## **Forest of Hearts Annual Report** **2023** forestofhearts.com ## **Table of Contents** |**3**
**4**
**5**
**6**
**7**
**8**
**9**
**10**
**11**|Introduction
Our Year in
Numbers
Picket Post
Nature Reserve
Tree Planting
Volunteers
Corporate Events
Green Therapy
**14**
**15**
**16**
**17**
**18**
Heathcote Garden
**13**
**12**|Allotment Project
Prince’s Trust
Gardening Club| |---|---|---| |||
Harvest Share
Funders
Financials
Acknowledgements| ## **Introduction** 2023 has been a year that has seen record numbers of volunteers and volunteer hours with successful community programmes being delivered in the local community to improve wellbeing. We have made great progress at The Hideaway to boost biodiversity in the nature reserve and create the base to deliver our Green Team Events to many corporate clients. **FOREST OF HEARTS** **Trustee Annual Report 2023** FOREST OF HEARTS OUR YEAR IN NUMBERS 249 2,652 Volunteers Volunteer hours Forest Hearts 2,023 250 750 kg Trees planted Hours of Green Therapy Fruit & veg grown, picked & donated 20,000 m2 Community programmes Wildf lower moadow seeded Hospital garden created 14 Thank you for supporting our charity in 2023 Generous funders Corporate supporters 2023 FOREST OF HEARTS Trustee Annual Report 2023 ## **The Picket Post** A major achievement and investment this year has been at The Hideaway with the refurbishment of The Picket Post building as we transformed it into an off grid meeting and therapy space for both community and corporate use. Great steps forward were made to insulate the building and install a new ceiling, paint and decorate, lay a new laminate floor, fully furnish the main room and kitchen area and have running water at the sink in the utility room. Having this space to accompany the compost toilet and our exciting new BBQ hut has progressed the facilities on site brilliantly to create our events venue. **Trustee Annual Report 2023** **FOREST OF HEARTS** ## **Nature Reserve** We made pleasing progress on the nature reserve at The Hideaway as we continue to build the biodiversity of the area. After seeding half of the Field of Life with Yellow Rattle, we have now seeded the other half with a wildflower meadow mix which will attract bees, butterflies and other wildlife. 20,000 square metres seeded in total. We also planted a garden area around the swallows nest with pollinator friendly plants, added to the butterfly bank, helped maintain the pond areas, created a hibernaculum and planted more trees. **Trustee Annual Report 2023** **FOREST OF HEARTS** ## **Tree Planting** - 2,023 trees were planted as part of our 'Plant Trees Plant Hope' campaign in a bid to build biodiversity, combat climate change and create greener spaces in our local community. We planted a variety of trees at our nature reserve to create hedgerow around the outer edge of the Field of Life and fruit trees in the orchard area. As the trees grow, they will provide sanctuaries to all kinds of wildlife to help nature thrive and sequester carbon. **Trustee Annual Report 2023** **FOREST OF HEARTS** ## **Volunteers** A record 249 volunteers gave 2,630 hours of their time to help our charity with a number of our horticultural and environmental projects to create positive change and improve their wellbeing.. We thank all our volunteers for offering their time, effort, skills and expertise to give back to our charity and to the local community. . **Trustee Annual Report 2023** **FOREST OF HEARTS** ## **Corporate Events** 13 companies engaged their staff in our Green Team Events and corporate volunteering days as part of their CSR commitments, ESG strategy and volunteering schemes. Many successful volunteering events helped us create positive change at our nature reserve and at the gardens at Stratford hospital. Our Green Team Events saw corporate groups enjoy environmental team building activities to create living walls, bug hotels and sustainable planters and take on our new mind bending outdoor escape room ‘EcoEscape’. **Trustee Annual Report 2023** **FOREST OF HEARTS** ## **Green Therapy** We delivered 250 hours of Green Therapy during our twice weekly sessions in Stratfordupon-Avon. The horticultural therapy group consists of individuals from the local community who were inactive or long term unemployed, experiencing social isolation and struggling with learning difficulties and/or poor mental health. Sessions were based both at Stratford hospital and The Hideaway. At Stratford hospital we helped maintain the gardens of wellbeing and grew veg in the Kitchen Garden to donate to the on-site café. At the Hideaway we helped enhance the progress at the nature reserve to boost the biodiversity of the area. The group enjoyed meeting others, being outdoors in nature and doing such positive community work that made a different. **Trustee Annual Report 2023** **FOREST OF HEARTS** ## **Heathcote Garden** We created Heathcote Garden at Royal Leamington Spa Rehabilitation Hospital to accompany the Restaurant Garden we completed there last year. The garden has provided somewhere enclosed and secluded, for NHS staff to meet, enjoy and relax in the outdoors to boost their wellbeing. The green space includes a pollinator friendly garden area to improve the biodiversity of the area, living walls to add mini vertical gardens of colour and vibrancy, raised alpine beds full of beautiful low maintenance plants and a range of spaced-out seating areas in both full sun and in the shade. **Trustee Annual Report 2023** **FOREST OF HEARTS** ## **Gardening Club** We ran a ‘Gardening Club’ at Mary Ann Evans Hospice in Nuneaton to help plant and maintain the gardens, provide a support group for those in the local community to improve wellbeing and create new habitats to boost biodiversity and support more wildlife. The Gardening Club project was running every third Tuesday throughout the year to support local people who have experienced bereavement. The horticultural therapy sessions have so far included the creation of miniature gardens, bulb planting, sowing seeds, growing veg, watering, weeding and making living walls. **Trustee Annual Report 2023** **FOREST OF HEARTS** ## **Prince’s Trust** A community project with Prince’s Trust volunteers helped to create 10 new square planter frames for Mary Ann Evans hospice to support our decorative alpine beds. The project also engaged the wider community with the involvement of volunteers at IAR (Inspiring Addiction Recovery) and another successful partnership programme with Bam Construct UK. It’s was great to facilitate a project that brought so many people together to socialise, develop new skills and create such a positive impact at the hospice. **Trustee Annual Report 2023** **FOREST OF HEARTS** ## **Allotment Project** Earlier in the summer we created a vegetable plot at Meon Vale Allotment with families and members of the local community to give them the opportunity to grow their own veg just a stone’s throw away from their homes. The project engaged people of all ages where friendships were formed, healthy meals were cooked, sustainable practices were learned and wellbeing was boosted. 12 families in total took ownership of a bed each and we provided them with the seeds to sow to start their veg growing journey. It was a rewarding and successful project with many people growing veg for the first time and so many children taking an interest in growing veg and gardening. **Trustee Annual Report 2023** **FOREST OF HEARTS** ## **Harvest Share** Our Harvest Share project got volunteers together in the great outdoors to have fun and pick a variety of fruits from local gardens and orchards. The fruit was donated to care homes in the local community to prevent food from going to waste and any surplus or damaged fruit was juiced by our Green Therapy group and shared amongst hospital visitors. We also harvested and donated all the vegetables we had grown which saw a total of 750kg of fruit and veg donated to those in need. **Trustee Annual Report 2023** **FOREST OF HEARTS** ## **Funders** Thank you to all our funders who have helped us to continue to do what we do. **Trustee Annual Report 2023** **FOREST OF HEARTS** ## **Financials** ## **FINANCIAL REVIEW** **BRIEF STATEMENT OF THE CHARITY’S POLICY ON RESERVES THE POLICY FOR HOLDING RESERVES IS TO HAVE AT LEAST 6 MONTHS RUNNING COSTS IN RESERVE** ## **DETAILS OF ANY FUNDS MATERIALLY IN DEFICIT : N/A** **THE CHARITY IS IN A STRONG POSITION WITH CASH IN THE BANK WHICH IS NEEDED TO DELIVER THE VARIOUS PROJECTS. WE ARE IN OUR EARLY YEARS AND ARE TAKING A PRUDENT VIEW OF OUR FINANCES.** ## **INCOME £91,870 EXPENDITURE £107,483 CASH FUNDS £76,934** **Trustee Annual Report 2023** **FOREST OF HEARTS** ## **Acknowledgements** We would like to give thanks to the following people for all their hard work and support over the last year. **Forest of Hearts team:** Carole Longden, Tom Donnison, Mark Drummond, Luca Falcomer-Dawson, Dawn Mccarroll, Martin Dempster, Jon Knight, Dan Joyce, Bruno Mason, Peter Shum, David Ball **Trustees and management team:** Lani Dines, Ian Burrows, John Bill, Wil Hepworth, Hannah Train To read more about our projects visit: forestofhearts.com/blog ## **Contact** **Carole Longden Forest of Hearts 15 Ensign, Westwood Way Coventry CV4 8JA 07774 424404 carolelongden@forestofhearts.com** **Trustee Annual Report 2023** **FOREST OF HEARTS** **----- Start of picture text -----**
Forest of Hearts 1160589
Receipts and payments accounts CC16a
For the period 01/11/2022 31/10/2023
To
from
Section A Receipts and payments
Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
Total funds Last year
funds funds funds
to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
A1 Receipts
Donations and Membership 11,021 - - 11,021 8,788
Interest 359 - - 359 47
Grants 17,000 - - 17,000 67,887
Income contract 44,940 - - 44,940 85,115
income events 18,551 - - 18,551 18,265
income hire - - - - 100
income general - - - - 50
income social investment - - - - -
- - - -
Sub total (Gross income for
AR) [ 91,871 ] - - 91,871 180,252
A2 Asset and investment sales,
(see table).
- - - -
- - - - -
Sub total - - - - -
Total receipts 91,871 - - 91,871 180,252
A3 Payments
Expenses & Maintenance 1,483 - - 1,483 106
cost of goods 28,003 - - 28,003 36,495
Advertising 800 - - 800 421
Salaries 19,534 - - 19,534 13,228
Travel 401 - - 401 -
Training 255 - - 255 1,026
Stationery & Rent 1,017 - - 1,017 89
Telephone 99 99 -
insurance 781 - - 781 701
IT Costs 3,274 - - 3,274 1,214
Professional fee 35 - - 35 359
Motor Expenses 1,720 - - 1,720 519
Subscriptions 426 - - 426 514
Subcontractors 57,462 - - 57,462 82,775
Donations 426 - - 426 132
Bank Charges 792 - - 792 173
Sub total [ 116,508 ] - - 116,508 137,752
A4 Asset and investment
purchases, (see table)
Van - - - - -
Office Equipment - - - - -
Building Improvements 4,696 - - 4,696 -
Computer Equipment - - - - 399
Plant and machinery 914 - - 914 -
Sub total [ 5,610 ] - - 5,610 399
Total payments 122,119 - - 122,119 138,151
Net of receipts/(payments) - 30,248 - - - 30,248 42,101
A5 Transfers between funds - - - -
A6 Cash funds last year end 107,182 - - 107,182 65,081
Cash funds this year end 76,934 - - 76,934 107,182
**----- End of picture text -----**
CCXX R1 accounts (SS) 29/02/2024 1 Doc ID: 661dbce45ef99e99e2fe581f569d9759995ee41f |**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at**|**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))
Cash at Bank
Barclaycard
**Details**
Carole Longden private Funds
**Details**
Van
Building Improvements
Plant and Machinery
Office equipment
Computer Equipment (laptop)
**Details**
Pension Liability
PAYE & National Insurance Liability
Signature|| CCXX R2 accounts (SS) 29/02/2024 2 Doc ID: 661dbce45ef99e99e2fe581f569d9759995ee41f CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examiner's report on the accounts Section A Independent Examine¥'s Report Report to the trusteesl membors of OU ok IkG(LS On accounts for the year ended Charlty no | {If any) Ilb)689 Sat out on pages I report to the trustees on my examination of th6 accounls of the abovè charity {"the Trust") for the year ended al i o W23 Responslbilities and As thè charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation basis of report of the accounts in accordance with the wuiremenls of the Charltles Act 20111.the Acr). I report in res￿tI of my examination crf the Trust's accounts cardèd out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examlnation, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 14515){b) of the Act. I have completed my examination. I confimi that no material matters have come to my attention lolher than that disclgsed bebw ') in connection with the examination which gives me cause lo belleve that In, any material respèct.. accounting records were not kept in accordanGe wlth sectlon 130 of the Act or the accounts do not accord wllh the accounting rècords Independent examlner's stat•ment I have no concems and have come across no other mattèrs in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts lo be reached. . Pl6ase delete Ihe words in the brackels if Ihey do not apply. Date: Slgned: Z6/03/202q Name., CH&O& Relevant professlonal qualifl¢atlon(s) or body Ilf any).. Address: 4 CleLJS IER October 2018 Section B Disclosure Only complete if "he examiner needs to highlignt matters of concern (see CC32. IrKlependent examinalion of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners). Give hero brlef details of any it8ms that the examinor wishes to dl$closo. IER October 2018