2021-10-07-accounts

Annual report and accounts for the year ended 7[th] October 2021.

Trustees’ report

We were extremely saddened at the death, after a short illness, of one our much loved volunteer Trustee’s, Angela Jones. Angela had been involved with the garden since its inception and worked tirelessly both at the garden and behind the scenes, to ensure that the garden met its charitable aims, as well as being a welcoming and safe place for visitors and volunteers alike to enjoy. She will be sadly missed by everyone who knew her.

We are also saying goodbye to volunteer trustee Penny Fletcher, who is leaving us to start her own family outside of London. We thank her for all her contributions over the years, from Bug Hunts to Homework Clubs, for having established the Little Growers Club and maintaining our website and coordinating our monthly zoom meetings. We wish her all the very best for the future and look forward to welcoming her back to the garden in the future.

This year the trustees have taken it in turn to chair our monthly meetings. The charity has been able to rise to the challenges posed by the Covid 19 virus, to build on the successes of previous years. Funding from City Bridge Trust and a private family trust has enabled us to continue to work with local community groups, through our Learner Plot programme, which was expanded to include an additional professional Sunday gardener.

Volunteering continues to be our strength. We would like to thank everyone for their efforts in continuing to make the garden a success. Funding from Higgidy Pies, which relied on you, our supporters voting for us, raised funds to run a three year programme, The Little Growers Club. Once the rules were relaxed, a booking system to manage social distancing in the garden, was successfully put in place to allow participants on site.

Our Wreath Making event continues to be regular features of the Streatham scene. The raised beds allowed us to grow many more vegetables and fruits, and proved very popular with our volunteers, who find it difficult to garden at ground level, as well as with our Little Growers Club.

The Education room has not been able to be hired as much as would have liked, but SCCoOp staff were able to make use of it to give them more space for social distancing. We continue to encourage the hiring out of the room for garden themed events and have a ramp, to facilitate wheel chair access.

We very much look forward to being able to make the garden more productive and accessible to all in the community, in the coming year. With the help and support of all our volunteers we hope to make 2022, the best year yet.

Trustees Streatham Common Community Garden.

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Our Charitable Purposes and Public Benefit

This year saw the continued success of our learner plots, which this year saw an additional Sunday gardener, and the first year of our Little Growers Club. We made significant progress towards our aim of getting more community groups involved in the Community Garden. This year’s groups included; Streatham Drop in Centre for Refugees and Asylum Seekers, Spires Homeless Charity Staff and Service Users. We continued offering a series of monthly workshops to those taking on a learner plot, these were delivered on Wednesdays as well as Sundays. The new raised beds were put into working order in time for the growing season and further funding from Higgidy Family Kitchen. Excluding Coronavirus lockdown we continued to be open on Wednesdays and Sundays throughout the year. Since lockdown we have not been able to open the garden to casual visitors, but throughout the lockdown period we supported people to grow from home and opened the garden to learner plotters as soon as the lifting of the restrictions allowed. The trustees are therefore satisfied the charity has met its obligations for charitable purposes and public benefit.

Trustees for the year 2020-2021

Barbara Booth from 01/08/21 Margaret (Maggie) Charnley Kathryn (Kate) Daly Ruth (Reece) Owens from 01/08/21 Penny Fletcher Angela Jones til May 2021 Guy Roberts Anna Savage Jill Seymour

A third of trustees are required to stand down each year by rotation. This year Angela Jones sadly died and Penny Fletcher is stepping down having moved away from the area. Barbara and Reece were co opted as Trustees part way through the year.

The board of Trustees would also like to thank Ruth Arnott for all the work she has done in setting up and running our Learner Plot programme this year and adapting it to Covid 19 restrictions, to allow us to continue to work with the local community groups, as well as running our ever popular Christmas Wreath making workshops.

The Board of Trustees would welcome expressions of interest from others in joining us, to further our charitable aims.

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Events held in the Community Garden

Wreath Making; Ruth ran a very popular series of workshops this year with attendees making sustainable willow Christmas wreaths, decorated with locally sourced seasonal materials to include ivy and teasel.

Monthly workshops; from sowing seeds, to taking cuttings and making compost, were this year run by Ruth Arnott, and Jane Sowerby, both professional gardeners, with funds secured from City Bridge Trust and a private family Trust.

Group Visits:-

Due to Covid 19 Government restrictions put in place, we had limited opportunity for community group visits. We did however welcome the Asylum Seekers and Refugee homework club over three Saturdays this summer.

We also hosted the wake for our much loved friend and trustee Angela Jones, thank you to the Rookery Café and Inkspot Brewery, who helped make the day special, for Angela’s family and friends.

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Events attended within the wider community

Rookery Farmers Market: we opened our stall outside the yard at the first Farmers Market of this year selling produce to include mulberries and redcurrants as well as many vegetable and herb plants.

Volunteering

2020 84 Volunteers 1,661 Volunteer hours 2021 93 Volunteers 2,948 Volunteer hours

Volunteering continues to be core to our everyday activity – sowing, planting, weeding, digging and watering. To meet with Government Guidelines during Covid 19 we introduced a booking system for volunteers, to help with social distancing in the garden, as well as introducing an effective track and trace system. There were also volunteer roles in supporting events, building projects, workshops and produce stalls. We have had 93 volunteers offering 2,948 hours over the year, which are in addition to the volunteer trustee hours, spent administering the garden.

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A big thank you to all our volunteers and volunteer trustees without whom the Community Garden would not be what it is today, a place where people can meet in the fresh air, connect with nature and grow, harvest and eat fresh local produce, which again this year, has been more important than ever.

Donations

We would like to thank: -

Our visitors and volunteers for their monetary, as well as time donations. Monies were also donated in memory of volunteer trustee Angela Jones. A donation was also received from Hadley Developments.

Growing Programme

We continue to grow a wide range of vegetables and fruits. This year we harvested fruits from the apricot and peach trees with the cage around them having successfully kept off the winter rains so prevent peach leaf curl, as well as keeping out the squirrels who found our fig tree. Our fruit cage, helped keep the birds and squirrels off our currants, apples and pears. The brassica cage kept the cabbage white butterflies off our brassica crops again this year. In partnership with Sustain and the London Freedom Seedbank we grew crops of

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beans purely to harvest the seed, unfortunately these were harvested before having reached maturity.

New crops this year included asparagus in the lower anniversary bed and tea, wasabi, blueberries, lingonberries and cranberries in the upper anniversary bed which now contains ericaceous soil.

Built Heritage

At the time of writing this report we are pleased to announce that SCCoOp applied for and received some funding from The Heritage Lottery Fund, which will see the Lean to Greenhouse being replaced by a more permanent structure. We would like to thank SCCoOp for sourcing this funding and for their efforts in preparing the site ready for the new greenhouse for us, which we hope to have up and running ready for the forthcoming growing season. The old Hazchem shed has successfully been brought into use as our tool shed and the two raised beds now contain perennial crops.

Finance

Our reserves at the end of the year are up £1,265, over 2020, to £11,724; this will be used in grant applications where matched funding is required, in for example capital projects.

Income generated this year:

- Expenses reimbursed to trustees:

Grants £ 24,779 Five trustees were reimbursed for expenses to cover the cost Donations £ 2,429 of events, repairs and maintenance, printing and publicity for £3,493. Sales of Produce £ 1,286 Three trustees donated expenses totaling £480. Subscriptions £ 60

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Spending of £13,159 included ongoing payments of £11,750 for running our Learner Plot and Little Growers programme.

Learner Plots, Little Growers Club and Training Programme

Now in its eighth year the Learner Plot programme attracted a number of local community groups; Streatham Drop in Centre for Refugees and Asylum Seekers, Spires Homeless Charity Staff and Service Users. All of whom have successfully sowed, raised, grown on and harvested an impressive amount of vegetables over the year including amongst others, sweet corn, beans, cucumbers, courgettes, beetroot and strawberries. We were also please to have secured additional funding to allow us to take on additional professional gardener, Jane Sowerby, to run events and offer advice on a Sunday.

We are pleased to announce that we secured funding from Higgidy Family Kitchen, to run a Little Growers Club for three years. Our first year has been very successful and we look forward to the perogranmme’s continuing success.

This year was particularly challenging because of the Coronavirus restrictions that came into force soon after the learner plotters we recruited. We continued however with a series of monthly workshops, which were professionally led, thanks to funding from Lambeth Community Foundation, by Ruth Arnott. With the use of social media, learners shared experiences and worked well together, returning to the garden safely, when restrictions were eased. Workshops delivered at the garden and online, included seed sowing, companion planting and beneficial insects, taking cuttings, harvesting seed, growing winter vegetables and green manures. The workshops continue to attract new people to the garden.

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We continue to seek funding for next year enabling us to continue and further develop the training programme, reaching out to more community groups so they may have a plot and learn to grow their own produce.

Fundraising Activity

We were grateful for some sizeable donations and received a grant from City Bridge Trust a private family trust and Awards 4 All, The CoOperative Society, Higgidy Pies, Hadley Developments. We continued to generate income by sales of surplus plants, produce, running events, hiring out the Training Room and Peter Noys’ beautifully crafted dibbers and pens. We would also like to thank our volunteer Michael, for recommending we apply for funding from a family trust, allowing us to continue running the garden over the next year. We received funding from the National Lottery (Awards for All) to introduce ways to encourage more wildlife and enhance the small woodland area of the garden, which includes the mulberry tree.

We are also now able to take contactless payments and thank Numidia Ltd for their help in this.

We are registered with:

Easy Fundraising , so when supporters shop online a percentage of their purchase spend is donated to the Streatham Common Community Garden, at no extra cost to the customer. Supporters can sign up for this free service at https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk.

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Amazon Smile	https://smile.amazon.co.uk/ch/1154156-0
CoOperative Society	https://www.coop.co.uk/membership
DONR– text giving	Text SCCG to 70085

We have updated our website

We have been exploring funding options from a number of grant giving bodies. We will be exploring further opportunities for joint activities and funding in the future. We would like to formally report that we did not incur any expenditure on organising fundraising events, did not pay any external fundraiser, or incur any other fundraising expenditure.

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Streatham Common Community Garden
Registered Charity No 1154156
Accounts for year ending 7th October 2021
	Unrestricted Funds £	Restricted Funds £	Total Funds £		to 7/10/20	Variance £
Receipts
Grants		24,779	24,779		6,391	18,388
Sales	1,286		1,286		1,027	259
Donations	993	6,543	7,536		851	6,685
Subscriptions	60		60		90	(30)
Events	1,436		1,436		1,373	63
Prizes			-			0
Gift Aid	-		-		387	(387)
Gross Income	3,775	31,321	35,097		10,119	24,978
Payments
Restricted Grants		11,666	11,666		7,485	4,181
Restricted Donations		83	83		-	83
Seeds Plants Garden Supplies	214		214		814	(600)
Equipment Maintenance	594		594		113	481
Volunteer Expenses	286		286		216	70
Events	158		158		111	47
Insurance	97		97		97	0
Postage	60		60		25	35
Website Hosting			-		86	(86)
Total Payments	1,409	11,750	13,159		8,947	4,212
Gross Income Less Total Payments	2,366	19,572	21,938		1,171
Transfer between funds	(1,102)	1,102
Cash Funds at 7/10/20	10,459	2,335	12,794		11,623
Cash Funds at 7/10/21	11,724	23,009	34,732		12,794
Bank Balance at 7/10/21	11,711	23,009	34,719		12,794	21,925
Petty Cash at 7/10/21	13		13		-	13
Total Cash Balance	11,724	23,009	34,732		12,794	21,938

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