Charity No 1179453
Annual Trustees Report for Charity Commission 31st March 2023 to 31st March 24
2023/24 has been a great year of growth and was about building on a good year in 2022/23. We are now in a good position financially following Covid and a continued increase in rider numbers throughout the year, we have had a total of 16.661 people through the gates of which 10.158 were registered donating riders and 6503 were carers of parents who ride for free, a third more than 2022.
We have planning permission for 2 more containers at Garons, as of October 2023, one as a fittedout bike maintenance workshop and the other to allow us to store our specialist bikes better, we have had to work hard and get many quotes for groundworks and container to find value for the charity and with the support of Sported, we can only find two potential funders who will consider grants of the size we need due to the cost of the project. We hope to have funding in place over the summer and start site works in the autumn.
A continuing big challenge was the recruitment and retainment of volunteers, but we have managed to grow our crew to 50 up by 10 regular volunteers and they have put in over 5344 hours that an extra 300 hours than the previous year. We will continue to raise our profile locally and look for more ways to say thank you to our fantastic volunteers.
We continue to contract in the services of Alan and Gwen Cook for administration (Gwen’s Cycle Coaching) who have focused on increasing our profile with Southend City Council and funders including increasing our branded clothing range and merchandise for volunteers and to promote us at local events with our branded gazebo and new promotional stall.
We had ongoing fund-raising initiatives with Co-op stores, Waitrose, Essex Community Foundation and the Inter-church charity trust who supported us with a rent and track hire core costs grant.
Major highlights this year, were being invited to attend a Southend United game and raise funds with a collection outside the ground before a match, this was after we supported the management team by suppling 4 bikes for the month of October and the Prostate charity challenge, they undertook. We also replaced all our specialist children trikes with the generous support of Ashfield special needs> Took all our volunteers out for a thank you meal in January and supplied them all with branded sweatshirts. We finished the upgrade of our existing children’s 2-wheel bikes with money from Essex community foundation and Co-op Star group Chelmsford with support from Richardson’s cycle in Leigh and Halfords Southend, buying these at discounted prices. We were also given more helmets from Hardnutz, which has allowed us to raise funds from donations with the surplus stock.
A reality of this year is increased costs including insurance, but this has been offset by the increase of donations by those attending and paying to ride from last year and core cost grants.
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We have started to work on our plans to celebrate our 10th Birthday in August 2024, to recognise the impact Just Ride Southend has had on the community and as a foundation to promote the new expansion project and fundraising.
Just Ride Southend Annual Trustees Report CC 2023/24
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