2024-03-31-accounts - Arch-Way Project

This text was generated using OCR and may contain errors. Check the original PDF to see the document submitted to the regulator. This document is also available as Markdown.

_____________

Trustee Annual Report and Financial Statements For the Year Ended 31 March 2024

Charity Number: 1158349

Mental Health Charity (CIO)

Arch-Way Project, Arden Road

Halifax

West Yorkshire

HX1 3AG

Contents	Page
Front Page	1
Trustees report	2-10
Examiners report	11
Declaration from the Treasurer	12
Declaration from the Chair of Trustees	13

The Trustees present their report with the independently examined financial statements of the Arch-Way Project (CIO) for the year ended 31[st] March 2024. The charity was founded in 2012, and established as a registered CIO in 2014, and became a CIO in 2014.

This report covers the activities of Arch-Way Project CIO for the period from 1[st] April 2023 to 31 March 2024.

Trustees report

Arch-Way Project is a mental health charity that works closely with vulnerable adults living with profound mental health issues, adults on the autistic spectrum and the elderly; particularly those who feel isolated, lonely or are at risk from/living with dementia. We provide multiple projects and interventions in-house to help our beneficiaries better deal with their mental and physical health by providing the means for guests to engage with music, art, physical and beauty therapies. In
addition, we host a weekly live music social event, a guided meditation group, tai chi class, Pilates class, art group activities, a singing group, creative writing group,
gardening group and also a walking group. All of these interventions are designed to help improve individuals’ well-being, increase self-esteem and confidence, help build better relationships and make new friends.

Over the past year we have been working towards helping our service-users meet a number of potential outcomes through our Back to Being Me project, as well as continuing to run our ever-growing and oldest project Past Times .

The goals and desired outcomes of the Back to Being Me project were initially developed from the findings of our pilot project. Over the course of the project’s life, these objectives have been refined into the following six points:

Service users will feel reduced feelings of loneliness, and social isolation.
Service users will feel increased confidence and social connections.
Service users will feel fitter, healthier and become more independent.
Service users will achieve the confidence to progress to volunteering.
Service users will aim towards further training/education/employment.
Service users will ultimately feel that their need to attend Arch-Way Project decreases over time.

In the past year we have learned that most of our beneficiaries are meeting all but two of our outcomes, which gives us the tools to implement a forward plan in order to help our beneficiaries reach our most sought-after outcomes, those being:

Service-users will aim towards further training/education/employment and
Service users will ultimately feel that their need to attend Arch-Way Project decreases over time.

In order to achieve these goals, we will provide information and guidance through inviting organisations such as Citizens Advice and Halifax’s employment centre to visit and provide information regarding further training and employment opportunities to our guests.

Back to Being Me - Projects and Interventions:

Within the Back to Being Me project we aim to combat mental and physical health difficulties in a holistic way. We venture to do this in a comfortable environment within which there is no pressure to take part in any activity. The activities we use to combat physical inactivity are Pilates/yoga, tai chi, gardening, and a project named Mindful Miles; a short one-mile walk around the perimeter of our local park. Paired with our ‘healthier in comparison’ meals and creative interventions, our findings suggest that we have been successful in helping to improve our guests’ overall health and general wellbeing. Our other interventions are used to combat feelings of loneliness, isolation and reduce stress and anxiety. Group activities are undeniably important in building stronger connections and relationships, leading to further reductions in feelings of loneliness and isolation simultaneously. Below is a short summary of each intervention that takes place at Arch-Way Project, including when the intervention happens.

Mindful Miles (Monday Morning)
During Mindful Miles, we take advantage of the pleasant surrounding areas to host a one-mile walk around the perimeter of our local park. Light exercise aids in recovering from everyday stresses, both physical and mental. It also provides guests with the opportunity to spend some time in nature, leading to further positive outcomes.
Guided Meditation (Tuesday Morning)
Guided medication is our second most popular intervention (see Tai Chi, below). This practice helps to reduce feelings of stress and anxiety, calming the mind and body of the participant.
Singing Group (Tuesday Afternoon)
Singing releases dopamine in the brain and is positive for building self-esteem and confidence. The partaking of singing within a group strengthens social bonds and creates relationships between guests. Singing also has cardiovascular benefits.
Tai Chi (Wednesday Morning)
Tai Chi is currently our most popular intervention and is traditionally useful for a number of different reasons – namely reduced stress levels and an increase in
physical health. Our attending guests overwhelmingly report a positive change in their mood and physical wellbeing, stating that they feel ‘more relaxed’ and ‘less anxious’.
Creative Writing (Wednesday Afternoon)
Our creative writing intervention aims to help people express their feelings and emotions in a healthy way. Our guests often write about their struggles and
worries; sharing them with others helps to create a sense of togetherness and understanding within the group.
Pilates/Yoga (Thursday Morning)
Pilates and yoga are both renowned for reducing stress and anxiety levels significantly as well as improving physical health. Our group is inclusive to the elderly as we also provide seated sessions so that all of our guests feel comfortable and can take part.
- Drama Group (Thursday Morning)
Our drama group aims to help our guests build self-esteem and confidence, empowering them to stand up in front of their peers and express themselves. Engaging with drama activities also improves social skills, promotes creativity and imagination, and helps people process emotions in a comfortable setting
amongst others who are also going through similar experiences. We achieved funding from Sir George Martin Trust to employ our group co-ordinator who originally was a service-user, then volunteer.
- Art Group (Thursday Afternoon)
Engaging with creative outputs such as physical art helps our guests to feel more relaxed and less stressed. The group activities help to strengthen bonds and relationships, and it is a fun and enjoyable time for our guests.

Our guests enjoying Tai Chi group.

All ‘Back to Being Me’ interventions are funded by the National Lottery: Reaching Communities fund. Restricted funding.

As you can see, we continue to use our concrete methods of practice to ensure that our guests feel secure. This ultimately makes them more receptive to change. Due to

the nature of the people, we work with, we have kept our projects and interventions structured so that there is a sense of stability, as often, people living with mental health problems, those on the autistic spectrum and people at risk from or living with dementia benefit from structured activities and routine. We may make changes in the future although this isn’t something we’re looking to do as our current state of service is working and of benefit to our guests as evidenced in this report.

Note: we no longer run the film group due to low demand.

In addition to our regularly scheduled interventions, we also provide guests with the option to engage with gardening via our terrace area. Our ability to provide this type of activity for our beneficiaries is relatively brand new and was initiated by our guests with green fingers! Our guests spend time outdoors on our patio, tending to flowers, plants and vegetables that we grow throughout the year. A lot of what we grow on our patio is used in our in-house kitchen, and this is something that we are very proud about.

The Hub

The Hub is another one of our very popular interventions. We provide Angelic Reiki treatment within The Hub (pictured below) which is facilitated by our professional Reiki practitioner. These treatments are very popular, and we are booked up by at least two months in advance by our beneficiaries. Reiki provides our beneficiaries with feelings of relaxation and the opportunity to de-stress and unwind which is extremely important for people living with profound mental health problems. The practitioner is also qualified in counselling which is important when our guests open up emotionally within these treatments. Having a private and relaxing space in which our guests can open up is very important to us, and having the tools to best deal with those instances is also imperative.

The Hub – funded by the National Lottery: Reaching Communities fund. Restricted funding.

Our guided meditation group.

The Kitchen

Our Healthier Eating initiative is and has always been one of our most important features. For a small fee and arguably better value for money, healthier and nutritious meals are a valued aspect of our day-to-day. Evidence proves that eating less meat is good for the environment and better for health, which prompted us to introduce meat free Thursdays. We have retained our five-star hygiene rating since we received it in 2022, after being assessed again in July 2023.

Our cook happy with the Food Hygiene re-inspection.

Past Times

Past Times continues to be our most successful and well attended project, and in the past year we have seen an increase in attendees by 10%. On average we see around 65 people every week and have done since June 2024. We hope to increase that number by Summer 2025, and to do this, we have been reaching out more to local residents and care homes to try and increase the number of attendees so that more people can benefit.

We have kept all activities the same, although we’ve had to remove the luncheon club due to low demand. Last year, there was more of a demand for it, we believe due to the cost-of-living crisis, which is still impacting individuals although we believe the not as much as the previous year.

Huddersfield University completed their research in September 2023 which has helped us to understand which factors of the project we need to home in on. Here is a link to that report: https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/publications/an-evaluation-of-the-pasttimes-project-combating-loneliness-in-l

Our guests ready for the afternoon.

Volunteering

Over the past year we’ve had a significant increase in volunteering enquiries as well as bringing volunteers on board. We now work with 10 volunteers over our two main projects: ‘ Past Times’ and ‘Back to Being Me’ , although the majority of our volunteering team work at Past Times due to the number of people we cater for.

We pride ourselves on our volunteering team and without them wouldn’t have the manpower to carry out our projects to such a high standard.

Just a few of our volunteers posing for a photo!

Fundraising

To try and rely less on grants, we’re always working to raise funds where we can. This means we have multiple methods of raising money to help towards our day-to-day running costs which includes running live music events, hosting a raffle at our Past Times project, being active with other organisations and initiatives Reverb and Easy Fundraising. Last summer, Reverb invited us to host a stall at their fundraising event within the Piece Hall, where The Lumineers performed and donated £500 of their ticket sales to us. This was made possible through Reverb after they recognised the work we do in the community and reached out in order to set the donation up. Thank you Reverb!

We also set up our own fundraiser under our ‘Music 4 Minds’ initiative. This involves local musicians and bands performing in aid of our charity, and the event helped us to raise £300 to put towards general running costs!

New interventions

Find Your Voice – Find your voice is an organisation who work with organisations such as ourselves to deliver a structured singing programme to beneficiaries. The programme helps to improve general wellbeing, increase confidence and selfesteem, and also some physical benefits include increased lung capacity and breathing control. This programme lasted 8-weeks and we continued to provide the singing group after the programme ended. This programme was funded externally by Calderdale Adult Learning.

Table Tennis – The table tennis project is a fantastic initiative developed by our staff team and beneficiaries and has multiple health benefits. We have also found that through the table tennis project and a little healthy competition, it has increased the need for it within our day-to-day provision. At the end of almost every day, some of our staff and beneficiaries take part in games of table tennis and get involved in the excitement of competition.

– Holistic Counselling Our Angelic Reiki and Guided Meditation practitioner began a holistic counselling course in 2023 and in February 2024 qualified and began delivering holistic counselling sessions to our beneficiaries who need it most. This is

going well so far and many of our beneficiaries are booking sessions where they

can.

Examiners Report nc dl J1•1 a•24 Sl•1 2•2J Jl•l 2124 J1•1 lJl¥¢h 2W2J 120 791 4,$65 1.sz$ 7J98 99.378 iJ.Ji• 24Y30 47 10623 19.725 1.691 459 ii.rs) 22 1z.sc S4 JJ4 JA 2.261 4950 Trnwl L9SS 1.771 1515 JJ93 L959 I72 3127 74 Z289 1336 J12 614 3.336 19 so 15417T 171.7ThJ 156.17T -15.SY1 1*177 156.17T 114.142 109. 31.76¢ 31.764 109,th1 16 31.764 -15.S31 162>3 31.764 1023J 31.764 WF14 &AT

Declaration from Driton Hoti (Treasurer);

I declare that the monies designated for specified purposes were used for what they were intended for, and I am happy with the financial decisions of the Arch-Way Project.

Signed:

Our Trustees:

Andrew Mullin – Chair

Nazam Hussain – Secretary

Driton Hoti – Treasurer

No changes in Trustee board or responsibilities since the last report (22-23).

Organisational Structure:

CEO

Operations Manager/General Manager

Project Manager Project Worker

Volunteer

Declaration:

I am satisfied with how the Arch-Way Project and its staff and volunteers are operating the interventions and projects that are available to those in the community who need them the most. I am happy with the outcomes generated through the projects and interventions and I am excited for what the future has to offer at the Arch-Way Project.

Signed:

Andrew Mullin, Chair

Special thanks to our funders.

Arch-Way Project

Income and Expenditure Account 31st March 2024

Income Venue Hire Other Income Grants Calderdale MBC Main Grants Lush Retail Sir George Calderdale College SW Yorks Ship Charles Hayward Foundation Neighbourly Groundwork HSBC Sfx Foundation Community Foundation Other Funding Donations Cash Donations Bank Interest Represented by: Balance forward 1/4/2023 Surplus/-deficit for the period	31st March 2024 120 384 6247 126217 3120 7500 3856 4832 3827 74 156,177 0 156,177 156,177 31,764 31,764 -15,531 16,233	31st March 2023 890 2461 10623 76581 4950 4820 5000 8277 540 114,142 114,142 114,142 109,460 109,460 -77,696 31,764	Expenditure Stock Food Costs Wages Other Labour Casual Wages Staff Pension Cost Staff Training Rent Light & Heat Agm, Christmas Party & inductions Cleaning Travel Telephone Maintenance/Repairs Insurance Professional Fees Uniform Stationery & Postage Computer Expenses Advertising Equipment Hire Sundry Fundraising Services Staff subs to repay/repaid Overpaid wages to repay/repaid Surplus/Deficit for the period Balance at bank 31/03/2024 (Current)	31st March 2024 791 4,565 89,121 13,318 26,950 1,389 22 12,500 5,438 334 1,800 1,955 1,771 5,086 1,959 103 95 180 70 3,336 312 614 171,708 -15,531 156,177 16,233 16,233 16,233	31st March 2023 1,626 7,898 98,378 20,509 19,725 1,691 459 11,750 5,460 89 2,261 2,809 1,515 3,893 1,708 2,671 7 566 2,289 2,462 3,336 448 2,940 -2150 -500 191,838 -77,696 114,142 31,764 31,764 31,764

In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention:

(1) which gives me reasonable cause to believe that in any material respect the requirements:

to keep accounting records in accordance with section 130 of the 2011 Act; and to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and comply with the accounting requirements of the 2011 Act have not been met; or

(2) to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

4th November 2024 Chris Grant & Co Ltd. Chartered Management Accountants 87 Huddersfield Road Mirfield West Yorkshire WF14 8AT