, we invited young people and their youth leaders to submit any questions they had using our social media platforms. Having received lots of questions from a range of young people and churches, we then formed a panel made up as usual of trusted Christian leaders and youth workers and invited them to answer the questions as a panel via Zoom. We recorded the panel’s discussions and scheduled premiers of the final videos on our YouTube channel for young people to watch at home and publicised the details on social media sites and via our website and newsletters.

We recorded and posted BIG QUESTIONS ONLINE in May and welcomed questions of any nature on any subject. Towards the end of the year, in October, we hosted BIG TOPIC ONLINE and asked young people to focus their questions by looking back on the year 2020.

Across the two events we tackled a wide variety of questions covering a range of topics including faith, identity, race, suffering, sexuality, trials, evangelism, truth, the bible, purpose and free will.

These videos remain on our YouTube channel for young people to watch any time they like, and serve as a great resource for churches to use with their youth groups.

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YOUTHWORKS

Our YouthWorks Network covers an array of projects and programmes all designed to offer support to youth workers and volunteers working for, and attached to, churches in Newham.

Youth Workers Breakfast

In January and February of 2020 we ran our regular monthly Youth Workers Breakfast for Newham’s church attached youth workers & volunteers as normal. These breakfasts give youth workers an opportunity for discussion, teaching and prayer as well as providing essential support, encouragement and free food!

They are a great place for youth workers to support each other, network and discuss topics relevant to their work. Each breakfast was attended by at least 10 local youth workers

Youth Workers Breakfast Online

As soon as we went into lockdown we went from having a monthly breakfast ‘gathering’ to hosting weekly morning gatherings online via Zoom.

Youth workers were contacting us as they were feeling isolated and were asking for our help and guidance on how to do their youth work and stay connected with their young people under the circumstances.

In these online breakfasts we shared advice and practical tips on doing youth work during the lockdown as well as just chatting to each other and praying together etc Youth workers found this extremely helpful and supportive, and once we had been in lockdown for a while, we slowly transitioned to meeting fortnightly and eventually monthly from November onwards at their request.

We normally host a Christmas lunch for all of our youth worker contacts to thank them for the valuable work they do but as we were unable to do this we hosted an online Christmas ‘party’ via Zoom. Each worker who signed up was sent a couple of gingerbread people as a token present which were well nibbled during the gathering!

Training Churches

Whilst we were not able to host any formal training events due to the pandemic, our major focus was keeping churches and youth workers up to date with the ever changing guidelines on youth work. It was one of our priorities to stay up to date with all the government guidance and to pass this on to all of our networks working with young people. We had frequent correspondence from church leaders and youth workers seeking specific advice for their context, and we made it very clear to all that this help was available to them.

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LEADERSHIP ACADEMY

LEADERSHIP ACADEMY is an eight month long project which seeks to grow leadership potential in Newham’s young people. We want to see the

participants equipped, supported and encouraged to develop and release their gifting and talents and achieve their God given potential as future leaders.

Between January and July 2020 we continued to work with 11 young people aged between 15 to 18 years old from 9 of Newham’s churches, having started the course together in September 2019, exploring what it means to be a leader. Over the course of the following eight months we saw each participant grow in confidence, in their relationship with God and in their leadership abilities. It was great to have 2 new churches nominating young people for the first time for this group.

As well as the young people’s churches, local communities and schools seeing the growth and change in those young people who have taken part in previous years, we are so pleased that in events such as ACCESS, YOUTH ALPHA and residential camps we’ve seen them stepping up and working as volunteers alongside us with the local young people. And of course, our own youth worker Kwaku was part of the very first year of LEADERSHIP ACADEMY and he cites this as a very important part of his own development and future decisions

We try and restrict churches to nominating only one young person per LEADERSHIP ACADEMY so that the young people have to grow relationships with new people from other churches and learn how to work together in a team. It’s always encouraging to see participants grow in their friendships with each other as they become more comfortable sharing with and working with one another and to see their personal development in our monthly one-to-one mentoring sessions with each member of LEADERSHIP ACADEMY.

Of course the arrival of COVID and the ensuing lockdown and social restrictions impacted on how we continued on with LEADERSHIP ACADEMY. We quickly decided that the current year should carry on as they were only a couple of months away from finishing. So the monthly group meeting and teaching session was moved to Zoom with the resources and presentation materials being adapted to be suitable for the sessions and the one-to-one mentoring sessions for each member also moved to Zoom (or phone). It was not ideal but as we had come so far with this group we were able to complete the course with all of the brilliant young people.

In September 2020, after much thought and prayer on the current situation with social distancing, how people (especially our young people and their parents) were generally feeling and the fact that a big and important part of the course is meeting up together in both group and mentoring sessions and developing friendships and social/sharing skills we reluctantly decided with heavy hearts not to run LEADERSHIP ACADEMY for the 2020/21 academic year.

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New projects: LIFE WORDS : DAILY VIDEOS…

As soon as the first lockdown hit we immediately focused on creating new online content for young people aimed at keeping them connected to God, to us and each other. We wanted to encourage and inspire them to delve deeper into Scripture and with the new LIFE WORDS video series we started posting a daily video from one of our team unpacking the section of Scripture we had read. We set to work with filming and editing and from late March we shared this video series daily across all of our social media sites and also posted them to our newly created YouTube channel for accessing at any time.

Not knowing how long lockdown and social distancing was going to be in place we started with the whole of Mark’s gospel which we interrupted half way through to run a series on and through Holy Week using the Easter story from the Gospel of Luke.

After we had finished Mark’s gospel it became obvious that social distancing restrictions were going to be with us for some time. Having found at our BIG QUESTIONS events that young people always asked questions about the Old Testament we then embarked on an epic journey through the entire Old Testament!

We had great feedback from young people and churches alike about how helpful and encouraging they found these videos in helping them to read the Bible every day.

… AND YOUTH GROUP BIBLE STUDIES

We are always looking for new relevant ways to support and equip Newham’s churches with regards to their youth ministries so when some people told us they had used some of our LIFE WORDS videos as the basis for online youth group bible study groups (using Zoom etc) we loved that idea and we were inspired to develop the idea and take it to the next stage!

So for each week that social distancing continued we wrote, created and published free ready-to-use online group bible study notes for youth leaders to be used as a resource in conjunction with our Old Testament videos - specifically to run a youth group bible study via Zoom (or similar platforms). Each study included a Zoom-friendly starter game, group icebreaker questions, links to the relevant four LIFE WORDS videos for that week and discussion questions for each video.

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LIFE WORDS : CHRISTMAS

Following great feedback from both our young people and local churches about how helpful and supportive the LIFE WORDS videos & group bible studies were through the spring and summer lockdown & social distancing, and with social distancing set to continue over Christmas, we created a week of videos and a new study around the theme of "What is Christmas really about?”.

These new videos were not purely based on daily bible readings as with the previous LIFE WORDS videos. They explored the true central meaning of Christmas in a fun modern way aimed to appeal to young people.

The videos were posted and made available over a week in early December along with a new online bible study for youth workers to use with their youth groups via Zoom.

All of the LIFE WORDS group study links are still available via our website LIFE WORDS page. It also includes links to the relevant videos on our YouTube Channel

LIFE STORIES

During the long period of social isolation we invited some of our regular volunteers, who as local youth leaders and workers had existing relationships with the young people, to share their story of how they became a Christian and what differences being a Christian has made to their life in less than 5 minutes! We wanted to encourage our young people through these difficult times and give them hope. These relational videos did just that.

Each week we posted a LIFE STORIES video across all of our social media platforms. Because Newham is such a diverse borough and because we work with such a wide spread of church denominations and traditions we ensured that this video series fully reflected this.

A big thank you to all of our local youth workers who shared their stories!

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INSTAGRAM PROJECTS

Instagram is the most popular social media site amongst our young people so with the nation in lockdown we knew we would have to invest a lot of time into regularly posting material in order to connect with and encourage our young people. In addition to ‘one-off’ posts here are some of the projects that we devised and posted

Life Words Unpacked

In conjunction with our LIFE WORDS videos (see page 14) this was a weekly Instagram live event with our Centre Director and Youth Worker. Starting with a quick game they would then ask each other a few questions about the passages that had been covered earlier in that week’s LIFE WORDS videos. Time was given over towards the end of the event for young people to actively type their questions into the chat. Our aim was to

directly engage with young people as the chat function in Instagram Live allows us to talk and answer questions directly. This was very beneficial as young people felt they had a voice and that they were actively contributing to something created for them.

Thought for the Week

Another project aimed to encourage young people in the way they live their lives, interact with each other and how they see and perceive themselves. Members of our team would share a thought related to the Bible. Many of these ideas are often taken from the Bible directly and others are illustrations or things they had learned from their own lives.

Worship Wednesdays

Every Wednesday a member of our team put forward a worship song and a brief reason as to how this song has helped in their lives or encouraged their faith. This project was birthed out of young people reaching out to us asking about worship music and for suggestions of what they could listen to. Our aim was to encourage them through music and songs they could relate to.

Black History Month

Newham is a very diverse borough, with our team reflecting this diversity, and so the topic of race is particularly relevant for us and our young people. With the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, the topic of race was now prominent on a global scale

Black History Month was therefore extremely important for us to celebrate and explore. We chose to celebrate the lives and work of black Christian men and women throughout history. We highlighted and celebrated African theologians from many centuries ago, putting forward the narrative that black history should not be restricted to the last 400 years. The posts were described as encouraging, uplifting, and providing great role models for all young people.

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Paused projects:

As stated on page 7, ‘Paused Projects’ are projects that we have regularly run and that rely heavily on one-to-one and group contact in person. We deemed them impossible or implausible to try and run during lockdown under social restrictions. We fully intend to re-start these projects once restrictions are fully lifted and the opportunities present themselves so we thought it important to include them in this report to give you a full and clear view of our work and vision in working with young people and Churches in Newham.

WHAT’S THE POINT?

Sadly, young people and Churches we work with in our borough have been affected and touched by incidents of

youth and gang related violence in the last few years. Last year, an opportunity for us to pilot this brilliant resource developed by our friends at Oxygen over in Kingston led to a new coalition and this project developing.

WHAT’S THE POINT works with a small group of Year 10 pupils. It provides the opportunity over 10 weeks for students to discuss topics related to youth violence and helps them work out ways to change the culture. After 8 weeks of content the young people then deliver an assembly to a younger year group.

Taking on WHAT’S THE POINT solely as Newham Youth for Christ would have been difficult so we were delighted to partner with Faith in Schools and to draw upon Nigel, one of our trustees, to run a pilot in LDEUTC between March and June in 2019. Creating a space for young people to speak honestly about their views and experiences of knife crime was both a privilege and a humbling experience. By the end of the process they had developed ideas for changing the culture of youth violence and the confidence to share this with their peers which they demonstrated by “wowing” everyone in an assembly - teachers included! We were so proud of the journey each of these individuals went on.

The pilot was extremely successful and we had planned to develop the project and expand our reach further in 2020. Unfortunately we had to curtail our plans due to the pandemic but are aiming to fully launch the project in local schools at the beginning of the academic year in Autumn 2021

YOUTH ALPHA

The Youth Alpha course is an internationally recognised introduction to and exploration of the Christian faith specifically designed for young people. A session starts with a relaxed meal together. We then watch a video on the session topic and break off into groups to look at questions and discuss what we had just watched/learnt

We have previously run 3 annual Youth Alpha courses in partnership with groups of local churches. The 2020 course was cancelled 2 weeks before it’s start date due to lockdown. We have seen a total of 138 young people attend the 3 courses with many of the young people attending from outside the church having been invited by their Christian friends. Depending on social distancing restrictions we plan to at least run an online Youth Alpha course in 2021

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INTER-CHURCH RESIDENTIAL CAMPS

Each year at Newham Youth for Christ we try and organise inter-church residential camps, offering young people from Newham the opportunity to go to Christian youth festivals and camps together. These camps offer our young people the opportunity to connect with young people from other churches from all over the UK and from a wide variety of backgrounds. It is also the only opportunity for any kind of holiday or time away from Newham that some of our young people get to have during the year

Pic: 2019 Soul Survivor camp. 38 young people, 16 boys and 22 girls, from 10 of Newham churches These residential trips provide a great time for the young people to grow together as a group. With our camps being self-catering the times of cooking and tidying up really help build team values and relationships and gave the young people a sense of value with the work they were doing as well as having some great fun together in the process. Organising these trips particularly supports smaller churches with only a few young people that otherwise cannot organise such trips themselves

CHEMISTRY CLUB

An adaptation of the nationwide Romance Academy programme we run CHEMISTRY CLUB for church youth groups at the invitation of a church. Following discussions with the church’s youth ministry team we

adapt the programme to fit each church group allowing the youth group to open up new discussions. We aim to work with more churches next year to run CHEMISTRY CLUB and help them to develop a healthy conversation with their young people around values and attitudes that underpin successful relationships and personal development. This must be done in person.

LOCAL COMMUNITY MISSION (Love Stratford)

We started an annual 3 day mission in 2015 called ‘Love Stratford’ working with local churches in the Stratford area but open to all of our young people to volunteer and be part of. This project brings young people together and empowers them to serve their local community on various projects, enabling them to share and show God’s love practically to people. On the last mission we had approximately 50 young people volunteering and working on the team.

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DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

Our vision and values shapes all the work we do as Newham Youth for Christ. They help evaluate our work and enable us to think through how we can develop and grow new areas of our ministry.

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

Newham Youth for Christ is a charitable organisation established in 2012. The charity is organised and governed under its constitution dated 1st November 2011 which sets out the objects and powers of the charity.

The charity is managed by its trustees, who in partnership with the Centre Director are responsible for the overall vision, finance and running of the charity.

RECRUITMENT AND APPOINTMENT OF TRUSTEES

The trustees of Newham Youth for Christ are responsible for the strategic direction and policy of the charity. The trustees give their time freely and receive no remuneration or other financial benefits. The trustees seek to ensure that the needs of work are appropriately reflected through the diversity of the trustee body and seek to identify potential new trustees through the work they are doing.

INDUCTION OF TRUSTEES

Potential new trustees meet with the Newham Youth for Christ Centre Director and/or the Chair of Trustees. An overview of the charities work and the rights and responsibilities of being a trustee are provided at this meeting. The potential trustee is then invited to attend a number of Trustees meetings as an observer. After this, the existing trustees formally vote on the suitability of each candidate as a trustee and once accepted can thereafter function on the committee as trustees.

RISK MANAGEMENT

The trustees have overseen a review of the major risks to which the charity is exposed. The trustees have assessed the charity’s main risk as a reduction in funding from all sources and a strategic plan has been put into place to deal with this issue. All other risks are reviewed regularly and procedures put in place to mitigate the risk to the charity. In addition to the above all prospective employees and volunteers undertake a DBS check (Disclosure Barring Service check)

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE

The trustees meet together 4-6 times a year and are responsible for the strategic direction of Newham Youth for Christ and the activities undertaken by the charity. The day-to-day management of Newham Youth for Christ is delegated to the Centre Director who is also responsible for ensuring that the team continues to develop skills and working practices in line with best practice. This is monitored through regular supervision meetings and annual appraisals which are carried out for staff at every level in the organisation. The organisation also has a Council of Reference from whom the Centre Director and Trustees seek advice on vision, strategy and day-to-day matters.

Newham Youth for Christ is almost completely dependent on our many supporters, partners and partner churches for funding and prayer support. We also rely on our large team of volunteers and associates who work alongside our dedicated staff to help us deliver high quality youth events.

We are very thankful to everyone who has contributed time, prayers and money to the work of Newham Youth for Christ over the past year. In doing so you have enabled hundreds of young people the opportunity to respond to the Gospel.

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STATEMENT OF BENEFIT TO THE COMMUNITY

As a registered charity, and in line with the requirements of Section 4 of the Charities Act 2006, the staff and trustees of Newham Youth for Christ acknowledge that:

★
★
★ These benefits are not the cause of any detriment or harm.
★ The aims are appropriate to the beneficiaries and vice-versa.
★
★ The opportunity to benefit from our work is not unreasonably restricted to geographical restrictions, or by the ability to pay any fees charged.
★ People in poverty are not excluded from benefiting from our work.

Pic: Amy (L), Kwaku (3 from R) and Simeon (R) with the guest panel including Rt Rev Peter Hill, the Bishop of Barking (2 from R) pictured after our BIG TOPIC event in February at St John’s Church, E15

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FINANCIAL REVIEW

2020 has been another year of financial change. Our desire and plans to push on in trying for a greater reliance on funding from individual givers and churches, aiming for a more stable financial plan, was heavily impacted and hindered by COVID 19 and the ensuing lockdowns and restrictions. Despite this, we saw our reliance on funding from grants and trusts fall slightly on the previous year to 47.6% of our total income in 2020.

Whilst acknowledging our on-going reliance on the generous funding we receive from our various grant and trust partners we aim to continue to strive to work towards a growing support and investment in the work and aims of Newham Youth for Christ from individuals and churches on a local level.

PRINCIPLE FUNDING SOURCES

Newham Youth for Christ is funded through a combination of both one-off and regular donations from individuals and churches as well as grants from charitable funds.

In 2020 we received £19,615.93 from individuals and churches through donations and regular and/or one-off gifts.

We received grant based funding of £10,000 from Mission Opportunity Fund, £10,000 from London Over the Border, £9,000 from The Bill Hill Trust and £487 from Synergy

We are immensely thankful to all of these partners for their financial support and assistance.

INVESTMENT POLICY

The charity has no long term investments. All our money, including any reserves (see below), is kept in our bank accounts held with CAF.

RESERVES POLICY

In 2015 Newham YFC started a reserves account where currently £200 is deposited on a monthly basis as we build towards having enough in reserve to cover 3 months basic running costs (currently estimated at £20,046). On 31st December 2020, Newham Youth for Christ held £8,340.86 in unrestricted reserves in an account with CAF Bank.

PLANS FOR FUTURE PERIODS

The charity plans to continue the activities outlined in this document in the forthcoming years subject to satisfactory funding arrangements. The trustees intend to continue focussing on developing additional sources of funding and maintaining the charity’s links with its partners and major grant donors, ensuring that the charity’s standard of service is maintained and improved to meet its beneficiaries and its donor’s requirements.

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Independent Examiner’s Report

To the trustees of Newham Youth for Christ.

Respective Responsibilities of Trustees and Examiner

The charity’s trustees are responsible for the preparation of financial statements. You consider that the audit requirement of Section 43(2) Charities Act 1993 (the Act) does not apply. It is my responsibility to state, on the basis of procedures specified in the general Directions given by the Charity Commissioners under Section 43(7)(b) of the Act, whether particular matters have come to my attention.

Basis of Independent Examiner’s Report

My examination was carried out in accordance with the General Directions given by the Charity Commissioners. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the financial statements presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the financial statements, and the seeking of explanations from you as trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit and, consequently, I do not express an audit opinion on the view given by the financial statements.

Independent Examiner’s Statement

In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention:

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

to keep accounting records in accordance with Section 41 of the Act; and
to prepare financial statements which accord with the accounting records and to comply with the accounting requirements of the Act have not been met;

(2) to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the financial statements to be reached

Prepared by: L H Ray-Mathur, A.A.T.

15th April 2021

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Final Accounts for the Year ended 31 December 2020

Final Accounts for the Year ended 31 December 2020
Opening Balance Total Income received - January 2020 to December 2020 LESS: Expenses incurred to 31 December 2020 Excess of Income over Expenses at Year-End Represented by: Cash at Bank: CAF Statement Sheet as at 31 December 2020 LESS: CAF - Gold Account (Reserves) LESS: Aggregate of Unpresented Cheques CASH Balance at year end	£ 33,054.95 £ 61,943.54 £ (67,017.53)
	£ 27,980.96
	£ 19,640.10 £ 8,340.86 £ 0.00
	£ 27,980.96

(To be carried over into the new Financial Year)

I confirm that the attached is a true and accurate record of the transactions that make up the accounts for Newham Youth For Christ for the financial year ended 31 December 2020