Trustees' Annual Report for the period
Period start date Period end date Day Month Year Day Month Year From 06 04 2024 To 05 04 2025
Section A Reference and administration details
Charity name Rainow Village Bus Other names charity is known by 1159414 Charity's principal address Tower, Hill House, Rainow, Macclesfield, Cheshire Postcode SK10 5TX ~~—~~
Other names charity is known by
Registered charity number (if any) 1159414
Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity Dates acted if not for whole Name of person (or body) entitled Trustee name Office (if any) year to appoint trustee (if any) 1 Ken Butler Chairman 2 Tony Wilkinson Treasurer 3 Dave Hasler Secretary 28/11/2024 Existing trustees 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 ~~ee~~ Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees) Name Dates acted if not for whole year
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Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)
Type of adviser Name Address
Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)
Section B Structure, governance and management
Description of the charity’s trusts
Constitution
Type of governing document (eg. trust deed, constitution) Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) How the charity is constituted
- (eg. trust, association, company)
Appointed by the trustees Trustee selection methods
- (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;
Three Trustees are responsible for the overall strategy and direction whilst other unpaid volunteers undertake specific tasks (including driving the bus) as the need arises. Dave Hasler has taken over as trustee from Tim Grimes. The decision was agreed at a meeting of trustees and other volunteers, held on 28[th] November 2024. The decision was recorded in the minutes of that meeting.
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the charity’s organisational structure and any wider network with which the charity works;
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relationship with any related parties;
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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
Rainow Village Bus (RVB) provides services which are available to all the residents of the village of Rainow in East Cheshire. RVB operates a 15 seat minibus and provides residents with a bookable transport service from Rainow and neighbouring towns for all the charitable, voluntary, community and social groups in Rainow and nearby villages. RVB has been operating since 2014. Originally the operation of a timetable service on Friday and Saturday evenings to Macclesfield was part of the RVB operation. However, this has not proved popular and so has been discontinued for the time being. This is kept under regular review however.
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The charity is a non-profit making charitable incorporated organisation with a constitution lodged with the Charities Commission. Trustees are elected by a meeting of all available volunteers and are expected to serve at least three years.
Locally devised systems for group hire bookings and vehicle operation are used. Regular articles providing updates of RVB activities appear in the quarterly village magazine. All vehicle management administration (servicing, maintenance, MOT checking, driver rotas) is carried out by Trustees or other volunteers.
Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public benefit in relation to these objects (include within this section the statutory declaration that trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit)
Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)
All activities are carried out by unpaid volunteers.
You may choose to include further statements, where relevant, about:
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policy on grantmaking;
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policy programme related investment;
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contribution made by volunteers.
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Section D Achievements and performance
Summary of the main achievements of the charity during the year
Demand for the Rainow Village Bus services has remained high. In this reporting period there were 97 session bookings compared to 100 in the last financial year.
Bookings continue to involve a variety of local groups (e.g. Cubs, Scouts, Guides, local charities, Church groups, Women’s Institute, local Primary Schools, rambling groups and other local social groups) who have hired the vehicle for journeys of varying lengths throughout the period.
The type of bookings has remained similar to last year. The majority of bookings are from local schools and charities with almost 50% of bookings coming from just 1 Bollington based charity. Demand from Rainow based social groups is still lower than pre-pandemic. This reduced diversity of booking does increase the risk of significant fluctuations in booking volume from year to year.
Following a discussion at a meeting of trustees and volunteers in November 2024, it was unanimously decided not to return to a scheduled service on Friday and Saturday evenings, on the basis that there remained insufficient demand for such a service.
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Section E Financial review
Brief statement of the charity’s policy on reserves
Rainow Village Bus endeavours to maintain sufficient cash reserves to cover running expenses during the year including unexpected expenses particularly those involving vehicle maintenance.
Details of any funds materially in deficit
Further financial review details (Optional information)
You may choose to include additional information, where relevant about:
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the charity’s principal sources of funds (including any fundraising);
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how expenditure has supported the key objectives of the charity;
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investment policy and objectives including any ethical investment policy adopted.
The fixed cost (ie. not including fuel) of providing the Rainow Village Bus service is usually around £2500 per annum. To cover this cost around 60-70 session bookings per year are required. Maintenance costs can vary significantly year on year. For example in this reporting period maintenance costs were high (£1600 more than the year before). Hence the much higher overall expenditure in this financial year.
Groups pay a hire charge based on the time used (number of sessions) and distance covered. Charges are standard to all the users. Our income during the year was £5,531, while our expenditure was £4,574. At the end of the financial year our cash in the bank was £7,883.
No changes in charging for the bus hire have been made in the last financial year. They remain at £35 per session and 60p per mile.
Section F Other optional information
The operation of Rainow Village Bus faces a number of challenges going forward. The 3 primary areas of concern being;
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The limited number of active drivers. This issue is compounded by the fact that the necessary D1 on the licence is lost once aged 70 unless actively maintained. This latter process can be complex and time consuming and many drivers simply step down once they turn 70. The number of local (ie. Rainow-based) volunteer drivers is now down to 4. To balance this, we now have 3 additional drivers identified by the Bridgend Centre in Bollington to supplement our driver pool.
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The narrow nature of our customer base. Almost 50% of our bookings are by a single organisation – the Bridgend Centre in Bollington. At present overall demand remains high but If 1 or 2 of our biggest customers reduce their demand, the operation of RVB could become unsustainable.
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The future management of the organisation, and the need to identify new Trustees to manage the operation going forward. In this reporting period one new trustee has been appointed and the other 2 trustees have committed for a further year. However, finding new trustees is becoming more challenging.
Given these challenges the future operation of Rainow Village Bus is under active review.
Section G Declaration
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.
Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees
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Signature(s) Anthony James Wilkinson
Full name(s) Anthony James Wilkinson Position (eg Secretary, Chair, Treasurer, Trustee etc) Date 06/10/2024
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| Charity Name | No (if any) | No (if any) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rainow Village Bus | 1159414 | ||||||||||
| Receipts and payments accounts Period start date Period end date To For the period from 06/04/2024 05/04/2025 ~~a a~~ ~~ee eee~~ |
CC16a | ||||||||||
| Section A Receipts and payments | |||||||||||
| Unrestricted funds |
Restricted funds |
Endowment funds |
Total funds | Last year | |||||||
| to the nearest £ | to the nearest £ | to the nearest £ | to the nearest £ | to the nearest £ | to the nearest £ | ||||||
| A1 Receipts | |||||||||||
| General Income | 5,531 | - | - | - | 5,531 | 5,202 | |||||
| - | - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
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| - | - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
| Sub total(Gross income for | (Gross income for | ||||||||||
| AR) | AR)5,531 | - | - | - | 5,531 | 5,202 | |||||
| A2 Asset and investment sales, (see table). - - - - - - - - - Sub total - - - - - Total receipts 5,531 - - 5,531 5,202 ~~==———~~ |
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| A3 Payments | |||||||||||
| General expenses | 4,574 | - | - | - | 4,574 | 3,091 | |||||
| - | - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
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| **Sub total ** | 4,574 | - | - | - | 4,574 | 3,091 | |||||
| A4 Asset and investment purchases, (see table) - - - - - - - - Sub total - - - - - Total payments 4,574 - - 4,574 3,091 ~~——————~~ |
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| Net of receipts/(payments) A5 Transfers between funds A6 Cash funds last year end Cash funds this year end |
957 - - 957 2,111 - - - - - 6,926 - - 6,926 4,815 7,883 - - 7,883 6,926 ~~===>~~ |
CCXX R1 accounts (SS)
06/10/2025
1
Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
| Categories Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees B5 Liabilities B3 Investment assets B2 Other monetary assets B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use B1 Cash funds |
Details Details Total cash funds (agree balances with receipts and payments account(s)) Details Details Mercedes Sprinter 524 Minibus delivered ~~November 2016 (approximate value)~~ Details Signature AnthonyJames Wilkinson |
Unrestricted funds Restricted funds to nearest £ to nearest £ - - - - - - 7,883 - OK OK Unrestricted funds Restricted funds to nearest £ to nearest £ - - - - - - - - - - - - Fund to which asset belongs Cost (optional) - - - - - Fund to which asset belongs Cost (optional) - - - - - - - - - Fund to which liability relates Amount due (optional) - - - - - Print Name Anthony James Wilkinson (Treasurer and Trustee) |
Endowment funds to nearest £ |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| OK | |||
| Endowment funds to nearest £ |
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| - | |||
| - | |||
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| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| Current value (optional) |
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| - | |||
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| Current value (optional) |
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| 20,000 | |||
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| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| When due (optional) |
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| Date of approval |
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| AnthonyJames Wilkinson | Anthony James Wilkinson (Treasurer and Trustee) |
06/10/2025 | |
| 5531 |
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)
06/10/2025
2