FireStarters Wales
A generation set on fire for Jesus to be sparks of revival!
TRUSTEES ANNUAL REPORT & ACCOUNTS 2024 Approved by Trustees on October 7th 2024
Contents
Reference and Administration information
Trustees Annual Report Income and Expenditure Report Balance Sheet Report
REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATION INFORMATION
Charity Name: FireStarters Wales
Charity Number: 1175278
Registered Office: 10, Dorchester Avenue, Penylan, Cardiff CF23 9BQ
Bank Account: Lloyds Bank
Facebook: FIRESTARTERS WALES
Trustees: for the year ended 31.3.2024
Andrew Goringe
Janette Goringe Julie Lawrence Rodney Davies
Matthew Lewis
Secretary: Jayne Roberts
TRUSTEES ANNUAL REPORT - April 2023- March 2024
Significant highlights, events and developments include the following:
In relation to activities:
The Trustees are committed to enabling as many young people as possible to join in with FireStarters gatherings.
The Trustees maintain oversight of all that we do and make suggestions to review our policies so that these continue to be implemented by the leadership team to include all young people seeking to attend.
When planning our activities for the year, the Trustees and leadership team have considered the commission's guidance on public benefit and in particular the specific guidance on charities for the advancement of religion.
We try to enable youth from all social backgrounds and denominations, with faith or no faith to attend.
Our gatherings always have worship, prayer, teaching from the Bible, sharing the gospel and activation in living out a love for Jesus in everyday life.
We have continued to meet once a month on the 2nd Saturday of every month and this has continued to provide parents and young people with clarity and assurance on when we meet.
We had three weekends this year in July, November and March. We added a further weekend this year to give room for depth of input, relationship building and time to meaningfully connect with God.
Attendance has increased further this year as more parents understand our rhythm for signing up and as more young people engage with our Instagram post outs. Many youth leaders have been recognising the positive input of FireStarters and have been planning youth input around our monthly gatherings so that their youth are able to attend. We have had many who attend regularly with a handful each time wanting to taste and see who we are. Those that regularly attended benefited from gaining deeper friendships and received teaching into our themes April to July of ‘Freedom That Is Ours in Christ.’ and Oct - March of Being Ambassadors in Christ.’
All our events have had a good ratio of adults to young people with around 12 leaders and 40-60 young people attending regularly which is a marked increase from last year's attendance. Our young teenage leaders have taken an active part in worship, small group discussion, short teachings and games.
We have over 22 voluntary adult leaders that are all DBS checked and willingly attend leaders training in September and help at gatherings when they are available.
Training is paramount so that all our leaders have safeguarding and fire safety input as well as helping everyone gain vision for the full year ahead. Some ongoing training and support for our young and adult leaders also happens before a day's gathering starts and on regular planning zooms between the events. The young leaders' input times have all been in person with a focused two day input in February.
All general admin happens from the leader’s home office or free desk space at Urban Crofters office.
Core team has remained a strong support to the leader by giving constructive feedback in regular in person meetings and on zoom. Members of the core team have led planning times for several sessions in the year and have attended regularly all gatherings so they are generally more aware of areas of need among the young people and able to support Janette in this.
We have continued to need worship leaders to come in to support our team but this has given our young people a wider experience of worship styles and kept worship fresh and dynamic.
Two new churches were excited to open their doors to us this year, one in Ely, Reflect Community Church and Thornhill Church in Llanishen.
Reflect church were renovating some rooms in faith for youth and children. Many years ago this chapel had over 1000 children and youth coming into their building each week. They have very few now but have a stirring to trust for more once more. On our April gathering we went out in small adult led groups to pray around the church in Ely. Prayer seemed hard going but we prayed. One group met three boys who attached themselves to the group and taunted our youth wanting attention. They followed us back to the church and over dinner many of our young people spoke to them. This same group met a man who openly asked why a group would talk to him and be in the area. He exclaimed “It's not a good place to be." The leader shared that Jesus didn’t come for those who thought they had it altogether but came to the broken places and people who knew they needed help and a saviour. He heard this!
After a time of testimony in the evening we spontaneously went into prayer focused on those three boys and the man. One young 12 year old said sorry for judging the boys and prayed. In that time the tangible presence of God was in our midst. We thank God for all He showed us. We thank God ALMIGHTY who wants to heal the land around Ely and hears the prayers of His people who are called by His name!
One of our leaders in her 20’s realised this was the chapel her Great Grandad had helped build because he had seen the many kids out on the street needing Jesus.
We later took up an offering for this church and together with our yearly tithe we were able to give the church £519.
Outreach times as part of our days continues to be a catalyst to many young people recognising they have a very real hope to share with people outside of the building. Many expressed an increase of boldness and excitement in being able to step out to share about Jesus with those that have perhaps never heard about Him.
The Firestarters Leader continues to meet with Cefnogi, a youth leaders support group. This group enables Firestarters to connect with many different youth leaders from Cardiff, Newport, Caerphilly and the valley’s towns as well as other ministries such as Message Wales and Tearfund.
There has had a committed Core team around the leader this past year facilitating some of the planning times, feedback from each gathering and general oversight and prayer.
Our website has been forming well through this past year and is set to launch in early April. This will allow many more young people to sign up and enable FireStarters young people to share easily with their friends as to who we are, what we do and to reassure parents that we are a charity that take seriously our responsibility to the safety and growth of our young people.
Our joint mission in late July, early August with FireStarters Scotland to the Isle of Lewis was a great success and impacting for all those that attended. We collaborated with several churches on the island, encouraging them to keep in prayer for their younger generation. We were able to listen and learn from several men and women who had been in the last revival 1949-1952. It was wonderful to honour their faithfulness and see how spiritually alive they remain in their 90’s.
A further joint mission to Manchester for summer 2024 is being planned. This appears to be a hub of youth prayer at this time with Prayerstorm, 24/7 youth prayer and Message and we will seek to partner with leaders of these during this mission week.
In relation to funding:
- There has been ongoing financial support from our young people’s subs at each gathering covering costs for speakers, building hire, PA services, worship leaders from outside our
team, trustees travel expenses, weekend food, ongoing admin in annual insurance, Churchsuite - our admin hub, membership and DBS checks with Thirtyone Eight and then a one off payment for our website design.
- We had 9 one off gifts throughout the year and some regular monthly donations.
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We are grateful to all our supporters and volunteers and wish to thank them for their ongoing encouragement and commitment to the young people.
Firestarters Wales Charity Number 1175278 Income and Expenditure Report Year Ended 31 March 2024
| 31.03.2024 | 31.03.2023 | |
|---|---|---|
| Income | ||
| Subs | £4451.62 | £2889.20 |
| Mission income | £2220.57 | |
| Gifts/Donations | £526.00 | £355.00 |
| Gift aided donations | £433.37 | £408.07 |
| Total Income | £7631.56 | £3652.27 |
| Expenditure | ||
| Arts and crafts | £94.28 | £91.21 |
| Outreach Supplies | £157.40 | £65.10 |
| Stationary | £120.38 | £93.70 |
| Speakers fees and expenses | £719.05 | £448.00 |
| Trustee expenses(Travel Costs) | £132.38 | |
| PA services | £30.00 | |
| Gifts given | £274.41 | £264.95 |
| Canteen supplies | £1031.95 | £721.88 |
| Donations | £519.00 | £0.00 |
| Building hire | £1000.00 | £330.00 |
| Insurance | £304.10 | £304.38 |
| DBS Checks | £263.00 | £304.25 |
| Travel/Petrol | £53.91 | |
| Administration. | £1088.47 | £610.49 |
| Mission expenses | £2308.22 | |
| Miscellaneous | £0.00 | £126.92 |
| Total Expenditure | £8042.64 | £3414.79 |
| TOTAL surplus / deficit | (£411.08) | £237.48 |
Firestarters Wales Charity Number 1175278
Balance Sheet Report Year Ended 31 March 2024
| Current Assets Bank Current Account Petty Cash Total Current Liabilities Total Reserves Surplus/Deficit YTD Surplus brought forward Surplus/deficit plus last year’s balance |
Balance Balance 31.03.2024 31.03.2023 £5,711.99 £6,123.07 £20.00 £20.00 |
|---|---|
| £5,731.99 £6,143.07 £0.00 £0.00 |
|
| £0.00 £0.00 |
|
| £5,731.99 £6,143.07 |
|
| (£411.08) £237.48 £6143.07 £5905.59 |
|
| £5731.99 £6143.07 |