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2026-03-31-accounts

Anstey Community Library

Annual General Meeting, 28[th] April 2026

1 Summary

Our staff have continued to provide a brilliant service to our customers through the year. We have had a few leavers, but more or less balanced by an increase in new volunteers, and staff levels remain high, with over half of our volunteers having been with us for more than 5 years.

The new library system software has been bedding down through the year with most issues now resolved, or at least understood, and with remedial work ongoing.

Thanks to a Section 106 grant via LCC, we were able to upgrade our public PCs to Windows 11, make improvements to the book shelves and to purchase a new photocopier. This has improved our facilities generally and improved the appearance of the library.

Sales in the library have increased, and together with our fund raising activities we achieved a surplus of income over expenditure.

October 2025 marked 10 years since we opened as a Community Managed Library, and we were delighted to welcome many of our current and past volunteers to a tea party to celebrate the occasion.

2 Library Performance

The new library system has also led to changes in our performance statistics, and monthly borrower numbers have not been available.

Nevertheless, library performance figures for the past four years still seem reasonably consistent :

----- Start of picture text -----
Book Issues, 2022-26
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
JanJanJanJanJanJanJanJanJanJanJanJan
2022-23 2023-24 2024-25 2025-26
----- End of picture text -----

----- Start of picture text -----
Joiners , 2022-26
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
JanJanJanJanJanJanJanJanJanJanJanJan
2022-23 2023-24 2024-25 2025-26
----- End of picture text -----

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The longer-term trends since we opened in 2015 is :

----- Start of picture text -----
Book Issues and Joiners - Trends 2015-26
12000
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
Issues Joiners
----- End of picture text -----

Otherwise, the trends seem to be stabilizing.

3 Staffing

3.1 Paid staff

We have no paid staff.

3.2 Volunteers

We have 34 registered volunteers, slightly up on last year, and over the past year we have recruited 5 new volunteers.

3.3 Committee

Trupti Lavingia joined the Committee at the end of the year so the Committee members are now :

Alan Prior Janet Witcomb Jenny Tomlinson Lynne Childerley Trupti Lavingia Ros Cole Cydelle King Phil Knight (Chair)

4 Community Activities

4.1 Community Groups

Our regular meetings were unchanged from last year and were :

We have also run story telling sessions for young children, run by Heather Graham of LCC, and regular training sessions for newcomers to mobile phones.

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We tried setting up a Menopause Café but not having any regular weekly slots at convenient times available we were unable to attract much interest. We’ll perhaps try again later this year.

In addition, Hive Counselling are available for consultation by appointment

4.2 Annual Events

These are all very well established now and continue to be major attractions.

4.3 Summer Reading Challenge (SRC)

We followed the same pattern as previous years of presenting each of the three primary schools in our area a book token for £25, for them to award it to their most deserving pupil.

We also ran a competition among the three schools for the best performance on the SRC. It was very close this year, but was won by Latimer Street Primary, who received the engraved 2025 Summer Reading Challenge trophy.

The Challenge again led to an upsurge in library membership, and we were delighted that the relationship we established with the schools led to visits to the library afterwards.

Starters Finishers % Finishers
Review Year 80 60 61%
Previous Year 91 45 49%

5 Works

5.1 Inspections

In addition to the normal annual inspections, this year we had a complete electrical survey of the building and a management survey of asbestos, both of which are scheduled every 5 years. Both inspections were satisfactory with no consequential work.

The theme for the Summer Reading Challenge in 2025 was Story Garden. Nationally, nearly 600,000 children participated. In Leicestershire 7,363 children took part in their local library with 162,000 books being issued over the summer holiday.

5.2 Building Inspections Schedule

Requirement Regulatory
Frequency		 Date of
Last Test		 Date of
Next
Test
Asbestos 5yearly 16 Sep25 Sep30
Boiler Service Annually 13 Oct 25 Oct 26
Gas Soundness 5yearly 13 Oct 25 Oct 26
Fire Alarm Testing 3 monthly See log
EmergencyLightingTesting 3 monthly See log
Intruder Alarm Testing 6 monthly See log

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Fire Extinguishers Annually 24 Jun 25 Jun 26
Fixed Electrical Safety 5yearly 13 May25 May30
Portable Appliance Testing Annually 20 May25 May26
Water Temperature Monitoring Monthly See log
Powered Doors Annually 12 Feb 26 Feb 27
Tree survey 3yearly 19 Dec 24 Dec 27
Thermostatic Valves n/a
LightningConductors n/a
Passenger and Food Lifts n/a

5.3 Purchases

Shelving : We purchased some end units for the library shelves, and found that some of the shelves were themselves in need of replacement. This all took some time but has now been completed

Public PCs : Our old Windows 10 public computers were replaced by new Windows 11 ones

CCTV : The library CCTV system has been replaced by up-to-date equipment and we have added two external cameras Photocopier : The lease on the old photocopier was found to have expired and we have replaced the machine with a new one, bought outright rather than leased

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6 Finances

Total income for the year was £36K, unusually high because of the Section 106 grants.

6.1 Income Summary

50% came from sales within the library, including shop sales, photocopier usage, drinks and snacks and weekly events (Wriggly Rhymers and Wednesday Socials).

34% was from grants, and this was used to fund the purchases listed above.

Our 3 main events, the spring Plant Sale, the summer Anstey Gala and the Christmas Santa contributed raised 8% of income, with Gift Aided Donations most of the remainder, The main contributions to the 2025-26 income were as shown below.

Income 2025-26

----- Start of picture text -----
Refunds, Gift
Misc Aided
Donatio
ns
Cash
Grants Income
Events
Room
Rentals
----- End of picture text -----

Cash Income
Events
Room Rentals
Grants
Refunds, Misc
Gift Aided Donations		 17847.48
2999.57
665.00
12328.48
377.61
1812.25
36030

6.2 Expenditure Summary

Nearly two-thirds of this year’s expenditure (62%) was on the purchases listed above, followed by 19% on utilities, mainly gas and electricity, 12% on maintenance, including the inspections, and the remainder on minor purchases for consumables, licences and other petty cash.

Expenditure 2025-26

----- Start of picture text -----
Annual
Annual Charges
Mainten
ance
Utilities
Purchas
es
Misc
Cash
Out
----- End of picture text -----

Purchases
Cash Out
Misc
Utilities
Annual Maintenance
Annual Charges		 15587
877
492
4633
2884
556
25029

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7 2026-27 Plans

7.1 Budget

We have a Section 106 grant of £1170 to be used for purchasing books, but currently no plans for other exceptional spending.

8 5-Year Forecasts

8.1 Section 106 Funds

Payments are made to Section 106 (S106) funds by housing developers to the local communities as contributions to the additional costs they incur from residents moving in to the area. Beneficiaries include schools, medical centres and libraries. In our case we receive funds for things such as book purchases and library infrastructure.

We currently have several S106 payments coming to us over the next few years. These are:

Allocated Purpose Planned Purpose Spend By Amount
£K
Increase lending stock Increase lending stock 22/06/26 1.2
General No expiry
date		 0.2

8.2 Future Income and Expenditure

Our income is consistently exceeding expenditure with the balance feeding in to savings accounts. This is a virtuous circle, and as we currently have no plans for major expenditure over the next five years we are financially.

9 Conclusions

Phil Knight Chairman, Anstey Community Library 21 April 2026

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