2023 Annual report
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Preserving transport heritage for future generations
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2023 Annual Report & Accounts
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Nottingham Heritage Vehicles Charity Registered Charity No.1155404
With another year passing we select on where we are at and more importantly where we are heading. Its been a very difficult and testing 12 months. Footfall certainly isn’t anywhere near pre-pandemic levels, volunteer numbers are depleted and financial input by way of donation takes a lot more encouragement. However, we have added new friends, followers and support from our wider community. We will continually build upon the success of previous years, its what we do !
So, here we are as we present the Tenth Trustees report and accounts for Nottingham Heritage Vehicles Charity (NHVC). Working to preserve examples of our local transport heritage for the enjoyment and education of future generations has remained our aim and goal and it’s the enthusiasm to do just that will ensure we keep driving forward for years to come.
The progress we make is as a result of the collective effort of our trustees and volunteers> As CEO I can only personally express my gratitude them. Everyones effort large or small, coupled with the determination of the loyal team, have achieved miracles. We hope you can appreciate our aims, direction and progress from this report and look forward to welcoming you as a visitor or even a volunteer at one of our sites in the near future.
Simon Lowings (CEO)
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Introduction
The trustees present their Annual Report and Accounts statement for the period 1st January 2023 to 31st December 2023.
History
The Charity roots began back in September 1999 under the name of ‘The Notts and Derby Heritage Transport Group’. We began with two buses, adding further vehicles to the collection as we developed. In 2007 the name changed to reflect the core collection of vehicles to Nottingham Heritage Vehicles, with the word Charity being added in 2010. From September of 1999 to June 2015 we were based at the former Midland Storage Depot at West Hallam in Derbyshire. In April 2010 we took the decision to adopt a formal collection policy which resulted in changes to the structure of the collection and led to us making approaches towards becoming a registered charity. In January 2014 we became a Charitable Incorporated Organisation registered with the Charity Commission. Governance and structure of the charity from the days of being a not-for-profit organisation for charitable purpose has improved greatly.
We have since committed to a 21 year lease of the former 1936 Art Deco Trent Motor Traction Bus Garage on Portland Road, Hucknall. Here we are striving to develop a leading working heritage bus garage/transport museum, engaging all elements of the local community and those from further afield. We also lease an additional offsite storage compound to house projects awaiting attention as the collection develops. some of our volunteers work on these vehicles here whilst the core assist at the depot.
Governing Documents
Nottingham Heritage Vehicles Charity (“NHVC”), is a registered charity incorporated on the 20th January 2014 as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). It is governed by its constitution. Whilst transport heritage charities have previously been operated by companies limited by guarantee, it was felt by members at the time, that the CIO structure and approach was more appropriate and in-line with the structure that we desired and the direction we intended to follow. Any, and indeed, all changes to the structure of the CIOs governing document are approved by the Charity Commission prior to implementation. This creates a transparent model to which we operate. No such
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changes have been applied to date. All our policy documents are reviewed as and when required to ensure they remain effective, appropriate, relevant and fully compliant with the latest legislation.
Organisation
The charity is governed by a Board of Trustees (“the Board”). The Board meets regularly for routine business and holds additional meetings to discuss urgent matters as and when the need arises. In addition we use an online WhatsApp platform for discussion and debate of all things charity related on a regular basis. The day to day management of the Charity is delegated to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and through him to the Senior management Team consisting of the CEO, Treasurer and two other trustees. The Trustees that were in place at the beginning of the year, still remained in place at the year end after offering themselves for re-election.
To address the daily operation of areas of the Charity we have created sub management groups within the volunteer numbers under the direction of Trustees. The day to day operation and activity of the charity is carried out by these parties and our volunteers.
The charity operates as a collective and all members in a normal year co-operate in the restoration & repair work required on all vehicles and artefacts irrespective of the individual ownership, as all vehicles and artefacts can be, and indeed are, used for the benefit of the charity in fulfilling our aims and objectives. Much work has been carried out on both the premises and on vehicles throughout the year but only by a small nominated team.
Appointment and induction of Trustees
There are five trustees making up the board. The Chief Executive of NHVC is delegated this role from within the Trustee numbers. Trustees are appointed for a period of three years with the option to offer themselves for re-election for a further term. In selecting individuals for appointment as charity trustees, the NHVC charity trustees must have regard to the skills, knowledge and experience needed for the effective administration of the CIO. A skills audit is conducted annually.
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The charity is always looking to recruit new members and trustees who are keen to develop public relations, community outreach projects and education of the public generally so as to fulfil its strategic and operational requirements.
All new trustees are made fully aware of the requirements their role entails and are supplied with a copy of the current CIO governing document and access to all other relevant material. It is our intention to include trustees from all backgrounds and all age groups, enabling a management committee to develop whereby the needs of the broadest selection of the general public are met by the way in which we engage with the public.
Risk Management
The Chief Executive in February 2023, alongside the Chairman, has undertaken a full review of the risk management of the charity. This has been achieved through a structured approach by mitigating risks to fundraising via enhanced online and advertising platforms, engaging with new audiences and developing the relationship with other museums nationally. The kind support from local businesses has also been welcomed.
Policies on volunteer retention, introducing an induction scheme for volunteers and a thorough grievance procedure are in place, aimed at reducing the loss of key volunteers and thus key skills. We also have 12 other policy documents in place for safeguarding, data protection, conflicts of interest, fire risk assessment document with the changes in the 2022 act etc. This ensures everyone knows what we do, how we do it, what we expect from our volunteers and what they and the public at large can expect from us.
Charity Objectives
The objects of the CIO are to advance the education of the public in transport generally, particularly in the Nottingham conurbation through establishing and preserving for posterity, a representative collection of passenger service vehicles and by such other means as the trustees may determine. We form an educational and heritage preservation charity, both conserving and helping to develop an understanding of the role of our transport heritage in the development of the local area. To this aim we have recently increased our digital portfolio engaging with new audiences.
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Public Benefit - Identifiable benefits
The aims of Nottingham Heritage Vehicles Charity are expressed by the nature of our objectives. We provide clear and identifiable benefits to the public through our activity. Throughout the management and strategic planning of the Charity and its activity, the Board have maintained a thorough understanding and acknowledgement of the public benefit principles and associated public benefit guidance. The Trustees believe the Charity has delivered in several areas. Public benefit is not restricted and does not exclude anyone. Public benefits are identifiable and related to our aims.
The Board of Trustees receive no private benefit or payments for their role as Trustees of Nottingham Heritage Vehicles Charity. Furthermore the charity does no harm nor detriment through its charitable activities.
Heritage, Vehicle and Artefact collections
Our team works tirelessly in researching the heritage of local companies, preserving vehicles and restoring artefacts, alongside collecting transport related items for future displays. We tell the story on a far wider scope than just transport history by way of heritage vehicle outings. The collection of vehicles and artefacts helps form an important resource to explore, gaining an understanding of the development of engineering and vehicle design through the decades and social and urban history links to Nottingham and the surrounding areas.
Naturally, through the nature of our constitution, we concentrate our efforts on the preservation and restoration of all the vehicles in our collection. Once they are restored we display these vehicles wherever practically possible to the public, allowing them to appreciate the transport of yesteryear.
The museum has now launched a programme of regular open days and is now concentrating on developing into a centre of excellence in road transport restoration for the East Midlands area. Development of the Hucknall site will never come to an end as there are always new avenues to explore, new displays, new ways to engage with our visitors. It is all about developing the visitor experience. Social media outflow is the key to our success with all news shared with our supporters as soon as it becomes available. We’ve seen a massive rise
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in online interaction throughout the year. As we continue to develop it is our aim to travel nationwide each year with examples from our collection, visiting and supporting events from one end of the country to the other. The displaying of vehicles which are of significant historical importance to the Nottingham region alerts others to our work and raises awareness and support.
Throughout 2023 supporters have been kept informed of all our news through social media channels. With a new membership manager we launched our membership scheme again early in the year but as yet the momentum towards this has been disappointing. It is certainly more difficult to encourage people onboard after the pandemic period. Never the less we see the welcome return of ‘Omninews’, our supporters newsletter. (We took the decision to suspend this during the covid period as there was a distinct lack of positive news!)
The Charity constantly adds to its collection of ephemera and we are developing an archive of vehicle design plans showing the evolution of the Nottingham standard bus design. This is complemented by a selection of timetables, photographs and associated artefacts. It is intended that the charity will approach future acquisitions through careful consideration of its collection policy, representing the diversity of transport locally. We have been overwhelmed with the level of support from the general public in donating items of interest to the Charity.
Throughout 2023, material held in our collection has been loaned for display to other charitable groups and accessed by the general public.
Education, Engagement and Access
The senior management committee discouraged engagement with all, with the need to social distance, work from home and isolate during the covid period. As schools and colleges have adapted to the new normal the demand for engagement has significantly reduced in 2022 and 2023. We have seen no requests for school engagement this year but have bookings in place for early in 2024. We actively encourage interested parties to contact us with regard to the 2024/5 engagement programme.
Access to the collection is entirely free with donations welcomed from visitors. It is important, in our view, that the development of an understanding of our purpose and benefit to the community as a whole is an enjoyable experience.
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Our working heritage depot offers the Charity a great platform to develop our plans further now that the doors are open again on a regular basis.
Our website plays a very prominent role in the day to day engagement of the public. We now have separate sections which are devoted to each vehicle, archive material and future events. Online access is entirely free to all, with educational bodies acknowledging their use.
We look towards developing more outreach projects in the future years and encourage those in a position to work with us to make contact.
As in the past years we provide you with a glimpse into the publics view of our achievements to date. These are all from our supporters received via Facebook and email during 2023:-
“How these guys do it I will never know. They’re always smiling, the museum is always immaculate, its a lovely friendly place to visit with my family and the kids absolutely love the Brio layout and train sets too. Wish the free bus trips could go a bit further but I suppose the lack of donations doesn’t help the running costs. The buses are lovely though, so clean and tidy its just great. Thankyou so much, you put big smiles on my boys faces every time we visit. Wish we could offer you more than a few pennies in the pot” Jackie R, Lincoln
“A brilliant museum where all the staff are helpful and show you time and patience in telling the story of the development and the projects underway - well done I will be back again” - Michael S. Bromsgrove
“A brilliant display telling the story of the Nottingham Atlantean. I travelled specially to see this and the vehicles you have in the collection as my father worked at the East Lancs factory in Blackburn and had a very keen interest in the Nottingham bus. Its lovely to reignite so many memories and stories he once told. Thankyou for all your efforts, its wonderful” Mark T, Bolton
In 2023 we had 131,808 (compared to circa 126,563 in 2022) independent visitors to our website with 11,004 engaging directly with us. We encourage an open and active involvement with everything we do and this is propelled further by twitter ‘tweets’ and Instagram or Facebook posts keeping the public informed and up to date.
A good number of our volunteers are elderly, retired individuals who have offered their time and skills to us in return for a little company, the ability to
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learn new skills and gain experience in new fields and reminisce. We actively, through all means possible, promote interaction with local community groups. Collecting stories and memories is important to us, as it helps to explore the development of the transport infrastructure. Onwards and upwards !
We have included a record of our activity and engagement for 2023 and hope that we see visitor numbers bounce back to pre pandemic levels during 2024. At present we feel we are running at around 50% of our usual footfall at events.
Income and support
The charitable activities of the Charity are only made possible by the continued support of Charity volunteers and well-wishers through both their time and monetary donations. Small Gift aid donations are returning to pre covid levels with open days now back to full swing. Free bus trips and special open events have bolstered the takings in donation tins housed inside the museum building.
In the hope that things continue to improve we are continuing ‘suggested donation' stickers on all items donated to the Charity for resale which allows visitors to take a souvenir of their visit home with them. We are also producing more plastic promotional items, on a free-of-charge basis, for future open days, whilst clearly displaying the fact that we welcome donations. As in previous years we continue to benefit from the donation of display items, on occasion, and in particular materials and monies from Transport Nostalgia on a regular basis by way of a percentage donation from some photograph and model sales; both on and offline. Once again in 2023 this has been partly by way of the donation of local transport imagery for display and archive use and the purchase of required equipment remote of the Charity finances for which we are extremely grateful. Press engagement has been fantastic again this year. We have concentrated on the enthusiast market a little more in our attempts to encourage local interested parties onboard. As new vehicle projects are launched we intend to cover these in trade press and local media into 2024/5.
Volunteers
The Charity relies entirely on the support of the volunteers with no paid staff within its ranks at any level. They give up their time and offer necessary skills to a wide range of on-going projects. We have teams working with the vehicles, the archive & photo library, the building refurbishment and exploring funding
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streams, in relation to establishing and operating reminiscence projects and moving the Charity aims forward.
We welcome volunteers from all backgrounds and all abilities. We aim to develop our volunteer base on an ongoing basis. Everyone is welcome.
Reserves
No reserves are currently held, as all monies are used, as fundraising permits, to undertake additional restoration work both on the building and on our vehicle collection. It is hoped, once full museum accreditation is achieved, that the issue of reserves will be addressed. It is intended to retain a small working capital at present in the charity bank account, for day to day working capital requirements and unforeseen circumstances, allowing the Charity to maintain and develop its charitable objectives without issue.
Plans for the future
At the forefront of our short-term and long-term agenda is the desire and belief that we can build on the success of our previous years. With reduced footfall still hindering our fundraising activity, which then reduces our ability to spend on projects, this year has proved a little frustrating. We have very strong plans for the future with new displays in production and vehicle projects underway - as we enhance the overall visitor experience for families. We will ensure that we meet and deliver these aims in complete alignment with our financial standing and for public benefit. We will further develop our Open days to appeal to a wider audience, especially those in the locality of the depot.
Our responsibility in respect of the Trustees Annual Report & Financial statements
Charity law requires that Trustees are responsible for preparing the Trustees Annual Report and financial statement in-line with current regulations. In preparing this report the Trustees deem the report to be a fair and proper account of the activities of the Charity in this period and its financial standing. This report was approved by the Board of Trustees on the 5th October 2024 by digital means and signed on behalf of the Charity by our Chairman Alex Wright.
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Statement on the inspection of our accounts
Owing to our accounts and the annual gross income falling above £25,000, the Board of Trustees decided to examine the accounts and then in-line with current legislation to invite an external independent scrutineers report. Accounts are produced on a receipts and payments format.
Trustees and Contact details Board Of Trustees for 2023:
Alex Wright Chairman Simon Ian James Lowings CEO & Marketing,Publicity & Events Paul Brian Winson Technical Officer & Membership Secretary (Paul has now stepped down but was in office for 2023) Caroline Marie Lowings Treasurer & General Secretary Douglas Simpson Assistant Treasurer & Depot Co-Ordinator We are currently seeking a further trustees to join the board.
Senior Management Team
This consists of the CEO, Chairman, Technical Officer and Treasurer
Registered Office:
Nottingham Heritage Vehicles Charity C/O 49 Valley View Berry Hill Park Mansfield Nottinghamshire NG18 4US
Principal Bankers:
HSBC 26 Clumber Street Nottingham NG1 3GA
Website address www.nottinghamheritagevehicles.co.uk Contact Number 07971 105491
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With the launch of the new style newsletters it feels an appropriate point to now return to our insertion of the newsletters in the report document. This is an extract of the two part catch up for the end of 2022 - June 2023 followed by subsequent publications to the year end.
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OMNINEWS
JANUARY 2024
October 2023 Continued
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October also saw the launch of ‘the Great Days Out by Luxury Coach from Nottingham’ programme initially run through Transport Nostalgia before becoming a direct Charity programme operated on a voluntary basis by the TN team with support from other volunteers. This kicked off with a trip to the North Yorkshire coastal town of Whitby. The trip to Whitby allowed the team to relax ahead of a busy week refitting the brakes on Old Bill (DFB704D). The brake shoes having just returned from being relined and the drums having just returned from being skimmed. Another expense but one that was unavoidable. Whilst under the custodianship of the Charity, the vehicles owner met all associated costs. It was nice to see Old Bill outside after the completion of this work. With Old Bill finished, it was time to return the vehicles to their usual parking spaces. Some may not realise, but this alone is no small task, - it can lead to vehicles being seen in very unusual places. Atlantean 433 (RNU433X) and Volvo 127 (L127LRA) were both manoeuvred outside during the depot shuffle.
South Staffs Coach Hire’s GB23KBZ is seen here loading up on Station Street ahead of the journey to Whitby.
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Another offsite event, albeit late in the season was then on top of us - Transport Museum Wythall’s Twilight Running Day. Although we didn’t take a vehicle of our own to this event, we were able to meet up with Graham and team from South Staffs Coach Hire with their Ex Ulsterbus Leyland Tiger NXI1184. An enjoyable day was had by all despite the cold weather.
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----- Start of picture text -----
Although we didn’t take a vehicle of our own to this event, we
were able to meet up with Graham and team from South Staffs
Coach Hire with their Ex Ulsterbus Leyland Tiger NXI1184. An
enjoyable day was had by all despite the cold weather.
Old Bills brake shoes
refitted.
Various vehicles at Wythall 127 and 433 are seen during
the depot shuffle.
One of Old Bills
skimmed brake drums.
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