## **Clevedon and District Foodbank CIO** **This is the Trustees’ Annual Report covering the period April 2019 to March 2020.** ## **1. Charitable status and objectives** The Foodbank operates as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation. Charity Registration Number: 1163153. Our address is Unit 1 Neads Court Knowles Road Clevedon BS21 7XS. Our objectives are the “relief of those in need by virtue of age, financial hardship, disability or ill health by the provision of practical support, especially but not exclusively in the form of food, information and advice to meet charitable need, especially but not exclusively in the areas of North Somerset and the Bristol city region”. ## **2. Operational Area** We cover Clevedon, Nailsea, Portishead and the surrounding towns and villages in North Somerset. Our warehouse is located in Clevedon. We also use additional space at Yeates Self Storage in Clevedon, to accommodate levels of food donations. ## **3. Summary of our main activities and operations** Up until March the year continued to be one of consolidation with an increasing demand for our services. This has been matched by the hard work put in by our volunteers. We are particularly grateful for the ongoing support across the local community, from individuals and businesses who regularly donate food and funds that enable us to sustain and grow the Foodbank’s operations. We are part of a nationwide network of Foodbanks, supported by The Trussell Trust, working to combat poverty and hunger across the UK. It’s our belief that “nobody should go hungry in our area”. We work across the local community, in partnership with churches, businesses, schools and the voluntary sector agencies etc. We have the support of a network of over 100 local referral agencies who issue vouchers to people in need that can be redeemed for food parcels. In terms of public benefit, our main activities focus on the collection and storage of non perishable food donations and their re-distribution in the 1 form of food parcels to help local people in crisis. In total 43,275 kg of food was donated to the Foodbank during the year. We cover a wide area of North Somerset, operating from Clevedon with additional Foodbank distribution points in Nailsea and Portishead. We operate an emergency telephone helpline so we can respond at short notice when the need arises. For most of the year, we operated from our Knowles Road warehouse in Clevedon, where we distributed food parcels, being open on Monday and Friday mornings. At the same time we undertook separate listening sessions at the local Salvation Army Hall and Kenn Road Methodist Church. The distribution points in Nailsea and Portishead open on Fridays. We are supported by volunteers who work on a rota system. We usually have 6 volunteers working at Clevedon, 4 in the warehouse and 2 at the Salvation Army Hall. There are 2-3 Volunteers at Portishead and up to 4 in Nailsea. We are able to signpost clients to agencies able to assist with their problems. 1097 food and lunch bag vouchers were redeemed at the Foodbank’s distribution centres over the year. This equates to 1,679 adults and 1,365 children, in total 3,044 people fed. We make hampers available to people in need at Christmas, and lunch parcels in all the school holidays to support children who receive free school meals. During the year we also promote “eat well spend less” courses on basic cooking skills and budgeting. Covid 19 has and will continue to have a significant impact on the Foodbank’s operations and the demand for its services. Further details are set out in section 10 of the report. ## **4. Bank** HSBC; 6 Old Church Road Clevedon ## **5. Independent Examiner** Our accounts are examined each year. Our examiner M W Forbes ACIB, ACCA confirms that:- “I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached”. 2 A copy of the Examiner’s report is included with the Audited Financial Statement at the end of this report. ## **6. Trustees, Structure, Governance and Management.** Trustees: Sue Regan [Chair], Gil Mears [Treasurer], Alison Kember, John Clarke, Lucinda Holdsworth, Pat Gordon, Julie Willey, and Heather Miller. Lucinda Holdsworth, Pat Gordon and Julie Willey were appointed as new Trustees in February2020. John Clarke and Heather Miller have stepped down. Structure: The Trustees usually meet on a quarterly basis; the agenda is circulated to Trustees and agreed beforehand. Our Administrator takes the minutes which include an action list; this is circulated to all Trustees. We hold Management Team Meetings on a quarterly basis which includes the Team Leaders who run the Foodbanks in Nailsea and Portishead, a Trustee, the Volunteers rota coordinator and our Administrator who takes and circulates minutes. Copies of the minutes of these meetings are available in our central information folder at the office in our warehouse. Our Treasurer circulates a financial statement on a monthly basis, and provides quarterly accounts at the Trustees’ meetings. Part Time employee: The Trustees have appointed Kelly Croxton as the Foodbank’s Administrator. She is the Trust’s only salaried employee. Her hours continue at 18 per week. Volunteers: The number of Volunteers, including DofE students, has increased to 75. The Trustees and Volunteers receive no financial remuneration. The success of the Foodbank is down to the continued hard work, dedication and commitment from the Administrator, Volunteers and Trustees. This effort is invaluable; without it the Foodbank could not sustain its operations. Volunteers are interviewed prior to being appointed, and have to provide references. All volunteers undertake training and induction when they start, and sign up to the Foodbank’s policies. This includes the Volunteers Hand book, the policy on Vulnerable Adults, Children, Risk Assessments and Confidentiality. These policy documents are reviewed on an annual basis. Volunteers receive ongoing training on warehouse procedures, 3 stock control and safety, on listening, signposting skills, and safeguarding. All Trustees, those who supervise children working for their Duke of Edinburgh Awards plus a number of Volunteers have DBS certificates, currently 20 in total. Certificates are updated every 4 years We hold a listening training session for Volunteers who see clients; this training is also offered to DofE students as part of their understanding of the work that they undertake at the Foodbank. Property: Under the terms of occupation our landlord is responsible for all repairs to Knowles Road warehouse, including mains services and central heating plus the buildings insurance. The Foodbank has separate insurance covering its operations including employers and public liability cover. Trussell Trust: The Trust has established a network of over 400 Foodbanks across the country providing support and emergency food to people in crisis. We work closely with the Trust, sending representatives to the national and regional conferences, and participate in cluster meetings between local Foodbanks _**.**_ We also liaise with adjoining local Foodbanks in Weston and North West Bristol. The Trust provides advice on all operational matters and undertakes an annual Quality Assurance audit of the Foodbank’s activities, covering finance, governance, stock taking, day to day operations and management. ## **7. Finance** The Trustees previously launched an Appeal to raise funds to sustain the Foodbank’s future, including an initiative to promote regular monthly giving. As a result we have seen an increase in the level of financial donations which we hope can be sustained. This is beginning to pay off; total income for the period (April19/Mar20) increased to £35,930 compared with £26,993 in the previous period (April18/Mar19). Expenditure increased to £24,313 compared to £23,087 in the previous period. 4 Our Account balance at the end of March 2020 is £30,873 compared with £19,256 at the end of March 2019. This is due to increased giving, especially in March 2020 at the beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic. We are now able to buy, without concern, more equipment such as crates for our four distribution centres, and needful technical equipment too. The Audited Financial Statement is attached at the end of the report along with the statement from the Examiner. It is the Trustees’ policy to maintain cash reserves of £8,000 equivalent to at least four months’ expenditure to cover any additional costs associated with the pandemic. The reserves would also be required in the event that the Foodbank had to relocate to alternative accommodation. ## **8. Activities related to our objectives** Lunch bags: We provided 700 lunch bags during all school holidays to help families with children over 7 years old who are eligible to receive free school meals, and those less than 7 years old who schools recognise as in need of this support. Other larger families received a normal family parcel instead. These packs are made up by local school students who are undertaking the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme and usually packed during Saturday morning sessions. We have had 11 students helping over the course of the year doing their Bronze, Silver and Gold awards. In addition to the lunch bags students participate in a number of activities including warehouse duties, helping with donation collections at supermarkets; packaging cereals for local breakfast clubs; making videos of the work they have done; assisting with the newsletter etc. At Christmas this year the students also organised and wrapped up over 150 presents ready for the Christmas hampers. There was a very generous donation from Marks and Spencer’s for these gifts. Eat well spend less course: We ran another course in May-June 2019 for young mothers, also an EWSL Festive Special in November 2019, both commissioned by the local Children’s Centre. We also delivered most of our first-ever course for sixth-formers at Clevedon School during March 2020, only to be halted halfway through by the Lockdown. The Head of Sixth Form was very enthusiastic about the sessions we did manage to deliver, and is highly likely to ask us for more as soon as outsiders can be allowed back into the school. 5 The courses consist of between four to six two-and-a-half-hour sessions including cookery demonstrations and practice. This is run by a team of eight volunteers, and up to ten participants attend each session. The aim of the course is to enable those attending to learn how to cook from scratch safely; to plan and shop for meals economically; to prepare their own budget, and to understand the relative costs of various forms of credit. The focus is on prevention rather than cure: to catch people who are just about managing and help them to more-than-manage, building in resilience before they get to the point of needing the Foodbank. The DoE students also participate in mini EWSL courses, designed for teenagers to provide an understanding of the activities that the Foodbank promotes. Christmas Hampers: Last Christmas we distributed 240 hampers across the area, bringing a little cheer to people and families who are struggling on low incomes. These were packed and distributed by a large band of volunteers. We were grateful for the use of the St Andrews Church Hall to make this possible and hope to use the facilities again in Dec 2020. We are again grateful for the help from the Foresters Financial which made £2,000 of food donations available to include in the hampers. Harvest: September and October are a very busy time. During the harvest festival period we receive large quantities of food donations from school and churches in our catchment area, all of which is weighed, dated and sorted. 22 schools made food donations. Part of our outreach entails us attending School Harvest assemblies, where we provide an insight of the Foodbank’s activities. Local supermarket partners: We are particularly grateful for the continued weekly support we receive from Tesco in Clevedon, Sainsbury’s in Portishead, Waitrose in Nailsea, and the Coop in Yatton, and in particular the additional collection events they agree to hold at Christmas and in the summer to support the hamper and lunch parcel program. Publicity: We successfully operate a website and face book page to reach the wider community, and circulate three newsletters each year promoting and reporting on our activities. We maintain links with local regional newspapers that feature our activities. 6 Links with other Agencies: The Friday Listening Sessions at the Salvation Army Relate Café enables us to maintain our links with the local Credit Union and with Nailsea Disability Initiative. Employment Plus is also there to provide training and support for those looking for or preparing for return to work. Clients also have the opportunity to receive help from the Salvation Army toward the cost of gas and electricity through the” top up” meter payment system. We maintain links with the local crisis centre that supports people in recovery from alcohol and substance abuse, CAB, Christians Against Poverty and local child centres. From time to time we have surpluses of some items of stock and are able to assist other local Foodbanks and charities who have similar objectives to our own. Rotarians; We are very grateful for the continued financial support from the Rotarians in Nailsea, Clevedon and Portishead. Clevedon Rotarians kindly organised two quizzes with the proceeds going to the Foodbank. ## **9. Ongoing initiatives.** Outreach to older people: With North Somerset Care Partnership, the local community health service provider, we have established a scheme that supports those in crisis leaving hospital or in poor health. More than Food: we would like to expand the “more than food” programme by providing additional support alongside emergency food, to help people address the underlying issues behind their crisis. We are also able to support other local charities when we have a surplus. ## **10. Covid 19** The effect of the Covid-19 Lockdown on our operations was profound, but we were able to respond swiftly. We had been prepared for the issue of Lunch bags for school children over Easter, and we had enough stock set aside to cover the summer holidays too, so when the schools looked like closing, we immediately contacted them and asked them to make sure all their needy families had vouchers for Lunch bags before the schools shut. Two extremely busy mornings issuing Lunch bags from our (small) warehouse in Knowles Road showed us very plainly that we could not continue to work from there. Fortunately, St Andrew’s Church generously volunteered their Church Centre (which we had formerly used for packing Christmas Hampers) and we were able to migrate everything but the 7 Lunch bag provision from the warehouse to the much larger space there between the Monday and the Friday sessions at the end of March. We were able to implement strict hygiene precautions there, keeping a consistent team, excluding all others from the building and ensuring social distancing within the building. The warehouse continued to hand out Lunch bags, with a small team of three who could ensure social distancing while serving the clients outside the door. Over the two weeks before Easter, and the Easter holiday itself, we supplied 635 Lunch bags, and an increased number of family parcels, compared to the 525 Lunchbags issued across the six week summer holiday. We advised our insurance company of the revised circumstances, and provided new risk assessments for both St Andrew’s and the warehouse. The Lockdown closed our listening stations at the Salvation Army and Kenn Road Methodist Church; it also closed most of the agencies which supplied our clients with vouchers, and the school and church collection boxes for food donations; however groups still managed to gather and deliver donations in various ingenious ways, and we were able to provide vouchers where needed if clients couldn’t find an agency able to provide an e-voucher form them over the phone/e-mail. ## **Trustees of Clevedon and District Foodbank CIO** **Attachment** The audited financial statement plus the Independent Examiners report. 26.8.20 8 CLEVEDON DI TRIC NKE UITY STATEMENT AS AT.. 2021 OIB Deprn CIB A$￿ts Currgnt Assets Bttnk Accounts HSBC Kingdom Bank Deposit 94274.6S 40000.00 Dgblors 0.00 0.00 Totsl A•iot¥ 134274.65 L•$8 Credilors-Unpre5enled Cheques Loans 0.00 0,00 Total LSabSlltlè8 Net A880ts 0.00 134274.85 Represented By Balance al previous year end 30873.99 Surplus for Curronl Year 103400.66 Balance a8 at year end 134274.65 Forbes ACIB, ACCA May 2021 NK ME& EXPEND RE NANCL4 Top Oth•r Tol Phcm $pKl•l FYoJBcl• St4ff ¢￿h R•nt Tth Qp•rdng B4thrt¢• ,43101 £ 2Z,TJI 43 13,0758Z t F,7S441 £ S,247.13 £ 38.451 OA É 947.73 Z t 2149 £ t 27&49 t t 17990 1 t 41 00 t 600 £ 8rx) £ t 2e781 t t 52741 £ t ?79<￿ 1 I 10657 £ 32.28 £ t &Ec8 t 8704 E 57.43 t £ 5743 E 2597 £ 5743 t £ 5743 E 88.03 £ F02W £ 70200 £ F0200 £ F0200 E 7020D £ 102W E 702￿ £ 70?￿ £ 702W £ 70200 £ 40326 E 675.W E J.I37.1J 1.07Beo £ 79745 E 2,740.7J 5195 £ 164 20 797.45 £ J,Q16. 1.63393 £ *rp) E 3641KI E 67SW £ J.602.21 193582 E £ 314￿ £ 86627 E J.840.Jl 1.328 51 £ £15.06120 91 £14.1D1.QJ 91962 £ 24025 E 99)46 £42.eB•.04 51653 £ t￿00 t 1,37915 £ 3.004.95 e600 £ 1,221 20 £ 0.01N40 21 £ 1,131 25 £ I.0￿4• 23498 £ 909B £ eoDD Z 1,18951 £ 1.Tr)1.87 75W E 1.40400 £ 54 99 £1QOOO £ 384 w 1,3$0 71 £ J.Oll.1$ 44,41&40 £ OAXOO E 1q017.dv £IIO.00 £1Y,UOAJ E 11rn1.42 f90AJfj.fj1 E $8883 E Mdy Ju 7.154 47 5.247 13 S*pl¢mbW ocictsi Nowvthr s4pigMb•r IklrAJer NOY￿b 3,693 13 £ 3.893 13 .￿6 94 21,S54 17 10.272 50 11.43720 10.68521 159.866.17 £ 5743 £ 7485 £ 5766 25122 t 5765 t 5575 t 6403 t 87 15 £ 6413 M&98 £676.70 É 21,SY1F £ 10,273.W É 11,4)7.20 £ 10.W.21 C 18•.061.17 ¢ 3.33420 E Jan￿￿¥ Flbrwy Mwch Tot F¢ 4r