## **Trustees' Annual Report for the period**
Period start date Period end date 01 04 2021 31 03 2022
**From**
**To**
## Section A Reference and administration details
**Charity name** Lower Grange Community Association
**Other names charity is known by** LGCA
**Registered charity number (if any)** 1159081
**Charity's principal address** Lower Grange Youth & Community Centre
Chaffinch Road Bradford **Postcode** BD8 0RF
**Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity**
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11|**Trustee name**|**Office (if any)**|**Dates acted if not for whole**
**year **|**Name of person (or body) entitled**
**to appoint trustee (ifany)**|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||G Ball|Chair|||
||L Cunningham|Treasurer|||
||F.E. Evans|Secretary|||
||L Aspin||01/04/2021 - 15/01/2022||
||C Woodley||||
||N Malik||01/04/2021 - 15/01/2022||
||J Berry||01/04/2021 - 15/01/2022||
||M Bull||||
||M Duffy||||
||Beverley Lister||15/01/2022 – 31/03/2022||
||||||
## **Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)**
**Name Dates acted if not for whole year**
## **Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)**
**Type of adviser Name Address**
## **Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)**
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Alex Dilger
## **Section B Structure, governance and management**
## **Description of the charity’s trusts**
Type of governing document CIO - Association Registered 05 Nov 2014 (Constitution) (eg. trust deed, constitution)
How the charity is constituted
- Charitable Incorporated Organisation
- (eg. trust, association, company)
Trustee selection methods
- Elected by membership at Annual General meetings.
- (eg. appointed by, elected by)
## **Additional governance issues (Optional information)**
You **may choose** to include additional information, where relevant, about:
- policies and procedures adopted for the induction and training of trustees;
- the charity’s organisational structure and any wider network with which the charity works;
- relationship with any related parties;
- trustees’ consideration of major risks and the system and procedures to manage them.
## **Section C Objectives and activities**
**Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document**
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To promote the benefit of the inhabitants of Lower Grange and the neighbourhood (hereinafter called "the area of benefit") without distinction of sex, sexual orientation, race or of political, religious or other opinions, by associating together the said inhabitants and the local authorities, voluntary and other organisations in a common effort to advance education and to provide facilities in the interests of social welfare for recreation and leisuretime occupation with the object of improving the conditions of life for the said inhabitants.
Establish, or secure the establishment of, a community centre (hereinafter called "the centre") and to maintain and manage the same (whether alone or in co-operation with any local authority or other person or body) in furtherance of these objects.
**Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public benefit in relation to these objects (include within** these objects. **this section the statutory declaration that trustees have** Classification **had regard to the guidance** What **issued by the Charity** • General charitable purposes **Commission on public** • Education / training **benefit)** • Recreation
- Recreation
Who
- Children / young people
- Elderly / old people
- People with disabilities
How
- provides buildings / facilities / open space
## **Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)**
You **may choose** to include further statements, where relevant, about:
- policy on grantmaking;
- policy programme related investment;
- contribution made by volunteers.
## Section D Achievements and performance
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## Section D Achievements and erformance p
We began the year as one of the worst areas for Covid infections in Bradford, **Summary of the main** making delivery of services difficult at a time when our community needed us **achievements of the charity** most. Our focus was ensuring that our food distribution initiative ‘Grub In The **during the year** Hub’ kept running to reach those in need. We won the Telegraph and Argus ‘Shared Values in Action Award’, with our volunteers including local councillors receiving medals for our work. The Pitty Beck outdoor open green space development finally began to take shape, to make it a more attractive and safe space for our community to enjoy the outdoors. It is now being used by many more people, including external provision such as the Play Bradford Mobile Adventure Play (MAP) sessions. Our partnerships such as Bradford Community Play Partnership and the Join Us Move Play Project (JU:MP) have strengthened, increasing local physical activity. This has also linked to our growing links with local schools. Having worked with some of them during lockdowns to identify vulnerable families, providing activity packs to help with child mental health. We employed additional staff for the first time, with 2 local residents and volunteer group leaders taking up roles as JU:MP Connectors. These roles have had a huge impact, working with young people to improve their physical and mental health through a variety of targeted, fun activities. Many of our activities had to be run outside or with safety measures in place throughout the year, a challenge that was met by our group leaders and volunteers. Despite these challenges, we were impressed by the new and unique ways our teams found to deliver activities which responded to local needs and inspired new people to take part. By the end of the year, there were 23 different activities, courses and events on offer. This year we have managed to run 32 separate activities which represents a 50% increase in the number of opportunities for people to get involved and find ways to improve their life opportunities and social connections. This would not have been possible without either the investments from various funders and our amazing team and community of volunteers. Our culture of listening and consulting with both the community and partners has enabled us to continue doing this despite issues around access at various points this year. Physically reaching people has been tricky but also understanding that people haven’t always had the headspace to be consulted. Reaching out informally through our activities to find out what people needed has been crucial, as has the trust we’ve built with partners.
Our group leaders tell us that the way we support them has inspired them to reach out and find ways of engaging with and supporting new people, many of who were not previously engaged with the community or the centre. One of things we’re proudest of is working with our group leaders, volunteers and partners to not only maintain provision and reach, but to significantly expand it coming out of what has been a challenging period for everyone. They’ve been able to encourage them to get involved in other activities and shown them that their voice is important and can make a difference.
The foodbank, which morphed into Grub in the Hub, has also been an invaluable source of information about the challenges faced by people living on our estate. Gathering stories from families in different parts of our community, and being able to cross reference between them has meant we can identify
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Section D Achievements and erformance p
where best to focus our efforts. The big story this year has been the impact Grub in the Hub has had for families. Switching from the foodbank model to a pay-as you-feel option has helped restore dignity for people, whilst still ensuring those most in need can access basic supplies. Families tell us that without this they would have really struggled, and volunteers report the strengthening of networks and community relations through regular contact between people.
The other key story has been the physical and creative activities which have given children, families and older people alike the opportunity to re-engage with each other and find ways to recover from the knock-on effects of the pandemic. Much of our partnership work has focused on Play as a means of engaging children and their parents. Through our work with Bradford Community Play Partnership and JUMP (Join us Move Play) we have seen families become more empowered to support their children through difficult circumstances, with improvements to family bonding also contributing to positive mental and emotional outcomes. Partners like JU:MP have told us they are seeing people show wider aspirations as a result of taking part in activities we have hosted, and our JU:MP Connectors are also involved in running other activities such as Creative Flair, which has enabled greater insight into how to encourage people to take part in additional provision beyond their point of entry. We have been told by both partners and the community that the speed at which we mobilised our crisis provision, and then listened to them to develop his provision into more sustainable activity as restrictions eased, showed how rooted we are in the lives of those we support. The Allergrange Play & Learning Hub has been very responsive to the changing needs of parents, providing access to activities such as the HAF (Holiday Activity with Food) Summer Scheme and the Bradford Stories Bus.
Our work with Bradford Youth Service (BYS) has gone from strength to strength. Young people have participated in cooking sessions, sports sessions, mental wellbeing sessions, transition projects to support young people moving to secondary school and a lot more. BYS have also been running Lower Grange Young Leaders, boosting young people’s confidence, self – esteem and working on their friendship skills, by giving them opportunities to and learn new skills and reflect on what they enjoy and want to do in the future.
We know that offering such a broad range of activities and opportunities for local people give them chance to try new things. It also shows we take ideas on board and actually make them happen – we encourage people to not only access support but to help shape and promote it so others can benefit from it as well. People want to give something back because they feel valued and heard. We’ve learnt a great deal this year about how to maximise benefits to the community through deeper partnership working. Employing the JU:MP Connectors and the Allergrange Play & Learning Hub Lead has allowed us to spend more time with partners to design and develop targeted initiatives that respond to the data we collect and reach the people who need help most.
Employing locally, and supporting local people into these roles, means they have been able to consult with and respond to community quickly in a way that others may not have been able to. Their work has been recognised by local residents and commissioners to be innovative and responsive.
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Section D Achievements and erformance p
Our volunteers and group leaders have fed back that they find working with us energising and inspirational. Many have benefitted from taking up the courses on offer, to help them improve the way they run activities and also to enable them to expand their offer. Some have taken on additional Volunteers or staff as a result and many continue to seek further funding, growing our incubation model and potential future rental income for the long term suitability of both the Association and community centre. Co-production is something we have done well previously, and whilst it’s been challenging to do this remotely or during periods of having to adapt operationally, the culture we have of listening to and involving our community has meant that we are planning to do more of this in the coming year. They are the drivers of change, particularly behavioural, so we need to capitalise on the energy they have created during the pandemic. Our partners and group leaders continue to be responsive to changing needs, so we are planning ways to support them to keep improving what they do. We will be running another Social Venture School to encourage new ideas and projects, but this cohort will also be supported by our previous cohort and existing group leaders who we have secured funding to train in coaching skills. This will enable them to make the most of the course but also share valuable skills and provide ongoing peersupport to each other, helping our model of incubating new projects to evolve and become an even more important part of the way we work. As we have recently increased our staff team, our Centre Manager has had additional responsibilities for managing and steering their work. We had hoped to secure some funding to provide administrative support to the Centre Manager, to allow them to focus on more strategic activities, so this is something we are exploring. Our hope is also that our incubation model begins to address the gap between restricted and unrestricted funding, so we can remain responsive to the needs of the community and keep building our asset based, wrap around approach to supporting people. This flexibility is key to our success in the medium to long term and whilst building our wellbeing outcomes evidence base has been challenging during the pandemic, we have a good foundation to work from and our group leaders and volunteers are becoming comfortable and more skilled in working this way. We are about to revisit our business and action plans, including a coproduction/networking event which will involve partners and the community. This will put us in a great position to build on the earlier work we did on this prior to the pandemic, and the lessons we’ve learnt over the last couple of years (but especially the last 12 months) will ensure that we are able to map out the best direction to meet local needs.
We continue to work closely with the Council on their Ward Plans, having played a key part in these becoming less ‘top down’ – our relationships with local councillors and Ward officers is key to ensuring that we make the most of their input and resources. As part of our organisation capacity building we will be delivering more training and facilitated group sessions to our Board and volunteers, to help them steer the organisation and champion us and our work with partners and funders. All of these initiatives will help us to support the community, through an even more diverse range of activities which all contribute to their development and access to life opportunities.
This year has been the most rewarding in our recent history. Despite the
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## Section D Achievements and erformance p
pandemic, we have been able to deliver an ever-growing range of activities and support to our community, and have seen so many people grow in confidence and ability through helping their peers and neighbours. We’ve been creative in how we engage with our community, in an area of Bradford where apathy is often the cause of concerns. We are incredibly grateful to all of our partners for enabling us to deliver these services, but also reflect and improve the way we do things, strategically and operationally. We are in a strong position to build for the future, proving we are a catalyst for change locally, yet know there are gaps in our provision and capacity that we are taking steps to fill.
As life begins to return to normal, we know our volunteers, group leaders, partners and Board will continue to surprise us with their resilience, tenacity and creativity. Our job is to create the conditions for them to take the lead, enabling those accessing all of our services to do the same. We know what we need to do to take our services to the next level, through incremental learning, with community-led provision at the heart of what we do. Our collaborative style, built on trust and good rapport, is our ‘stock-in-trade’, underpinning our values and sense of purpose.
**Section E Financial review** In accordance with guidance from the Charity Commission, Lower Grange **Brief statement of the charity’s** Community Association/Centre has a reserve policy. We aim to retain a reserve, **policy on reserves** held in cash, to provide for six months operating costs, together with a provision for winding up expenses and redundancy payments. Furthermore, it is our aim to maintain a balance within our current account roughly equivalent to six months operating costs. The amounts involved are kept under review each year. **Details of any funds materially** N/A **in deficit Further financial review details (Optional information)**
You **may choose** to include additional information, where relevant about:
- the charity’s principal sources of funds (including any fundraising);
- how expenditure has supported the key objectives of the charity;
- investment policy and objectives including any ethical investment policy adopted.
**Section F Other optional information**
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## **Section G Declaration**
**The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.**
**Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees**
|**Signature(s)**
**Full name(s)**
**Position (eg Secretary, Chair,**
**etc)**
**Date**|||
|---|---|---|
||Graham Ball|Lynne Cunningham|
||
Chair|Treasurer|
||28/01/2023||
||28/01/2023||
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