CN1162589
X2Y LGBT+ Youth Group Trustees’ Annual Report
2024-2025
| Tableof | ||
|---|---|---|
| Contents | ||
| 01 | 02 | 03 |
| Introduction | Our Story (this year) | Our Community |
| 04 | 05 | 06 |
| Our Impact | Our Learnings | Our Future |
| 07 | 08 | 09 |
| Our Funders and | Our Structure, | Our Accounts |
| Finances | Government and | 2024-2025 |
| Management |
Introduction
With an ever-evolving, anti-LGBTQ+ socio-political climate, LGBTQ+ communities fears have increased, whilst access to our communities and our local spaces has decreased.
At X2Y, however, our community has faced these challenges by blooming with love, care, joy and justice. We have strengthened our charity significantly over this last year, from moving into a stable home-base, hiring our first full-time member of the team to creating long-term relationships with local council and beyond to allow us to promote equality and challenge discrimination on a wider scale.
Internally, we have become the most reflective our team has ever been with 82% identifying as LGBTQ+, 25% are aged 16–25, and 63% hail from Wolverhampton and the Black Country. Among young participants, 91% aged 17–25 and 87% aged 11–16 identify as LGBTQ+, with others identifying as questioning or unsure and over 25% of the team identify within the global majority. These figures highlight our dedication to embedding and honouring lived experience at the core of
our community. Externally, we have built connections between all local secondary and primary schools, through our training and support to transform people into active allies and advocates and continued to strengthen relationships in the wider council, other third sector organisations and beyond. We have supported local initiatives, such as Wolverhampton Pride, by centring and amplifying the voices and experiences of our young people and we have celebrated our joy, loudly and proudly.
Whether that has been top-surgery/gender affirming parties, a Masquerade ball, a pound-land drag challenge, attending local drag nights or celebrating counselling milestones, we hear our young people and support their wants and needs to become real, joyful experiences.
This project has allowed us to hold space, create safety and nurture our community at a time when young, LGBTQ+ people need us the most.
X2Y Organisational Chart
Our Story (this year)
This year we have saw the end of our 2022-2025 strategy and subsequent project whilst beginning our 2025-2030 strategy by securing funding with The National Lottery for the initial 3 years of this.
We continued delivery our training, offering a one-off day to Secondary schools due to the incredible levels of interest and looking to develop this as a refresher course beyond this project following feedback. We were able to build wider relationships by offering our training out to local charities at a discounted or free price, including Wolves Foundation, where we gifted in-kind our training and they, in return, provided the venue at their stadium for free. These partnerships are crucial and allow us to provide our training in-kind to other third sector organisations.
Our established relationship with the council, gave us the opportunity to work to become part of the EHWB (Emotional Health and Wellbeing) toolkit – a live, working document available online for all schools, parents and beyond to look at information and support for LGBTQ+ young people. Once live, this will be another achievement in making X2Y more accessible to young people, parents/carers and the wider community and ensuring our support is reaching more of those who need it.
We held several engaging and exciting experiences for young, queer people to come together this year. In November, we held a Masquerade Ball, created by our young adults’ group and seeing around 82 young people attending in a safe, queer space. This event saw us collaborating and connecting with grassroot and local LGBTQ+ provisions as well as the Students Union, Birmingham Pride Community Fund, a local law firm and our new corporate funder, Rebel Love Collective. In June, we attended Wolverhampton Pride where we connected as an entire community – parents marching alongside other parents and our young people, board members and wider team. In July, we attended the London Trans+ Pride Parade following our placard workshop empowering young people to use their voice to advocate for social justice causes they support whilst honouring the history and roots of Pride as a protest.
We trialled events for specific members within our own community to improve our accessibility and ability to centre further marginalised groups. This included trans-specific movie nights, spaces for LGBTQ+ people of the global majority and neurodiverse specific ‘special interest’ power point nights (now a core staple to our programme).
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Our Community
How we’ve included people from our community in the work that we do
Marketing and Communication Strategy
Co-production
Our marketing and communications saw us taking direct action from feedback from our community (via social media, feedback through recruitment processes and potential corporate sponsors) so we worked with an LGBTQ+ graphic design business to rebrand our logo and website. This consultation was worked across 2 months, giving people time to feedback critiques and thoughts before we decided on our final concept. This consultation also allowed us to reshape how we communicate with our community, for example the type of content on social media, a newsletter to be launched in late 2025 and a new social media volunteer to manage our accounts day-today. This not only indicates how we include our community but how we have developed our communication to continue that engagement.
We embody this by striving to work within the top 2 rungs of Hart’s Ladder of Participation with our community. We do this through engaging our community in everything from activity planning to both operational and strategic work/decisions.
For example, our co-produced 5-year strategy, where we held discussions with our community as part of our SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis. Once we understood our community (both internally and externally), we combined this into our overall strategy – this ensured that community voice shaped the next 5 years of our work.
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communication to continue that engagement.
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Volunteering
This project has also seen us develop our volunteering opportunities, seeing us double the number of volunteers we have operationally. Strengthening these opportunities is a great way for us to include our wider community in what we do, especially for those who want to give back or support LGBTQ+ young people and their wider communities.
Our counselling provision is largely ran by volunteer student counsellors, again, building a synergistic relationship supporting LGBTQ+ counsellors and LGBTQ+ affirming counsellors to gain the experience they need whilst supporting our community.
Our Impact The difference we have made (both big and small)
E N G A G M E N T + G R O W T H D A T A
The below is an overview in our data across the last year.
| The below is an overview in our data across the last year. | The below is an overview in our data across the last year. | The below is an overview in our data across the last year. |
|---|---|---|
| Data 24/25 | ||
| Category | Average Unique Attendance Per Year |
Target |
| 11-17s Group | 48 | 43 |
| 18-25s Group | 47 | 25 |
| Overall | 95 | 34 |
| Parent/Carer Group | 6 | 4 |
| Schools and Counselling |
116 | 47 |
| Organisations Trained |
13 | 8 |
*Unique Attendance is the count for every individual young person who has attended X2Y this year
246%
increase in number of young people supported through schools/counselling compared to target
279%
increase in the overall number of young people engaged compared to target
150%
increase in number of parents/carers who enaged with us this year compared to target
Summary; Understanding the data
This data highlights the need for the work we do at X2Y. The consistent increase in attendance over the last 3 years also shows the trust we are building amongst our community - more people are referring colleagues to our training, more young people are recommending our groups to their friends and more schools are engaged in our outreach work.
Our Impact The difference we have made (both big and small)
Another vital way we measure our impact, is through understanding HOW we affect the young people we are working with. We are especially keen to track changes in confidence, feelings of isolation, self-esteem (especially within their identity) and building their community.
We do this through the youth work team guiding young people through check in forms where they can self-evaluate, they do this at their first group with and then at randomised points bi-annually.
Before X2Y:
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After X2Y:
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Our Impact The difference we have made (both big and small)
Before X2Y:
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After X2Y:
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Our Impact The difference we have made (both big and small)
C’s STORY
C, aged 16, is one of our young people who is homeschooled and began attending X2Y in October 2024.
What brought you to X2Y?
I just left school, I dropped out again because I'd gone back to do my GCSEs, and had a terrible time, no one liked me. There were very few other queer people, I was friends with only 2 other trans people I knew of in the entire of Year 10 and 11, except in Year 11, one of them had gone off to college and the other one stopped talking to me, and so I just didn't have any friends. So my mom said, “I've been following this Facebook group for parents of trans teenagers, and they've been talking about this social group X2Y, do you want to go?” and I said “okay!”
What was your first impression of X2Y?
There were a lot of people, but I suddenly kind of went, oh yeah, these are my people. I may not fully understand or connect with them just yet, because it's gonna take me a bit of time to do that,
“but this feels way more safe than the school group did because those were all very clearly cisgender, heterosexual, alloromantic, “normal” people, and so I didn't feel very welcome or understood. [At X2Y] I kind of went, these people are cool.”
What has changed for you since coming to X2Y?
When I was in school, I didn't feel like anyone really particularly liked me, especially after my friends stopped speaking to me, I sort of felt like I would never be first in someone's mind as a friend. It’s like “you can aspire to second place at best”, and I still kind of get a bit of that, but it's better here, because it really does feel, especially among the friends I have now, that I am wanted and liked, which is nice.
What would you say to someone thinking about coming to X2Y?
Just come! You can just show up for a session, if you don't like it, you can not show up again. There's no consequences for just turning up, you can just go, you can just try it. Everyone's nice. There's a thing that some adults do, where they say that something's a safe space or that you can talk to them. And a lot of the time, I just go “Okay, prove it! You haven’t proved it, why should I trust you?” This is not one of the situations.
“These guys [the X2Y team] are chill, these guys I feel like I could actually talk to you about problems, and they'd understand what the problem is, and actually know how to help or want to help.”
There have been a lot of situations in my life where I've tried to explain the problem to adults and they've just not understood the problem, and not let me explain that they've not understood the problem. It's really frustrating for me, and this is not one of those situations or environments. You're not patronising, and you don't talk down to us or anything, it's really nice.
Our Learnings What we've learnt and consequently how we’ve changed what we do:
Recruitment
Through this project we learned the importance of having young people be a part of the recruitment process. When there were relationship breakdowns, a common theme became that young people didn’t choose these people, they were strangers and so found it difficult to want to rebuild relationships with essentially strangers – they had no empowered choices. So, for our most recent recruitment round, we create a youth panel. Young people volunteered to be a part of this and then created the questions we asked of our interviewees and held their own youth led interview. This shifted the power back to our young people and by giving them that choice it aided the overall cohesion and rapport of the entire team. This is now something which is standard practice for X2Y.
Parent/Carer Group
This group became a niche cohort of parents of trans young people. This meant that other parents (eg. LGBTQ+ parents or parents of other LGBTQ+ young people) often felt the space wasn’t meeting their needs and was too trans-specific. We also struggled to engage the parents/carers group into the wider X2Y community due to this specificity.
We have taken a pause in delivering this service as this was indicated by our SWOT analysis and a renewing the delivery of this provision in the next 3 years, it will look at specific parent/carer spaces and events. For example, a coffee morning for parents of trans young people or a picnic for LGBTQ+ families – this way we can begin to meet the needs of a range of parents/carers and our resources can be utilised effectively.
Youth Leadership
Our young volunteers required a lot more support and supervision than initially anticipated so after the initial volunteers’ placements have ended, we won’t be re-opening this role to more young people.
We need to have more capacity within our team to manage this directly and we need to have a bigger time difference between engagement as a young person and becoming a volunteer to support in healthy boundaries.
An Unexpected Learning
An unexpected learning for us, has been the willingness of our community to engage in mutual support and want to fundraise for their community, especially for those who need it most. We believe that this is linked with our increased efforts to centre community voice as people feel they have more ownership over the projects and events they are engaged with, they have care and connection with those around them and as a result, feel empowered to ‘pay it forward’, contribute directly or fundraise on behalf of X2Y. As an example, with our upcoming Trans Pride project, the adult group have all agreed on a higher ticket price to offset the cost of providing free tickets to trans people who couldn’t otherwise afford to go and another member has raised over £300 through a sponsored 10K run.
Our Future
This year we have seen an incredible increase in community fundraising - our community uplifting and supporting the work we do in a variety of creative and engaged ways.
In May, Leona ran the Birmingham 10K raising £346 (not including gift aid) for young, LGBTQ+ people in our groups. In June (Pride Month of course!), All Cried Out! held an after party for Wolverhampton Pride managing to raise £335 (not including gift aid) and Mx Adam Khan nominated us as the Charity to be donated £250 after winning the Queer Student Awards.
Adam Khan attended X2Y as a young person and wished to give back to his local queer community in this way and Leona has attended current events we have held for our 18+ group.
This is not only going to show the long-term impact and community that X2Y cultivates but also the power of our empowered community. The impact of our community showing up and supporting us in this way has raised just under £1,000. To put that into real terms, that could fund up to 40 young people’s engagement in our community activities for a whole year - allowing them to build community, peer support and belong to a group that reflects who they are and what they experience. This is invaluable and something we hope can continue into 2025-2026 and beyond!
Strategy:
We also launched our 5 year strategy this year! This was a culmination of our community analysis, capturing exactly what our young people, young adults and their wider community needed/wanted as well as the external stakeholders, current sociopolitical climate and internal organisational demands.
This can be found through our website; x2y.org.uk
Our Funders + Finances
Financial information
Funding this year has come from 2 main sources: The National Lottery and The Black Country Healthcare Foundation (NHS).
Notably, this year we secured additional funding from The National Lottery, securing our provision for the next 3 years.
Brief statement of the charity’s policy on reserves
After reviewing in line with our current circumstances, we have achieved our aim to build up reserves of at least 3 months at full operational capacity (no more than £24,000). This is in order to ensure we are always able to carry out our obligations as an employer and to meet any unforeseen expenditure that may occur. We will review this position next year based on the current liabilities of employees, rent and contingencies etc.
Further financial review details
We have one local organisation who pay a regular monthly sum via standing order and 3 individual fundraisers. Leona ran the Birmingham 10K raising £346 (not including gift aid), All Cried Out! raising £335 (not including gift aid) and Mx Adam Khan nominated us as the Charity to be donated £250 after winning the Queer Student Awards.
We have one corporate funder, Rebel Love Collective, who donated through our diamond sponsorship.
We have also received £2551.15 in donations from Wolverhampton Pride, £1,500 from Birmingham Pride Community Fund and £609.4 from the Chiacgo theatre production.
Bank account
We have a community account with the Co-operative Bank.
Our Structure,
Governance and Management
Principle Address: Pride House, 27 School Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 4LR Governing document: Constitution adopted 21 May 2015
How the charity is constituted: We are a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) whose only voting members are its charity trustees
Trustee selection method
Trustees are appointed or reappointed annually at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in September. Trustees are appointed for a term of three years. Additional trustees may be provisionally voted onto the board during the year and their appointments confirmed at the next AGM.
Additional governance issues
The Trustees confirm they have complied with the duty in Section 4 of the Charities Act 2006 to have due regard to guidance on public benefit published by the Charity Commission.
X2Y has a safeguarding policy in place. Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks are carried out on all members of staff and volunteers prior to employment or taking up voluntary placement.
All trustees give their time voluntarily and receive no remuneration or other benefits.
Summary of the objects of the charity
To promote social inclusion of, and preserve the physical and mental health of, LGBTQ+ young people in Wolverhampton and the Black Country, and to promote equality and challenge discrimination particularly on the grounds of age, gender identity and sexual orientation.
Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public benefit in relation to these objects X2Y’s core activity is to run two drop-in sessions per week for LGBTQ+ young people in a central location.
One is for young people aged 11-17; the other is for the 18-25 age group. Through this we aim to achieve our objects by:
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1.Providing facilities and opportunities for recreation and education for young people in the interests of social welfare, in order to improve their conditions of life
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2.Providing information, advice and emotional support
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3.Raising awareness within Wolverhampton and surrounding areas of all aspects of discrimination through publications, training, events, media and other means of communication.
The group also provides support for secondary schools, and other services working with children and young people in Wolverhampton and surrounding area. This includes staff training, advice and guidance and short term 1-to-1 support for individual young people on request.
X2Y also relies heavily on the work of our volunteers, coordinators and Chief Operating Officer, who consistently go above and beyond in their commitment to our beneficiaries. We also appreciate the many hours trustees have spent applying for funding, handling finances, attending meetings.
Summary
Our work remained deeply rooted in lived experience and co-production. Over 80% of its team and over 90% of young participants identify as LGBTQ+, with many also representing other marginalised identities. Programmes and strategy were co-designed with community input, including youth-led recruitment processes and a collaboratively developed five-year strategic plan.
Our charity expanded its outreach and support services significantly. LGBTQ+ awareness training was delivered to schools and organisations, leading to stronger allyship and policy change. Counselling services doubled in size, responding to a critical mental health need. Joyful, inclusive events - from masquerade balls to drag challenges - provided essential spaces for visibility, celebration, and connection.
Key learnings from this period have informed future planning. These include the need for clearer pathways and capacity around youth voice, more tailored support for diverse parent/carer needs, and the powerful role of mutual support and fundraising within the community. X2Y’s growing visibility and partnerships with schools, local government, and third sector organisations have laid a strong foundation for sustained, systemic impact.
We hope you can see that this report reflects not just service delivery, but a movement - built on authenticity, youth leadership, and a collective drive for justice, care, and joy.
X2Y LGBT YOUTH GROUP Isterod Ch•rlty Number 1162589 Independent Examlnevs Report and Ac£ounts Year end 31 July 1015 Fr•nth Ludlam & Co Umlted Mounffield HOSe 661 Hi8h Street Kln8swlnford West Midlands DY6 8AL
X2Y LGBT YOiITH GROUP Rrylstered Charlty Number 1162589 Independent Exarnln•rs R•port and Accounts Yearend 31 Juty20Z5 In Accountants Certlflrate Charity Approval Independent Examlnees Income and Expenditure St•tement ststement of Asset and UablIleS
X2Y L68TYOUTH GROUP Rorter¢d Charfty Numbtr 1162589 Attountants certif1¢e Y•arend 31 Juty 2025 In actordanee with 5nstfUCtlons el¥Èn to us we have prepared wlthout earryln8 Out an audlt the ¥ttached Recelpts and Piym•nts Account and Balance Sheet from the accountln8 records of X2Y LG8T Yothh Group and from Informatlon and explanallons supplled lo us. French Ludlam & Co Llmlted. Mountfl•ld Housq. 661 Hl8h Street. Xln8swinloid. West Mldljnds. DY6 8AL Date: 21stApril 2026 Pa8e I
XZY LGBT YOUTh GROUP Re8lstored Chawlty 1162589 Ch•rftyAppro¥al Year•nd 31 Juty 2025 We approve the financlal statements and confirm that we hav• made •vallable all levant reiord5 and Information for thelr preparatlon. Chilr Treasufer 0•1•: 21st Aprll 2026 Page 2
XZY LGBTYoufH GROUP Ro8lsiered Charlty Number 1162589 R•t•lpts and pMnts A¢countf•rth•y••r •nd•d al Jul¥lOZ5 Unrestrfcted R•5trlcted Funds Funds 203S Total 21)24 Totsl Recelpts Natlon?I tottery Qtsnaiions Crowdfunder Leavlni 81ft BCHF TTrinlnB CWC Sponsorshlp £¥ents 81Tmlnllham Pride Comrnunity FWKI 8L638.fy) 81.6Y8.ty) 3,470.55 684.83 10.00 21,557.44 69.321.50 2.945.96 3,470.55 684.83 io. 21,557.44 28,410.87 5.262.C¥) 350.ff 1.013.32 i.SCA).fy) 350.0) I,0.32 I,5.( 7.028.70 103,195.44 110,2Z4.14 105,940.33 Wa8es iThc PAYEINI OBS Check Events & Activltles Payroll Servl¢es TralnlnB Travel and volunt••r •xp•ns•s Insurance ComwJtsrs and software Room Hire Con5ultan(Y/Counielli Telephon• Statlonery Markeiln8 Accountancy Repalrs and sholving Subscriptions Su[ry Le3vln8 8ift S5,1.43 316.70 13.068.90 10.593.06 S41.50 2,018.89 843.89 995.18 380.01 4,166.70 14,790.¢X) 77S.52 195.61 504.fKJ 870.LKI 318.85 432.lJQ 309.24 SS,190.43 316.70 23.661.96 541.50 2,018.89 843.89 995.18 380.01 4.166.70 14,790.C(J 775.52 195.61 504.00 870.00 318.85 517.20 309.24 36,606.43 236.6d 2,239.82 323.lJ) I,100.c(J 14.99 1,394.64 147.4S 5,000.04 14,444.17 846.LKI 143.89 2.012.83 1.632.00 542.94 378.00 204.64 96.43 67.363.91 85.20 13.154.10 93.241.58 106.395.68 Subttstal for tho yoar 6.125.40 9,9536 3,828.46 38,576.42 Trnnsferio unrestrl¢ted from restrirt¢d 5.016.94 5,016.94 Surplusl IDefi¢ltl for the year 1.108.46 4,936.92 3,828.46 38,576.42 PaBe 4
X2Y LGBT YOUTH GROUP Re815tered Charfty Number 1162589 8018nce Sheet as at 31 Jufy 2025 2025 2024 Ixed Assets Tangible Assets 2,541.89 2,541.89 Current Assets Bank Current Account WCCTraining BCHF Funds recelved afterd•te Petty cash 94,943,24 70,107.95 21.276.20 16.18 16.18 97,501.31 93,942.22 uffent Accrua15 Inland revenue 780.00 780.00 269.37 780.C 1,049.37 Net Assets 96,721.31 92,892.85 Unrestrirted Funds Restricted Funds 23,227.11 73,494.20 24,335.57 68,557.28 96.721.31 92,892.85 Page S
07356 234645 info@x2y.org.uk x2y.org.uk
CN 1162589 THANK YOU!