**City Church Lancaster** ## **Report of the Trustees for the Year Ended 31 March 2022** The trustees present their report with the financial statements of the charity for the year ended 31 March 2022. The trustees have adopted the provisions of the Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP) 'Accounting and Reporting by Charities' issued in March 2005. ## **REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS** ## **Registered Charity number** 1172291 ## **Principal address** 4 Prospect Drive Hest Bank Lancaster Lancashire LA2 6HX ## **Trustees** Mr Scott Lingard (Chair) Mr Malcolm Robinson Mr Peter Carrington Mr Jethro Niven Mrs Hannah Little ## **Independent Examiner** John Fazackerley A.C.M.A (retired) 6 Queens Drive, Preston, PR2 9YH ## **STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT** ## **Governing document** The charity is controlled by its governing document, a deed of trust, and constitutes an unincorporated charity. This deed of trust was first adopted on 01/03/2017. ## **Trustee Selection** Potential trustees are identified by current trustees. Candidates are then recommended to the board of trustees and if no objections are raised then candidates are formally appointed. This last financial year Peter Carrington became a trustee and Esther Carrington resigned. ## **Charity Organisational Structure** Corporately the trustees hold responsibility for the financial health and legal requirements of the charity. The day to day running of the charity is carried out under the leadership of the eldership team with the authority of the charity’s trustees. ## **Risk management** The trustees have a duty to identify and review the risks to which the charity is exposed and to ensure appropriate controls are in place to provide reasonable assurance against fraud and error. In all cases two signatories are required to authorise online payments and appropriate records including receipts and invoices to support payments are held. Our financial risks are managed by our financial controls policy. Appropriate insurance cover is in place and is reviewed regularly to ensure that the charities risks are covered adequately. A health and safety policy is in place and additional policies in place for all the charities projects. We also have a safeguarding policy in place and all staff and volunteers who work in relevant projects are subject to a DBS check. We also subscribe to a Protection Advisory Service to ensure compliance with rules and regulations relating to the protection of children and vulnerable adults. ## **OBJECTIVES, ACTIVITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS** ## **Objectives** - i. To promote the Christian faith and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world with particular focus on the Lancaster and Lancashire area. - ii. The relief of poverty, hardship and distress in particular but not exclusively within the areas of Lancaster and Morecambe through provision of grants, items and services to individuals in need and/or charities, or other organisations working to prevent or relieve poverty ## **Activities and achievements** This last 12 months have seen the welcome return of in person meetings and gatherings after many months of online meetings due to the Covid 19 pandemic. We have been careful and measured in our return to physical meetings, assessing the risks and putting various operational processes in place to keep people safe. We also offered the option for people to watch our church meetings over Zoom for the first 9 months of this last year to accommodate those who didn’t feel comfortable returning to an in-person setting yet. The trustees have been involved throughout this process in decision making, risk assessing and gathering important feedback from the church community. We are really encouraged to have seen significant numerical growth over the last 12 months and this was in spite of many churches reporting declining church attendance following the pandemic. In March 2022 over 140 people gathered for our weekend away in North Cumbria. This was in fact the second of two church weekends away we have held this last 12 months due to our 2021 weekend being postponed from March to November. Both weekends were a huge success and a wonderful way for our church community to reconnect and worship together after so many months of reduced social interaction. Our ability to recommence face to face meetings has also seen the opportunity to reach out with the Gospel. 2022 has seen us return to a monthly Café church aimed at being a more relaxed, informal and more widely accessible service and run a successful Alpha course. These activities give people who don’t normally attend church or have questions about life and faith an opportunity to explore Christianity. We have been privileged to see several people come to faith and join the community through these activities in 2022. This last year has seen significant change to our leadership with two of our four elders stepping down from their eldership & Trustee roles. We would like to place on record our thanks to Jordan Donnelly and Rob Horn for their years of work and service in these roles. Our remaining two elders have begun a new core leadership team to work alongside them in leading the church. ## **FINANCIAL REVIEW** ## **Reserves Policy** It is intended that sufficient reserves are retained in order to enable the charity to undertake its financial commitments for a minimum of six months. Principle funding sources are generous contributions and regular giving from individuals who are a part of the church. **ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD** : Mr P Carrington CHARITY COMMISSION Independent Examiner's Report on the Accounts Sc(tion IndLPLndenl Examinoi s RLPOII 2k&z-K G nrJEJBFJ {L•th Se(￿th 14g5Xbl olth (h•1￿ Ad). •d tt* dwrty *Ja of ￿[￿rtS WE5Wrted tlw)5e ie(ord5. setklrwj extAanafj(ws frrm tt* trus*es arry SLKh matters. 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