## ANNUAL REPORT 2023-24
A review of our activities and achievements, and our priorities for the year ahead
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Registered Charity No: 1166358
Registered address: 17 De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AB
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## The Friends of Ruskin Park (FoRP) has been operating as a community group since 1996. We established a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) in 2016.
This annual report relates to the charity’s accounting year from 1st September 2023 to 31st August 2024.
## Contents
|Contents
2023 to 31st August 2024.|Contents
2023 to 31st August 2024.||
|---|---|---|
|**Our objectives and aims**||**3**|
|**Review of 2023-24**||**4**|
|**Thank you to our contributors**||**5**|
|**Treasurer’s report**||**6-7**|
|**Achievements and priorities**||**8-11**|
|**Structure, governance and**||**12**|
|**management**|||
|**Appendix: Financial statements**|||
|**Appendix: Independent**|||
|**Examiner’s Report**|||
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- “The Friends of Ruskin Park was established to protect and promote the enjoyment of Ruskin Park (a public park
- situated on Denmark Hill in Camberwell, London) for the benefit of all park users - now and in the future,.”
## Our objectives and aims
1. To work collaboratively with Ruskin Park’s managers, Lambeth Council, and other partners to maximise the quality of Ruskin Park, as desired by park users and within available resources.
2. To engage park users and the wider community in maintaining and improving the park for their own health and wellbeing, for now and in the future, balancing different interests.
3. To run, sponsor or support where appropriate 1) events and activities for and with park users and 2) physical improvements that would not otherwise happen.
4. To ensure we have the resources to achieve the above aims – financial, people, communications and governance.
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## Review of 2023-24
Kate Malleson and Céline Gilbert lead FoRP as co-chairs.
FoRP’s programme this year was designed to build on progress in 2022-23. It included working with Lambeth to complete the capital programme for the park, culminating in the successful opening of the redeveloped playground. Our gardening activities enjoyed high levels of engagement and we secured grant funding to support this work over the next five years. Keeping the paddling pool open was a significant achievement and we ran a full programme of summer events. See pages 8-11 for greater detail of our achievements this year and future priorities.
Progress would not be possible without the tremendous contributions of volunteers working for Ruskin Park in so many different ways across all of our activities. Each one deserves our grateful thanks.
Although FoRP has a strong volunteer base, we face challenges as long-serving trustees step down. To run our current range of activities and develop new ones, we need to recruit new committee members. We encourage anyone who loves the park to join our committee to help us improve it for current and future generations.
Kate Malleson and Céline Gilbert
**Co-Chairs**
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## **Volunteers**
## **Funders, partners and donors**
- Regular and one-off donors
- Trustees
- Committee members
- Gardeners
-
- Litter pickers
- Paddling pool volunteers
- Events volunteers, performers and partners
- GoodGym volunteers
- Employee volunteering groups
- Aviva Community Fund
- Camberwell Society
- City Bridge Foundation
- Herne Hill Forum
- ● Herne Hill Society
- Hunters
- Lambeth Council
- Lambeth Parks Forum
- London Friends of Green Spaces Network
- We would like to pay particular tribute to Suzanne Vincent of
- Urban Village for her tireless work and financial support
- over many years to help keep the
- paddling pool open. Thank you!
- Myatt’s Fields Park Project
- ● National Grid
- National Lottery Community Fund
- Postcode Society Trust
- SE5 Forum
- South London and Maudsley NHS Trust
- Steel Warriors
- Urban Canopy
- ● Urban Village
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Treasurer’s report As demonstrated in our report, FoRP has been active this year with events, projects and fundraising.
|events, projects|events, projects|and fundraising.|and fundraising.|and fundraising.||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||||||
|||2023/24|||2022/23|
|||Unrestricted
funds|Restricted funds|Total|Total|
||Income|18,360|12,324|30,684|69,359|
||Expenditure|(23,155)|(27,730)|(50,885)|(60,531)|
||Net movement|(4,795)|(15,406)|(20,201)|8,828|
||Balance|34,839|15,317|50,156|70,357|
We are very grateful for the generous donations we receive from park users and other supporters, as well as to the bodies that have provided us with grants in the past year.
Foundation to support our gardening activities, including improvements and activities in the Willow, Labyrinth and Community gardens. This will allow us to take a longer-term approach to funding activities. Funding from the Aviva Community Fund also supported park gardening.
In addition to planned spending from these restricted funds, we used money raised from the paddling pool appeals for improvements and repairs over the summer, allowing the pool to remain open.
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## Treasurer’s report (cont.)
We continue to retain funds for maintenance/repairs to the pool as needed.
Lambeth Council provided a grant which enabled us to put on the bandstand concerts and provide music at the fete.
The general fund is unrestricted and is used to run events and projects in the park over the year. We funded improvements to the Rose garden and funded new benches at the Denmark Hill and Ferndene Road entrances. We also continue to receive donations for memorial benches and tree sponsorship.
The reserves policy is to hold 6 months of operating costs, as well as the annual costs of providing our regular events and activities for the benefit of new and existing park users. The key spend period is during the months of May to October. This year we have focused on reducing our general fund to the level required under our reserves policy by prioritising and allocating funds to park improvements and this will continue to be a focus in the next financial year.
Sarah Salter **Treasurer**
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## Achievements and priorities (1)
## **Volunteering, events and activities**
## **Achievements**
**Community** Our Community garden had **and Willow** high levels of engagement this year, with many volunteers **gardens** becoming regular attenders and an increased sense of community.
Three groups use the Willow garden with guidance from a professional gardener, including supporting the groups to work independently. A City Bridge Foundation grant secures the project in the longer term.
## **Future priorities**
We will need to become more self-sufficient in growing our own seeds this year. This is an opportunity to be more strategic about what we grow.
Our gardener will help the existing groups to become more self-guided. We will work to identify other groups that would benefit from access to therapeutic sessions in the garden.
**Park** The City Bridge Foundation **gardening** grant secures Saturday gardening in the Labyrinth **and litter** garden in the longer term. **picking** Working with Urban Canopy, we started to install metal edging around the beds and added new plants. Volunteers planted new roses and lavender in the rose garden.
Complete edging project in the Labyrinth garden and continue maintenance and planting.
Work with Lambeth to organise volunteering sessions in the Wildlife garden.
Regular litter picking continued throughout the year with a core team of volunteers.
We need to recruit a new lead volunteer for litter picking.
## **Concerts at the bandstand**
We ran a full programme of well Organise a concert programme attended concerts, supported by next year. grant funding from Lambeth, Recruit a new team of including bands who had not volunteers to organise and 8 performed previously. manage the concerts as the existing leads step down.
## Achievements and priorities (2)
## **Volunteering, events and activities**
||**Achievements**|**Future priorities**||
|---|---|---|---|
|**Summer Fete**|The Summer Fete was successful|Hold the Summer Fete and||
|**and other**|despite inclement weather.|consider holding a Dog Show.||
|**seasonal**||||
|**events**|We supported SE5 Forum’s Feel
Good Festival and the Boule d'Or|Support a small number of other
suitable events.||
||petanque tournament.|||
||We held gardening workshops at|||
||the Fete and the Feel Good|||
||Festival.|||
|**Park**|FoRP invested in new planting in|Improve maps and notice boards||
|**improvements**|the Labyrinth garden and|refecting park developments.||
|**sponsored or**
**managed by**
**FoRP**|sponsored 3 benches this year to
supplement bench donations.
Two chess tables are now in|Continue to fund planting
priorities and supplement
individual bench and tree||
||place for community use.|donations.||
|**Engaging park**|We held a photography|Consider how to help preserve the||
|**users with the**|competition with the theme|heritage bandstand and work||
|**heritage of the**
**park**|“Lights, Camera, Action”.|with Lambeth on plans to
redevelop the Coach House as a
community asset.||
|**Bring the**|We continued to work with|To remain an active voice on the||
|**heritage**|Lambeth to restore and revitalise|Coach House steering committee,||
|**Coach House**|the historic Coach House,|engaging with potential partners||
|**back into use**|creating a publicly accessible,
sustainably managed asset.|for the space and funding
opportunities as appropriate.||
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## Achievements and priorities (3)
## **Projects and partnership working with Lambeth**
**Paddling pool**
**Opening the disused depot area**
**Achievements**
The paddling pool opened successfully again over the summer, with high levels of volunteer support, despite challenges inherent in maintaining a 1920s era structure.
The depot area has been opened up to allow access.
## **Future priorities**
Agree ways of working with Lambeth more formally to ensure the pool can operate again next year.
Recruit new lead volunteers to replace those stepping down. To continue to work with Lambeth on their plans.
**Regular liaison with Lambeth Parks**
We worked closely with Lambeth to finalise the completion of the playground redevelopment and have continued to liaise closely on proposals that affect the park, particularly in light of current financial constraints.
The park was again awarded a Green Flag in July 2024 and a Gold at the London in Bloom awards.
Continue to liaise with Lambeth through regular meetings to see projects completed effectively and monitor proposals and initiatives by others that impact the park, including events. There will be a focus on plans to redevelop the sports pitches/ redgra area and depot.
Identify important improvements and work with Lambeth to deliver awaited repairs to pathways and potholes.
**Funding and finance**
We continued to maintain a healthy financial balance. We obtained a significant grant allowing us to expand our activities, e.g. gardening sessions over a five year period.
operate in accordance with our reserves policy, and bid for specific grant funding where appropriate to do so in light of overall financial position.
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## Achievements and priorities (4)
## **Charity governance and management**
**Governance and membership**
**Achievements**
Trustees and non-trustee committee members held regular meetings throughout the year to review activities, priorities and risks.
We implemented an induction pack for new committee members to ensure an appropriate understanding of FoRP’s objectives, policies and controls.
Membership numbers have been maintained, with 378 members at year end.
**Future priorities**
Our co-chairs remain in place, ensuring stability of leadership. Continue to hold regular committee/trustee meetings and ensure all essential paperwork is compiled and maintained.
To ensure we can run our existing range of activities and develop new ones we need to recruit new committee members.
Recruit trustees to ensure succession planning for key roles as two long-standing trustees step down and hand over responsibilities..
**Communications and engagement**
We have continued to communicate with the membership and park users through newsletters, social media and notices.
Maintain core communications and continue to try to engage more park users e.g. by more extensive use of social media to promote activities and generate new volunteers and participants for activities such as the community garden.
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## Structure, governance and management
## **Membership**
Membership is open to anyone who is interested in furthering our purposes. The trustees have decided not to charge a membership fee. As of 31st August 2024, FoRP had 378 members.
## **Governance**
We are governed by a constitution adopted in March 2016 and approved by the Charity Commission in April 2016. This can be viewed on our website.
## **Trustees**
We have a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 11 trustees. They are appointed at our AGM, with a third standing down or being re-appointed each year. At other times the existing trustees may appoint trustees until the next AGM. The following people were trustees during 1st September 2023 to 31st August 2024:
Kate Malleson Co-Chair Céline Gilbert Co-Chair Joanna Broadbent Appointed 16.1.24 Lucy Hadfield Mandy Millward Chris Norris Sarah Salter
## **Committee**
Additional committee members are appointed by the trustees to assist with the management of our activities. This year they included Jemima Ashdown, Diamond Ashiagbor, Kathy Erasmus, Abimbola Oke, Kay O’Neill, Sara Robertson-Jonas, Julie Simpson and Claire Vinycomb.
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Friends of Ruskin Park
Registered Charity number 1166358
ACCOUNTS FOR THE PERIOD FROM 1st September 2023 to 31st Aueust 2024
Friend$ 01 Rvskln P•
Att¢Mntsfor the from l Stptsmbtr 1023 to 31 AuRUSt 2024
Chari
Friend5 of Ruskin Park
wor Name
FORP
Chari
Num
1166358
istered Office
17 De Crewgny Park
London
SE5 8AB
Appointed
0110612017
1210112021
1310112023
2SI0512022
1210112021
01109n016
16101n024
Resigned
Board of Trustees
Lucy Hadf*ld
Kate Malleson ICo