– Malmesbury Skate Park Group Registered Charity 1161210
Annual Trustees Report for the operational year 06/04/2022 to 05/04/2023
Statement Of Charitable Purpose.
In 2015 the charity was formed to keep the doors open and sessions running in the newly built indoor skate park facility in Malmesbury , Wiltshire. The local council were in a position of leaving the Riverside youth centre and thus the doors would have closed on the newly built skate park should a solution not be found to keep the park open.
A group of volunteers formed and began the process of starting the charity in order to take on independent control of the park and run sessions for all ages, sexes and all people regardless of their locality or background. That we would provide a safe location for action sports to take place within a set of a controlled supervised sessions.
The goals being:
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Volunteers would open the park and run as many supervised skate park sessions as possible per week.
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Volunteers would be first aid trained and liaise with the councils youth workers in order to provide essential support for the young people using the facility.
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Volunteers would take on all repair and maintenance work in the park including some interior fixtures and fittings.
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Volunteers would promote the park and Skateboarding within our local community as a healthy form of exercise and activity.
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Volunteers would engage in a number of fundraising exercises to become self sufficient financially and take on the various roles of providing an income to secure the parks future.
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Volunteers would manage the finances, income and expenditure to ensure we met our goals with long term financial security in place.
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Volunteers would take on the legal elements of running a charity, to ensure adherence to the valid laws and regulations that support a charity within the UK.
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Volunteers would comply legally to safeguarding and child protection laws/rules.
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Volunteers would ensure all forms of licence and insurance were valid and in place.
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Volunteers would support local schools, clubs, community groups, town council projects and sporting activities within the town in order to play an active role in developing our profile and thus gain awareness and support to our cause.
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Volunteers would teach ,coach and train skateboarding to the park users. They would also support Skateboarding by taking an active role in the wider skateboarding community to promote a positive image.
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Further increase our skate sessions, have more of an impact and presence in our local community and undertake more fundraising tasks in order to again secure the longer future operation and stability of Malmesbury Skate Park.
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Engage with local music and arts festivals and organisations in order to work more closely with them for charity awareness and fundraising.
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Digital marketing to improve, new booking system and class tracker to be investigated, tendered and provided for the park. For better record keeping, visibility on sessions and to allow for better online visibility and planning
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Cost of living crisis - To continue to sustain the charity and its fundraising activities in the difficult environment in the UK at the moment. To stabilise outgoings, to try new methods and grant applications to ensure an income.
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To support all volunteers through a difficult and challenging year, to provide guidance, mentoring and advice if needed to help from within.
Performance against these goals
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The volunteer team successfully run an increased amount of openings per week. . All age ,genders and abilities included - This now also icluded a very successful over 40’s beginners session.
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All volunteers first aid trained and liaisons with the council youth work team took place regularly. Support given to all volunteers. New volunteers trained and on board. Team first aid training session focussed on life support and sporting injuries.
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All repairs made and park cracks fixed ourselves to a high standard, no other repairs needed. Park undertook regular new “deep cleans” since Covid making sure things are kept to a high standard
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Volunteers coordinated with again with community meetings and groups in order to promote the park and its activities. Close links continued with our neighbours the Riverside community centre. Volunteers attended sessions with the school, the mayor and the police in order to help work in the community in tackling antisocial behaviour with positive mentoring activity again, this is an exciting ongoing piece.
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Fundraising activity continued in the community with regular pushes for donations and support. The booking fee for online session spaces has proved a successful method of raising funds via the Classfit app.
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The treasurer managed the finances very responsibly and an analytical approach to expenditure has ensured controls in place that make sure only essential spending occurs. The accounts and bank have been managed very responsibly ensuring reporting on this is most efficient. As evidenced in next year (2023/2024) we have changed bank accounts and tresurer and this has proved very successful with much better admin via the Coop bank compared to LLoyds and greater visibility due to their better IT solution and app - they are also more geared towards supporting charities and so this has been a major improvement.
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Compliance to all legal elements of running the charity and park has been a full team effort and documentation all in place to support our internal processes.
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All volunteers have been security checked by an independent agency to support child protection rules. Child safeguarding processes are in place and we know our line of reporting should we have any concerns that need to be escalated. DBS all completed to an enhanced level.
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All licences and insurances in place. Tender processes undertaken to ensure best value for money.
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Volunteers have attended many community meetings and activities - Schools, council, youth work and liaising with other local sports groups has all occurred and helped promote the park, support the community and bring in more new faces!
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Volunteers have mentored and taught young people skills on a weekly basis, we have also undertook limited travel to other skate parks with some of the young people in order to support and enhance their skills. One of our volunteer team has completed official Skateboard GB coaches training.
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Despite some challenges within the volunteer team with some people losses the team regrouped, rerecruited and adapted to run many more sessions in this year than we did in the previous years.
New volunteers recruited and trustee positions filled. The chairman undertook an increased amount of community liaison and work with the mayor, police and schools and this continues to be a strong part of the charities engagement within the Malmesbury community.
13. As more will be revelaed in the 2023 to 2024 statement we fully achieved this objective by running a successful childrens workshop at the Womad festival, over the weekend we trained and coached over 500 chidren and received a huge amount of praise and support - this raised some money in donations, raised community awareness and awareness with all of the visitors to the festival. This will be an ongoing this we hope due to its huge success. More to write in next years report.
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Digital marketing improved with lots of posts to social media, gaining an audience of over 1000 people on Instagram and Facebook. We continue to have to use Classfit as whilst it is not the best solution it is free and most competitor products will cost the charity money - so it’s a possible future objective when a better IT solution is found but not at the charaties expense.
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Cost of living crisis - During these difficult times we acually raised more money than we spent - We have supported local families by keeping the childrens activities free of charge and so it’s a rarity to have this free resource in place for young people to learn and engage with many skills in a safe and supported environment.
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I’d like to say I helped the team through this objective - but the truth is - the team helped the team,unity and morale is at an all time high with an extremely supportive and hard working team in place. Amazing support network in place for volunteers.
Un-audited Accounts For Malmesbury Skate Park Group – Registered Charity 1161210
For the period 06/04/2022 to 05/04/2023
Treasurer – Mr Stephen Dimbylow
Summary
Opening Statement £2258.13 Funds In £998.38 Funds Out £801.16 Closing Balance £2455.35
12 boards now on site for use.
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The portable mini ramp was retained in good working order to use at external outside events, this will allow fund raising opportunities and demonstrations to raise our public profile.
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The park also has ample helmets and safety loan equipment in place.
Structure and Management
Stephen Dimbylow – Treasurer
Alan Holt – Secretary
Matthew Wigley – Chairman
All trustee positions were agreed would continue into 2023/2024
Ian Charlton-Bailey, Rob Pattinson, Gina Tiplady, James Threlfall, Tim Hipkin (SKGB Coach) , Dale Peters ,Tom Burton , Harry Greenstreet, Charlotte Lyon ,Alex Darknell and Michael Gattrill would form the core volunteer team for the foreseeable future.
Regular drives for more volunteers will continue.
In conclusion again the Chairman would like to state that all of the years goals were met as best as possible considering the challenges that we face in the current economic climate.
The Chairman would like to extend his thanks to the volunteer team and wider community in achieving all of the above again for another year.
With thanks to our volunteers, supporters and assistants for a successful 2022 and beginning of 2023
Un-audited Accounts For Malmesbury Skate Park Group – Registered Charity 1161210
For the period 06/04/2022 to 05/04/2023
Treasurer – Mr Stephen Dimbylow
Summary
Opening Statement £2258.13 Funds In £998.38
Funds Out £801.16 Closing Balance £2455.35