WRAP Annual report 2020 – 2021
Unit 6, Ryefield Crescent, Northwood Hills, HA6 1LT 01923 517 540 WRAPwatfordscrap@gmail.com http://wrapwatfordscrap.wixsite.com/wrap Registered Charity No 1155251
Table of Contents
Chairs report ......................................................................................................................... 3 Our heart and soul ........................................................................................................................ 3 The hard cash................................................................................................................................ 3 Making wholes from the parts ...................................................................................................... 4 Fulfilling our purpose .................................................................................................................... 4 Gratitude ................................................................................................................................................ 6 Finance report: September 2020 to August 2021 ................................................................. 7 Finance Statement ........................................................................................................................ 7 Finance and Data Analysis ............................................................................................................ 9 Volunteer Report ........................................................................................................................ 11 Creative Activities Report ........................................................................................................... 13
Chairs report
I am pleased to share with you the annual report for WRAP 2020-2021.
Our heart and soul
Firstly, I wish to say thank you to our volunteers who have once again done amazing work this year in keeping our operations going. We would not be able to operate as an
organisation without our volunteers, so a great big thank you for all that you do in keeping us going.
Roxana Peters, who coordinates this most important side of our work, reports on this on page 11.
The hard cash
Our financial position continues to appear healthy. Sandra Michie, our treasurer has once again done great work in producing an true and accurate set of accounts presented on page 7. We are able to report a small surplus of income over expenditure this year and this means our cash balance has grown a small amount to £82,378.73.
From previous experience in the charity sector I have been led to think about having 3 months operating costs in the bank as a good measure of financial viability. So in relation to current operating costs, our cash surplus looks very, very good – rather than three months we seem to be holding 5 years of operating costs, which looks very healthy indeed.
Making wholes from the parts Whilst we have been creatively engaged within the scrapstore, we have been less able than normal to be a presence in the local communities of which we are a part blocked by restrictions to social activities and the needs of our volunteers for safety.
Helen Burtt reports on the creative activities that have taken place outside of the scrapstore this year under the WRAP umbrella on page 13. The image above here comes from the ‘friendly monster’ project we did with Herts County Library Service – these are some of the parts and in the rest of the report you’ll see what unexpected novelty can emerge when disparate parts together creatively.
As I have often observed there’s a lot that goes on inside the warehouse that could be described as creative activity. However in the warehouse we are ‘talking amongst ourselves’ as it were. That’s great but we also need to be out there in the communities of which we are a part so that our impact is spread. I hope that next year we will be in a position to do more community focused engagement work. I encourage people to contact any of the committee ~~or~~ with ideas, suggestions and leads for creative activity.
Fulfilling our purpose
Above I mentioned our cash balance and the fact that this covers 5 years of current operating costs. As a reader of this report, and therefore someone who I assume is interested in WRAP and its purposes, I hope this created something of an aha moment or at least a pause in your reading...
Some people may question this level of cash surplus and wonder whether we are making best use of our funds in relation to the organisation purposes. Indeed, I raised this question at a recent committee meeting and a very challenging debate took place. A majority of the committee expressed a feeling that this amount left us with some security if our circumstances changed radically. For instance, if we had to start paying for all the volunteer hours that sustain the organisation or paying rent at commercial rates, our healthy cash balance would be used up quite quickly. I appreciated the points being made by my colleagues’ arguments and yet I also had another perspective on this matter that I wanted us to engage with.
One of the reasons I raised this question about our cash balance, was because of how we relate to external world in which WRAP operates and the questions of impact in that external world. All charities ought to grapple actively with this complex question.
As the last two years have shown, we do not operate in a bubble and have to respond and adapt to circumstances in the external environment to meet our purposes effectively. Whilst all of us experienced Covid-19 as a very visible and obvious change in the external context, the global sustainability challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and scarcity of natural resources are equally if not more significant but perhaps a little more hidden from everyday view.
We are an environmental arts charity with limited time and resources. So the questions I have are:
• ‘How should we act if we recognise that we are in the middle a deep ecological crisis that could last 50 or 100 years? • Should we save up for future rainy days (that may or may not ever come) or should we try to do more with what we already have now to help prepare for this unknown future?’
I don’t believe that there are any simple, right/wrong answers to these questions. Instead feel that we ought to have space in which discussion about this conundrum can take place openly.
If you have thoughts on this matter, please do get in touch with me, any of the committee members or your fellow WRAP members.
Gratitude
Finally, a note on Imogen Heap, who sadly passed away earlier this year. Imogen was a regular driver for WRAP for many years, who went out mainly on Wednesdays. I distinctly remember one of my first encounters ~~with her work~~ at an exhibition of her work at Watford Girls School some 15 years ago. Imogen had wrapped all sorts of objects, - books, pens and even a whole cupboard in blue fabric (it had to be fabric!). It was wonderful work, really wonderful. So magical and powerful at the same time.
Helen Burtt, one of our current drivers, reflecting on Imogen’s passing reminded us of the need to live with a sense of gratitude. In some sense, I think the work that WRAP is thoroughly infused with a sense of gratitude – we rescue stuff that would have been discarded and help people find some way to use it …. Each time something gets used creatively by someone and each time one person gets inspired to be creative with something, we are perhaps showing gratitude to the resources that we have been endowed with on this beautiful planet.
So thank you all.
Rupesh Shah Chair
: Finance report September 2020 to August 2021
Finance Statement
| WRAP Financial statement | WRAP Financial statement | WRAP Financial statement | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial year | 01 Sep 2020 | to | 31 Aug 2021 | |
| INCOME | ||||
| Bank Interest | 405.73 £ |
See Note 2 overleaf | ||
| Donations | 175.05 £ |
Including £30 for use of van | ||
| MembershipFees | Renewals | 5,145.00 £ |
||
| New | 1,720.00 £ |
|||
| Administrative | 1,085.00 £ |
7,950.00 £ |
||
| TOTAL INCOME | 8,530.78 £ |
|||
| EXPENSES | ||||
| Bank Charges - Ccards | 12.61 £ |
|||
| Fees(Affiliation) | ||||
| Office: | Equipment Peripherals | 168.75 £ |
||
| Consumables/Printing | 84.43 £ |
|||
| Postage | 18.85 £ |
|||
| Stationery | ||||
| Sundries | 79.02 £ |
|||
| TOTAL Office Supplies | 351.05 £ |
|||
| Volunteers: | AGM & hospitality | 143.88 £ |
||
| Volunteers | 173.16 £ |
|||
| Refreshments | ||||
| Mileage | 288.80 £ |
|||
| TOTAL volunteer costs | 605.84 £ |
|||
| Propertycosts: | P/E liabilityInsurance | 571.20 £ |
Sept & Aug - due to Covid | |
| Fire insurance/checks | 56.40 £ |
|||
| Rates - repayment | See Note 1 overleaf | |||
| Maintenance | ||||
| TOTAL Propertycosts | 627.60 £ |
|||
| Utilities: | Electricity /Gas | |||
| Telephone | 344.51 £ |
|||
| Refuse collection | 128.00 £ |
|||
| Water | ||||
| TOTAL Utilities | 472.51 £ |
|||
| Vehicle & collections: | Driving | 760.00 £ |
See Note 3 overleaf | |
| Fuel | 350.07 £ |
|||
| Road tax & MOT | 319.00 £ |
|||
| Insurance/RAC | 784.14 £ |
|||
| Maintenance | 421.00 £ |
|||
| TOTAL Vehicle costs | 2,634.21 £ |
|||
| Workshopmarketing: | ||||
| TOTAL EXPENSES | 4,703.82 £ |
|||
| TOTAL General INCOME less EXPENSES 2020/2021 | 3,826.96 £ |
| WRAP Financial statement | WRAP Financial statement | 2020-2021 | 2020-2021 | Page 2 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bank balance as of 31/8/2020 | |||||
| TSB 0143…. | 27,656.76 £ |
||||
| Shawbrook(Savings) | £50,716.42 | ||||
| TOTAL Bank b/f: | £78,373.18 | ||||
| PettyCash b/f: | £178.59 | ||||
| £78,551.77 | |||||
| Income Over expenses 2020-2021 | £3,826.96 | ||||
| Capital expenditure | |||||
| balance c/f into Sept 20 | 21 | £82,378.73 | |||
| Bank balance as of 31/8/2021 | |||||
| TSB 0143…. c/f | 30,971.84 £ |
||||
| Shawbrook c/f | Savings | £51,122.15 | |||
| TOTAL Bank: | £82,093.99 | ||||
| Petty Cash | Cash in hand 31 Aug 2020 | 284.74 £ |
|||
| Net financial worth 31 Aug 2021 | (correct with books) | 82,378.73 £ |
|||
| Note 1 | Rates - Thisyear Shaylesh covered ourportion of the Rat | es bill. | |||
| Note 2 | CAF/Shawbrooks Savings bank interest rates have now dropped - in October 2021 | ||||
| Note 3 | Mileage & driving expenses for volunteers | ||||
| Mike | £760.00 | Driving | |||
| Helen | £288.80 | Mileage | |||
| Roger | Mileage | ||||
| Others | Mileage | ||||
| TOTALS | £1,048.80 | ||||
| Accountsprepared byAlexandra J. Michie | |||||
| Accepted as accurate accounts for | |||||
| Name | Role | Signature | |||
| Rupesh Shah Roger Kattenhorn Roxana M. Peters Alexandra J. Michie |
Trustee Trustee Trustee Finance Officer |
||||
Finance and Data Analysis
As we have moved into our second year of the Covid-19 pandemic some of the effects might be of interest.
During the past year, and because of the pandemic lockdowns, we have extended the length of 446 of our faithful membership who had maintained their subscriptions through either or both of the lockdown periods. The extensions were given for 3 or 6 months, relative to their maintained membership. This was costly to WRAP, but has engendered considerable good will.
Despite these extensions, and the drop in income during the year, we have remained solvent as our expenses had dropped correspondingly. Whilst some of us are still not able to work at WRAP in person, other of our volunteers have worked hard, maintained the warehouse to a good standard and effectively responded to all the changes resulting from the pandemic regulations.
Below is a chart showing an overview of how our membership have used the warehouse during the past 4 years.
Membership attendances over the past 4 years :
| Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Total visits Average/week |
Covid-19 cont. 2020-2021 |
Covid Lockdown 2019-2020 |
2018-2019 | 2017-2018 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 92 327 53 84 119 237 256 309 283 |
566 718 729 226 453 708 195 174 250 |
439 468 460 233 433 567 607 434 525 390 380 333 |
390 483 447 240 437 469 355 347 343 366 344 342 |
|
| 1760 | 4019 | 5269 | 4563 | |
| 46 | 109 | 120 | 104 |
(Average calculated as being open 50 weeks/year before Covid & 37 weeks in 2020 and 38 weeks in 2021.)
As it will be seen the drop in average attendance for the year from September 2020 to August 2021 is radical, but much of that is probably due to pandemic regulations and fears. May to August showed an increasing attendance.
The chart below shows some of the background to our income from different types of membership. As we move into the next year (2021-22) we have altered the subscription criteria slightly to cover the growing tendency for groups such as multiple schools, nurseries, and others to amalgamate and form larger entities, with central administration. Our current three groups will now be ‘individual’, ‘small’, and ‘medium’ groups, with the addition of a fourth ‘large’ group to cover the above and include medium to large businesses.
| Subscriptions by group 2020-21 | Subscriptions by group 2020-21 | |
|---|---|---|
| Renewals | New | |
| Indiv/Family | 106 | 65 |
| Small Group | 34 | 5 |
| School | 19 | 6 |
| Volunteers | 13 | 4 |
| Totals | 172 | 80 |
WRAP is still healthy, has progressed through these difficult times well, and ready for the all the ‘new normal’ of the coming year.
Sandra Michie
Honorary Treasurer
Volunteer Report Roxana Peters
A volunteer report for the Annual Report! That’s where the facts are reported, isn’t it? Well, we have about 30 volunteers who give over 200 hours each month, working in a warehouse where humour and friendship provides the ambient warmth and support is available to all. Local sources continue to supply us with a huge variety of material which is processed and made available to WRAP members.
But there is so much more in WRAP. We recognise that our volunteers are our most precious, valuable asset and WRAP is a fortunate organisation to have our team.
All the workers you see in the warehouse are volunteers. They all believe in the ethos of WRAP giving the time they can afford to enable and encourage the members to use exciting materials that have been rescued from landfill in their art and without them WRAP would not exist. Our volunteers are a motley crew from every section of the community, of all ages and with a wide range of skills and experience! But in common they have energy, enthusiasm, creativity, patience, tenacity, humour, flexibility, diligence and friendliness which they exercise on behalf of the members, working tirelessly to get as much ‘waste’ materials as possible into the hands of creative people, particularly those working with children, thereby making art affordable and eco friendly. It is not always great fun to see another pile being unloaded from the van, but we know that together we can process it and get it into the warehouse even if it takes a couple of days! We find that all the tasks are completed eventually, sometimes on a ‘Jack Spratt’ basis (Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean, and so between the two of them, they licked the platter clean.) and it is a bonus that there are very few time pressures! And in addition, a word about Sandra
who has become our financial and IT specialist, keeping us up to date technically and financially. Thank you Sandra
We have welcomed some new volunteers this year, as we do most years. They are usually, but not always, members who have time to spare and we have gladly welcomed them on to one or more of the four teams. We continue to welcome youngsters on Duke of Edinburgh activities, mostly through our connection with the Scout Association, and when they have come back after their allotted months it is good to see their enthusiasm. One or two WRAP volunteers are highly vulnerable, medically, and have not come back to the warehouse: We miss them, but we know they are active where they can be.
Sadly we have said good bye to some volunteers: moving away, getting a job or grandparent duties are the most likely reasons. Happily some come back to see us, even after a couple of years – fondness for WRAP is hard to break and it is always good to see old friends again. After a long association with WRAP as a driver and brilliant artist, Imogen Welch died this year. She had been living victoriously and courageously with cancer for some years always knowing that one day it would take her life. Our condolences continue to be with Ken, her husband.
We continue to occupy the premises in Northwood Hills and re-arrange the areas to suit us. There were many challenges to overcome after the lifting of the 2020 lockdown and the returning members were grateful for our efforts. Sanitising is still available, we encourage masks and distancing, but we recognise that a bit of flexibility is necessary.
Do you have what it takes to become a volunteer? If you think so, ask at the desk next time you come in.
How many hours you can offer is entirely up to you.
As volunteer co-ordinator, I continue to give thanks for the team; their patience, hard work, creativity, tolerance and all-round good nature. While we have them, WRAP is in safe hands.
Creative Activities Report Helen Burtt
Covid restrictions made it all but impossible to be out and about in the way we would normally be. Passing on ideas and creative stimulus was limited to online activities through Facebook.
Herts County Library Service contacted Wrap during lock down and asked if we be involved in an Arts Council England bid they were preparing. We were asked to design some characters and creative recycled workshops for children as part of a planned relaunch of the Libraries in the coming year. Their chosen theme was
'Friendly Monsters.’ And they wanted us to help them draw families back into the library and enable children to use their imagination, get creative and get talking as well as promoting reuse and recycling awareness. Wrap prepared materials for a number workshops to be organised in various branches throughout the county. So far five mannequins (see cover image of this report) have been modelled to accompany these events.
Our one big outing of the year was in late August, where we were invited to attend The Stage in the Park event put on by the Watford Palace theatre. The volunteers put together grab-bags of random items with a prompt to use them to make an item and send us photographs. These were handed out after shows for junior audiences. A prize of a random box of age-appropriate donations was made up and awarded along with a family membership for the best entry. We worked in conjunction with local artist Amma Gyan to spread the word about local creative venues and activities and handed out lots of brochures.
As the year is turning and more creative activities are happening again in local groups and schools, we are seeing increasing numbers of people returning, joining and renewing and we hope that is in part due to continued spreading of ideas online and the stimulus received during the warmer months.