**Wild about our Woods CIO Charity Number 1173958**
**Report of the trustees for the year ending 31 October 2021**
We have been set up as a Charity Incorporated Organisation
## **OUR AIMS**
To create more social opportunities for people to engage with, enjoy and enhance our local woods for mutual wellbeing.
## **OUR OBJECTIVES**
(a) to promote for the benefit of the inhabitants of the London Boroughs of Barnet and Haringey and the surrounding area 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 condition of life of the said inhabitants;
(b) to advance the education of the public in the use and conservation of natural resources, and in the role of woodlands in promoting emotional, social and physical wellbeing and cognitive development;
(c) to promote for the benefit of the public the conservation, protection and improvement of the physical and natural environment; in particular by encouraging and facilitating access to woodlands and by organising recreational, educational, therapeutic and social activities within woodlands.
## **REVIEW OF ACTIVITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS**
In the last year we have worked directly with 519 people across Barnet and Haringey to support their well-being via nature connection activities. This is down on last year but all of these includes face-to-face session that ran for more than 6 sessions. Of them 42 were adults engaging in Forest School Training which will mean that if they all went onto to work with 10 people this impact would be a massive 420 more forest school connections. We know that many of them are working regularly with others offering nature connection opportunities, so it is likely to be more than this rudimentary figure so this really is spreading our mission wide and far..
Of the 519 we worked with 62 adults offering either adult only sessions or mixed sessions. Four of these were volunteers who not only offered some invaluable support to our programmes but also feedback that they had gained so much themselves.
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All the programme offered were new and developing pilots we have run or were piloting a new area of work for us. Two programmes were funded as a direct result of funders being impressed with work, they have seen us do so approached us to develop work with them. We also brought in associates to deliver some of the programmes.
We have forged new contacts and worked in new areas. We were pleased to be able to work in the East part of Haringey and also in the East of Barnet. We offered more smaller group, focused and therapeutic which allowed us to offer targeted support to these those who had been affected more by the pandemic and lockdown restrictions.
We were invited to join a corporate gathering of creative movers and shakers, Join the Dots, to present our work and have them get into break out groups to work through some of our issues. They come up with some very plausible solutions which we now need to work through.
## **Forest School Training**
Forest School training was very popular last year. 4 courses were delivered. Two were open courses and 2 were commissioned closed courses. 42 people were trained and an income of £14,884.51 was gained, almost 60% increase on last year. 3 places were heavily subsidized to support those who can’t afford to train to be part of the growth.
WAOW were again successful in getting commissioned by Haringey Education Partnership (HEP) to deliver the Level 2 assistant training. Seven people started the programme in October 2021 with 5 training days to be completed in January 2022. One of the delivery days took place in the financial year but all payments from HEP will be received in the new accounting year.
## **Programmes undertaken**
## **Fairway School – Nature nurturing education**
The year long programme at Fairway started in March 2021 due to Covid 19 restrictions allowing us to work in the school. **£8950** was awarded in 2020/21. We will ran it until February Half term 2022. We have been able to pilot a therapeutic programme based in nature to support children’s wellbeing across the Fairway community: from parent and toddler, primary years to transition to secondary school. In the woodlands attached to the school we created social opportunities for pupils at Fairway Primary school and pre-school children and their parents to attend 12 ‘bubble’ nature-based sessions. We were able to delivery the full 42 days and 114 sessions as planned offering many children across the school community valuable nature connection time. 122 participants have been able to engage, enjoy and enhance the woodlands while making better connections to each other and in turn themselves. They have been able to form positive relationships with others, to develop growing awareness of their emotional needs and the needs of others, to learn to cooperate and work with their peers and adults and develop strategies in order to take risks within the boundaries of safety.
We were able to train up 2 members of staff in Forest School, one as a Forest School Leader and one as a Forest School Assistant who now deliver a Forest
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School Programme to the rest of the school. We have been able to facilitate physical, educational, therapeutic and social activities to support their emotional wellbeing, helps to build resilience and self esteem beyond the programme. Participants fed back that they were able to engage, enjoy and enhance the woodlands while making better connections to each other and in turn themselves.
As the largest single grant we received, it was also funded by London Borough of Barnet Family Services & NHS North Central London Clinical Commissioning Group to support Mental Health Support Teams within the community. This was pleasing as we were wanting to be commissioned by Health based teams as part of the years funding strategy.
## **CommUnity Barnet Giving Covid-19 Emergency Fund**
**£5060** was granted for Waow to work with 2 groups of 12 children (24 children in total) for 12 weeks at an after-school group at Martin School.
Our aim was to run a weekly post-lockdown recovery programme with wellbeing focused Forest School sessions after school club for:
- Children with no direct access to outdoor space during lockdown - no garden
- BAME Children
- Children that have returned to school in March that are anxious, not themselves or struggling to settle back in
- Children that are currently not doing Forest School as part of their school day - we suggest working with Year 3 (or another Key Stage 2 age group)
- Children from lower-income groups
This was led by Charlotte Broadribb and assisted by Lavinia in the first 12 weeks and Tim in the second 12 weeks. The year 5 participants in the first cohort brought with them a few emotional issues which Charlotte, Lavinia and Janine supported, while the second cohort, made up year 3s, were more settled and engaged better with the programme. 216 children were engaged with for this programme
## **Young Barnet Foundation – Holiday Activity and Food Fund**
We ran 2 holiday schemes in Barnet offering a free woodland holiday club. The **£2850** funding of was for school age children aged 5-16 years old. The primary beneficiaries of the programme were intended to be Free School Meal eligible children, but the programme included the support for children and young people facing hardship and to target geographical hotspots showing high levels of economic disadvantage, obesity and deprivation. It allowed us to widen our reach of working with children in Barent and 10 sessions were offered in the summer and October holidays to 15 children each time. There was a shortfall of money needed to run this programme so we access the Co-op Local Community Fund to do this. 150 children’s spaces were booked up, Referrals coming from local schools.
**Barnet Wellbeing Community Chest** agreed that the money it awarded us of **£1,770.00** last year could be carried forward but because of Covid to this year **.** Our Deep Shoots, New Roots ran a pilot programme bringing children or young people
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and older adults together with the aim of improving intergenerational relationships. We ran this in partnership with Nature Explorers Barnet. It provided a variety of explorative play, walking trails, music and nature discovery sessions for adult of grandparent age, and 10 children in Year 1 class to enjoy together from May 2021 until the summer holidays. It was a joyful programme bringing the two age groups together, 6 older people joining us to learn alongside the children. From this programme we were funded to run another 6 week session from another funding pot.
We ran a **Weekend Wild things programme** , running for 10 weeks through the summer term, May to July, for young people in years 7/8/9 who attended the sessions to support their communication and emotional issues. It ran out of Coppetts Wood with 8 young people attending. We used the funding from the Co-op Local Community Fund to run it as well as the £500 from Magic Little Stars via Local Giving
We were successful in gaining **£2000** to provide support services to people affected by domestic violence and abuse in a woodland setting. This will be led by another Forest School Leader with experience of working with survivors of abuse. With an emphasis on eco-therapy and well being she delivered nature based outdoor activities, learning traditional skills, and experiencing Barnet’s green spaces in a safe setting. With an aim to improve self confidence and change dynamics to a group of 6-10 individuals (including their children). Activities ran for a whole (3 hour) morning once a week, for a period of 6 weeks. £1500 was awarded in October 2020 and the rest in this accounting year.
**Haringey Giving Together We Can COVID-19 Fund** offered us £4991 to delivery a free, engaging and adventurous Woodland Holiday club (once a week during Easter, Whitsun and Summer holidays – 10 in total) for 18 BAMER (Black, Asian minority ethnic and refugee) children aged 5 – 11 years, living in Tottenham N17 in and around the Broadwater Farm Estate. They were also offered a free nutritious lunch. And an after school club running in the summer term (12 sessions) for 18 children aged 5 – 11. **Woodland adventures in Fox Forest** had 3 staff supporting its development and work and was a huge success. The culture of Forest School has flourished at Willow Primary School. The forest is now well maintained and often visited. The school is now equipped with waterproof PPE for the children and different tools and equipment like hammocks, ropes, mallets etc for more children to enjoy. This was led by Gladys with Simone and Meme supporting her.
## **The Grange Big Local**
We were awarded £3,594 to run 12 well being sessions for adults aged 55 plus to gather in a community woodland in East Finchley, Barnwood, during the summer term. This was commissioned out to Linda Royles who worked with Tim Young on the programme. 12 people attended this regularly
## **Live Unlimited**
A local charity working with children and young people who are looked after asked us to run a 6 week pilot for them on a Saturday in Barnet. It ran from May to July and
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was well attended in Martin’s woods. We had between 8-12 children and young people attend from 3-5 each week. Janine ran this programme with Simone.
## **Ongoing programmes**
## **Fairway Nature Nurturing**
We were funded run the Fairway programme (above) which ends in February 2022. We are on track to spend all the money offered and also engage with the groups agreed. Janine runs this with school staff and volunteers
## **Deep Roots, New Shoots 2**
This was funded for £1890 from the big Lottery community fund. Working in the same woods with another group of Year 1s and many of the same older people. It will run 10 sessions. Janine ran this with Tim.
## **OUR FINANCES**
We successful obtained £47857.41, up 56% from last year. Of this money £20,694 remained in the account and has been allocated to current programmes running after 31[st] October 2021. The Full end of year accounts can be accessed as well.
## **Funding obtained**
||||The funders||Amount
in £||mont
h||Project
name||completed or to be
completed||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Training||various||14884.5||||||both||
||||||||||||||
||Grants||YOUNG BARNET
FOUNDATION||570||Oct-
21||HAF||completed||
||||CommunityBarnet||500||sep||surviours of
domestic
abuse||completed||
||||TNL communities||1890||sep||deep roots
2||completing in
December||
||||YOUNG BARNET
FOUNDATION||2280||aug||Haf||completed||
||||communitybarnet
community barnet||1797
1035||may
july||GBL
GBL||completed
completed||
||||communitybarnet||1410||june||fst and deep
roots||completed||
||||communitybarnet||1797||may||GBL||completed||
||||communitybarnet||4554||april||Martin
school||completed||
||||bridgehouse -||4991||marc
h||haringey||completed||
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||YOUNG BARNET
FOUNDATION|8950.50|dec|Fairway|completing in Feb
2022|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||YBF|2163.41|Oct-
20|Space to
grow 10|completed March
2020|
|||31937.91||||
|Other|Live Unlimited|1035|july|||
## **Total income 47,857.41**
There were other trusts that we were not successful in gaining from and as you can see most of our funding came from local sources. We were pleased that the largest single grant came from London Borough of Barnet Family Services & NHS North Central London Clinical Commissioning Group to support Mental Health Support Teams within the community. Diversifying our funding streams was aspired to last year, with more than 1/3rd of it being realised.
## **FUTURE PLANS**
We still want to diversify our funding streams beyond one-year grants programmes. We have made new contacts and possible avenues for collaborative work in both Barnet and Haringey which we would like to develop. Janine has been working closely with a school and the John Lyons Trust to develop such programmes to establish themselves with staff and impact.
We are developing a relationship with Haringey Council to access core funding to work in the East of the borough in an adventure playground rather than woodland but using the same skills and Forest School Philosophy.
Janine undertook a train-the-trainer Wild Passport course develop outdoor learning skills rather than conventional Forest School which may open up more nature connection activities across the boroughs as it doesn’t rely on being based in the woods.
We would like to develop and explore some of the ideas formulated by the Join the Dots gathering as a mean to develop sustainability in projects and programmes in the future.
## **CHARITY TRUSTEES**
Natasha Walter (Treasurer),
Alison Stafford (Safeguarding Lead)
Simon Davies (Chair)
## **CONTACT DETAILS**
Charity: wild about our woods. Email; waowcio@yahoo.com
Bank: Santander account: Wild about our woods CIO
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Insurance: Axa Policy
## SALSALIA/J178979/0332/20
7
#
**Wild about our woods CIO**
## **Receipts and payments acco**
01.11.2020 **To**
## **For the period from**
## **Section A Receipts and payments**
**Unrestricted Restricted Endowment funds funds funds**
**to the nearest £**
**to the nearest £**
## **to the nearest £**
## **A1 Receipts**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
Forest School Training 14,885 - -
vaious grants - 32,972 -
refunds 116 - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
15,001 32,972 -
Sub total (Gross income for AR)
A2 Asset and investment sales,
(see table).
- - -
- - -
Sub total - - -
Total receipts 15,001 32,972 -
A3 Payments
forest school training associates 7,506 - -
grant associate expenses - 19,555 -
grant running expenses - 951 -
forest school training running costs 897 - -
charity running costs 180 - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
Sub total 8,583 20,506 -
A4 Asset and investment
purchases, (see table)
- - -
- - -
Sub total - - -
Total payments 8,583 20,506 -
Net of receipts/(payments) 6,418 12,466 -
A5 Transfers between funds - - -
A6 Cash funds last year end - - -
**----- End of picture text -----**
_**Cash funds this year end**_ **6,418 12,466 -**
## **Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of**
||||**Unrestricted**|
|---|---|---|---|
|**Categories**|**Details**||**funds**|
|**B1 Cash funds**||**_Total cash funds_**|**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|
||(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))||Agreement Error|
||||**Unrestricted**|
||||**funds**|
|**B2 Other monetary assets**|**Details**||**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|
||||**Fund to which**|
|**B3 Investment assets**|**Details**||**asset belongs**
**Fund to which**|
|**B4 Assets retained for the**|**Details**||**asset belongs**|
|**charity’s own use**|||**Fund to which**|
|**B5 Liabilities**|**Details**||**liability relates**|
Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees
**----- Start of picture text -----**
Signature Print N
Natasha
Alison G
**----- End of picture text -----**
**1173958**
## **ounts**
## **CC16a**
31.10.2021
## **Total funds**
**Last year**
## **to the nearest £**
## **to the nearest £**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
14,885 -
32,972 21,074
116 5,760
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
47,973 26,834
**----- End of picture text -----**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
-
- -
- -
47,973 26,834
**----- End of picture text -----**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
7,506 8,295
19,555 4,456
951 976
897 3,317
180 351
- -
- -
- -
- -
29,089 17,395
**----- End of picture text -----**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
-
-
- -
29,089 17,395
18,884 9,439
- -
- -
**----- End of picture text -----**
18.884
9,439
## **the period**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
Restricted Endowment
funds funds
to nearest £ to nearest £
- -
- -
- -
- -
Agreement Error OK
Restricted Endowment
funds funds
to nearest £ to nearest £
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
Current value
Cost (optional)
(optional)
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
Current value
Cost (optional)
(optional)
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
Amount due When due
(optional) (optional)
-
-
**----- End of picture text -----**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
-
-
-
Date of
Name
approval
Walter 27.4.22
Garvin
27.4.22
**----- End of picture text -----**
CHARITY COMMISSION
FOR ENGLANO AND WALES
Independent examiner's report on the
accounts
Sectlon A
Independont Examlner's Report
Report to the trusteesl
members of
IA)ILt) kE4)uf our2 iA)001SS LIO
On accounts for the year
ended
1011
Charity no
lif any)
I173qf 8
Set out on pages
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above
charity I'lhe Trust'} forthe year ended
Responsibilities and
basis of report
As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the
accounls in accordance with the requirements of the Charities AGI 2011
I'the Act").
I report in respect of my examination of the Trust's aCCDunts carried out
under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I
have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charty Commission
under section 14515){bl of the Act.
Independent he charity's gross income exceeded£250,000 and l am qualified to
examinerfs ststement undertake the examination by being a qualrfied member of [insert name of
applicable listed bodyll. D&lete I l if not applicable.
I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have
come lo my attention in connection with the examination (other than that
disclosed below '} which gives me cause to believe that in, any material
respect..
thè accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130
of the Charities Act., or
the accounts did not accord with the accounting records- or
the accounts did not comply with the applicable requirements
concerning the form and content of accounts sel out in the Charities
{AcGOLJnts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement
that the accounts give a 'lrue and fair, view which is not a matter
considered as part of an independent examination.
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection
with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in
order to enable a proper understsnding of the accounts to be reached.
Please delete the words in the brackets rfthey do not apply.
Signed:
Date".
Name:
Relevant professional
quallficatlonls) or body
IER
Oct 2018