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Trustee Annual Report and Financial Statements For the Year Ended 31 March 2025

Charity Number: 1158349

Mental Health Charity (CIO)

Arch-Way Project, Arden Road

Halifax

West Yorkshire

HX1 3AG

Contents	Page
Front Page	1
Trustees report	2-8
Examiners report	10
Declaration from the Treasurer	11
Declaration from the Chair of Trustees	12

The Trustees present their report with the independently examined financial statements of the Arch-Way Project (CIO) for the year ended 31[st] March 2025. 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 2024 to 31 March 2025.

Trustees report

Due to the way our organisation operates and the nature of the interventions and projects we deliver, some of the information in this report may be similar to, or the same as, content from the previous 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.

We’re in our final year of funding provided by the National Lottery: Reaching Communities fund for our Back to Being Me: Continuation grant. This year we still have a strong focus on helping our beneficiaries meet a number of potential outcomes through the Back to Being Me project, as well as continuing to run our 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.

We’re still in the same position as last year; we know that most of our beneficiaries are meeting all but two of our outcomes, which we hope in this final year we can help our beneficiaries reach our most sought-after outcomes which are:

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.

We are going to try and give our beneficiaries a push towards finding employment/voluntary work/college although we can only provide information and guidance or invite other organisations such as Citizens Advice to visit and provide information to find work/volunteering/college opportunities to those interested. A lot of our beneficiaries are happy to remain service-users or continue volunteering rather than find employment or start/return to education; although we hope in this final year, we can give some of them a gentle nudge if they express that goal themselves.

- 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 propose 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.

o 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.

Film Group (Thursday mid-morning)
We reintroduced the film group as a small number of our beneficiaries requested we bring it back as something to occupy the time between Pilates and lunchtime. The film group is run by our art group volunteer and is service-user led; all film requests are made by our beneficiaries and was reintroduced because of their request.
- 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.

As you can see, we provide a set timetable that our beneficiaries can use at their leisure, attending any of the interventions that suits their schedule that week. Due to

the nature of the people we work with, we keep 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. Our current state of service is working and of benefit to our guests and we don’t plan on making any major changes to our current activities, unless we find areas that would benefit from a new intervention.

The Data:

We created new online forms in order to reduce paper use, and it helps us keep record of it safely and securely in line with our data protection and GDPR policies. This data involves questions related to an individual’s exercise habits, whether they’re interested in volunteering/finding work, whether they smoke, etc. which helps us to better understand our beneficiaries and whether they’re improving mentally and physically, and whether they feel confident enough to begin volunteering/working. We changed how often we collect this information to give people space and time to see improvements within themselves, and we now complete them quarterly. We have found that this strategy is preferable for most of our beneficiaries as we found previously that filling out paperwork and how often we did it felt too overbearing to some of our beneficiaries which is something we want to avoid. We can collect the data we need to improve our services and contribute to helping our beneficiaries receive the right level of support with the information gathered from our quarterly forms. See below the results from our ‘end of year’ evaluation, which features some of the same questions as the quarterly forms.

Services

Past Times

Past Times remains our most successful and well-attended project, regularly welcoming around 70 participants each week, a slight increase from last year. Due to funding constraints, we’ve had to introduce a small entry fee; something we had hoped to avoid, but this step has been necessary to sustain the project and the quality of the project delivery. The fee helps contribute to essential costs including venue rent, performer fees, and volunteer expenses. We’re grateful for the ongoing support from Lidl (through donations), our beneficiaries (via raffle contributions), and Suma Wholefoods (for tea and coffee supplies). Any additional donations are deeply appreciated and go directly toward keeping this valued project running.

We successfully applied for funding to expand the Past Times project in Wales which should start properly running in 2026, namely Past Times: Cymru. This project is funded by the National Lottery and is restricted only for the Past Times: Cymru project. We’re very excited to expand this wonderful project and help bring more people together within different communities; we hope to grow Past Times: Cymru to a similar level and hopefully expand it to other countries within the UK in the future. This is something we endeavour to happen!

All activities have stayed the same other than the introduction of an entry fee, although we would like to reintroduce the lunch club in the winter of 2025. ( Funding for this project is restricted )

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. (Part of the Back to Being Me grant which is restricted funding).

The Kitchen

Our Healthier Eating initiative is and has always been one of our most important features. For a small fee, healthier and nutritious meals are a valued aspect of our day-to-day. We have retained our five-star hygiene rating since we received it in 2022. Serving homecooked meals to beneficiaries is not only much healthier in comparison to other meals they consume, but there’s also multiple benefits when provided homecooked and fresh meals. Homecooked food is much more nutritious, we can control the portion sizes, there’s fewer additives and preservatives, and also social benefits from eating with other people. Some of our beneficiaries live alone and often the meal they have with us is the only meal they have and also the only meal they get to share with other people. Often people who live with mental and physical health problems opt for stress-free and easy food options which means relying on takeaways or ready meals which are packed full of additives, preservatives, added sugars and excess fats which could be avoided by cooking at home, which some people are unable to do so they depend on meals cooked at Arch-Way Project which as stated is for a small fee.

Terrace

We achieved funding from the B&Q Foundation through the Neighbourly Foundation which was used to extend our decking area to create more space for our guests to enjoy the terraced area and also create more raised beds to grow vegetables and flowers. Gardening and being outdoors has many benefits including vitamin D exposure, improved physical health, boosting the immune system, reduces stress and anxiety and creates a sense of purpose amongst many other benefits. ( Funding for this is restricted )

Sustainability

Business Development Manager – We employed a business development manager to help us create sustainability so that we are less reliant on grant funding. We tried to achieve this through creating a business arm to the charity although we fell at the last hurdle and didn’t achieve funding we needed to develop the business. Our Business Development Manager works hard at finding funding and applying to help us with our overheads and day to day running costs and also applied for funding to help us become a Smoke Free. We continue to work towards sustainability by building connections with other organisations such as Calderdale College, Calderdale Mental Health and Wellbeing Alliance, Asda, Aldi, Tesco, M&S, Suma and Lidl, Creative Minds and Community Foundation for Calderdale, The National Lottery, and Sir George Martin Trust. ( Funding for this is restricted )

CMHA (Calderdale Mental Health and Wellbeing Alliance ) - We’re part of this alliance to understand local funding opportunities, collaborating with different providers which include West Yorkshire Mental Health and Wellbeing Hub, NHS Mental Health Team and other third-sector organisations. We became aware of this alliance through our Business Development Manager and the knowledge received from these meetings and from other organisations is invaluable. We have been given advice and information regarding sustainability, and what we can do to become less reliant on grant funding which is the ultimate end goal for our organisation.

New interventions and services

Body and Mind Transformation

‘ Body and Mind Transformation’ is a project designed to help people lose weight by changing their relationship with food, attending weekly meetings and cultivating a support network to lose weight realistically and facilitated by someone who has lived experience of losing a significant amount of weight in a healthy and sustainable way. The programme addresses a number of different issues for people such as eating unhealthily and lack of exercise, which affect how a person feels mentally. The programme ran for 8 months, and in total, 3 people lost over 14lb in weight. One person who lives with COPD and was waiting for an operation on their lungs needed to lose weight before the operation and due to the programme had lost enough so that she could finally have the operation which is a huge success. ( Funding for this is restricted, provided by Community Foundation for Calderdale )

Smoking Cessation Project

We started a smoking cessation project funded by Creative Minds to help our service-users stop smoking and adopt healthy coping mechanisms to help deal with the addiction and habit. We’ve done this through a number of our interventions such as creative writing, tai chi and meditation. Creative writing helped with replacing the habit of smoking by writing down thought patterns related to smoking; tai chi helped by educating our service-users with breathing techniques and occupying the mind with light exercise; and meditation helped our service users by creating space to hold thoughts around smoking, participating in breath work and working through the urges in a group setting amongst peers using holistic techniques. We implement this into our day to day and give advice and guidance to our guests who smoke where we can. ( The funding for this project is restricted).

Work Experience: Calderdale College

We enlisted Level 2 and Level 3 Health and Social students from the local college to help us with service delivery which also benefits their college work through completing work experience. The students helped us on both the Back to Being Me project and Past Times project; we believe it’s important that young people understand mental health in order to better understand the world around them - bridging the gap between generations leading to more empathy and compassion towards people living with mental/physical health problems and the elderly and ultimately breaking the stigma around mental health problems. We were able to obtain funding from Calderdale College for facilitating this and helping students with volunteering opportunities at Arch-Way Project as well as other third-sector organisations. ( Funding for this is restricted )

Collaboration with local businesses

Strong partnerships are built on strong connections, and we are proud to be in partnership with Asda, Aldi, Tesco, M&S, Suma and Lidl, who all support us in different ways but predominantly through donations. These connections strengthen our service delivery by helping us with consistent perishable donations towards our projects which helps us to reserve money solely for our overhead costs. We have a strong relationship with Lidl (through the neighbourly scheme) where we receive donations of baked goods twice per week which we redistribute to our beneficiaries. Food costs are on the rise and if we can combat this in any way we can, we make an impact doing so.

We have received donations from Asda, M&S, Aldi, Suma and Tesco for not only food but for bingo and raffle prizes for our Past Times project which all help towards reducing our general running costs.

Examiners Report Arch-wa Pro •et me and Ex ure Mar &tIAar¢h2029 31BI IAI2024 31siMar¢h 2024 V•rw Hlr• iio 120 1.975 791 4.56S 89.121 13.318 26.950 1.389 22 L2.SfJ) 5.438 334 9L.49S 3.411 29.$52 1.476 247 8.250 Grants 6247 126217 Main (dnis Lwh SirG8or 156252 3120 Hoot SW Ycrfks SNp Charfès F<thJAtknn Nglgtrthudy GroutAwtyk HSgCSh Foundèti CcnmunityF¢¥Jftht StyeTev3n Heamh rÈrHpèlth Halttax OFWtLiIIty Cknr 1.95$ L71L li.f62 2.334 4950 L959 103 1560 728 HR 95 ¢)thtrr FuJing 3721 113 1702 5.258 162 70 3.336 312 614 74 EqL)Wrt H 182MI 1.17? 174.jlg 171.708 1B2933 1.171 -15,531 182933 156.171 182.9 15.1TT for4Yatd 114r214 1Mf2024 16233 31.764 31Axir2u25 (Crrt) 20217 16233 31.764 24217 1fj233 24217 16233 24.217 16.233 Oftt aOtst0 rEachEd. 23rd Juty2025 ch Grant & Co LÈI. Clwrr8d krwrA¢XWtsThts 87 Ro We Yorw WF14 84T

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 (23-24).

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. We’re nearing the final year of our National Lottery: Reaching Communities grant for the Back to Being Me: Continuation funding and I am happy with the outcomes generated through the projects and interventions within this project as well as the Past Times project. I am excited for what the future has to offer at the Arch-Way Project.

Signed:

Andrew Mullin, Chair

Special thanks to our funders. rr Calderdale College COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR CALDERDALE BIG LOTTERY FUND NATIONAL LorrERYFUNDED TESCO Sir George Martin Trust MARWC . SPENcnS ALDI B& e Minds

Arch-Way Project

Income and Expenditure Account 31st March 2025

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 Sovereign Health Barchester Health Halifax Opportunity Other Funding Donations Cash Donations Bank Interest Represented by: Balance forward 1/4/2024 Balance forward 1/4/2024 Surplus/-deficit for the period	31st March 2025 110 500 156252 5000 8000 4950 2000 1560 728 3721 113 182,933 0 182,933 182,933 16,233 0 16,233 7,984 24,217	31st March 2024 120 384 6247 126217 3120 7500 3856 4832 3827 74 156,177 156,177 156,177 31,764 31,764 -15,531 16,233	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 HR Uniform Stationery & Postage Computer Expenses Advertising Equipment Hire Sundry Fundraising Services Surplus/Deficit for the period Balance at bank 31/03/2025 (Current) Balance at bank 31/03/2025 (Reserve)	31st March 2025 1,975 2,065 91,495 3,411 29,552 1,476 247 8,250 4,149 258 799 2,401 270 11,662 2,334 1,786 3,669 132 200 2,702 5,258 162 697 174,949 7,984 182,933 20,217 4,000 24,217 24,217	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

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.

23rd July 2025 Chris Grant & Co Ltd. Chartered Management Accountants 87 Huddersfield Road Mirfield West Yorkshire WF14 8AT

Auditors report – Accounts 24-25