Charity commission report 25/26
Introduction
The Community Garden had an excellent year with record numbers of visitors. Their donations, cash and in kind, contributed in large part to paying for the considerable repair and maintenance tasks. There was also increasing charity and local community use of our garden space.
General Garden Management
The Garden continues to open three times a week with an extremely popular cafe day once a month. For these events we have a dedicated unpaid band of helpers who work extremely hard organising, baking cakes, serving and clearing up. The welcome given to visitors has paid off with ever increasing numbers coming through the gates; Approximately half of them are now return visitors.
An organised group of facilitators, each with one or more raised beds, tend to their vegetables fruit and flowers in 21 raised beds or greenhouse plots. The resulting plants and produce are either sold cheaply to the public or are available to be shared equally between our volunteers.
Sadly, two key Trustees moved out of the area this year. However two other regular garden volunteers have stepped in to take their places.
Events
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As in previous years, Spring and Winter Markets were held with high demand for stalls by local community sellers.
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A highly successful Plant and Pollination Day with expert guest speakers.
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An Art Show in September attracting 20 exhibitors.
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The Garden provide the perfect venue for a a Wassail celebration at one end of the year and a Harvest Festival at the other as well as a coming together of volunteers their friends and families on the occasion of our 11[th] anniversary as a Charity.
Perhaps one of our proudest achievements has been to provide an appropriate garden space for so many other local community groups. In addition to the stall holders and art exhibitors already mentioned, these include:
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Freeway – disability group every other Monday
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Forest of Avon dementia group visits
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Cygnet Health Head Trauma Group visit
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Orchard Project (to train students on fruit tree pruning using our trees)
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Corporate group volunteers for the day - Defra, MoD x3, University staff.
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School groups visits for simple gardening tasks – Blaise High School SEND pupils (monthly), 48 Nova Lane primary school children.
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Clifton Arts Group for open air painting.
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Regualr painting and drawing classes
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In addition, periodic visits by musicians (as a practice venue), Rambler groups, Park runners.
Improvements to garden assets over the past year
The state of the Garden’s buildings, greenhouses and entrance gates were in avery poor condition when we took over the lease and it addition to routine maintenance, we have tried hard to improve our estate when funds allowed. This last year has seen significant progress in this regard:
Outhouses : The state of these had meant that they were unusable until this year when a concerted restoration effort was made in two of the rooms: ceiling panels replaced, all surfaces cleaned up, kitchen furniture installed, and water /electricity connected.
The Large Historic Greenhous e has finally had all its panes of glass painstakingly installed and is now, after decades of disuse, now ready to fulfil its purpose.
The Cabin, which houses most of the kitchen facilities, has had a complete renovation with new cabinets, flooring, water-heating equipment and electrical rewiring.
The Barn roof has been repaired so that, for the first time in many years, the building no longer leaks.
In the Outside area, border planting has been refreshed and our resident handyman has created an impressive Bug Hotel (Air bee ‘n bee) installed at the bottom of the garden.
We have also welcomed in two swarms of bees (cordoned off, away from visitors) who come with a resident beekeeper to care for them.
These are just the main highlights of our improvements over the past year but of course in addition there is the constant upkeep by dedicated facilitators, of beds, paths and verges to keep them presentable, safe and accessible to all.
Blaise Community Garden
Financial Statement 2025-26
| Income | Expenditure | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Grants | £0.00 | Buildings | £10,926.00 |
| Events | £10,136.39 | Equipment/ Repairs | £1,863.83 |
| Donations | £251.42 | Electricity | £622.04 |
| Loans | £0.00 | Plants/ Seeds | £367.52 |
| Plant Sales | £4,204.41 | Events/Catering | £1470.46 |
| Miscellaneous | £2,629.85 | Compost, Gravel | £1,476.86 |
| Insurance | £649.85 | ||
| Zettle Charges | £179.98 | ||
| Miscellaneous | £3,660.34 | ||
| Totals | £17,222.07 | £21,216.88 |
Brought Forward: £8931.47 Carried Forward: £4936.66
Loss: £3994.81
Re income: Our Café Days have been particularly successful this year affording us the possibility of further improvements to the buildings.
In addition to the cash donations, from visitors to and friends, we have been fortunate enough this year to receive some large donations in kind, including the bakeware provided by volunteers
and friends for our Café Days. These do not figure in the numbers but a record is kept.
The miscellaneous column includes payments to exhibiting artists using our card payment facility and returned to them minus a small commission.
We have a similar arrangement with the person who looks after our bees, in that we receive a small commission for the honey. In addition to this the money donated by market stallholders is added here.
Re expenditure: The buildings and equipment/repair expenses reflect the improvements to the buildings including an upgrade of the electricity supply.
A substantial amount of the miscellaneous expenses is the cost of various kitchen items necessary to cope with the busier Café Days.