Annual Report 2020-2021
Registered Charity (No. 1175929, registered in England and Wales). Registered address: 28 Goldieslie Road, Sutton Coldfield, B73 5PQ
www.foliosuttoncoldfield.org.uk FOLIO Sutton Coldfield @FOLIOsutcol
Welcome to the 2020-2021 Annual Report for FOLIO Sutton Coldfield.
2020-2021 was a demanding year for FOLIO, with Sutton Coldfield Libraries largely shut during this period due to the Covid pandemic. However we rose to the challenge using the time to do considerable work on governance of our charity, and adapting to offering events online and at distance, delivering resources and support to members of the groups we run, even if we were, for the most part, not able to meet in person. We worked hard to promote online library resources and services, such as order and collect, e-books and online research databases, making sure that our local community was aware of all the library service had to offer even if the buildings were shut.
Between 1 July 2020 and 30 June 2021 we held 25 events directly reaching 1100 people. We continued to support our Elderberries group with telephone calls and deliveries of afternoon tea and treats to reduce their sense of isolation. As part of a Fun Palace, and also at Christmas time, we created craft packs which we delivered out to families. A series of online local interest talks were extremely successful, with several events having audiences of almost 200. A collaboration with the commemorative Holocaust arts engagement body, Echo Eternal as part of their Horizons Festival and our own celebrations of Black History Month and LGBT History Month were purposeful decisions to engage with our wider community as a response to the new mission, vision and values we adopted as part of our Governance overhaul during the year. These are worth highlighting here in full:
Our vision is to help create an inspired and cohesive local community, passionate about reading and learning, which enjoys and engages with library services.
Our mission is to offer inspirational and transformational activities for the community to learn, interact and thrive, through engagement with local library services.
Our values are that we will be:
Welcoming:
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We reach out and welcome people in
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We are respectful and inclusive
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We engage fully with participants, funders and partners
Imaginative:
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We provide activities/events which are meaningful for the participants
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• We offer activities/events which enrich library services
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We create a “wow” factor
Community-focused:
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We involve our local community and the wider community
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We collaborate with a diverse group of stakeholders to deliver a variety of activities/events together
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We offer a wide range of activities/events that will appeal to different sections of our community
I’m enormously grateful to the volunteers who helped us to deliver our online and distance events and to my Board of Trustees who worked so hard to ensure FOLIO ended the year in a stronger position than it started despite all the complexities the past year. I’m proud that our organisation has been able to contribute to our community during these difficult months.
Zoe Toft, Chair - FOLIO Sutton Coldfield
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Events 2020-2021
As one response to lockdown and library buildings be closed we created craft packs and delivered them to local families. We did this twice, once tying in with the nationwide Fun Palaces festival, and again at Christmas time. In addition to distributing our packs to our followers, we provided additional packs for distribution via a local food bank, and Homestart North Birmingham
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Merry Christmas from all at FOLIO Sutton Coldfield!
We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and enjoy making these decorations. If you can send us
a picture of the decorations you make we’d love to see them up and brightening your homes!
1. A sparkly bauble
2.. Good old fashioned paper chains 3. A 3-D round bauble
4. Chocolate books to hang on your tree
3. A strip bauble
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“Thank you for our craft activity pack. The children have had lots of fun trying out new activities at home over the weekends. We really appreciate having new things to do.”
“Thank you so much for the Christmas art pack. It's absolutely lovely. We really appreciated it.”
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Another response to being unable to meet in person was an increased online engagement with our supporters, particularly through inviting them to contribute to our celebration of Black History Month and LGBT History month.
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Our online local interest talks proved very popular. All were recorded and are available to view on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnKilcatBi4&list=PLZ3g60jLMPa87xgig3bIohRVubgA79Cp We are extremely grateful to a private donor at the Wylde Green Rotary Club for funding out improved Zoom subscription which enabled us to host our large audiences at these events.
“Many thanks - and much appreciation of all you are doing through Folio.” “It was a really good evening and a great way to spend the evening”
“"I really enjoyed the talk last night, especially the way it was portrayed as a play, mental stimulation is so important, and more so during these COVID times.”
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Our collaboration with Echo Eternal saw us kick off an ongoing relationship with Holocaust survivor Agnes Kaposi with a live online interview, two creative workshops inspired her testimony and the lighting up of Sutton Coldfield Town Hall with excerpts of her testimony and the poetry which was the result of our creative workshops.
“Thank you and Mandy for a great workshop. It was a privilege to participate with such wonderful women. If this awful pandemic has done anything good at all, it is bringing people together worldwide using the new technology of zoom.”
Watch our interview with Agnes: https://youtu.be/ y46IF2Ctpwc
Listen to our collaborative poem inspired by Agnes’s testimony: https://youtu.be/q2RYPklvDKg
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During 2020-2021 we developed a new project called Telling Sutton’s Stories, http:// foliosuttoncoldfeld.org.uk/map . This is an interactive, collaborative map project exploring people’s connections with Sutton Coldfield, highlighting the local history resources available through the library service. Thanks to a grant from Sutton Coldfield Neighbourhood Network Scheme we were able to host a series of online local history events exploring the archive photos held by Sutton Coldfield Library.
“That was really interesting. Thank you for organising. Really appreciated it” ““Really informative, professional, and enlightening.””
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Throughout the year we kept in close contact with our Elderberries (older members of the community who we hosted regularly in Sutton Coldfield Library pre-pandemic) through a mixture of socially distanced meetings, resources and treats delivered to individuals’ homes and telephone calls.
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Governance
Liz Parry - temporary Noran Flynn - Lead on Zoe Toft - Chair Jenny Wilkinson - Secretary volunteering and Treasurer safeguarding
FOLIO’s Board of Trustees continued to meet monthly throughout 2020-2021, albeit over Zoom. Separate monthly meetings were held to focus solely on strategic development, enabling our Trustee meetings to focus on the day-to-day running of the charity.
Unfortunately 4 colleagues stepped back from working on FOLIO’s board during 2020-2021. We are extremely grateful for the rigour, creativity and passion that John Cooper, Daksh Gupta, Cassie O’Boyle and Clare Rumble brought to our Board and we wish them all the very best.
Volunteers
Whilst many of our previously regular volunteers were unable to support the work of FOLIO due to pandemic we are very grateful to those who volunteered in new ways, making telephone calls, delivering resources and supporting FOLIO’s work online. In particular we are grateful to Alan Cameron Wills who, with support of Geraint Pickard-Skeats, developed the bespoke software for Telling Sutton’s Stories, donating over 100 hours of their time to do so.
Plans for 2021-2022
Following an extremely challenging year, in 2021-2022 we plan to recruit new trustees to ensure our Board remains robust and flexible. We are exploring ways in which to appoint a paid project manager, delivering on a strategic commitment we made last year.
As circumstances allow us we look forward to returning to in-person events.
Communications
One area we were able to grow considerably during 2020-2021 was in terms of our online support and newsletter mailing list. We now have 1665 followers on Facebook, 1132 followers on Twitter and 709 newsletter subscribers.
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Our Accounts for 2020-2021*
| Opening balance | 5,113.05 |
|---|---|
| Income | 16,814.13 |
| Expenditure | 5,329.02 |
| Closing balance | 16,598.16 |
| Of which: | |
| Reserves | 1,250.00 |
| Restricted funds | 9,033.59 |
| Available balance | 6,314.57 |
FOLIO’s annual operating costs are assessed to amount to c. £2,500. FOLIO’s Board of Trustees considers it prudent to maintain a level of reserves in order to cover ongoing costs in the event that insufficient income is generated through activities such as fundraising and grants. The Trustees consider it appropriate to hold sufficient reserves to cover operating costs for a six-month period. FOLIO Sutton Coldfield therefore maintains a reserves balance of £1,250.
*At the time of preparing this report these figures had not been independently reviewed.
Thank you to our funders 2020-2021
Our activities in the year 2020-2021 were generously supported by grants from the following bodies:
This grant enabled us to support our Elderberries group.
A donation from a private benefactor from the Rotary Club of Wylde Green enabled us to upgrade our Zoom subscription to deliver online talks.
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A grant from the Sutton Coldfield Neighbourhood Network Scheme enabled us to deliver online activities as part of the Telling Sutton’s Stories project, and to plan for in-person activities in 2021-2022.
Thank you to the following funders who also awarded us grants:
The Thousandth Man - Richard Burns Charitable Trust (Squire Patton Boggs)
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FOLIO Sutton Coldfield 1175929
Receipts and payments accounts
1-Jul-20 30-Jun-21 To
For the period from
Section A Receipts and payments
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Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
Total funds
funds funds funds
to the nearest
to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
£
A1 Receipts
Grants 250 11,520 - 11,770
Donations 4,412 - - 4,412
Fundraising 553 - - 553
Event bookings - - - -
Fees - - - -
Gift Aid 79 - - 79
- - - -
5,294 11,520 - 16,814
Sub total (Gross income for AR)
A2 Asset and investment sales,
(see table).
- - - -
- - - -
Sub total - - - -
Total receipts 5,294 11,520 - 16,814
A3 Payments
Printing 153 - - 153
Equipment - - - -
Speakers and event providers 175 - - 175
Refreshments 118 500 - 618
Digital 142 1,492 - 1,634
Stationery - - - -
Training - 112 - 112
Phone - 91 - 91
Postage - - - -
Consultancy fees 1,440 - - 1,440
Insurance - 220 - 220
Accountancy 210 - - 210
Fees 34 - - 34
Sundry 106 536 - 642
Sub total [ 2,378 ] 2,951 - 5,329
A4 Asset and investment
purchases, (see table)
Equipment - - - -
- - - -
Sub total [ - ] - - -
Total payments 2,378 2,951 - 5,329
Net of receipts/(payments) 2,916 8,569 - 11,485
A5 Transfers between funds 43 # - 43 - -
A6 Cash funds last year end 4,605 508 - 5,113
Cash funds this year end 7,564 9,034 - 16,598
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Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
| Unrestricted | Restricted | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Categories | Details | funds | funds | ||
| B1 Cash funds | Bank Petty cash |
Total cash funds | to nearest £ 7,513 51 - 7,564 |
to nearest £ 9,034 - - 9,034 |
|
| (agree balances | with receipts and payments account(s)) |
OK | OK | ||
| Unrestricted | Restricted | ||||
| funds | funds | ||||
| B2 Other monetary assets | Details | to nearest £ - - - - - - |
to nearest £ - - - - - - |
||
| B3 Investment assets | Details | Fund to which asset belongs |
Cost (optional) - - - - - |
||
| B4 Assets retained for the | Details Lego and storage units |
Fund to which asset belongs |
Cost (optional) - |
||
| charity’s own use | Seating IT equipment Display equipment |
- - - - - - - - |
|||
| Fund to which | Amount due | ||||
| B5 Liabilities | Details | liability relates | - - - - - (optional) |
Notes
- Transfers from restricted to unrestricted funds have been made with the consent of grant providers.
Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees
Signature Print Name Jenny Wilkinson
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CC16a
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Last year
to the nearest £
3,480 1,283 221 323 1,120 - - 6,427
6,427
221 39 5,700 906 50 26 331 202 15 2,600 274 210 28 606 11,208
628 628 11,836 - 5,409 - 10,522 5,113
Endowment funds
to nearest £ - - - -
OK
Endowment funds
to nearest £
-
Current value (optional)
-
Current value (optional)
-
When due (optional)
Date of approval 4r2012022