**Wild about our Woods CIO Charity Number 1173958**
**Report of the trustees for the year ending 31 October 2022**
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
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support to our programmes but also feedback that they had gained so much themselves.
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**
## **Wild Play (aka Forest School Fridays) at Sommerford Adventure Playground**
The London Borough of Haringey (via the Socio Economic Regeneration Team) initially commissioned us to work in partnership with Haringey Play Association to run 22 sessions at Somerford Grove Adventure Playground in Tottenham. It included a day trip to Cheshunt in the October Half term and the training of a staff member in the Wild Passport. We began to work together in January 2022 and worked up and beyond October 2022. The amount of **£3689** was granted in this period
The programme aimed to be practical and engaging so participants were supported to learn to connect to themselves, each other and nature. The sessions took place outside in the adventure Playground where there are trees, bushes and a fire place. The number of children attending the sessions each week were between 3465, aged between 5-15. The total number taking part in Forest School activities was 189, while many more engaged with cooking and eating with us around the fire.
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A main part Forest School programmes is that the young people are given responsibility and freedom simultaneously, and importantly the opportunity to build healthy relationships with each other, the environment and themselves. The programme is also based on free play and choice, both of which mould well with the ethos of play at Somerford. As a result we found that some children were engaged in most, if not all, of the activities offered every week. Some dipped in and out of activities, while others may have only done a handful of activities. Which every was chosen by the participants each week many children engaged in activities offered to them.
- Some of the activities included: • Fire lighting skills, health and safety around a fire
- • Outdoor cooking: pancakes, biscuits, burgers, bread, campfire
- doughnuts, Elderflower fritters marshmallows
- Wood chopping with axes
- • Whittling – safely using knives
- Chopping up wood with knives and making an egg run
- • Nail art – using hammers and nails
- • Wool based crafts – ochos dios
- Summer slushies
- Fairy doors
- Conker games and crafts using palm drills
- • May day crowns – using willow and flowers
- • Planning vegetables and looking after them
- • Hapa zome – leaf bashing
- Egg runs
- Using saws and horse saws.
- • Celebrating different seasons around the fire.
The Wild Passport Training was delivered in May, June and July.
The away day took place in October half term. 16 young people accompanied by 3 adults travelled from Northumberland Park to Cheshunt to spend a day in the Lea Valley Park. We spent most of the day in the wooded area playing games, making dens, creating zip lines and rope bridges, swimming in hammocks and on swings. We went on an adventure walk after lunch and enjoyed exploring the local area as well as playing ‘pooh sticks’ over stream.
## **Community Innovation Fund**
The Nature Nurturing Education programme commissioned by Barent Council was to be practical, engaging and with a therapeutic thread in some of the activities so students are supported to learn to connect to themselves, each other and nature. This would in turn support their engagement with each other and build resilience for school life and wider community. We were given **£8232.3** 0 in this financial year to delivery it.
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We were commissioned to work with the same 8 young people for a whole term (12 weeks) working with them for 2 hours each session. The programme involved a mixture of undertaking physical and practical activities, learning, and socialising in nature over a 3 month period, for 2 hours each session giving them a unique learning experience outside in all weathers.
We were to run a total of 36 sessions between the two schools, with a few sessions with a young offender. Each session ran for 2 hours with between 6 and 9 students in each session.
The initial programme was led by us to work in collaboration with Hendon School and The Friends of Dollis Brook for one programme and the Young Offenders Service for the other, funded by Barnet Council. Working with small groups weekly on a Thursdays for 12 weeks, developing their emotional skills and resilience for their secondary education. Engaging them in green wood skills via the Wild Passport Programme.
The programme began in April 2022 as there was a delay in getting the programme up and running. Initially, we were commissioned to work with Hendon School but the partnership lead at the school who was supporting us during the proposal stage left and it became very challenging to get anyone from the school to support the programme. We went back to our funders and requested that we change our school partner which they agreed to.
We then went on to work with The Compton School who we had worked with before and who had Coppetts Wood behind their school which was easy to access.
We also initially had agreement from the Young Offenders Team in Barnet, another team we had worked with before. But once we had set up the working agreement they were not able to refer a regular group of young people to work with us, although we did work with one young person a few times.
We re-negotiated with the CIF commissioning team to work with a group of young people from the newly formed hub at Friern Barnet school which referred a really engaged group from September 2023. This was the newly formed Cognition and Learning Additional Resource Provision.
## **Haringey Learning Partnership**
2 pieces of work were carried out with this organisations over this financial year
## **Barnet Young Carers**
We worked with 2 groups of Barnet Young Carers over the summer holidays. Both groups came with 15 young people to Hadley Wood and Coppetts Wood to connect to nature and relax, have fun.
## **Carry over programmes from October 2021**
**Fairway School – Nature nurturing education**
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The year long programme at Fairway started in March 2021 due to Covid 19 restrictions allowing us to work in the school. **£994.50** was the final amount awarded at the of the programme. It was completed before the February Half term 2022. We piloted 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. In the year period of November 2021 to February 2022 we worked with 48 individual pupils as part of the 12 week programme and 8 parents and toddles attached to the nursery as part of a 6 week programme. A full outcomes and experiences report was created for The Young Barnet Foundation which collected some rich evidence of the impact of the programme. This was well received by the funders London Borough of Barnet Family Services & NHS North Central London Clinical Commissioning Group to support Mental Health Support Teams within the community.
## **CommUnity Barnet Giving Covid-19 Emergency Fund**
**£506** was granted at the end of this programme which started in April 2021. We worked with 2 groups of 12 children (24 children in total) for 12 weeks at an afterschool group at Martin School. The last part of the programme was ran from September until December 2021 which covers this financial year.
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 Tim. The second cohort, made up year 3s, were more settled and engaged better with the programme. 12 children were engaged with for this part of the programme
## **Young Barnet Foundation – Holiday Activity and Food Fund**
We ran an Easter holiday schemes in Barnet offering a free woodland holiday club as an extension of the HAF programme run twice before. The fund of **£1140** 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 with 4 sessions were offered to 15 children each day. There was a shortfall of money needed to run this programme so we access the Co-op Local Community
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Fund to do this. 60 children’s spaces were booked up, Referrals coming from local schools.
**The Local Connections Fund** commissioned us to run the Deep Shoots, New Roots ran a pilot programme bringing children or young people 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 received **£885** upon the successful completion of the pilot of this programme from Community Barnet in this time
**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.
## **OUR FINANCES**
We successful obtained £31,483, which was down from last year. £42883 was spend on the delivery of programmes and running the charity but still at the end of the financial year (31[st] October 2022) £ 8594.13 remained in the account and has been allocated to programmes running after 31[st] October 2022. The Full end of year accounts can be accessed as well.
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## **Funding obtained**
|**Funding**|**obtained**|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||||||completed or to be
completed|
|Training||14880|||both|
|||||||
|Grants|YOUNG BARNET
FOUNDATION|250|Oct-22|Training grant|completed|
||Barent YoungCarers|245|Jul-22|summer activities|completed|
||CommunityBarnet|885|Jul-22|last part of
intergenerational
grant|completing in
December|
||HaringeyCouncil|1845|Jul-22|Somerford
Adventure
Playground|to be completed in
December 2022|
||YOUNG BARNET
FOUNDATION|994.5|May-22|fairwayschool|completed|
||CommunityBarnet|506|May-22|martin after
school|completed|
||YOUNG BARNET
FOUNDATION|1140|Mar-22|Space togrow 8|completed|
||HaringeyCouncil|1845|Mar-22|Somerford
Adventure
Playground|to be completed in
December 2022|
||Barnet Council|8232.3|Feb-22|CIF|to be completed in
2023|
||Haringey Learning
Partnership|315|Nov-21|commissioned
programme|completed in
November 21|
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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 Insurance: Axa Policy SALSALIA/J178979/0332/20
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||#**1173958**
**Wild about our woods CIO**|#**1173958**
**Wild about our woods CIO**|#**1173958**
**Wild about our woods CIO**|#**1173958**
**Wild about our woods CIO**|#**1173958**
**Wild about our woods CIO**|#**1173958**
**Wild about our woods CIO**|**CC16a**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**For the period**
**from**|01.11.2021|**To**||31.10.2022|||
|||||||||
|**Section A Receipts and payments**||||||||
|**A1 Receipts**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**15,180**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**15,180**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**15,180**
**15,452**
**-**
**-**
**4,269**
**4,034**
**2,315**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**26,070**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**26,070**
**- 10,890**
**-**
**-**
**- 10,890**|**Restricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**-**
**16,303**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**16,303**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**16,303**
**-**
**11,992**
**4,721**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**16,713**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**16,713**
**- 410**
**-**
**-**
**- 410**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**||**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**
**15,180**
**16,303**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**31,483**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**31,483**
**15,452**
**11,992**
**4,721**
**4,269**
**4,034**
**2,315**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**42,783**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**42,783**
**- 11,300**||**Last year**
**to the nearest £**|
|Forest School Training|**15,180**||||||**14,885**|
|vaiousgrants|**-**||||||**32,972**|
|refund|||||||**116**|
||**-**||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for_
_AR)_|**15,180**||||||**47,973**|
|||||||||
|**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**||||||||
||**-**|||||||
||**-**||||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**|**-**||||||**-**|
|**_Total receipts_**
**A3 Payments**||||||||
||||||||**47,973**|
|||||||||
|
forest school trainingassociates|**15,452**||||||**7,506**|
|grant associate expenses|**-**||||||**19,555**|
|grant runningexpenses|**-**||||||**951**|
|forest school trainingrunningcosts|**4,269**||||||**897**|
|charity running costs not associated to
grants|**4,034**||||||**180**|
|refunds|**2,315**||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_ **|**26,070**||||||**29,089**|
|||||||||
|**A4 Asset and investment**
**purchases (see table)**||||||||
|**,**|**-**|||||||
||**-**|||||||
|**_Sub total_ **|**-**||||||**-**|
|**_Total payments_**
**_Net of receipts/(payments)_**
**A5 Transfers between funds**
**A6 Cash funds last year end**
**_Cash funds this year end_**||||||||
||||||||**29,089**|
|||||||||
||**- 10,890**|**- 410**|**-**||
**- 11,300**||**18,884**|
||**-**|**-**|**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**|**-**|**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**- 10,890**|**- 410**|**-**||**- 11,300**||**18,884**|
CCXX R1 accounts (SS)
29/08/2023
1
|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**||
|---|---|---|---|
|**Categories**
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees
**B5 Liabilities**
**B3 Investment assets**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
**B2 Other monetary assets**
**B1 Cash funds**|**Details**
**Details**
**Details**
**Details**
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))
**Details**
Signature|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
Agreement Error
Agreement Error
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
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**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
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**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**liability relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
Print Name
Chetna Patel
Alison Garvin|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
||||**-**|
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||||OK|
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**funds**
**to nearest £**|
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||||Date of
approval|
|||Chetna Patel|27.4.23|
|||Alison Garvin|**27.4.23**|
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)
29/08/2023
2
CHARITY COMMISSION
FOR ENGLAND AND WALES
Independent examiner's
report on the accounts
Section A
Independent Examinerfs Report
Report to the trusteesl
mernbers of
Wild about our woods CIO
On accounts for the year
ended
October 2022
Charity no
lif any)
1173958
Set out on pages
I report lo the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity
I'the Trust") for the year ended 31110 12022.
Responsibilities and
basis of report
As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in
accordan with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 1"Ihe Act").
I report in respect of my examination of the Trust's accounts carried out under
section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying OLrt my examination, I have followed all
the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section
145{51{bl of the Act.
Independent
examiner's statement I have completed my examination. I confimi that no material matters have come
to my attention in connection with the examination gives me cause to believe that
in, any material respect..
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
proper understanding of the aGcounts to be reached.
Signed:
Date:
ofr
lol3
Name:
OLIV k40Eg1f>KJ
Relevant professional
qualification{sl or body
{if any):
Address:
FLAT ZA wcsfAvcNJklE R(yAt)
LobiD(JNJ
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