2024-03-31-accounts - Chrysolis

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Chrysolis

Report of the Trustees & Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2024

Index to the Financial Statements

For the Year Ended 31 March 2024

	Page
Report of the Trustees	1 – 6
Report of Receipts and Payments	7
Report of Assets and Liabilities	8
Report of the Independent Examiner	9

Chrysolis

Report of the Trustees & Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2024 Continued

Constitution:	Chrysolis operates under a Declaration of Trust dated March 2nd, 2012.	Chrysolis operates under a Declaration of Trust dated March 2nd, 2012.
Registered Charity Number:	1152787
Trustees:	Appointment of trustees	is by a simple majority of the existing trustees present
	and voting, with the chairperson having the casting vote, in accordance with
	Clauses 9, 10, 12, 17 and 18 to the Trust Declaration.
	The current trustees are:
	Mr S. Humphreys	(chair)
	Rev. T Raaff	(treasurer)
	Dr. H Giddings	(secretary)
	Ms. C Ormiston
	Ms. K Mair
Correspondent:	Rev. T Raaff
Address:	New Rectory
	Main Street
	Linby
	NG15 8AE
Independent Examiner:	Robert Gary Holmes
	205 Annesley Road
	Hucknall
	Nottingham
	NG15 7DB
Bankers:	Cooperative Bank
	PO Box 250
	WN8 6WT
Governance:	Chrysolis is run by the Trustees on a voluntary basis.

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Reserves

Chrysolis has typically maintained reserves of between two and three months running costs, with a longer-term goal of increasing this.

Oversight

Chrysolis currently has one employee. Luke Cawley is responsible for implementing our projects. He both initiates new projects and responds to requests and invitations for help from organizations and individuals, with priority given to those projects which make best use of his gifting and best fulfil the objects of the charity. The trustees are in regular consultation with Luke and have both a pastoral oversight responsibility and also provide guidance in his daily implementation of the charity’s objects.

Luke also supports our team of volunteers in Romania, who serve there with our partner organization, Chrysolis Romania.

Objects and Activities

The objects of Chrysolis are

(1) To advance the Christian faith for the benefit of the public through quality resources, training and events, in accordance with the following statement of faith (‘the statement of faith’):
We believe in…
The one true God who lives eternally in three persons—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The love, grace and sovereignty of God in creating, sustaining, ruling, redeeming and judging the world.
The divine inspiration and supreme authority of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, which are the written Word of God—fully trustworthy for faith and conduct.
The dignity of all people, made male and female in God's image to love, be holy and care for creation, yet corrupted by sin, which incurs divine wrath and judgement.
The incarnation of God’s eternal Son, the Lord Jesus Christ—born of the virgin Mary; truly divine and truly human, yet without sin.
The atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross: dying in our place, paying the price of sin and defeating evil, so reconciling us with God.

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The bodily resurrection of Christ, the first fruits of our resurrection; his ascension to the Father, and his reign and mediation as the only Saviour of the world.
The justification of sinners solely by the grace of God through faith in Christ.
The ministry of God the Holy Spirit, who leads us to repentance, unites us with Christ through new birth, empowers our discipleship and enables our witness.
The Church, the body of Christ both local and universal, the priesthood of all believers—given life by the Spirit and endowed with the Spirit's gifts to worship God and proclaim the gospel, promoting justice and love.
The personal and visible return of Jesus Christ to fulfil the purposes of God, who will raise all people to judgement, bring eternal life to the redeemed and eternal condemnation to the lost, and establish a new heaven and new earth.
(2) To advance the education of members of the public involved in communication of the Christian faith, through the continued development of their individual capabilities, competencies, skills and understanding in subjects relevant to such communication.

Achievements and Performance

This year has been a successful one. We are thankful to have been able to help our Romanian projects transition to their next phase, to support various projects around Europe, and to launch our first physical resource. Income has remained steady and we were also able to adopt our new safeguarding policy in March 2024.

Romania: Becoming Storytellers

Romania has previously been the primary geographical focus of Chrysolis’ work. Much of our work there has been partnership with a locally-led non-profit, Chrysolis Romania (or, legally, Asociaţia Chrysolis), we helped establish in 2020, and with whom we have a memorandum of understanding, and shared charitable objects.

Chrysolis Romania has had an entirely Romanian team and board since its inception. We have invested in training and learning experiences for the staff and volunteers of Chrysolis Romania, and Luke, on behalf of Chrysolis UK, has continued to liaise with the team in Bucharest and report back to the board of Chrysolis UK. In early 2023, we began the transition of Chrysolis Romania to a second generation of local leadership, drawing for this on existing volunteers and participants in our projects there. This process was completed in September

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2023, and has resulted in further independence for Chrysolis Romania, with us moving from an oversight capacity to a looser advisory one.

The focus of Chrysolis Romania is currently on Becoming Storytellers, a successor project to our Advance initiative. Becoming Storytellers is focused on helping Romanian Christians engage the wider culture through the arts. The first piece of public art to be produced as a result the Becoming Storytellers project is Când Corbii Tac , by Chrysolis Romania team member Adriana Patroi-Miu. It is a historical novel which interweaves reflections on faith, and is available at mainstream bookshops around the country.

Rest of Europe: Engage

Engage is a our project which works alongside locally-led churches and Christian student movements to help them develop creative means of engaging students and campuses with the story and message of Jesus. This year, Luke worked with local Christian student groups to help plan and deliver such projects in both the UK and Estonia.

He also created and delivered training in both Latvia and Spain, on the theme of communicating publicly at student-focused outreach events. Those participating were staff and volunteers of existing local Christian student groups linked with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (“IFES”, registered charity 247919).

New Project: Invisible Castle

Our UK-based project, invisible castle , continued to be developed under the oversight of our director and one of our trustees, Kristi Mair. It aims to make available a range of resources relating to the communication of the Christian faith.

This year saw the launch of the first physical resource issued under the invisible castle imprint — a book called Beyond Monologue: Preparing Interactive Talks , which makes accessible some of the thinking and practice developed through our Engage project over the past few years. This was been made available at cost to organizations with similar charitable objects, and both IFES and also the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (“UCCF”, registered charity 306137) bulk-bought copies.

Luke and Kristi have also sketched out an initial ten-part podcast series on the theme of ‘apologetic practice’, which they aim to begin recording in the summer of 2024, and launch no later than Spring 2025. A subscriber list for the podcast has been built by inviting sign-ups at events where either of them speak.

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A first live invisible castle event, at which both Luke and Kristi spoke, was also held in London, in partnership with the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (“LICC”, UK-registered charity 286102).

Republic of Moldova: Refugees

Following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Romania and the neighbouring Republic of Moldova were flooded with refugees and needed to respond rapidly. We took the decision to utilise our existing local knowledge and connections, as well as our existing networks of current and potential supporters, to open a fund restricted for the support of local efforts housing and supporting refugees. We made small grants to those local churches and organizations which were refitting their premises as refugee accommodation, enabling them to purchase furniture and supplies. We have since continued to support a local project in the Republic of Moldova, supporting the material needs of refugees.

Financial Review

The financial statements have been subjected to an Independent Examination, as they are exempt from the audit requirements of section 144 Charities Act 2011. The Independent Examination results are pending and a version of this report which includes them will be uploaded soon.

Gifts received in the period amounted to £38,121 (last year: £39,983), with a further £0 (last year: £7,781) given for the restricted use of supporting work with Ukrainian refugees, and a further £2,887 (last year: £0) coming from sales of (and donations towards development of) the book Beyond Monologue . A total of £0 (last year: £8,632) was recovered under HMRC’s Gift Aid scheme.

Salary costs of £39,306 (last year: £39,283) were paid out during the accounting period. Travelling and subsistence costs for the team during the year were £5,368 (last year: £7,355) for expenses incurred. The sum of £0 (last year: £1,707) was used for other costs. A total of £158 (last year: £6,508) was also paid in grants to Chrysolis Romania for costs related to their staff team roles.

We also found that in 2022 a grant had been paid to Chrysolis Romania which exceeded the restricted income that we had received for it, and so an allocation correction was made in the accounts from restricted to nonrestricted funds, of £793.

A further £173 (last year: £163) was paid to PayPal for transaction fees, while £7,706 (last year: £6,381) was paid in donations to projects serving Ukrainian refugees in Romania and the Republic of Moldova. Net payments for the year were -£15.399 (last year: net payments £5,001) and our end of year cash funds were £28,014 (last

Chrysolis

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year: £43,413), of which £20,807 (last year: £27,719) is restricted for the purpose of assisting Ukrainian refugees.

Public Benefit

We confirm that the trustees have paid due regard to the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit in planning the activities the charity should undertake.

Plans for Future Periods

We anticipate continuing to provide support to the Romanian organization. We also anticipate continued partnership with IFES, and we are working on plans to help them implement public events around Europe, including in Portugal, the UK, and hopefully also in Moldova.

We will also continue our investment in the invisible castle project and associated resources, which will function partially to make some of the thinking and praxis of our past few years more widely accessible.

Trustees’ Responsibilities

The trustees are responsible for preparing the Annual Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations.

The trustees are required to prepare financial statements for each financial year in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (United Kingdom Accounting Standards and applicable law). The financial statements are required by law to give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of its incoming resources and application of resources of the charity for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the trustees should follow best practice and:

select suitable accounting policies and apply them consistently;
make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
state whether applicable UK Accounting Standards have been followed: and
prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in operation.

The trustees are responsible for keeping accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and enable them to ensure that financial statements comply with the applicable law, regulations and the trust deed. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.