2025-06-30-accounts - Litcham Jubilee Hall CIO

This text was generated using OCR and may contain errors. Check the original PDF to see the document submitted to the regulator. This document is also available as Markdown.

Trustees Annual Report for the Charity Commission

1[st] July 2024 to 30[th] June 2025

Charity Name : Litcham Jubilee Hall CIO

Charity Reference : 1172555

Registered Address : Jubilee Hall, Church Street, Litcham, Kings Lynn, Norfolk PE32 2NS

Trustees:

Mr Micheal Oldfield (Chair) Mrs Sally Kiddle – Morris (Deputy Chair) Mrs Claire Lawrence Ms Julia Bloomfield

Volunteers:

Mrs Sadie Bailey Mrs Valerie Horton Mrs Sarah White (Treasurer) Mr Martin Dorman (Secretary) Mrs Elaine Skinner

Objective and Activities

The objects of the CIO are to establish and run a village hall and to promote for the benefit of the inhabitants of the parish of Litcham without distinction of sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, nationality, race or political, religious or other opinions, the provision of facilities for recreation or other leisure time occupation of individuals who have need of such facilities by reason of their youth, age, infirmity or disablement, financial hardship or social and economic circumstances or for the public at large in the interests of social welfare and with the object of improving the conditions of life of the said inhabitants.

Activities of the Charity:

Repairs and Maintenance of existing Village Hall
Fundraising activities to pay for running costs and repairs and build up funds for future maintenance, restoration and development of the hall
Provision and maintenance of a safe, fit for purpose space for the use of the community
Development of a strategy and plans for the future of the hall
Implementation of the strategy and plans in a staged approach.

Contribution made by volunteers

Volunteers assist and support Trustees in all aspects of the maintenance, repair, organisation and management of events and fund raising.

Achievements of the Charity

The CIO,

provides a meeting place for a wide variety of groups and individuals for a variety of purposes
provides a valuable asset to the community.
by fundraising and other events, promotes social interaction, relieves loneliness and
isolation, encourages health and well-being groups.
by providing a meeting place, encourages and promotes community spirit and cohesion.

During 2024 and 2025 the CIO has restored and continued to maintain the Litcham Jubilee Hall to meet the objective of providing a safe, warm and fit for purpose meeting place for recreational and leisure activities for whoever wishes to use it, in compliance with laws and regulations. This is in spite of the deteriorating condition of the building.

Fundraising activities and hiring the hall have covered the annual maintenance, utility bills, insurance and repair costs of the existing building. In spite of rising costs they have enabled the CIO to meet its objectives by, keeping the Hall clean, serviceable and welcoming for users.

Financial position at the end of the period 1.7.24 to 30.6.25

Income: £5,993.10 Expenditure: £4,900.94

The CIO made an operating profit of £1,693.20

At the end of the financial year the CIO had balances of :

Current Account : £3,268.57 Reserve Account: £607.04

The Trustees agreed a new Reserve Policy to:

provide adequate financial stability and the means for the CIO to meet its charitable
objectives
demonstrate that the CIO properly manages its resources
demonstrate the CIO’s capacity to manage unforeseen financial difficulties
provide accountability and give confidence to funders, donors and beneficiaries of the
CIO

The amount to be held in a separate Reserve Account was agreed at £2,000. At the end of the period the amount held was £607.04 and it was agreed by the Trustees that a monthly payment of £20 would be transferred from the current account to this account to increase the amount held in reserve until it reached the £2000.

Risks to the charity continuing as a going concern

The major concern is that the existing Jubilee Hall becomes unusable through structural failures requiring repairs which are beyond the resources of the CIO or are not cost effective to undertake.

The Trustees manage this though an annual extraordinary committee meeting which reviews the risks and sets a strategy for the management of the building and finances for the next period.

The strategy for 2024 to 2025 was:

to spend finances wholly on the maintenance of the hall to ensure that it is fit for
purpose.
to prevent deterioration further and to encourage its use for the community for the
next 12 month period.

The activities of the charity are reviewed against this strategy throughout the year at the monthly meetings and adjusted accordingly in line with the finances available.

News

Throughout the 2024 to 2025 period the committee and volunteers of the Litcham Jubilee Hall CIO undertook lots of activities to raise the profile of the newly restored and renovated village hall to encourage members of the community, local groups and individuals to hire and use the building.

There was a lot of interest in the changes that had taken place within the building including the newly fitted kitchen with oven, hob, fridge freezer, microwave, urn and all the equipment necessary to cater for 50 guests. The main hall had new carpet flooring which replaced all the cracked, missing and broken 1970s vinyl tiles. The toilet facilities were all repaired and in working order, the electrics upgraded and all the necessary Health and Safety features checked and certified safe. The whole building had clean and fresh decoration throughout and been furnished to suit different types of events.

The majority of the work was done by the committee and volunteers, but thanks must go to the local trades people who supported the charity by carrying out the bigger, trickier work that required specialist skills at reasonable costs which allowed the work to be done during this period.

The number of bookings was slow to increase, but throughout the year as the community became aware of the enormous amount of work and improvement of the village hall’s appearance and facilities, more bookings were taken and the committee was able to stage more fundraising events.

One of the main events that drew the community into the hall was the introduction of a ‘Warm Space Community Lunch’ on the second Tuesday of every month from October 2024 following a funding application to the Breckland District Council for a Spark Fund donation of £500.

This money allowed the committee and volunteers to put on a free lunch, including choice from 3 soups, a roll and a hot dessert, with unlimited drinks in a warm space, which proved very successful in bringing together at least 30 local members of the community at each event. During the lunches the guests were able to enjoy company, meet new people, access local facilities e.g. community car scheme, and be sign-posted to wider local authority support. These lunches proved so successful that they continued throughout the summer after the grant money had been spent with the committee asking the guests for a small donation towards the provision of the food.

The application for the Spark fund through the local District Council developed a very useful engagement with the Breckland voluntary network organisation and allowed members of the committee to attend meetings and access other support through liaising with the local representative.

The committee and volunteers continued to stage a number of regular events to raise funds, including bingo and quiz evenings, table top sales, plant sales and a Christmas Mingle, all of which proved to be very good fundraisers.

The hall received a number of single private bookings for parties, school meetings and as a rehearsal space for the local Am - Dram group.

Regular hire increased with active Weight Watchers and ukulele groups hiring the hall for regular weekly slots and the Parish Council returning to using the village hall for its bi - monthly meetings.

One of the volunteers generated a regular income through the District Council Lotto scheme and also ink cartridge recycling, both of these providing a very useful regular income.

An application to Tesco for their Blue Token voucher scheme successfully resulted in the Litcham Jubilee Hall CIO being awarded £500 which allowed the committee and volunteers to purchase the expensive, specialised heritage paint that was needed to restore and paint the outside of the building. The blistering, peeling, flaking patchwork of white paint on the

outside of the building gave the appearance of dereliction and really distracted from the warm, welcoming and useable space inside.

The committee, volunteers together with our local decorator and building repair specialist, painted the brickwork and repaired the wooden windows, doors and front façade of the building making it look as impressive as the inside of the hall. This encouraged the local community to be more inclined to come in and see the amazing improvements inside and hire the hall.

The charity continued to investigate the options for both, a total restoration and development of the Jubilee Hall and also, staged projects on parts of the building that needed imminent repairs e.g. roof, heating, insulation, damp proofing.

However the smaller projects were still significant amounts of money in the tens of thousands, with the overall restoration project of the whole building still being quoted in excess of £350,000.

Numerous enquiries were made regarding applications for grant funding, unfortunately most of these were found to be inaccessible by the charity either through criteria ineligibility or the inability to match funds by 80%.

The Litcham Jubilee Hall CIO will continue to seek ways of financing both the total restoration and the staged approach to the smaller projects, and the Trustees will manage the charity using the annual strategy to meet the requirements of the Constitution and ensure that the activities of the Litcham Jubilee Hall CIO are carried out in accordance with that objective and they are of public interest.

The Trustees have regard to the guidance issued by the Charities Commission on Public Benefit.

Prepared by: Sarah White Approved by: Micheal Oldfield (Chair)

Signed:…Micheal Oldfield……………………………………….

Date……27[th] April 2026……………………………………………….