Trustee Annual report
Geek.zone 1[st] April 2020 to
31[st] March 2021
Geek.Zone
Charity Number: 1182126
Address: UNION HOUSE 111 NEW UNION STREET COVENTRY
Postcode: CV1 2NT
Telephone number: 03000 3000 30
Email address: hq@geek.zone
Website: www.Geek.Zone
Bank: NatWest
Contents
A Summary from chair
Social Media
Charity Officers
Objectives and Activities
Venues
Constitution
Organisational Structure
Risks
New Trustees
Achievements and Performance
Looking Forward
Accounts
Chair statement
What a year we have had in 2020 and 2021, we been in lockdown since March 2020 and been doing events online, we have made new friend across the UK and in other countries with the use of Discord and Google meet. And other events like Movie night and Minecraft have help pass the time. We have been working on the website and membership system.
We are looking forward to getting events back to in person events the after announcement by the government to end restriction
There are also many more geeks to find, so we will be out there doing just that. Invite your family, friends, colleagues, that bloke on the bus, everyone you think might be . interested in joining our awesome community
James Geddes
Chair
Geek.Zone
Social Media
Geek.Zone HQ
Geek.Zone/Coventry
Geek.Zone/Chelmsford
Geek.Zone/London
Twitter @GeekZone
Facebook /OurGeekZone Twitter @GeekZoneCov Facebook @GeekZoneCov Meetup GeekZoneCoventry Twitter @GeekZoneChelms Facebook @GeekZoneChelms Meetup GeekZoneChelmsford Twitter @GeekZoneLondon Facebook @GeekZoneLondon Meetup GeekZoneLondon
James Geddes: Chair & CEO
Hannah Baller: Secretary and Coventry Regent
James Webb: Treasurer Retired 19/07/2020
Matthew Wadland: General Trustee till 08/08/2020 temporary put as Treasurer until election at AGM 28/11/2020 elected as Treasurer.
Giles Roberts General Trustee 30/03/2021
Sam Winterhalder General Trustee 30/03/2021
Volunteer
Accounts: John P, Aaron F
Developers committee Lead: James Geddes Team: Carwyn N, Sam Winterhalder, Tristan B, Jack B, Giulio G, Bala
Objectives and Activities
The objects of the CIO are:
The promotion of social inclusion for the public benefit of the public who are socially and economically excluded on grounds of mental ill-health, who experience high levels of social anxiety and difficulties with social interaction by providing assisting in the provision of advice, guidance, support and educational activities.
For the purpose of this clause ‘socially excluded’ means being excluded from society, or parts of society, including access to employment, as a result of disability or mental ill -health.
Aims:
Geek.Zone runs events in the community to promote social inclusion and mental well being by giving members a likeminded social network to become part of, including but not limited to board gaming, LAN parties, coding education.
Activity:
This year due to Covid 19 our activities have been done online, we have had pubs and other venue closed from 23 march 2020 so events have had to change, to pint night being
done on Google meet and Discord. We held online cinema night with kast and Netflix party, also multiplayer games like world of warcraft, minecraft and online food nights, we had one social distance event in a park.
Venues/online
Available to all districts
Online events
Google meets
Discord Channel
Minecraft Geek.zone own minecraft server
World of warcraft
Netflix Teleparty
Kast sharing site
Coding
Skype
Coventry
Hearsall common Coventry CV5 6GN
Chelmsford
London
Constitution:
The Geek.Zone governing document is the Geek.Zone Constitution. This is available at Geek.Zone/Constitution.
Organisational Structure
Geek.Zone is comprised of three Districts;
• Geek.Zone/Coventry
-
Geek.Zone/Chelmsford
-
Geek.Zone/London
These Districts work together to build the community as a whole. They are not separate charities.
Geek.Zone has a Trustee board and a "Let's Do This" or "LDT" team. The LDT team might be known as a steering committee elsewhere. Together, they ensure that the day-to-day tasks are executed. This is coordinated using "Trello" boards at trello.com/geekzone and discord.
Decision Making:
Major decisions are made by way of a ballot of all Geek.Zone members. This includes but is not limited to;
The appointment of Trustees Constitutional amendments:Day-to-day decisions are made by a way of a show-of-hands at “Let’s Do This”, LDT, team meetings. Also some decisions have been done on discord text chat service this allowed our member to get more involved in decisions of where the charity goes.
Related Parties Geek.Zone does not have any subsidiaries.
Risks:
As with all organisations, there are many risks that Geek.Zone faces. The trustees have identified the following as major risks and mitigate them as described.
Damage to Reputation:
Geek.Zone has always worked hard to build an excellent reputation in its communities. This has taken years to achieve, and could be destroyed in moments. Damage to the Geek.Zone reputation could lead to;
- Loss of members
• Loss of partners
• Cease of operations
In order to mitigate this risk, the Geek.Zone Trustees think very carefully about who Geek.Zone forms any type of relationship with. Full "due diligence" research is carried out before entering into a relationship. Criteria include but are not limited to;
• Financial conduct
• Leadership & membership conduct
- Third party reviews
• Incorporation data
- Known associations
For example, an organisation that has;
Seen allegations of abusive leaders
Published member data against GDPR
Aggravated third parties
Would not be one that Geek.Zone would ever partner with. Even if those problems were resolved, the damage to the reputation of that organisation would clearly be so severe that it could not be ameliorated overnight. Allowing
Geek.Zone to associate with such an organisation would negatively impact the good reputation that Geek.Zone has worked hard to build.
Funding Decline
Geek.Zone currently receives 100% of its financial support from its members. A decline in Geek.Zone membership would impact the funds available to carry out Geek.Zone activities, seriously limiting what could be achieved. In order to mitigate this risk, the Geek.Zone Trustees and LDT team advertise to key target groups through Facebook and Meetup and our Membership system for those who have tick GDPR box and advert on discord and our Just Giving page which we have added.
Inadequate Insurance:
As an unregistered charity at the time, Insurance had been very difficult for Geek.Zone to obtain. This has meant that we are risking our resources in the hope that they will not get damaged or stolen.
In order to mitigate this risk, Geek.zone has insurance which cover:
Public Liability and Employers' Liability Public Liability Limit: £5,000,000 Employers' Liability Limit: £10,000,000
Professional Indemnity and Trustees Liability Limits: £250,000
Cyber & Data Risks Limit: £50,000
We have renewed with Markel Direct Insurance £198.24
Loss of Data:
In the worst case scenario, loss of all Geek.Zone data would lead to a loss of income as we would not be able to contact members. Without a website, meaning we would also not be able to publicise our activities.
The Geek.Zone Trustees mitigate this risk by;
Ensuring that regular backups are taken
Dealing with providers that have resilient systems Using LastPass to store all passwords
Fraud :
The risk of fraud is one that the Geek.Zone Trustees take very seriously. For example, identity theft could lead to debts being incurred in the name of Geek.Zone or unwanted associated being sought. The Geek.Zone Trustees mitigate this risk by monitoring the Geek.Zone bank account very closely and by communicating with others through official channels. Currently, only Trustees and LDT Team members have @geek.zone email addresses. Anyone that is not using a
@geek.zone email address is not operating with the backing of the Geek.Zone community. The Geek.Zone Trustees are also looking to implement an SSL certificate. This will further identify that the version of Geek.Zone that a visitor is viewing is correct and secure.
New Trustees :
Recruitment of Trustees is carried out through member engagement. The existing Geek.Zone Trustees send communiqués to the Geek.Zone community before each Annual General Meeting, requesting that members step forward. This is sent using email, SMS and social media. Trustees are appointed through election by the Geek.Zone community. As there is no limit on the number of Trustees that Geek.Zone can have at any one time, the ballot is held to "Appoint" or "Not Appoint" individuals, rather than having them stand against another candidate. A Trustee is expected to fulfill the commitment they have made to our Geek.Zone community and serve for their entire 12month term. Should extenuating circumstances force them to stand down, the remaining Trustees can appoint a replacement if;
The total number of Trustees is less than three or,
One of the required positions is left vacant;
• Chair
• Secretary
• Treasurer
Wherever possible, the Trustees will hold a by-election in preference to appointing a new trustee without the approval of the Geek.Zone Community. No other parties are currently permitted to appoint Geek.Zone Trustees. Trustee Induction & Training All information required by a new Trustee can be found at Geek.Zone/Trustee. Existing and outgoing Trustees also provide personal support to new Trustees.
Achievements and Performance
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2019/2020 | 2020/2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pint Night | 343 | 1329 | 1385 | 1444 | 479 |
| Geekgrub | 23 | 117 | 94 | 124 | 21 |
| Retro Gaming | 78 | 361 | 249 | 267 | 0 |
| Cinema | 20 | 75 | 86 | 93 | 17 |
| Free Film Fargo | 23 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Invade.. | 11 | 21 | 31 | 31 | 0 |
| Comic con | 13 | 29 | 39 | 34 | 0 |
| Geek Quiz | 11 | 25 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Home film night | 14 | 0 | 5 | 196 | |
| Halloween | 5 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Geekzone gaming | 88 | 95 | 93 | 0 | |
| Theater | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Other | 69 | 304 | 266 | 34 | |
| Ten pin | 49 | 97 | 93 | 0 | |
| Code | 16 | 12 | 7 | 175 | |
| LGBT+geek | 13 | 52 | 0 |
2020/2021 Performance is low compared to the year before. Covid 19 restrictions with job changes and lifestyles people have had and the availability of online events. We did have some people feel that it was not for them. But we did get
new people from a wider area in the UK and some from other country join us online.
| Per event average | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pint Night | 19 | 26 | 27 | 25 | 9 |
| Geekgrub | 5 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 4 |
| Retro Gaming | 20 | 26 | 21 | 21 | 0 |
| Cinema | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| Free Film Fargo | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Invade.. | 6 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 0 |
| Comic con | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Geek Quiz | 11 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Home film night | 7 | 0 | 5 | 5 | |
| Halloween | 5 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Geekzone gaming | 7 | 11 | 2 | 0 | |
| Theater | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Other | 6 | 14 | 9 | 3 | |
| Ten pin | 7 | 8 | 8 | 0 | |
| Code | 2 | 2 | 1 | 4 | |
| LGBT+geek | 13 | 9 | 0 |
Member numbers:
We have 47 member who are active and 26 on the expired members list. Most of the ones on the expired list are still active but they had not renewed the membership due to Covid 19 restrictions on events and also due to how they pay their membership. We also did not want to push them during these unusual times.
Pint night online:
This event has been held online since lockdown was announced in2020. We were using Google meet for month, then we switched to our Discord channel were we been ever since. 20 was highest attendance number.
We did some quizzes on geek subjects to win prize which were steam games, you did not have pay to enter you could do it for fun.
We also played games like Among Us on steam/bluestack emulator or mobile version, Jack box games through discord share screen, Board games arena solo, flaming pyramids Skribbl.io and Sketchful.io.
Cinema invasion online on Wednesday and Home movie night on Saturday:
Cinema invasion online event was on last Wednesday of month total of 4 events. We decided run the Saturday event alongside but after while we thought it would be better to switch to having it as a Saturday night event. We also changed the platform for films after a review of rules. We were using Kast, then we switched to Netflix teleparty. The highest number of attendees for both events was 7.
Films like: Star Wars A New Hope, Mars attack, Pom poko, Hot Fuzz, Arrietty, Monty Python Holy Grail, Rim of the world, Enola Holmes, Early man etc
We pick films and voted on them, and then talked about them afterwards.
Minecraft and Event on Sunday Java edition:
Geekzone has its own server which we put with Shockbyte. We found it ok to begin with but after while as we build more of the world we found the performance of server lag behind so we upgrade, but the cost started to get higher. So we found that Charity Digital Exchange, small fee £181 cost change due $ for filling out forms for Amazon Web service AWS grant to get $2000 credit which are for their web
services this link in with Dev team which talk about further down the page.
Sunday event was work on a project within Minecraft and have to complete building art work or iron golems, and judge on to win items in game like a diamond or book etc highest number was 5.
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Development/coding Event online:
This event is on Sunday anyone can join in no skill needed as the event is about helping to learn new skills. We have Pluralsight one which helps to learn new skills to help with projects, also people who do it for their living, also we have online book Refactoring UI . They have been working on website, minecraft server optimization membership system using Python, Django, Html, CSS, JavaScript, terraform, AWS
SQL Kubernetes etc. All this is done through our Github account this helps the team work together on problems “ Millions of developers and companies build, ship, and maintain their software on GitHub—the largest and most advanced
development platform in the world” 7 was the highest number attendees for this event and Pluralsight One 2 people so far register on the course reduce rate for charity £167 .
-
Google, GBP£8000 annually, to help us be more productive free item no cost
-
Microsoft, USD$3500 annually, to support our technical capabilities free item no cost
-
Atlassian, USD$3450 annually, to support our technical and support capabilities free item no cost
-
JetBrains, GPB£2495 annually, to improve our coding free item no cost
-
Amazon, USD$2000 annually, to support our technical capabilities cost admin fee £181
-
Docker, USD$300 annually, to publish our software free item no cost
-
GitHub, GBP£240 annually, to improve our coding free item no cost
-
BitFolk, GBP£64.90 annually, to support our technical capabilities free item no cost
Most of the above item is free unless stated, the cost is in dollars and pounds, is if we had to pay for it.
World of Warcraft online:
This event was base on a PC Online Role-playing W.O.W
Fight for your lives across with world of Azeroth, defeat trolls, demons and upgrade your character. You need the same version as everyone else to play this game which was the standard edition we had 2 people for this event
Geekgrub and Brunch event online:
This was an online event it was done on discord and google meet. It was meal on Wednesday night and Saturday mid morning breakfast, we had food together and a chat about stuff. Highest number attended was 5.
Tolkien Discussion/Reading Group:
This was online event which was normally done in Big Comfy Bookshop but Due to COVID 19 this event takes place on Skype. All are welcome to our monthly Tolkien Group which was joint event with Geekzone Coventry, one of the
members is part of that group. Come and meet like-minded Tolkien fans. They discuss the chapters and they have talk about them afterwards.
Games in the Park: a socially distanced IRL afternoon in the sun
This event is our first tentative step toward getting back to in-person events! We have high-visibility string so that we can make the social distancing boundaries easy to follow and we will meet outside to ensure compliance with the rules. Everyone will have a 2m x 2m square, which will be separated from every other square by 2m in each direction. We are doing everything possible to be responsible at this difficult time. Join us in the park for an afternoon/evening of picnics and games! Bring your own food, blankets and drinks, and Geek.Zone will provide the games! Everything will be non-contact, 3 was highest number as weather was not as good
Looking Forward:
Uk road map out of Covid 19 opening up so we get back to doing normal events with no restriction.
Applied for grant application for Arnold Clark community fund 21/03/2021 hopefully we get this.
Geekzone 01 opening later on in the year, pending on Grant funding application being successfully.
Membership system and new website.
Push for more people to join our Pluralsight One training.
AWS accesses for member who want use it for their website and application projects.
Treasurer:
Account we have had our income drop off, we normally get raffle income from events and donation from comic con events. We try to get quiz income from our pint night event but as it was not generating much interest our prize were low value game on steam, which most people already had or did not have steam games software. We did get some donation to cover cost of Minecraft and the AWS also from £10 month donation for access to Pluralsight one course and some money from monthly BACS payment from some of the members.
Statement of Profit and Loss
Geek.Zone
For the period 1 Apirl 2020 to 31 March 2021
| Account | 1 Apr 2020 to 31 Mar 2021 |
|---|---|
| Turnover | |
| Donations | 835.71 |
| Geek Zone Events | 40.38 |
| Grants | 11.95 |
| Membership | 59.03 |
| Other Revenue | 17.69 |
| Virtual Pint Night | 179.54 |
| Total Turnover | 1,144.30 |
| Cost of Sales | |
| Cost of Goods Sold | 45.12 |
| Total Cost of Sales | 45.12 |
| Gross Profit | 1,099.18 |
| Administrative Costs | |
| Audit & Accountancy fees | 21.60 |
| Bank Fees | 12.22 |
| DBS | 52.92 |
| Depreciation Expense | 383.97 |
| Entertainment-0% | 70.05 |
| General Expenses | 202.23 |
| Insurance | 45.92 |
| IT Software and Consumables | 167.06 |
| Motor Vehicle Expenses | 18.53 |
| Postage, Freight & Courier | 5.00 |
| Rent | 53.36 |
| Staff Training | 76.46 |
| Subscriptions | 842.06 |
| Web hosting expenses | 953.87 |
| Total Administrative Costs | 2,905.25 |
| Operating Profit | (1,806.07) |
| Profit on Ordinary Activities Before Taxation | (1,806.07) |
| Profit after Taxation | (1,806.07) |
Statement of Financial Position
Geek.Zone
As at 31 March 2021
| Account | 31 Mar 2021 | |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed Assets | ||
| Tangible Assets | ||
| Computer Equipment | 126.46 | |
| Games and collectibles | 480.63 | |
| Less Accumulated Depreciation on Computer Equipment | (934.83) | |
| Less Accumulated Depreciation on donation reserve | (33.04) | |
| Less Accumulated Depreciation on Office Equipment | (296.78) | |
| Office Equipment | 372.78 | |
| Total Tangible Assets | (284.78) | |
| Total Fixed Assets | (284.78) | |
| Current Assets | ||
| Cash at bank and in hand | ||
| GBP PayPal | 30.33 | |
| GEEK.ZONE | 1,130.26 | |
| Total Cash at bank and in hand | 1,160.59 | |
| MyInventory | 3.25 | |
| Total Current Assets | 1,163.84 | |
| Net Current Assets (Liabilities) | 1,163.84 | |
| Total Assets less Current Liabilities | 879.06 | |
| Net Assets | 879.06 | |
| Capital and Reserves | ||
| Current Year Earnings | (1,806.07) | |
| Donation reserve | (78.95) | |
| Retained Earnings | 2,764.08 | |
| Total Capital and Reserves | 879.06 |
Geek.Zone
Notes to the Accounts
For the period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021
1. Accountng Conventon
The accounts for the period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021 have been prepared on an accruals basis in accordance with applicable accounting standards and the Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable to the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2016) - (Charities SORP (FRS 102)) and the Charities Act 2011.
2. Going concern
The charity's financial statements have been drawn up on a going concern basis as the Trustees have no reason to believe that the charity will not continue in operation.
3. Income and Expenditure
Income is recognised on a receivable basis Expenditure is recognised on an accruals basis.
4. Creditors
| Accruals Other creditors (unclaimed expenses) |
=========== 2021 0 0 0.00 |
|---|---|
Trustee Treasury: Matthew Wadland Matthew Wadland