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← Caring For God's Acre

2025-04-30-accounts

CARING FOR GOD’§ ACRE

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CARING FOR GOD’S ACRE ANNUAL REPORT 1ST MAY 2024 – 31ST APRIL 2025

Photo credit: St Mary’s Churchyard, Caynham by Andrea Gilpin

CONTENTS
REPORT FROM THE CHAIR AND VICE-CHAIR 3
GENERAL INFORMATION 4
OBJECTIVES OF THE CHARITY 6
VISION 6
MISSION 6
BECOME THE ‘GO TO’ ORGANISATION FOR CONSERVATION IN BURIAL GROUNDS 7
BUILD CONFIDENCE IN OUR FINANCES 14
RESPOND TO THE CRISES IN BIODIVERSITY AND CLIMATE 17
REACH OUT TO A DIVERSE COMMUNITY AND BE INCLUSIVE 19
RECOGNISE THE UNIQUE QUALITIES OF BURIAL GROUNDS TO PEOPLE 22
RESERVE OR LONGER TERM AIMS 22
CORE WORK AND PROJECTS THAT ARE DELIVERING OUR BUSINESS PLAN 23
GOVERNANCE 26
STAFF 28
TREASURER’S REPORT 30
ANNUAL ACCOUNTS 2024 - 2025 31

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

REPORT FROM THE CHAIR AND VICE-CHAIR

This has been a strong year of delivery, growth, partnership, innovation and change for Caring for Gods Acre. It has been a privilege to work with so many different sections of our society all of whom treasure these special places and who seek to make their social, historical and environmental significance known to others. We are indeed grateful for the legacy of personal memories which are contained in our churchyards and cemeteries and are passed on across the generations.

The support and encouragement, which CfGA gives to individuals, parishes and communities across the country, continues to expand through our national events and projects, local projects, online support and site visits. The charity’s finances are in a healthy state, and we hope to have further funded projects to share with you by the end of this year.

Annual events, such as the Love your Burial Ground / Churches Count on Nature, attract and inspire more graveyards, communities and individuals to take part through events and producing records of the plants and animals which they contain. This initiative has been joined this year by Love Your Yew Week.

Existing projects, such as Heritage to Inspire in Shrewsbury, are attracting new volunteers and community groups, holding more events, and securing funding for the conservation of an important tomb has been funded.

The Coventry project, currently being planned, is a good example of partnership working bringing together the Diocese of Coventry, Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and CfGA. One of its aims is to develop links and resources for neurodivergent schoolchildren to record biodiversity.

We continue to work closely with Church of England, advising them on biodiversity matters. Our lottery funded project, Our Digital Ancestors, supports churches and cemeteries to map their grounds and monuments, and to share the stories of those who are buried there. Our staff and project team have demonstrated great initiative and flexibility in order to allow this project to continue whilst the CofE resolve some of their internal issues.

Our volunteer team, working across Shropshire, Herefordshire and Powys, has grown with one of our new Trustees, Michael Innes, being amongst them. This work ensures that we have direct knowledge of the ongoing challenges of churchyard maintenance, so that the practical advice we offer to others is grounded in contemporary experience.

And amongst all this, our Staff have successfully moved to a new office, absorbed staff changes, risen to project challenges and continued to deliver and innovate. We are very grateful to them and for your ongoing support and interest.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

GENERAL INFORMATION

PATRONS

Sir Roy Strong, CH

The Rt Revd Dr Alan Smith, The Bishop of St Albans

Dr George Peterken OBE

Prof Chris Baines

Prof Stefan Buczacki

Brigit Strawbridge Howard

TRUSTEES

Catherine MacCarthy Chair

David Primrose Vice Chair Andrew May A new trustee and Treasurer since December 2024 Oliver Goode Chair of Finance & Risk Committee Anni Holden Judith Leigh Alex Glanville Simon Cooter Michael Innes A new trustee

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

STAFF

Harriet Carty Director Andrea Gilpin Conservation & Communications Manager, retired from CfGA in November 2024 Prue Dakin Office Manager & Communications Manager from November 2024 onwards Anna Wilde Digital Manager Alex Logan Conservation Volunteer Manager Tony Graham Finance Manager from July 2024 onwards Liam Taylor Data Manager Mick Clifton Development & Fund-Raising Manager Kirsty Stevens Project Manager for Heritage to Inspire and office support Dr Josie Wall Project Manager for Our Digital Ancestors from August 2024 onwards Dr Rachel Askew Project Assistant for Our Digital Ancestors from November 2024 onwards

BANKERS

Co-operative Bank, 1 Balloon Street, Manchester M4 4BE

INDEPENDENT EXAMINER

S.E. Hardwick, Armstrong Rogers & Co., 45 Etnam Street, Leominster Herefordshire, HR6 8AE

CONTACT

Office 9, Business Development Centre, Craven Arms Business Park, Shropshire SY7 8DZ

01588 673041 - enquiries@cfga.org.uk - www.caringforgodsacre.org.uk

Charity Registration Number 1155536. CfGA commenced operations as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) on 1st May 2014 - CIO Number CE000722.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

OBJECTIVES OF THE CHARITY

The charity’s objectives are to promote, for the benefit of the public and 72= Aeon’i+"|é for the advancement of education, the conservation, enhancement and interpretation of the natural, built and social history features of burial i7 nl ey E ee F a grounds of all types and denominations. peeF gea. Syateae 2 i

ACTIVITIES TO ACHIEVE THESE OBJECTIVES

VISION MISSION

Our Vision is that all burial grounds are hubs for local action, a locus for community well-being and engagement. They are exemplars of well-managed, biodiverse habitats which store carbon to capacity. They are also exemplars of built heritage and social history; accessible and interesting. The habitats and species within all burial grounds are spreading out into their surrounds.

Our Mission is that CfGA is a catalyst for the excellent conservation of burial grounds, with the communication of this leading to wide engagement and the celebration of those who care for them. All burial grounds across the United Kingdom will demonstrate good practice which can be replicated in the wider landscape.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

WE ARE CURRENTLY IN YEAR 3 OF OUR 5-YEAR PLAN TOWARDS THIS VISION. DURING THE LIFE OF THIS PLAN WE ARE AIMING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE FOLLOWING WAYS:

1. Become the ‘go to’ organisation for conservation in burial grounds

2. Build confidence in our finances

3. Respond to the crises in biodiversity and climate

4. Reach out to a diverse community and be inclusive

5. Recognise the unique qualities of burial grounds to people

RESERVE OR LONGER TERM AIMS:

6. Investigate the intrinsic importance of burial grounds as green spaces for well-being.

7. Investigate the importance of burial ground volunteering, discovery and investigation on well-being.

8. Develop a grant system for repair of important monuments.

9. Develop and run a Green Burial Ground, gaining expertise which can be shared.

Staff and trustees worked together to plan how to work towards these long-term aims over the 5-year period.

BECOME THE ‘GO TO’ ORGANISATION FOR CONSERVATION IN BURIAL GROUNDS

TO ACHIEVE THIS WE WILL:

WORK IN PARTNERSHIP & FOSTER LINKS WITH NATIONAL INITIATIVES ACROSS THE UK:

This year we have continued with the following existing partnerships through Contracts or Memorandums of Understanding:

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

• The Church of England and AG Int. to deliver Our Digital Ancestors. This is England-wide and started in March 2024, it currently has funding for 4.5 years with a planned end date of October 2028. This project has a Memorandum of Understanding.

• Friends of Shrewsbury Cemeteries and Shropshire Council to deliver a project called Heritage to Inspire. This is based in Shrewsbury and started in January 2024, it runs for 3 years. This project has a Memorandum of Understanding.

• We have continued a positive relationship with Harper Adams University which has an Entomology department. A B.Sc. student (Beatrice Allen) carried out her dissertation in churchyards where CfGA are actively volunteering and an M.Sc. student (Billie Pike) is currently working on her dissertation in a series of churchyards in Suffolk. In both instances CfGA staff, along with the course organiser Dr Andrew Cherrill, helped the students devise appropriate research projects. This is an informal partnership with no agreement in place.

THIS YEAR WE HAVE ENTERED INTO NEW CONTRACTS OR MEMORANDUMS OF UNDERSTANDING WITH:

• The Church in Wales in a joint project called Hafanau Heddwch (Havens of Peace), for which we are currently seeking funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Decision on funding is expected September 2025. This project will be Wales-wide, we are the lead partner. This project has a Memorandum of Understanding.

• Five national partners in a joint project calvled Nature in Sacred Places for which we are currently seeking funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Partners are; Natural England, Historic England the Church of England, Bat Conservation Trust, the Churches Conservation Trust. Decision on funding is expected September 2025. This project will be England-wide and Natural England are the lead partner. This initiative has a Memorandum of Understanding.

• Coventry Diocese and the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust to deliver the development phase of the Churchyard Heritage and Biodiversity Project. This phase will last 18 months and, if successful in the Round II application, will be followed by a 5-year delivery phase. This project has a Memorandum of Understanding.

• We have started a new partnership with the Ancient Yew Group called Love Your Yew Week which takes place in February, when volunteers are encouraged to carry out a targeted act of good management for their churchyard or cemetery yew trees. This is informal and is being run by CfGA, supported by the Ancient Yew Group members.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

WE WILL CONTINUE TO SUPPORT AND ENTHUSE THOSE CARING FOR AND CARING ABOUT BURIAL GROUNDS NATIONALLY:

Personal support - We offer support and guidance to anybody involved in managing a burial ground. We encourage them to consider the full range of features within their site; biodiversity, built heritage and social history plus the opportunities to involve their local communities and inform their visitors. We advocate investigation, recording and research within burial grounds, to increase the body of knowledge about these fascinating places.

This is achieved through a combination of phone calls, emails, webinars, public speaking and visits, and through the provision of resources including written material, video, website content and social media. We have three paid-for services to help people plan management; virtual visits which involves a Zoom meeting and sharing photos, a site visit with bullet points and a management brief which follows our 5 Steps to burial ground management. These are promoted via our website.

Support through resources - CfGA also supports burial ground managers through the resources that we provide: our Action Pack, Education Pack, Field Studies Council Fold-out Chart, Botanical Companion, Key to Unlock poster and Starter Guide. All of these are available to download and/or buy via our website (N.B the FSC chart is only available to buy, not to download). The Starter Guide is currently sent out in hard copy to anybody who requests it as part of Love Your Burial Ground week. We have online Spotters Guides covering butterflies, wildflowers, fungi, corvids and swifts, swallows and martins and monument inscriptions on our website. For those who want further information we have in-depth guides covering veteran and ancient churchyard trees, lichens, burial ground meadow plus amphibians and reptiles. These guides are on our website along with 21 mini-films which are also on our YouTube channel.

We encourage peer-to-peer support via our webpage ~~_~~ Find a Flowery Burial Ground which showcases well-managed churchyard meadows and woodlands. Each burial ground on this webpage includes a written description, photos, a list of features and contact information to encourage visits.

We have designed and promoted a downloadable poster in both English and Welsh “This area is managed as a meadow” which has been downloaded 305 times.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

Support through initiatives – we organise, in partnership, Love Your Burial Ground Week with Churches Count on Nature and have started Love Your Yew Week in 2025, which will run annually from now on. People are encouraged to take part through a range of communication drives; specific website content giving ideas, inspiration and support to encourage and facilitate joining in. We use social media, webinars and blogs to engage and seek national media coverage. We reward participants with an informative poster.

Support through membership – we encourage people to join CfGA either as individuals, couples or groups (usually Parochial Church Councils and Friends groups). Members receive a 6 monthly magazine, discount for our shop and access to a members’ area within the website with additional resources on it including recordings of all CfGA webinars. Our first online training courses Our Digital Ancestors and Burial Ground Management Systems - are on the members’ area although available to non-members as well.

Extending the area of activity - We are continuing to increase the geographical reach of the charity following the decision in March 2023 that Caring for God’s Acre should extend its reach to cover the four nations of the UK. We are not intending to initiate work in either Scotland or Northern Ireland at present but remain open to opportunities should they arise. We encourage those involved in burial grounds across all of the UK to join us as members, to take part in our national initiatives (Love Your Burial Ground Week, Love Your Yew Week) and to use our resources.

We have been receiving some biological records from Scotland and Northern Ireland and, as these are received, the burial grounds in question are added to the Beautful Burial Grounds NBN portal. So far we have 103 sites in Scotland and 1 in Northern Ireland on the NBN.

CONTINUALLY MAINTAIN AND INCREASE THE PROFILE OF CFGA NATIONALLY:

• We continue to raise our profile via our website, social media and e-newsletters. We have moved from X (formerly Twitter) to Bluesky and items are posted weekly on there, as well as on Facebook, where we have approximately 2,000 followers and Instagram, at approximately 450 followers. Social media and email campaigns sent a total of 323 visitors to the website, with Facebook being the most used platform.

• We send a monthly e-newsletter to Diocesan Environmental Officers and secretaries or members of Diocesan Advisory Committees, which is received by 106 individuals. The click through rate is 15.2%, much higher than the not-for-profit average of 3.27%, showing our users find the content engaging and relevant.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

In February we ran Love Your Yew Week, promotion of which led to 1,159 visits to the specific webpage. The Love Your Yew week advice sheet was downloaded 44 times, and the Guide to Ancient and Veteran Trees was downloaded 33 times.

We have generated national publicity. In December 2024 the Guardian published an article based on information from Caring for God’s Acre on rare species found within burial grounds. This sent 166 people to the website, which was a good result as it was published on Boxing Day. Along with social media on Love your Yew Week, posts on the Guardian article was very popular. Harriet appeared on Sunday Morning Live on BBC1 to promote Love your Burial Ground/Churches Count on Nature 2024.

We are noticing an increase in enquiries coming to either our website ‘Contact Us’ page or our generic enquiries@cfga.org.uk email. Both of these contact methods are used by those who have not previously interacted with CfGA either in person or digitally. We started recording the numbers of these enquiries in 2024, when 665 were received and will continue to monitor going forward.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL MEDIA:

The website continues to be widely used, especially in the lead-up to Churches Count on Nature/Love Your Burial Ground Week. The website perfoms well in search engines and is also signposted from partner sites such as the Church of England. The article in the Guardian (Boxing Day 2024) sent a spike of 147 new visitors. Around 11,000 files were downloaded over the 12 months covered by the Annual Report; these included the Meadow Management Sign and the Children’s Activity pack, plus the Spotter’s Guides.

We moved away from X (formerly twitter) and now use Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook as our primary channels for social media, with the addition of YouTube which contains our video repository. Our audience continues to grow throughout these channels and regular email newsletters are now sent to over 6,100 subscribers.

Caring for God’s Acre Instagram posts

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

CONTINUALLY REFRESH RESOURCES:

New resources produced this year include:

In February 2025 we launched Love Your Yew Week with the Ancient Yew Group. This included a pulling together of existing resources on ancient trees and yews in particular as well as a specific webpage and gallery of photographs showing successful ivy removal from yews. We designed and disseminated a certificate for those taking part.

In addition to our own resources listed above, we also created new webpages for the Church of England website, producing their Churchyard Wildlife and Biodiversity content.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

DEVELOP THE VOLUNTEER BASE

Over 100 people engaged with Love Your Yew Week and 20 sent in photographs, now in the gallery.

We have a team of 31 people going out regularly with our God’s Acre Volunteers in the Marches area of Shropshire, Herefordshire and Powys.

We have 12 volunteers engaged in practical conservations tasks and 36 in monument inscription recording through the Heritage to Inspire project with a further 40 signed up but not yet active.

An estimated 5,880 people took part in events registered with us as part of Love Your Burial Ground Week, Churches Count on Nature, National Cemeteries Week in June 2024. There were 325 events registered with CfGA with 212 people joining our project on iNaturalist or iRecord.

BUILD CONFIDENCE IN OUR FINANCES

TO ACHIEVE THIS WE WILL:

AIM TO INCREASE MEMBERSHIP X 4 MINIMUM OVER THE 5 YEARS OF THIS BUSINESS PLAN

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

DIVERSIFY THE FUNDER BASE

The National Lottery Heritage Fund

Historic England

The John Ellerman Foundation

The Church of England

ESTABLISH LEGACY GIVING

INVESTIGATE ALTERNATIVE INCOME GENERATION

During this reporting period we have submitted two projects to the National Lottery Heritage Fund, bidding for funding to develop them further. Both are partnerships; Nature in Sacred Places and Hafanau Heddwch. We have also started to build a new project aimed at seeking funding for a new member of the CfGA team, our Marches Manager, who will invigorate our work in the Welsh Marches and seek alternative sources of income locally.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025 Page 16

RESPOND TO THE CRISES IN BIODIVERSITY AND CLIMATE

TO ACHIEVE THIS WE WILL:

POSITION OURSELVES AS LEADERS IN GENERATING BIOLOGICAL RECORDING WITHIN BURIAL GROUNDS

We continue to encourage people to look for and record nature in burial grounds, ideally using the iNaturalist app as this is user friendly, helps with identification and creates a photo or sound recording linked to the new biological record. This can be helpful to those experts who are verifying records, speeding verification and ensuring that more records are accepted. We have a project on iNaturalist which is gathering users:

At the close of this recording period our iNaturalist project had generated; 15,684 observations of 1,866 species from 1,282 Identifiers and 453 Observers.

There are now 20,325 burial ground sites on the Beautiful Burial Grounds portal of the National Biodiversity Network Atlas. Of these, 7,384 have records; there are 10,864 different species recorded and the number of records stands at 818,718.

Our Data Manager, Liam Taylor produced a report on our biological recording work in 2024. This covers a different reporting period to this annual report. Much biological activity and recording is focussed on the spring and summer and many people will actually submit reports from the spring and summer in the autumn, when nature spotting slows down. The report for 2025 is not yet available.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

PARTNER ON EXISTING AND NEW CARBON INITIATIVES

As part of Churchyard Heritage & Biodiversity (the Coventry Diocese led project) we will be revisiting a system we worked on with the Centre of Ecology & Hydrology in 2023, using local volunteers, or citizen scientists, to measure carbon stored within the soil and vegetation of churchyards. This will start next year, with planning only during this reporting period

ENTHUSE BY SHARING PRACTICE AND PRINCIPLES TO MAINTAIN AND INCREASE BIODIVERSITY WITHIN BURIAL GROUNDS

• As part of our environmental support of the Church of England we have produced new webpages on the Church of England website (advice-and-guidance-churchyard-wildlife) which include awareness raising and management advice.

• Churches Count on Nature (CCON) is designed to encourage people to spot nature and enjoy the biodiversity found within burial grounds. Our evaluation of this event indicates that people then change how they think about churchyards and many are interested in volunteering as a result of events through this initiative.

Data from the 2024 evaluation, with 55 responses:

We ran 5 lunchtime webinars as part of Churches Count on Nature 2024 and 3 webinars in the autumn of 2024. All of these were aimed at enthusing and encouraging people to discover and care for the history, built heritage and biodiversity of burial grounds.

Our Shrewsbury based project, Heritage to Inspire is run by project officer Kirsty Stevens who has organised and run 24 events, open to the public during this reporting period and is currently planning a youth-based project working with Shrewsbury Hive. A particular highlight was a cemetery open day, organised as part of a long-standing and popular local arts festival. Activities included: a bug hunt, bug making, a tree trail, a symbols spotter trail, a clay mandala, a visit from the urban sketchers and volunteers telling the ‘Stories of the Stones’.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

SPREAD BIODIVERSITY GAINS INTO THE WIDER COMMUNITY

Our Director has delivered a conference talk and subsequent webinars to interest groups entitled, Churchyards, where Nature Recovery Starts. This included speaking at a conference in Shropshire for town and parish councillors. Our project managers all give occasional in person or online talks about the charity and their specific projects.

Our God’s Acre Volunteers, who are active in Shropshire, north Herefordshire and east Powys, have been encouraging people to take away freshly cut grass from churchyards and cemeteries which are notably rich in wildflowers. This ‘green hay’ is used within private gardens, on farmland for meadow creation and in public places such as verges or public green spaces. Instructions as to how to best achieve results is handed out and features on social media.

REACH OUT TO A DIVERSE COMMUNITY AND BE INCLUSIVE

TO ACHIEVE THIS WE WILL:

SEEK TO REFLECT DIVERSITY WITHIN OUR PATRONS, TRUSTEES AND VOLUNTEERS AND TO ENSURE THAT OUR STAFF RECRUITMENT PROCESSES ARE PROPERLY ACCESSIBLE TO ALL

We have recruited a new trustee, Michael Innes, who has a medical background with expertise in global health and both knowledge and experiences of neurodiversity. He has also experience of working extensively in urban environments.

We are in the process of benchmarking all staff salaries to ensure we are in line with the environmental industry and are offering a wage that will give an acceptable quality of life financially as well as attracting good applicants.

We have recruited 2 new members of staff, Dr Josie Wall and Dr Rachel Askew during this reporting period. We advertised widely, seeking advice from partners and funders as to where to advertise and included provision for distance working, part-time or job sharing in order to be as flexible and accessible as possible. Interviews took place online.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

ACTIVELY INCREASE REPRESENTATION ACROSS OUR COMMUNICATIONS AND RESOURCES INCLUDING CASE STUDIES

We are reaching across England and Wales (we are seeing increasing engagement in Scotland but still low in Scotland and Northern Ireland), with two national initiatives, aimed at encouraging engagement – Love Your Yew Week and Love Your Burial Ground Week with Churches Count on Nature. We ask participants to submit photographs of people taking part, with appropriate permissions, to allow us to use them in a range of media and within our resources. This expands our photographic library to include wider demographic representation.

Love Your Burial Ground Week, with Churches Count on Nature in particular, is engaging people beyond the normal community who attend events and activities in churchyards or other burial grounds. In 2024 an estimated 5,800 people took part in 325 events with 42% of those organising these events being new to this initiative. 73% said that people beyond their normal church community had joined in. When asked to score 1 to 5 on high much enjoyed the activity, over 95% scored 4 or 5 with 5 being ‘loved it’ and only 1 ‘didn’t enjoy it at all’.

We have developed 2 new projects and submitted funding bids, which are awaiting decisions in September 2025. Both of which include fees for professional photography within project budgets to give us high quality photographs of sites across the country including urban and rural, and of people from a wide demographic. We are currently reorganising our photo library and will be able to better assess gaps in images and target this professional photography.

One of these new projects has an urban focus (Nature in Sacred Places) and the other (Hafanau Heddwch) covers all of Wales, urban and rural. Both are aimed at engaging the local communities and interest groups in their nearby burial grounds.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

ENGAGE WITH INDIVIDUALS, USER GROUPS AND NATIONAL ORGANISATIONS REPRESENTING THOSE WITH REDUCED PHYSICAL MOBILITY AND NEURODIVERSITY INCLUDING AUTISM. BUILD ON EXISTING LINKS.

Through the Churchyard Biodiversity and Heritage project, (led by the Coventry Diocese), CfGA will scope out and build resources and systems aimed at encouraging neurally divergent people, starting with school children, to record within burial grounds. This will include both biological recording and monument inscriptions and descriptions. Once developed and trialled, these resources will become part of our resources, available to all.

Our Heritage to Inspire project continues to engage community groups of all types, including those with reduced physical mobility and neurodiversity. During this reporting period we have developed proposals for a collaborative project with the Hive Home - The Hive in Shrewsbury, a charity working with children and young adults to improve their wellbeing. We have also organised sessions at the cemetery aimed at people with limited mobility, taking a route along the more accessible paths and moving at a more leisurely pace.

SHARE PRACTICE AND PRINCIPLES OF INCLUSIVITY AND ACCESSIBILITY

A monthly article on churchyard wildlife - Nature Notes - is recorded for a speaking newspaper.

Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

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RECOGNISE THE UNIQUE QUALITIES OF BURIAL GROUNDS TO PEOPLE

TO ACHIEVE THIS WE WILL:

MAINTAIN A BALANCE BETWEEN BUILT HERITAGE, SOCIAL HISTORY AND BIODIVERSITY WITHIN OUR COMMUNICATIONS AND PROJECT WORK

This reporting period has seen the recruitment of two experts in burial ground history, Dr Josie Wall and Dr Rachel Askew. Both are working on the project Our Digital Ancestors and bring expertise on built heritage, social history and archaeology to the charity.

SEEK PARTNERS REFLECTIVE OF THE RANGE OF QUALITIES WITHIN BURIAL GROUNDS

We are now working in partnership with the Churches Conservation Trust, Historic England and AG Int. We are members of the Welsh Places of Worship Forum and collaborate closely with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Scheduled Monuments of Wales. All of these organisations have a built heritage or social history remit.

We continue to work with the National Biodiversity Network (NBN), Natural England, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation and Groups UK, the Ancient Yew Group, the British Lichen Society, Bumblebee Conservation and Swift Conservation. Of these, we are currently in partnership with NBN, Natural England and the Ancient Yew Group. During this reporting period we have strengthened our partnership with the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland who have shared 73919 biological records with us.

All of these organisations have a biodiversity remit.

RESERVE OR LONGER TERM AIMS

We have not made progress against these reserve aims during this reporting period.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

CORE WORK AND PROJECTS THAT ARE DELIVERING OUR BUSINESS PLAN

CORE WORK

Core staff are Andrea Gilpin (who retired from CfGA in November 2024), Mick Clifton and Harriet Carty with office and digital support from Prue Dakin and Anna Wilde and financial support from Tony Graham. This team are responsible for:

• Supporting those caring for burial grounds, answering questions and promoting the charity and its work. This includes general communications, regular e-newsletters and website updates and maintenance. We continually check and add to our resources.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

PROJECT WORK

We have 3 projects running at the moment; the God’s Acre Volunteers, Heritage to Inspire and Our Digital Ancestors. Project staff are Alex Logan (God’s Acre Volunteers), Kirsty Stephens (Heritage to Inspire), and Drs Josie Wall and Rachel Askew (Our Digital Ancestors).

God’s Acre Volunteers

Our volunteers have been carrying out conservation tasks in churchyards and cemeteries in Shropshire, Herefordshire and east Powys for many years now and continue to do so. Volunteers do practical tasks such as scything, raking and pruning as well as species identification and, more recently communications. We have 31 regular volunteers and visit over 40 sites.

Heritage to Inspire

This project is based at Longden Road Cemetery in Shrewsbury and is led by the Friends of Shrewsbury Cemeteries, with CfGA supporting and Shropshire Council as a third partner. Project Manager Kirsty Stephens continues to run events, organise conservation work and surveys including swifts and reptiles. During this reporting period has arranged the repair and cleaning of a particularly fine monument. We have a strong cohort of volunteers recording monument inscriptions using a digital map supplied by AG Int which we have linked to on the ground markers and an old paper map.

Our Digital Ancestors

This project has seen serious setbacks during the reporting period. Our Digital Ancestors relies on the roll out of the Burial Ground Management System by AG Int within English churchyards, which needs to be facilitated by the Church of England. The original project plan was to shadow AG Int doing this work, training people to add to the system, use the system and also take research into social history further using other sources, Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

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including those held by archives and libraries. In July 2024 the Church of England’s General Synod passed a motion to halt the roll out of the Burial Ground Management System due to theological issues and potential GDPR problems.

This has not yet been satisfactorily resolved and as a result, we have changed the focus of Our Digital Ancestors, working more with cemeteries and sites already mapped and creating online training programmes. We are in discussion with funders regarding project changes and continue to liaise with both the Church of England and AG Int on progress.

CARBON FOOTPRINT

Our carbon footprint is now a standing agenda item at trustees meeting. During this year we have made the following carbon reductions:

• In June 2024 we moved our current and instant access savings account from HSBC to the Co-operative Bank in response to the ethical credentials of both businesses.

• We ran a carbon audit at the close of 2024.

• In February we moved to a new office which has a roof covered in solar panels. We introduced kitchen composting to all using the shared office kitchen and negotiated to manage part of the land surrounding the office building as a meadow.

• Our reprinted Action Pack has a cardboard cover, all of our printed materials are on recycled paper using water soluble inks.

• A carbon audit was carried out covering the calendar year 2024. Emissions from factors including energy, travel, food, waste disposal and water were calculated using a bespoke online tool, which also looked at working from home and wider charity expenditure such as rent, IT, accountancy and other professional services, printing and postage.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

GOVERNANCE

TRUSTEES

The trustees who held office during the financial year and at the date of this report are:

Catherine MacCarthy Chair David Primrose Vice Chair Andrew May A new trustee and Treasurer since December 2024 Oliver Goode Chair of Finance & Risk Committee Anni Holden

Judith Leigh

Alex Glanville

Simon Cooter Colin Fenn

Michael Innes A new trustee

New trustees are recruited as needed, either by appointment at the AGM or by co-option. In 2015 we carried out an initial skills audit of trustees which is updated annually. Two new trustees were recruited this year, Andrew May and Michael Innes. The charity is governed by its constitution.

Trustee Recruitment

CfGA Director or existing trustees suggest potential new trustees and identify the skills and experience which they would bring to the group. This is then considered by the Director and Chair of Trustees, assessing whether the new individual will fit with the existing skills of the trustees and whether a balance is being maintained regarding skills and experience and the objectives of the charity. If the potential new trustee is deemed to be suitable then either the Director or Chair of Trustees will approach them to see if they will be willing to stand and the other trustees are informed of this by email or post. If interested, the individual is invited to the next trustees meeting to learn more about the charity and the role of trustees. They are then invited to join.

New trustees meet with the Director prior to their first trustees meeting, who explains the work and objectives Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025 Page 26

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of the charity. They are given a full set of our publications and also a copy of the Roles of Trustees and generic guidelines on being a trustee from the Charity Commission.

The Trustees have assessed the major risks to which the charity is exposed, in particular those related to its operations and finances, and are satisfied that systems are in place to minimise exposure to those risks.

GOVERNANCE ACTIVITY

During the year trustees held four trustees’ meetings in June, September, December and March. Our Finance & Risk Committee meets a few weeks in advance of each of these meetings and then reports to full trustees. Trustees are also sent the minutes of the Finance & Risk Committee meetings. Two of the trustees’ meetings took place digitally. Our December and March meetings were hybrids, with several trustees there in person and others online.

Finance & Risk Committee

The Finance and Risk Committee oversees the management of the finance, monitoring expenditure against budget over the financial year. This includes the preparation of the charity’s annual accounts and the routine financial management. This committee also considers the risks to the charity and the projects being delivered by the charity. The risk log is considered and updated at each meeting.

This committee reports to the full board of trustees which is responsible for approval of the budget and the annual accounts. This committee met four times this year with all meetings taking place on line.

Members: Oliver Goode (Chair), Andrew May, Alex Glanville, David Primrose. Also attending: Harriet Carty, Prue Dakin, Tony Graham.

Project Champions

The Project Champions meet or speak to the member of staff responsible for a project prior to the full board of trustees’ meetings. They then present the report written by staff on their particular project and add their views and information. They take a lead in the governance of the projects for which they are champion.

Governance and support for the Director is given via the full board of trustees and also through monthly informal meetings between the Chair of Trustees Catherine MacCarthy and the Director Harriet Carty.

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

STAFF

During this reporting period we seen some staff changes:

Harriet Carty Director, 3 days per week. Andrea Gilpin Conservation & Communications Manager, 2 days per week until November 2024 when Andrea left CfGA. Prue Dakin Office Manager, 3 days per week until November 2024 when Prue moved to 2 days a week Office Management and 1 day a week Communications. Anna Wilde Digital Manager, 2 days per week. Mick Clifton Development and Fund Raising Manager, 1.5 days per week. Tony Graham Finance Manager, 2 days per week Alex Logan Conservation Volunteer Coordinator, 4 days per week. Liam Taylor Data Manager, 2 days per week, rising to 5 days per week in June and July. Kirsty Stephens 3 days per week, 1 as office support and 2 as Heritage to Inspire Manager. Josie Wall Our Digital Ancestors Project Manager, 5 days per week

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

----- Start of picture text -----
data manager
Liam Taylor
1
director manager 2.5
Mick Clifton OTA project manager
Kirsty Stephens
development & fundraising
digital manager
Anna Wilde
trustees director
manager
Harriet Carty
Prue Dakin
office & communications
1.5
finance manager
Tony Graham
Alex Logan
volunteer co-ordinator
1 1
director 2.5 director 2.5
Josie Wall
ODA project manager ODA project assistant Rachel Askew
----- End of picture text -----

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

TREASURER’S REPORT

The accounts presented here are for the period 1st May 2024 to 30th April 2025.

Caring for God’s Acre is funded by membership subscriptions, donations, fundraising, interest on investments, the sale of resources, including scythes, partnership initiatives and through grants for project work and core activities. Total income for the year was £250,315. Compared to the previous year, there was a small increase in membership subscriptions and donations, Overall, the sale of resources was down, with the notable exception of scythe sales which increased significantly during the year.

We currently running three projects: God’s Acre Volunteers; Heritage to Inspire; and Our Digital Ancestors. The latter two receive external grants to fund their work. These projects would not be viable without the support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund which funds both projects, and Historic England and the Church of England who fund Our Digital Ancestors. We also received the second of three payments from the John Ellerman Foundation towards our core costs. We thank all of our funders, members and those who donate money to support our ongoing work.

Total expenditure for the year was £240,574. The main expense was staff costs, which remain at around 75% of the overall expenditure. At £174,249 the total employment cost increased by £42k compared to the previous year as we had a net increase of two members of staff during 2024.

In January 2025, in response to proposed prohibitive rental increases for office space at Drovers House, the charity moved to a smaller premises on the Craven Arms Business Park that offered a more sustainable rent in the long term. Following the termination of the rental agreement, the charity was charged was charged £2,742 for historic recharges for the communal spaces at Drovers House. This accounts for a significant proportion in the overall increase in office expenses.

Despite the increased costs, the accounts show a small surplus of £9,741 for the year.

At the end of March, the balances in our bank accounts were lower than usual due to outstanding claims from our grant funded projects. This is reflected in the Debtors on the Balance sheet – £48,827. We regularly review our investments to ensure they are ethical and offer a good rate of return. In accordance with our stated policy, we have enough reserves to cover three-months operating costs of £60,143.

Tony Graham, Treasurer

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Caring for God’s Acre Annual Report 1st May 2024 – 30th April 2025

ANNUAL ACCOUNTS 2024 - 2025

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