**ANNUAL TRUSTEE REPORT 10th March 2020 - 9 th March 2021** Charity Commission Annual Return 2021 – 1166223- NATURE CITIZEN The Charity’s activities (voluntary time) during the period 10.03.2020 – 09.03.2021 were: - Continued development of the Policies and Procedures Manual - Trustee meetings indoors were cancelled due to covid. Therefore continued discussions were held when we regularly met outside to work on the Nature Citizen Community Garden. - Continued Nature Citizen’s membership with The Foundation for Social Improvement (F.S.I) and Community Action Suffolk. - Raised awareness of Nature Citizens aims and the importance of helping insects and other wildlife via social media and passers by the Nature Citizen Community Garden. With the arise of Covid -19 and all the uncertainties and restrictions, we decided to put on hold all our Community Activities. To ensure we continued to fulfil Nature Citizens charitable purposes we started a ‘virtual community’ online with a Face Book (Nature Citizen) and Instagram (nature_citizen) Page. On Face Book, from 3[rd] April 2020 to 6[th] March 2021, we now have 108 followers, published 43 posts which collectively have reached 4,909 people. On Instagram from 2[nd] April 2020 to 6[th] March 2021, we now have 42 followers, published 79 posts, (unfortunately there’s no data available to show how many people the posts have reached). - Accepted the continued donation from the local Parish Council of 3 allotment plots for The Nature Citizen Community Garden (NCCG) and we’ve been working hard to continue the creation of this ‘Demonstration Nature Space’ to share with the Community. This will become a lovely place to meet, to share ideas and information as to how we can all contribute to helping increase biodiversity in our gardens and show how we can all garden with wildlife in mind. The main message is that all our collective efforts can add up to build a connected Nature Network across our village, benefitting all. In the last year 120 metres of borders and 125 metres of paths have been made. At least 1,500 plants planted, grown from seed or cuttings and donations. All the plants planted are beneficial to insects…. Purposeful and Successional Planting for Pollinators, provides a variety of food and for as long as possible throughout the year. Approximately 400 voluntary hours have been at the NCCG, but this does not include all the voluntary hours that were spent: -sowing, growing, pricking out, re potting and watering of the plants for the NCCG. -shopping for items for the garden, unloading donated goods, signage writing etc. -taking pictures, editing, researching and publishing posts on Social Media. Many new micro habitats have been created in the NCCG as one of the main purposes of this demonstration Nature Space is to increase biodiversity and garden with wildlife in mind. These include: Stag beetle log piles, compost bins for slow worms, mini water source, nettle patch, dead hedge, compost area, long grass, wild flowers, bramble circle for hedgehogs, grass tussocks for lizards and slow worms. Hand made wildlife homes such as bat box, bee hotel, bird boxes and hedgehogs home were placed around the site. There are also Trees and shrubs around the edge of the Garden providing cover, nesting sites and food for a variety of insects and other wildlife. ## **Donations this Year and big Thank yous too:** The Parish Council for the continued donation of the unused plots at Polstead Allotments, paying CO10 to trim the bottom hedge and for their kind donation of £250 which contributed towards NC annual running costs. Emma for raising £130 which helped pay for seeds and compost to help feed the bees. Mary for donating £100 to buy plants from Beth Chatto Nursery. Dave for making a hedgehog home and bench for the NCCG. John for donating the decking to help make the edges of the paths. Friends of Nature Citizen donating plants from their gardens. Eric for donating his homemade compost. The Trustees and Friends of Nature Citizen who donated their time to help. Below are some pictures over the last year, to show you all a snippet of the work that has been carried out in the Nature Citizen Community Garden…. We are taking great pleasure in creating this ‘Demonstration Nature Space’ to show how gardening for the little creatures that make the world go around, not only benefits other wildlife but peoples health too. ## _**Nature Citizen …..Cherishing all life**_ _**Some examples of Nature Citizens posts, published on Face Book**_ _**Some of the donated items Hedgehog home Handmade bench**_ _**Pallets to make compost areas and Decking planks for edging**_ _**A huge big thank you to Mary for donating £100 to fill part of the bed with a variety of plants from the Beth Chatto Nursery. They came with very good root stock, but the tops were cut for safe transportation so we look forward to seeing them grow and showing you pictures of them in next**_ _**years annual report.**_ _**My front lawn became the nursery**_ **�** _**We continued to build the paths, edge them and dig over the earth to make borders. The cardboard we laid proved to be a very good mulch and kept the growth down for when we were ready to plant.**_ **�** _**From the sowing of seeds to an abundance of food for the bees � Purposeful planting for the pollinators and other beneficial insects. Different shaped flowers for as much of the year as possible … this**_ _**successional planting provides food and increases diversity**_ _**We left a wild area of long grass, tussocks and black compost bins for the sloe worms.Stacked pallets ready to make an insect hotel with the**_ _**children. This area of the Nature Space was singing with crickets, beetles and other beneficial insects too**_ **����** _**The log circle containing the nettles are a wonderful food source and support over 40 species of insects including butterflies**_ **����** Trustees have verified The Trustee Annual Report via email due to covid restrictions. Rachel White (Chair) Mary Murdoch (Treasurer) Clare Reeves (Secretary) Emma Daniels C.E.O – Melissa Matthews ## **TRUSTEE ANNUAL ACCOUNTS MARCH 2020-2021** ## **Nature Citizen – Charity Number 1166223** Receipts and Payments for year ended 9th March 2021 **Opening Balance b/f 10/03/2020 £653.00** Receipts Payments Donations £978.44. Charity Insurance. £112.00 Cash donation. £120.00. Compost, seeds, plants. £215.00 Plant sales £ 95.00 **_________ Closing Balance c/f 09/03/2021. £1,519.44** **TOTALS. £1,846.44 £1,846.44** Trustees have verified accounts via email due to covid safety measures Rachel White (Chair) Mary Murdoch (Treasurer) Clare Reeves (Secretary) Emma Daniels C.E.O – Melissa Matthews