Charity Number - 1179880
The Ellie Thornton Foundation CIO Trustees Report For the period ended 5 April 2025
## Contents
**Reference and administrative information........................................................1 Trustees’ Annual Report....................................................................................2**
2
## **Reference and administrative information for the period ended 5 April 2025**
**Charity number** 1179880 **Operational address** 127 Greenways Crescent, Shoreham by Sea, West Sussex, BN43 6HP
**Trustees**
Trustees who served during the period from formation and up to the date of this report were as follows:
Ben Thornton (Chair)
Victoria Thornton
Anne Colvin
Tamsyn Holmes
Steven Robinson
Katie Paling
Trustees who served for a period of time within the reporting period:
Denise Thornton (deceased 31 July 2024)
Karen Fishwick (resigned 1st April 2025)
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## **Report of the Trustees for the period ended 5 April 2025**
The Ellie Thornton Foundation (ETF) Trustees present their seventh report and financial statements as a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) for the charity’s period ended 5 April 2025. Reference and administrative information set out on page 1 forms part of this report. The financial statements comply with current statutory requirements, the charity's trust deed and the Statement of Recommended Practice - Accounting and Reporting by Charities: SORP applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with FRS 102.
## **Objectives and activities**
The objects of the CIO are:
(1) For the advancement of health and the saving of lives of children in England and Wales for the public benefit by raising awareness of road safety issues and making strategic interventions to improve road safety in particular, but not limited to, affecting road use in the vicinity of schools, bus stops, pedestrian crossings, and to contribute to safer routes to schools.
(2) For the relief of those in need, by reason of ill-health and disability, including where such illhealth and disability cause financial hardship or other disadvantage to the families affected, in England and Wales for the public benefit, by providing resources such as financial and logistical support to such families to facilitate outings and activities for the siblings of children with additional needs;
(3) For the relief of those in need by reason of bereavement through the loss of a child, by providing support and activities to promote wellbeing for families in England and Wales.
The activities of the Foundation in this reporting period were focussed on fundraising through the main fundraising event ELLIEFEST.
## **Achievements and performance**
In 2024-2025 the charity activities focused on:
- Planning and delivery of ELLIEFEST 2024
- Inducting new board members
- Creating new video assets for the website to describe what the charity does
- Approving £6897 road safety grants to 21 schools which would benefit 6667 children attending those schools.
The raised income for the year was: £6655 was raised through donations throughout the year with a marked increase in the month July to September which we attribute to the ELLIEFEST 2024 event in July.
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The charity gave out road safety grants of £6224 in the period. The discrepancy with approved grants is due to applicants not taking up the grant within the same financial year it was offered, or failing to complete requisite paperwork to secure their grant.
Fundraising and administration costs were: £1145
Event material costs were: £2231
Total expenditure including grants given was £9600
The highlight of the year was ELLIEFEST which raises funds for the charity mainly through donations and through the charity creating profit through refreshment, and games stalls at the event. The event also serves as a key opportunity for local level promotion of the charity and the grant making schemes we offer. Each year ELLIEFEST is a catalyst to the grant giving year ahead, both with a fresh injection of funds but also triggering a peak in applications as a result of our significant marketing campaign that reaches approx 20,000 people.
We onboarded the two new Trustees Katie Paling and Karen Fishwick.
We took part in a number of smaller charity fundraising/profile raising events in the locality led by Trustee Denise Thornton and our local volunteers.
The charity ended the year with **£12,250** funds in the bank.
## **Challenges**
A funding application to The David Hunt Foundation resulted in a grant offer, which was then rescinded as we were informed with too little notice to attend their event which was a contingent of receiving the grant.
Founding Trustee Denise Thornton passed away after a short illness on 31 July 2024. Denise's expertise in working with volunteers and her role promoting the charity on the circuit of local charity events will be hard to replace.
## **Progress toward the delivery of objectives**
## _**(1) Road Safety Initiative**_
The 2024 / 2025 year was our most successful to date, for the road safety grant programme, supported by the addition of a skilled administrator, to support applicants to provide all the required data to make the request eligible.
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## _**(2) Ellie Days**_
The Ellie Days programme of support wasn’t widely taken up. A partnership was explored with SIBS - a charity focused on the brothers and sisters of children and adults with disabilities, and is yet to come to full fruition.
## _**(3) Bereaved family support**_
The charity is open to requests for funds but has no published scheme at present.
## **Public benefit**
The Trustees confirm that they have complied with their duty to have due regard to the guidance on public benefit published by the Charity Commission in exercising their powers and duties. The public benefit of the Charity’s activities has been focussed on the raising of funds to support the programme moving forwards.
## **Policy on Grant Making**
The ETF grant making policy and criteria around the Ellie days initiative and Schools Road Safety Programme are available on the website here:
https://elliethorntonfoundation.org.uk/what-we-do/ellie-days/ https://elliethorntonfoundation.org.uk/what-we-do/road-safety-initiatives/
## **Contribution of Volunteers**
The Trustees have worked in a voluntary capacity for the charity in the year 2024 – 2025.
## **Plans for the future**
ELLIEFEST 2026 was booked for July 2026 with a biennial pattern established, next events planned in 2028, 2030
Our focus in 2026 will be delivering ELLIEFEST 26 and a major focus on Road Safety grants.
This report was approved by the Trustees on 5/2/26 by email. and signed by:
B Thornton Chair of Trustees
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**Charity Name No (if any) The Ellie Thornton Foundation 1179880 Receipts and payments accounts CC16a For the period** Period start date Period end date **To from 06/04/2024 05/04/2025**
|**Section A Receipts and payments**|**Section A Receipts and payments**||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**A1 Receipts**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**1,601**
**5,054**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**6,655**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**6,655**
**2,231**
**1,145**
**6,224**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**9,600**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**9,600**
**- 2,945**
**-**
**-**
**- 2,945**|**Restricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**
**1,601**
**5,054**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**6,655**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**6,655**
**2,231**
**1,145**
**6,224**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**9,600**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**9,600**
**- 2,945**||**Last year**
**to the nearest £**|
|Donations|**1,601**|||||**-**|
|FundraisingEvents|**5,054**|||||**-**|
||**-**|||||**-**|
||**-**|||||**-**|
||**-**|||||**-**|
||**-**|||||**-**|
||**-**|||||**-**|
||**-**|||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for_
_AR)_|**6,655**|||||**-**|
||||||||
|**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**|||||||
||**-**||||||
||**-**|||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**|**-**|||||**-**|
|**_Total receipts_**
**A3 Payments**|||||||
|||||||**-**|
||||||||
|
CharityEvent Materials|**2,231**|||||**-**|
|FundraisingCosts|**1,145**|||||**-**|
|Grant Funding|**6,224**|||||**-**|
||**-**|||||**-**|
||**-**|||||**-**|
||**-**|||||**-**|
||**-**|||||**-**|
||**-**|||||**-**|
||**-**|||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_ **|**9,600**|||||**-**|
||||||||
|**A4 Asset and investment**
**purchases (see table)**|||||||
|**,**|**-**||||||
||**-**||||||
|**_Sub total_ **|**-**|||||**-**|
|**_Total payments_**
**_Net of receipts/(payments)_**
**A5 Transfers between funds**
**A6 Cash funds last year end**
**_Cash funds this year end_**|||||||
|||||||**-**|
||||||||
||**- 2,945**|**-**|**-**|
**- 2,945**||**-**|
||**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**||**-**|
||**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**||**-**|
||**- 2,945**|**-**|**-**|**- 2,945**||**-**|
CCXX R1 accounts (SS)
05/02/2026
1
|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**||
|---|---|---|---|
|**Categories**
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees
**B1 Cash funds**
**B2 Other monetary assets**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
**B5 Liabilities**
**B3 Investment assets**|Signature
**Details**
**Details**
Cash in account
**Details**
**Details**
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))
**Details**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**12,250**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**12,250**
**-**
Agreement Error
OK
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**liability relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
Print Name
**Ben Thornton**
**Vicky Thornton**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||OK|
||||**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**When due**
**(optional)**|
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
||||Date of
approval|
|||**Ben Thornton**|**05/02/2026**|
|||**Vicky Thornton**|**05/02/2026**|
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)
05/02/2026
2