2025-03-31-accounts

Denholme Community Centre : Annual Review 2024-25

Overview of the Year

Our regular groups and ac/vi/es con/nue and thrive for the most part, but we have been able to add widen our appeal and a>ract several new users.

The community centre con/nues to provide accommoda/on for a community-run library offering a valued service to families in our village. The library offers ac/vi/es for children, as well as a welcoming space for people to drop in. We also have a thriving Book Club mee/ng monthly, and a writers’ group mee/ng weekly. Each year the writers’ group publishes collec/ons of poetry and prose which are for sale on Amazon.

The year has seen some staff changes. As well as a local volunteer/trustee filling the role of Centre Coordinator, we have also appointed a caretaker. Volunteers remain the heart of our ‘staff team’, providing catering, centre maintenance, events management and financial management.

planning, finance, fundraising and events management. Under their guidance, we have con/nued to extend and strengthen building on our five-star food hygiene ra/ng which enables us to offer food and drinks to support our ac/vi/es. Our alcohol licence has proved popular, and sales of food and drink have become a key element in our revenue.

We con/nue to fund raise for a replacement boiler, though we have made progress and are exploring all available funding streams.

Our new upstairs tenant, an established local children’s dance school who moved in in February 2024, has been a valuable asset as well as a key element in our revenue stream.

Challenges certainly remain, especially in terms of revenue from room hire, but the centre remains commi>ed to offering a high level of service and opportunity to local people. We recognise our crucial role in reducing loneliness and enhancing social contact between residents.

Community Involvement and Communica@on

Many ac/vi/es taking place within the community centre are community led and rely on the resources of local volunteers. We pride ourselves on our communica/on with, and support for, these volunteers and, where possible, we act promptly on the feedback that they give us.

Over the last year, we have con/nued to build links we have with other groups in the village. We have provided facili/es, free of charge, to the Neighbourhood Watch group, who operate a contact point where people can report police and council issues. We have also

worked with the Children’s Gala commi>ee, and we par/cipated in the 2024 Gala where we held a fundraising tombola.

We have also maintained links with local businesses; the Coop, the pharmacy and the post office as well as the local restaurant who provide the meals for our Lunch Club.

Followers to our dedicated Facebook page con/nue to rise. Along with our contribu/ons to other local social media channels, this enables us to keep the local community informed of our ac/vi/es. We post regular promo/onal material adver/sing our programme of ac/vi/es (usually a dozen or more posts a week) and welcome comments, sugges/ons and feedback through these channels. And for those who prefer more tradi/onal methods, we have leaflets, no/ceboards and an open door where they can come and share their thoughts with us.

Denholme has one of the highest propor/ons of elderly residents within the whole of the Bradford MDC area and thus a large number of our regular ac/vi/es and groups have evolved to support older people. The Lunch Club offers what can be a rare opportunity to meet and socialise with others. In response to requests from users we have sought to open during bank holidays to help people feel less isolated from their peers.

Opening as a “Warm Space” last year as part of the government backed scheme also enabled us to reach out to isolated individuals and families, and we have developed this into a regular Wednesday morning breakfast event. This is extremely popular, a valued social event offering drinks, toast, crumpets and breakfast sandwiches at a low cost

Although our services to the elderly are vital, during the course of the year our expanded events programme has enabled us to appeal to other demographic groups. In part this has been in response to the need to diversify our income, but we also want to ensure we a>ract new user groups to the centre, who may not previously have par/cipated.

New Ac@vi@es

We worked with the Town Council to provide a lively Christmas event in 2024 where we were able to sell alcohol as well as other refreshments such as hot chocolate, mince pies, mulled wine and other fes/ve food.

We opened the centre to the community on Remembrance Day 2024 with pie and peas and hot drinks for sale.

Since the end of last year we have been planning a lively and diverse programme of social events, mainly to take place at weekends when the centre tended to be underused. This is no longer the case, with events filling most of the spots. These include farmers markets and indoor car boot sales, seasonal events such as Valen/ne’s Day, spring sales, Mothers’ Day aaernoon tea, pumpkin carving, Halloween Night, a Christmas Market and a children’s

Christmas card compe//on, as well as Bingo, Quiz Nights, a community café, Ladies Nights, and aaernoon tea-dances.

We have also worked hard to promote the Centre as an a>rac/ve venue for hire, for events such as birthday par/es and wedding anniversaries.

In the coming year we intend to build on this success by extending the range of ac/vi/es offered. Much of this will be experimental, but early signs are good. Our volunteers are qualified in food hygiene so we are able to offer a range of catering op/ons to support events. The ideas under considera/on include:

• More seasonal events such as Easter and Christmas, Halloween, Christmas wreathmaking

• Music, e.g. Northern Soul, themed discos, Reggae Night

• Con/nue to support events linked to the wider community ac/vity, e.g. summer party at the Gala, social event on Remembrance Day, Christmas lights switch on in collabora/on with Denholme Town Council

• Celebrate na/onal events, e.g.

• Psychic Night

• Cocktail Night

• Private hires for birthday par/es, weddings, even funerals

The Challenges

Once again, and in common with all our users and other public sector providers, the centre has been affected by rising running costs, in par/cular the cost of hea/ng and ligh/ng. Our energy bills have been be>er controlled this year due to a much more detailed understanding of our ongoing costs and nego/a/ng be>er tariffs with suppliers. Even so, we have an old building and maintenance costs are inevitably high.

earned income. We had hoped to bring in £1000 a month from earned income in 2024-25, but have achieved around £1800, well in excess of our expecta/ons. We are op/mis/c and confident in our approach, and hope to be less reliant on grants, though we will con/nue to explore poten/al sources of external funding to help offset one-off costs.

Council, who awarded us a grant of £10,000 in March 2025 to help with running costs.

Conclusion and Future Plans

• a) centre. In par/cular, we aim to set up a Denholme Lo>ery, a way of a>rac/ng regular monthly income.

• b) We will con/nue to seek to a>ract new trustees to join our team to enhance our exis/ng skill set, with a par/cular emphasis on fundraising

• c) One of our main priori/es remains the pressing need to iden/fy funding for a new boiler, without which the Centre will struggle to operate in the long term.

• d) We will look to control cleaning and caretaking costs by paying a local person or a trustee to perform these du/es.

We have always welcomed sugges/ons from residents regarding the sorts of new ac/vi/es they would welcome in the Centre, and this will con/nue. Specifically, we will further improve the a>rac/veness of our centre as a venue for hire as well as enhancing our own events, by making full use of our popular bar as we see this as having huge income-earning poten/al. We will consider the financial prospects of hiring dedicated bar staff.

We aim to produce a Denholme Directory to promote our own ac/vi/es as well as those in the wider community, possibly funded by adver/sing

already put in place to understand and control our costs, and our plans to increase earned income in the coming year will enable us to successfully navigate our way through the challenges. Times are hard, and this won’t change, but the community centre is needed now as never before, and we are determined to ensure the centre remains viable and sustainable for future genera/ons. We cannot insulate ourselves from the impacts of external cost increases, but we have developed a track record of reac/ng appropriately, imagina/vely, and in a /mely manner to maintain a solid founda/on for the future.

DMI Community Centre- Year End Accounts 1st Apil 2024- 31st March 2025 Proflt & Loss Account 202412025 202312024 CommerclalRents 83. 13ASI.00 CommunltyRents 19,103. 17,940.00 Casual Rents 2,699. 2328.00 Giants & Support Big Lottery Bradford Council BusinesslDTC Other Aoo.00 44,629.00 22.000.00 2,000.¢)O 10,000.00 4,460.00 20,000.00 2.629.00 Events Income 4,641.(Kl Bar Prof Ils ,954.00 Mlsceuaneous 6,928.00 S,8￿00 77,808.00 842Q.00 Professlonal Fees & Llcences Buildings Insurance Registrationlmembershlp Fees Staff Costs 5,848.00 1,642.00 150.00 4,056.00 31.00 2.273.00 12,158.00 Bulidlng Expenses Cleaning Other Servlces Consumables Maintenance Security Gas & Electrlc Water Internet 58,615.00 2,862.00 2,238.00 3,987.00 6,300.00 578.00 41,390.00 871.00 389.00 57,609.00 4.043.00 2.143.00 7,560.00 5,808.00 420.00 36.303.00 943.00 389.00 64A63.00 72,040.00 ProllULoss Inlhe year 45.00 12,17ZOO

DMI Communlty Centre- Year EndAccounts 1st Apil 2024- 31st March 2025 Balance Sheet Openlr& BalarKe Totallntomè TotalExpendlture Closlng Balance 44.562.00 a42￿.00 64A63.00 64.311.00 32WO.00 84212.00 72,040.00 44.562.00