We have had a very busy year, the highlight of which was finally re-opening at our new location at 15th Cardiff Scout Hall on Sloper Road, Grangetown. Prior to this there were a lot of preparations, including organising and sorting our equipment and making an inventory for our insurance.
We received a £500 grant from Cardiff Council Play Services towards ‘summer play packs’ for our members which Sarah and Chelsea delivered to their homes. These were very well received as they contained family activities, craft supplies, and sports equipment for our service users who were missing out on being able to do things outside the home..
We were in contact with Samuel Jones who had previously worked with Cwtch Together at the Reach Centre, and he had agreed to volunteer with us every Saturday when we finally opened, hopefully looking at a paid role in the near future.
Chaz Woods who also volunteered with Cwtch Together at the Reach Centre has returned to help us with preparing the venue and equipment ready for reopening.
In June, we met with Lewis Brown of the Cardiff 15th Scouts and signed the contract for our new location.
In July we were thrilled to hear that the National Lottery Fund had awarded us with a community grant of £9995, which we were told a portion of this had to each be spent on equipment, hall hire, and staff, which will hopefully be used to pay Samuel in the future, as well as providing agency staff through New Directions ND Care.
In August Sarah arranged for the PAT testing of all of our electrical equipment. This was provided free of charge by MB-Lec Ltd as a gesture of goodwill.
Sarah also investigated whether we needed a Food Hygiene certificate but we were told that we did not due to the fact that the parents and carers prepare the food in our kitchen themselves.
In September all of our policies and procedures were checked and signed by all of our trustees, and our main volunteer Samuel.
At a trustees meeting we made the decision to offer one of our service users Kieran Henderson the title of ‘Ambassador’ which he accepted.
Sarah made uniforms for all of the trustees, Samuel, and Kieran.
Sarah and Samuel have had their Enhanced DBS checks completed.
Neighbour Roy helped us attach a metal chain to our main gates for security, so it could be locked from the inside whilst sessions are taking place for extra safety for the children.
Sarah has spoken to Halfords about them donating their parking spaces to our service users on Saturdays, which they have kindly agreed to, providing the drivers give their registrations to the staff in Halfords.
We have been in contact with Make a Smile and they agreed to provide Princesses to attend our opening event in October and our Christmas event.
The last week in September, we created a Covid-19 policy which was signed by all trustees and Sam, ready for reopening. We also created a risk assessment, track and trace forms, and signage to put in the hall to encourage social distancing, a one way system, and increased hand washing/sanitising. We also provided hand sanitising stations around the hall.
Our opening date has been set as October 2nd in honour of Bill Garvin, a previous volunteer of ours who was much loved by all who used our services, who sadly passed away before we closed in 2020.
Unfortunately the boiler in the Scout Hall didn’t work for a while until the Scouts had received funding to get it fixed, this took place in March 2022. During the colder months without the heating we were offering free hot drinks and blankets to our service users who wanted them.
Our opening party went very well, everything went according to plan and our service users all seemed very pleased to be back.
In November the cases of Covid-19 in the UK were increasing dramatically again, so we decided to bring our Christmas party forward to December 11th, with Samuel acting as our guest of honour, Santa. All the children were given a non-consumable gift, and had lots of fun playing with Santa.
Just before Christmas 2021 we received the sad news that our wonderful friend and volunteer Chaz had passed away from cancer.
An emergency online meeting was held with the trustees after the Christmas party to discuss whether it was safe enough to stay open in January, it was decided that we would wait to see the case numbers nearer the time just in case.
We eventually re-opened our doors ready for February half term.
Cardiff Council gave us a £5412 Winter of Well Being grant in February. Members of the Trustees met and decided to spend some of the money on equipment and electronics more suitable for the older children that use our services, and the rest on outdoor equipment, as these were the types of equipment that we had less of.
We have continued our great relationship with The Goodgym who visit regularly to help with gardening, or any maintenance/odd jobs that we need completing.
Chelsea created new paperwork and a coded system to help us organise our finances more efficiently and clearly.
Sarah promoted our Membership through Facebook and the Index Cardiff publication.
We are trialling adding our Paypal fees to our admission costs, this will be reviewed in the
future.
We have had such a great response since opening, and look forward to hosting many great events in the future including a Jubilee party in the summer.
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Opening Balance £5205.53
Month Income Expenditure +/- Balance
April 2021 670 16.48 653.52 5859.05
May 2021 0 15.49 -15.49 5843.56
June 2021 0 264.49 -264.49 5579.07
July 2021 12,926.09 2,677.62 10248.47 15827.54
August 2021 10 341.61 -331.61 15495.93
September 2021 15.68 840.79 -825.11 14670.82
October 2021 134.68 1169.94 -1035.26 13635.56
November 2021 2.36 355.46 -353.1 13282.46
December 2021 197.37 547.92 -350.55 12931.91
January 2022 0 958.16 -958.16 11973.75
February 2022 62.22 519.25 -457.03 11516.72
March 2022 6588.22 7194.87 -606.65 10910.07
Total 20606.62 14902.08 5704.54
Closing Balance £10910.07
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