## **Trustees' Annual Report for the period**
Period start date Period end date 1st April 2022 31 March 2023
**From**
**To**
## Section A Reference and administration details
**Charity name** Autism Support Crawley
**Other names charity is known by** ----------
**Registered charity number (if any)** 1179383
**Charity's principal address** 1 – 7 Station Road
Crawley West Sussex **Postcode** RH10 1HT
## **Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity**
|**Trustee name**
**Office (if any)**
**Dates acted if not for**
**whole year**
**Name of person (or body)**
**entitled to appoint trustee (if**
**any)**
1 Maria Cook
Chairperson
2 Janet Flanagan
Vice Chairperson
3Vee McMath
Trustee Operations
4 Dave Padwick
Trustee Safeguarding
5Jessica Grant
Trustee of the
Secretariat
6Georgina James
Trustee
Fundraising/Marketing
**Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)**
**Name**
**Dates acted if not for whole year**
**Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)**
**Type of adviser **
**Name**
**Address**
**Groups Adviser**
Karl Parks
Crawley Community & Voluntary Service, The Orchard, 1-2
Gleneagles Court, Brighton Road, Crawley, RH10 6AD
**Richard Place Dobson**
**Accountants**
Darren Harding
1-7 Station Road, Crawley, West Sussex, RH10 1HT
**Autism Specialist, Autism**
**rights, School procedures.**
David Burns MBE
No business premises
**Autism**
**Consultant/Specialist**
Nicole Goodman
No business premises
**Community Development**
**Officer**
John Dale
Crawley Borough Council, Town Hall, The Boulevard,
Crawley, West Sussex,RH10 1UZ|1
2
3
4
5
6|**Trustee name**|**Trustee name**|**Office (if any)**|**Office (if any)**|**Dates acted if not for**
**whole year**|**Name of person (or body)**
**entitled to appoint trustee (if**
**any)**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||Maria Cook||Chairperson||||
|||Janet Flanagan||Vice Chairperson||||
|||Vee McMath||Trustee Operations||||
|||Dave Padwick||Trustee Safeguarding||||
|||Jessica Grant||Trustee of the
Secretariat||||
|||Georgina James||Trustee
Fundraising/Marketing||||
|||||||||
|||**Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)**||||||
|||**Name**||||**Dates acted if not for whole year**||
|||||||||
|**Groups Adviser**|||Karl Parks||Crawley Community & Voluntary Service, The Orchard, 1-2
Gleneagles Court, Brighton Road, Crawley, RH10 6AD|||
|**Richard Place Dobson**
**Accountants**|||Darren Harding||1-7 Station Road, Crawley, West Sussex, RH10 1HT|||
|**Autism Specialist, Autism**
**rights, School procedures.**|||David Burns MBE||No business premises|||
|**Autism**
**Consultant/Specialist**|||Nicole Goodman||No business premises|||
|**Community Development**
**Officer**|||John Dale||Crawley Borough Council, Town Hall, The Boulevard,
Crawley, West Sussex,RH10 1UZ|||
**Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)**
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March **2012**
1
**Section B Structure, governance and management**
## **Description of the charity’s trusts**
Constitution Type of governing document (e.g. trust deed, constitution) CIO (Charitable incorporated Organisation) How the charity is constituted
- (e.g. trust, association, company)
Elected at Annual General Meeting and up to two trustees can be coTrustee selection methods opted during the year by the existing trustees. All positions are advertised (e.g. appointed by, elected by) on our closed Facebook page and by email.
## **Additional governance issues (Optional information)**
You **may choose** to include additional information, where relevant, about:
- policies and procedures adopted for the induction and training of trustees;
- the charity’s organisational structure and any wider network with which the charity works;
- relationship with any related parties;
- trustees’ consideration of major risks and the system and procedures to manage them.
**Policies**
**Updated 2021 and reviewed 2023** Financial Controls Whistleblowing Safeguarding
- **Existing policies** Social Media Code of Conduct for Trustees Conflict of Interest for Trustees Environmental Policy Confidentiality Equality & Diversity Health & Safety Skills Audit x Induction for New Trustees Fundraising Policy
**Autism Support Crawley organisational structure** :
Chair, Vice chair, Secretary, Treasurer, Operations, Safeguarding, Officers.
## **Induction of New Trustees**
New Trustees receive necessary training depending on their individual responsibilities. They are required to undertake safeguarding training or provide evidence if they have had this training from another organisation.
## **Section C Objectives and activities**
**Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document**
The objects of the CIO are for the public benefit to promote and protect the good health and relieve the needs of people and their families/carers affected by Autistic Spectrum Condition or social communication and interaction difficulties (with or without a diagnosis) living within the counties of Surrey, Sussex, Kent and Brighton and Hove by the provision of support, information and activities and such other means as the trustees deem fit.
**Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public benefit in relation to these objects (include within this section the statutory declaration that trustees have**
Autism Support Crawley is a parent/carer peer support charity for parents, grandparents and other family members over the age of 18, who help support someone with autism or other social communication difficulties. Our main support platform is our closed Facebook page, which is an invaluable source of carer peer support, where members can receive support, ask questions, share information and make friends in a
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2
**had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit)**
relaxed understanding environment. We also add to the group page events, courses and services run by our charity and other relevant charities/organisations. We have over 2k members on our closed charity page. We also have a mailing list which we use to send all events, courses and services organised by our charity and other relevant charities/organisations to our members who do not use social media or don’t want to miss the information added to our page. We also have a professionals email list where we circulate events and services run by our charity that may be of interest to them or to share. For anyone who does not fit the criteria for our closed Facebook page we have the following platforms where anyone can follow our charity. Our public Facebook page has over 1.5K followers, we also have public accounts on X, Instagram and LinkedIn. We hold regular monthly meetings for our members. These are - coffee mornings, often with relevant speakers invited. Evening social face to face support meetings. Some of our members find it difficult to attend face to face support meetings because of their family/caring roles, therefore, we also hold a monthly evening online support meeting via Zoom. This year we have added a new face to face evening meeting, which is currently held every three months for our male carers. We introduced these because we had noticed not many male carers were attending our main face to face or online meetings. These peer support meetings are proving to be very popular. Our meetings are held at The Coaching Halt in Crawley, who also organise fun events for our members and their families, so they can relax and enjoy events in an inclusive environment. Last summer we returned to holding our annual family picnic for our members at Kilmarnock Horse Rescue where again our members can relax in a supportive friendly environment. Autism Support Crawley improves awareness and understanding of Autism by providing talks by its Trustees to front line organisations. This started by us working with doctors’ surgeries for which we won the HealthWatch #ItStartsWithYou national award in 2017. Since then, we have continued working with local doctors’ surgeries and have also delivered talks to many other organisations including staff and managers at Tilgate Nature Centre, Crawley Police Station, local Job Centre Plus, doctors and nurses at Crawley Urgent Treatment Centre, Leisure Centre staff/managers and staff at some children’s nurseries. These had to stop during the Covid 19 Lockdown/restriction periods other than a few we delivered remotely. We have now restarted our talks with more detailed content based on a new set of slides written by one of our trustees Vee McMath. We have delivered a refresher talk at a doctor’s surgery. We have received other enquiries for talks and are in the process of confirming dates for these. We also have close links with the Disability Engagement Officer for Crawley Police and Disability Liaison Officer at Crawley Borough Council. Our Chairperson Maria Cook represents our charity at meetings with Crawley Ambassadors Forum, Crawley Disability Forum and Sussex Police. She has advised Sussex Police on autism acceptance and inclusion. We are part of the Crawley Pathfinder Local Planning Group, a forum dedicated to improving mental health in the area. Autism Support Crawley continues to fulfil its public benefit statement and raise acceptance and awareness of autism, by having a presence at events where members of the public can find out about our charity and autism. These include Crawley Borough Council public celebration events in the town centre. We have attended disability events throughout
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3
|**Additional details of objectives**
You**may choose**to include
further statements, where
relevant, about:
policy on grantmaking;
policy programme related
investment;
contribution made by
volunteers.|the year with our information stand to provide parents and other family
members with information of how our charity can support them and their
families.
We hold an annual event that is open to anyone who is interested in
attending, not just our members, with a relevant speaker at Manor Green
College Crawley. During the covid restrictions this was held online and
since resuming after the restrictions were lifted, we made these talks
even more accessible by continuing to offer a hybrid option. This has
also enabled people to attend from all over the UK.
We continue to work closely with other organisations to improve Autism
Acceptance. We continue to liaise regularly with Crawley Community
Action, including being part of their social prescribing scheme. We also
feature in the West Sussex Local Offer, Crawley Older Persons Directory
and CCA’s Volunteer Directory.
We have been working with local theatres with their relaxed
performances and helped some of our members and their families attend
by offering a free carers ticket to the performance. We produced a guide
to help people attending the relaxed performances.
We are still holding regular monthly committee meetings via Zoom.
For the last few Christmases one of our trustees decorates their house
and front garden with an amazing lights display to raise funds for our
charity, we are so grateful to them for putting in so much time with this
display tohelp our funds.|
|---|---|
||**and activities (Optional information)**|
||The charity has one part time employee, which is a secretarial position, to
assist the trustees, committee members and volunteers.
A huge contribution is made every day by members offering support and
answering queries from other members on our closed charity Facebook
page.
Autism Support Crawley is very grateful for the time taken and advice
given without charge by Crawley Community Action and Richard Place
Dobson (accountants).
**We would like to thank the following organisations for their support**
**with awarding our charity with much needed grants.**
**Crawley Borough Council**Small Grants Scheme
**Sussex Community Foundation**
**We would also like to thank the following organisations for their**
**support.**
**The Coaching Halt, Crawley**for letting us use their premises for our
support meetings and for all the other help and support they give our
members with their events.
**Kilmarnock Horse Rescue**for letting us use one of their fields to host
our members picnic, showing our members and their children the animals
and for making us very welcome.
**Manor Green College**for the use of their premises for public speaker
events andforother help throughout the year. We chose to give thema|
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March **2012**
4
donation for the use of their premises for our public talk, but they do not charge us directly for this.
**Tesco Hazelwick** for donating food and drinks for our events throughout the year.
**Our Trustee of Fundraising/Marketing, Gina James and her Partner David** for their Christmas lights display to raise funds for us. **Fred and Rosemary Lane** for their kind donation towards our next members meal and social evening.
**Stockwell Lodge Masons** for their kind donation.
Plus, a huge thank you to everyone else who has supported us with volunteering their time and donated to our funds. We are so grateful for the help and support we have received.
## Section D Achievements and performance
We have increased our support meetings and introduced an online **Summary of the main** support meeting. We send out regular emails with information about our **achievements of the charity** and other charities/organisations events, training courses and services. **during the year** There is also an email list for professionals, this is so that we can send information out to those interested in our charity, but do not qualify to be members. We have popular public accounts on X, Instagram and our public Facebook page which has over 1500 followers. We also have a LinkedIn page. Our membership continues to increase. We have over 2K members on our closed Facebook page and mailing list. We have over 150 full members and the rest are associate members. Full members are members who attend events in person or via Zoom list who do not attend events. Our closed Facebook page is a lifeline for so many, a perfect social media platform to ask questions, share information and help with the isolation that is experienced by so many parent carers in the security of a closed page. We have strict guidelines in place to protect ourselves and the individuals that have posts approved on the page. We have restarted our information talks and stands that were halted by the pandemic. Pre-pandemic we were resident supporters at London Gatwick Airport twice yearly Accessibility Days, usually held in April and November, regularly helping 40 plus families familiarise themselves with the Hidden Disability Programme by visiting check ins and security searches, meeting the police, border force and their dogs and the fire brigade as well as a ride on the assistance buggies, visit the Sensory Room, access an aircraft and talk to staff about how they can navigate the airport successfully when they go away. The airport staff have been concentrating on recovery after the pandemic.
## **Section E Financial review**
Autism Support Crawley always ensures that a full year running costs for **Brief statement of the** the charity remains in the bank account. **charity’s policy on reserves**
**TAR**
March **2012**
5
**Details of any funds materially in deficit**
## **Further financial review details (Optional information)**
You **may choose** to include additional information, where relevant about:
- the charity’s principal sources of funds (including any fundraising);
- how expenditure has supported the key objectives of the charity;
The key objective of our charity is to support our parent/carers and their families to help them feel connected and not alone. We organise events to help prevent feelings of isolation for our families and therefore they can feel relaxed in a non-judgemental and supportive environment.
Our funds have enabled us to achieve this, and we have plans to expand our events and services to benefit our members by bringing back some of our popular events that we held before the pandemic e.g. Golf Day / Evening Fundraiser and applying for grants to fund the provision of some informative and invaluable workshops.
- investment policy and objectives including any ethical investment policy adopted.
## **Section F Other optional information**
We are looking to redesign our website www.autismsupportcrawley.co.uk The new website will be an invaluable resource for information, signposting and will be celebrating our members events. To make the website accessible, it will be disability friendly and available in other languages and is dependent upon a successful funding application to The National Lottery Community Fund.
## **Section G Declaration**
**The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.**
**Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees**
**Signature(s)** Flanagan **Full name(s)** Janet **Position (e.g. Secretary, Chair,** Vice Chairperson **etc) Date** 22/01/24
**TAR**
March **2012**
6
|**Autism Support Crawley**|**Autism Support Crawley**||**1179383**||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|**Receipts andpayments accounts**||||**CC16a**|
|**For the period**
**from**|4/1/2022|**To**|3/31/2023||
|**Section A Receipts and payments**|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|**A1 Receipts**
CrawleyBC Grant
**-**
Amazon
**169**
donations
**943**
longleytrust
**700**
Sussex Community
**-**
christmas lights
**1,364**
caridon
**300**
**-**
**3,476**
**-**
**-**
**_Sub total_ -**
**_Total receipts_ 3,476**
**A3 Payments**
meetings
**889**
office supplies
**2,004**
wages and HMRC
**-**
Advertisingand marketing
**-**
ChangingPlacesproject/installation
**-**
Gifts
**220**
travel
**27**
speakers
**185**
panto
**192**
insurance
**339**
**_Sub total_ 3,856**
**-**
**-**
**_Sub total_ -**
**_Total payments_ 3,856**
**_Net of receipts/(payments)_ - 380**
**A5 Transfers between funds**
**-**
**A6 Cash funds last year end**
**14,198**
**_Cash funds this year end_ 13,818**
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for AR)_
**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**
**A4 Asset and investment**
**purchases, (see table)**|**to the nearest £**
**1,500**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**5,000**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**6,500**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**6,500**
**-**
**1,500**
**4,091**
**-**
**6,567**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**12,158**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**12,158**
**- 5,658**
**-**
**6,979**
**1,321**
**Restricted**
**funds**|**to the nearest £**
**Endowment**
**funds**|**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**
**1,500**
**169**
**943**
**700**
**5,000**
**1,364**
**300**
**-**
**9,976**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**9,976**
**889**
**3,504**
**4,091**
**-**
**6,567**
**220**
**27**
**185**
**192**
**339**
**16,014**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**16,014**
**- 6,038**
**-**
**21,177**
**15,139**|**Last year**
**to the nearest £**|
|||**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**1,500**|**-**|
||||**169**|**124**|
||||**943**|**1,331**|
||||**700**|**-**|
||||**5,000**|**-**|
||||**1,364**|**886**|
||||**300**|**-**|
||||**-**|**-**|
||||**9,976**|**2,341**|
||||||
|||**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**||
||||**-**|**-**|
||||**-**|**-**|
||||||
|||**-**||**2,341**|
||||||
|||**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**889**|**580**|
||||**3,504**|**-**|
||||**4,091**|**-**|
||||**-**|**548**|
||||**6,567**|**-**|
||||**220**|**110**|
||||**27**|**-**|
||||**185**|**-**|
||||**192**|**130**|
||||**339**|**287**|
||||**16,014**|**1,655**|
||||||
|||**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**||
||||**-**||
||||**-**|**-**|
||||||
|||**-**|**16,014**|**1,655**|
||||||
||**- 5,658**|**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**- 6,038**|**686**|
||**-**||**-**|**-**|
||**6,979**||**21,177**|**20,491**|
||**1,321**||**15,139**|**21,177**|
## **Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**
|**Categories**
**B1 Cash funds**
**B2 Other monetary assets**
**B3 Investment assets**
**B5 Liabilities**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees|**Details**
Bank account
petty cash
**Details**
**Details**
**Details**
**Details**
Signature
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))|**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**13,747**
**1,321**
**71**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**13,818**
**1,321**
OK
OK
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
Print Name
MARIA COOK
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Fund to which**
**liability relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**|**to nearest £**
**Endowment**
**funds**|
|---|---|---|---|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||OK|
||||**to nearest £**
**Endowment**
**funds**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**When due**
**(optional)**|
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
||||Date of
approval|
|||MARIA COOK|10/19/2023|
|||||