2023-03-31-accounts

Parry Hall, Parry Road, Gloucester, GL1 4RZ

Annual Report 1[st] April 2022 – 31[st] March 2023

Trustees Candy Wiltshire – Chair Gemma Allen– Vice Chair

Cat Illingworth – Treasurer Julie Smith

Governing Document

Increase the Peace became a registered Charitable Incorporate Organisation (number 1153861) on 19[th] September 2013. We have all necessary policies and procedures including a child protection policy. DBS checks are carried out prior to commencement of employment. These checks are carried out every 3 years in line with statutory requirements.

Objectives and Activities

The purpose of the charity is:

To help and educate young people especially but not exclusively through their educational and leisure-time activities so to develop their physical, emotional, social and behavioural capabilities that they may grow to full maturity as individuals and members of society and that their conditions of life may be improved, and to support other charitable purposes in the local community.

Summary of main activities undertaken for the public benefit:

All our activities are undertaken for public benefit. Our main activities are educational youth workshops, outreach work and performances. We are open to all young people regardless of personal background, faith, gender or personal circumstance and we look for the person they can be rather than judging them by their past or background. We work with local partners, such as the police, schools, housing providers and local organisations, to provide joined up support to young people and we value the support and contributions from our partners.

Our work benefits young people aged 7 to 25 by developing their self-confidence and social skills, alongside practical and life skills. We encourage them to make positive life choices to have a successful future and particularly focus on anti-guns, -gangs and - crime work.

Our volunteers make a huge contribution to Increase the Peace and we could not do the work without them. They are always willing to give time, energy and ideas to making the projects and youth activities succeed.

Achievements

Increase the Peace is well known in Gloucestershire for our anti-guns, -gangs and -crime work. During 2022 – 23 we continued to concentrate on delivering our Impact workshops, as well as raising awareness in the community, being a listening ear and providing signposting.

Supporting our local young people and their families is always our main priority and we are known to be the ‘go to’ organisation about knife crime. Sadly more young people continued to be attacked in both Gloucestershire and the country so our work in this year still included much advice, visits and advocacy for young people, siblings and parents, as well as knife collection.

We predominantly use our Facebook page to highlight issues and give support to our almost 8000 followers. We shared information about local activities for young people, local cultural festivals, knife amnesties and national events such as Children’s Mental Health Week and Time4WorldPeace. Keeping to our performance roots we also shared a new anti-knife crime documentary produced by Reel MCR and a poem “Knife Sentence” by Quinton Green. We were proud of the openness of our young people when their street experiences were captured in a film – ‘Boy in the Corner’ written by Luciano D’amato and Joshy Lee – which has now won numerous international independent film awards.

Our ‘Impact’ educational anti-knife crime workshops are always well received, and we delivered sessions for schools, college and training providers. We also delivered our first session in a primary school. With access to social media starting at a younger age, and young children reportly carrying knives or bringing them into schools, it was important to start taking ‘Impact’ to Year 6 children. This was delivered in an age appropriate way without causing distress or worry and even with such a difficult subject they all engaged really well and were open and honest in sharing their thoughts and experiences. Feedback from parents included: “Thanks for doing this session. Thomas has talked about it non-stop.”, “It’s never too early to start educating children about knife crime. This is a brilliant idea. Well done.”, “My daughter loved it yesterday!”

The Knife Angel sculpture came to Gloucester in February as part of its national youth antiviolence tour. This was thought-provoking and sobering to see, especially as it contained some of the knives taken off the streets by Increase the Peace workers in 2019, and we were very grateful to receive a certificate from the Angel in recognition of our work. During this time we delivered a weekend of educational workshops for young people at the cathedral and it was a privilege to work with Timothy Baptiste from Time for World Peace in London.

We have also been able to raise awareness of local issues by being featured in local and national news, in The Times newspaper, on BBC and ITV, on radio, newspaper and podcasts. Another highlight was sharing the personal story of Delroy Ellis, Increase the Peace’s founder, at a motivational talk to Year 8’s at a local school. We hope that speaking about aspirations, making positive choices and sharing his story helped to bring awareness to the young people.

We were very grateful as always to those that chose to raise funds or support us. Special thanks this year go to Ben Conie, Rich Boxer Gammon and Kaylee Gammon, Station Pub Hotel, Walls Club, Shooting Stars Nursery, Warmseal Windows, Old Bell Inn & Tiger’s Eye restaurant, Matt Howard, Widden Old Boys, Linden Tree pub, Butlers Venue Bar and Spencer Spencer Promotions.

During 2023/24 we intend to increase delivery of our Impact workshops, continue to support our community as best we can and we are hoping to re-start our youth clubs.

Declaration

The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report. Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees:

Signature: Name: Candy Wiltshire Position: Chair Date: 14/12/23

Increase the Peace Accounts 1/4/2022 - 31/3/2023

Section A Receipts and Payments	Section A Receipts and Payments
		Unrestricted funds £ Restricted funds £		Total funds £	1/4/21- 31/3/22 £
Receipts Grants and donations 16,805 Total Receipts 16,805 - Payments Costs of charitable activities 6,411 Total Payments 6,411 - Net of receipts/(payments) 10,394 - Cash funds last year end 8,977 Cash funds this year end 19,371 - Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of theperiod				16,805	10,209
			-	16,805	10,209
				6,411	2,695
			-	6,411	2,695
			-	10,394	7,514
				8,977	1,463
			-	19,371	8,977
Categories	Details			Unrestricted funds £	Restricted funds £
Cash funds Assets retained for the charity's own use Signed on behalf of Board	Cash at bank Total cash funds			19,371
				19,371	-
	-			-	-
	Name: Position:			Date:	14/12/2023