## **THE RAILWAY CORRESPONDENCE AND TRAVEL SOCIETY** 

**Charity Registration Number 1169995** 

**ANNUAL TRUSTEES REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENT 2024** 

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## **THE RAILWAY CORRESPONDENCE AND TRAVEL SOCIETY** 

## **Charity Registration Number 1169995** 

## **CONTENTS** 

Page Legal and Trustee Information 3 Trustees Annual Report (for the year ending 31[st] December 2024 4 Financial Report and Accounts (for the year ending 31[st] October 2024) 7 

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## **Trustees (at 1[st] June 2024):** 

A James Milne (Chairman) David B Bird (Deputy Chairman) Richard L Morris (Secretary) A Reginald Wood (Treasurer) Paul J Chancellor _(appointed 20[th] May 2024)_ David M Cross Andrew P Davies David P Goddard Irene L Rabbitts John Redgate Michael S Robinson 

## **Professional Advisers:** 

Bankers 

Lloyds Bank plc PO Box 1000 Andover BX1 1LT 

## Independent Examiners 

R.S. Porter & Co Ltd Chartered Accountants (ICAEW) The Old Dairy, Ashton Hill Farm, Weston Road, Failand, Bristol BS8 3US 

Solicitors 

Hollingworth Bissell Albert Buildings 49 Queen Victoria Street London EC4N 4SA 

Insurance Brokers Hettle Andrews Associates Ltd Eleven Brindley Place 2 Brunswick Square Brindley Place Birmingham B1 2LP 

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## **Trustee Annual Report for the Administration year to 31st December 2024** 

## **CHARITY STATUS:** 

Charitable Incorporated Organisation. 

## **OBJECTIVES:** 

The objectives of the CIO are to advance the education of the public in the subject of historic and current railway operations, through: 

- I. The publication of a regular monthly magazine, _The Railway Observer_ ; and its associated websites. 

- II. The publication of books containing detailed historical records relating to railways, including locomotive classes, traction equipment and railway infrastructure. 

- III. The formation and support of local branches of the Society with a view to providing a programme of speakers and visits, to enable the public to study and understand various aspects of the practice of historic and current railway operation. 

- IV. The development and conservation of an extensive library/archival centre, to advance the public knowledge and understanding of historic and current railway practice and railway heritage. 

- V. The dissemination to the public of photographic images illustrating historic railway heritage and current railway operations. 

## **SOCIETY GOVERNANCE AND ORGANISATION:** 

The Society became a Charitable Incorporated Organisation in November 2016. This Trustee Annual Report covers activities by the Society for the Administrative year 1[st] January to 31[st] December 2024. The Financial Report and Statement of Accounts covers the Society’s Financial year 1[st] November 2023 to 31[st] October 2024. 

The Society continues to be governed by a Board of Trustees of 11 members, with working groups for Administration, Commercial, Finance and Strategy, each led by a Trustee and reporting to the Board. The Board of Trustees met on five occasions during the year – either in person or using Zoom video conferencing. The Society Annual General Meeting, in April, was held in hybrid format with members ‘in person’ in Wolverhampton and others joining by Zoom video conferencing. The Officers’ Conference, held in Portsmouth in September, formed part of a Members Weekend. 

During the year discussions towards closer collaboration with a fellow enthusiast Society, The Stephenson Locomotive Society, took place. 

**Membership:** Membership of the Society as of 31[st] December 2024 stood at 2196 **,** compared with 2347 at the end of December 2023. 206 members were recruited during 2023 – many new to the Society but also including some returning after a period away. The membership renewals process commenced in October with, once again, most members received their renewal invitation by email. This process reaches 80% of our members and thus significantly reduces costs, principally postal costs, of sending individual renewal invitations out by post. 

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**Branches:** The Society manages a network of 28 Branches – 25 of them spread over the length and breadth of England, two in Wales and one in Scotland. All held ‘in person’ meetings at their locations, with some using Zoom video conferencing for occasional meetings. The use of Zoom video conferencing which allows hybrid format meetings with some attendees in a meeting room and others signed in on Zoom continued with three Branches running this quite successfully. This does rely on the meeting location having a very robust Wi-fi facility, alongside necessary computer facilities and members’ knowledge of how to make hybrid work, but it can open meetings up to more attendees. It also allows the opportunity for presenters to be in a remote location. In addition to Branches holding meetings in their centre, there has been a programme of National Zoom meetings throughout the year. These are hosted in the UK but are often attended by members and guests from around the world as well, on occasion, as the presenter being located away from the UK. 

**Website:** The Society website had a period of consolidation in 2024. It has four key areas, the main front page where guests can learn about the Society, purchase physical books and zoom tickets from the online shop along with the Members Area which contains information for members only, such as the online _Railway Observer_ , RCTS News, Branch and National Officer contact details, and an online shop with discounts available for members, a Features area, and the Digital Archive which has a shop for purchasing digitised publications which are long out of print, along with digitised photographs and digitised slides etc. from the Society’s photographic collection. Members, and guests, can use PayPal as well as Debit Card or Credit Card capability for buying Society products through the website. 

The massive project to digitise and catalogue all the photographs, slides and images which have been bequeathed to the Society continues. Many are not suitable for publication in the Society magazine or books, but they have a potentially enormous historical value which it is important to retain. 

**Library and Archive:** The Library and Archive facility in Leatherhead has continued to open one day a week, either a midweek day or a Saturday, for members and the public to visit and do research or reading. The digitisation project, mentioned earlier, is based at the Library with scanning equipment, cameras and necessary computer hardware located there. The Library is housed in the former Station Master’s House at Leatherhead Station, so is very easy to access by train with services provided by South Western Railway and Southern Railway. 

**Publications:** The Society continues to produce a high-quality magazine _The Railway Observer_ for members. This is available in B5 format, printed, or downloadable as a PDF from the Society website. New publications launched in 2024 were _Observing the Railway 2023,_ another picture book of photographs submitted for _The Railway Observer_ magazine but not used; a second volume from the camera of the late _Michael Mensing, Railway Photographer_ ; a pictorial volume - _The Great Western Kings_ ; and an addition to the LNER ‘green’ books - _LNER Investment during the Inter-war Years_ . 

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**Finances** The Society continues to be financially stable. The financial report and summary statement of accounts follows this report 

On behalf of the Board of Trustees, 

A. J. Milne Chairman 

R. L. Morris Secretary 

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## **ANNUAL FINANCIAL REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 OCTOBER 2024** 

This report covers the Society’s financial affairs for the year from 1 November 2023 to 31 October 2024. 

The overall financial outcome for the year was a small surplus of £6,285 compared with a deficit of £11,662 in the previous year. This is 6% of our income and an improvement on our Forecast deficit of £5,927. 

Our normal Society policy is for magazine fees for _The Railway Observer_ to cover the costs of its production, printing and despatch. This was achieved in 2023/4. 

Publication sales achieved £21,486 (last year £24,825). To this figure can be added the results of the first year of our new publications imaging project which has added income of £1,959. Some £13,000 has been invested in new publications and reprints this year, including new titles _The Kings, Mensing 2, Observing 2023 and LNER Finance_ . We look forward to good future sales of these new titles as their promotion campaign is launched. We reprinted 3 titles. Our excess stock provision has used market information and suggests our actions to address excess stocks are bearing fruit. Our publications activities delivered a net surplus of £10,155 compared to last year’s £1,314. Publications stock is valued at the lower of cost or forecast sale value and was £20,892 (gross £29,080 less provision £8,188) at Year End. This represents 15.8 months of sales. 

Our income from membership subscriptions increased 9% to £67,944 plus a contribution from the Life Fund of £2,754. Income from donations and gift aid in the Revenue Account recorded £2,765 and £1,709, being 50% of actual receipts with the balance being capitalised to cover future library and imaging costs. In addition, a major bequest from the estate of deceased member J. Worby was received. This is currently shown in our Balance Sheet. 

Our largest expense is of course the RO, which cost £64,457 (2022/3 £61/920) to produce. Increasing printing costs account for the majority of the increase. 

Society administration costs were reduced 11% to £17,359 (2022/3 £19,488). High inflation has increased our costs of Board of Trustees, our AGM and regional meetings, with the introduction of zoom online meetings successfully reducing costs. 

Our library has benefited this year from a good sales performance and donations, for which we thank members. Our major imaging project was delayed early in the year awaiting broadband connection and we would like additional volunteers to increase our rate of scanning. We also really need a “webmaster” to lead our online development. 

On the Balance Sheet our increased publications stock (net £20,892, last year £12,000) invests for our future. The largest individual provision is a creditor of £56,200 for lease and utilities and business rates on our library/archive awaiting lease finalisation. Good news is that we have negotiated a substantial charity discount on our business rates and are paid up-to-date. 

In 2023/4 we continued our accounting treatment of donations and gift aid receipts. Our members were generous with donations totalling £6,335 to which Gift Aid brought in a further £3,417 with a further £5,720 in the pipeline. These were apportioned 50/50 to Income and Balance Sheet Project Funding. This year we have spent £2,405 of the funds on our major Imaging Project with a further £6,606 being allocated to our Library/Archive expenses. 

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## A. REG WOOD FCMA CGMA MAPM FMAAT 

_Society Treasurer_ 

**The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society** 

## **ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31[st] OCTOBER 2024** 

||REVENUE ACCOUNT|REVENUE ACCOUNT||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||for the year ended 31stOctober 2024|||||
||2024||||2023|
||£<br>£||£||£|
|Publication Sales|21496||||24825|
|Cost of Sales|-11331||||-23511|
||10155||||1314|
|Add: Other Income||||||
|Magazine Fees|64615|||58779||
|Subscriptions|6083|||5672||
|RO Advertising|2925|||2250||
|Less Membership Costs|-6902||-|7487||
||66721||||59214|
|Bank Interest|10945|||1566||
|Library/Archive|4361|||2064||
|Donations|5688|||13193||
|Sundry|338|||108||
||21332||||16932|
||98208||||77460|
|Less: Expenditure:||||||
|_Railway Observer_|64457||61920|||
|Society Administration|16434||18588|||
|Independent Examination|<br>925|||900||
|Branch Expenditure|237|||251||
|Library/Archive|5100|||3811||
|Sundry Activities|2255|||998||
|Depreciation|2615||10402|||
|- Funded from Project Donations        0|||-7748|||
||91923||||89122|
|Surplus before Taxation||6285|||-11662|
|Taxation||8<br>0|||0|
|Surplus for the year||6285|||-11662|
|Retained surplus brought|forward<br>101226||||112888|





|F<br>**The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society**<br>**ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st OCTOBER 2024**<br>BALANCE SHEET<br>as at 31stOctober 2024<br>2024<br>£<br>£<br>£<br>ASSETS EMPLOYED<br>FIXED ASSETS<br>31678<br>CURRENT ASSETS<br>Stock<br>22760<br>14546<br>Debtors and prepayments<br>13258<br>5217<br>Cash and bank balances<br>404970<br>249053<br>440988<br>268816<br>CURRENT LIABILITIES<br>Creditors<br>75114<br>76790<br>Branch Investment Funds<br>16126<br>14944<br>VAT<br>417<br>269<br>Magazine Fees and Subscriptions<br>11820<br>10788<br>103477<br>102791<br>NET CURRENT ASSETS<br>337511<br>NET ASSETS<br>369189<br>FINANCED BY:<br>Retained Surplus<br>107511<br>Library Capital Fund<br>16766<br>Amortised Donations/Gift Aid<br>43989<br>Worby Bequest<br>178634<br>Life Membership Fund<br>22289<br>369189|2023<br>£<br>25537<br>166025<br>191562<br>101227<br>19561<br>45731<br>0<br>25043<br>191562|
|---|---|



A.R. Wood, FCMA, CGMA, MAPM, FMAAT Society Treasurer 

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## **INDEPENDENT EXAMINERS REPORT** 

My examination was carried out in accordance with the General Directions given by the Charity Commission. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts and seeking explanations from you as Trustees concerning any such matters. 

The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit and, consequently, no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a “true and fair view” and the report is limited to those matters set out in the statement below. 

In connections with my examination, no matter has come to my attention: 

1. which gives me reasonable cause to believe that, in any material respect, the requirements to keep accounting records in accordance with Section 130 of the Charities Act 2011; and to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records, comply with the accounting requirements of the 2011 Act and with the methods and principles of the Statement of Recommended Practice: Accounting and Reporting by Charities (revised 2005) have not been met; or 

2. to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the account to be reached. 

Christopher J Keates-Porter, FCA The Old Dairy, Ashton Hill Farm R S Porter and Co. Limited Weston Road, Failand, Chartered Accountants (ICAEW) Bristol 30 January 2025 BS8 3US 

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