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Charity no. 1182464

Earth Action North Devon (formerly Plastic Free North Devon)

Receipts and Payments Accounts 31 December 2024

Earth Action North Devon

Reference and administrative details

For the year ended 31	December 2024
Charity number	1182464
Registered office and	Unit 6
operational address	Velator Way
	Velator
	Braunton
	Devon
	EX33 2FB
Trustees	The trustees who served during the year and up to the date of this report
	were as follows:
	Hamish Ferguson	Chair of Trustees
	Amanda Duffin	resigned on 19 June 2024
	Hannah Lenton	appointed on 8 November 2024
	Emma Jane Reed
	Lyn Strahan
	James Szymankiewicz
Bankers	Lloyds Bank plc
	1st Floor (East)
	10 Gresham Street
	London
	EC2V 7AE
	The Co-operative Bank plc
	1 Balloon Street
	Manchester
	M4 4BE
Independent	Godfrey Wilson Limited
examiners	Chartered accountants and	statutory auditors
	5th Floor Mariner House
	62 Prince Street
	Bristol
	BS1 4QD

Earth Action North Devon

Report of the trustees

For the year ended 31 December 2024

The trustees present the annual report together with the financial statements of the charity for the year ended 31 December 2024.

Reference and administrative information set out on page 1 forms part of this report. The financial statements comply with current statutory requirements and the constitution.

Structure, governance and management

Organisational structure

The charity trustees are appointed by elected members at the AGM. The Charity is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) registered in 2019.

Trustee training

Trustees are provided with the necessary Charity Commission documentation on successful election and are provided training where necessary.

Governance, internal control and risk management

The Trustees have reviewed the major risks of the charity and have taken action and established systems which will mitigate any known risks. All policies and procedures are updated regularly.

Public benefit

The Trustees of Earth Action North Devon (EAND) have had regard and are aware of the Charity Commission’s public benefit guidance when exercising their duties to which the guidance is relevant.

Objectives and activities

By working with local communities, businesses and organisations we aim to:

Tackle plastic pollution head on: raising awareness, reducing consumption, clearing it away from our environment;
Inspire reconnection with nature;
Facilitate sustainable behavioural change;
Accelerate and intertwine environmental awareness and action into the fabric of our society; and
▪ Create movements of change within our region and beyond.

By connecting people with their natural surroundings through experience and education, supporting sustainable behaviour change and promoting environmental action we hope to deliver a radical transformation towards a healthier relationship with the natural world.

Achievements and performance Ocean Explorer Academy

With children at its heart, our flagship educational outreach project engages young people in our community to:

Make a CONNECTION with nature;
Build a COMMUNITY of support; and
Take ACTION together.

We continued to develop and deliver our Ocean Explorer Academy programme, adding an additional school in 2024. Across 4 schools and over 100 children, we connected students to the nature right on our doorstep.

Education - 2030 Sustainable Education Vision

In 2024 we established a group to collaborate with all environmental education organisations that engage with young people in educational environments across northern Devon with the aim of reaching a shared understanding of our collective goals for 2030.

Earth Action North Devon

Report of the trustees

For the year ended 31 December 2024

We conducted a survey of nearly 1,000 children from northern Devon's classrooms in years 5-13 with some additional insights from staff. We then created a vision and a resource to reflect and help support the survey results.

We also attended several schools, colleges and community groups to talk about the work we do, and to inspire the audience to take action for themselves within their own communities.

Visitor Campaign

Our Visitor Campaign was not funded in 2024, however we maintained our Toy Libraries on North Devon beaches, inspiring visitors to Protect our Playground and have a less impactful holiday.

Repair Cafes

In 2024 we grew our Repair Café Network to 5 locations across the area: Barnstaple, Braunton, Landkey, South Molton and Ilfracombe. Each café, staffed by skilled volunteers, helps people repair and reuse items (textiles, electrical, mechanical, toys, bikes and much more), helping communities create resilience to the climate crisis. In 2024 we fixed more than 400 items.

We also ran a series of skills workshops aimed at teaching members of the community to make their own repairs. Our volunteers from the Repair Café also supported Barnstaple Pride by making a rainbow coloured flag.

In total we ran 40 events across the year. Barnstaple and Ilfracombe Repair Cafés will be selfmanaged for 2025, which is a great achievement and will free us up to develop cafés in additional locations.

The Plastic Free Water Bar

Our bespoke water bar provides an alternative to plastic water bottles at events. In 2024 we rented out the water bar 4 times to different events, with an estimated saving of 2,000 litres of bottled water.

Volunteering

We have a strong team of core volunteers who help keep our charity running. In 2024 we received funding to enable us to develop a more robust process for volunteer management and to help us grow our volunteer base. This will continue into 2025.

In 2024 we recorded 4,841 volunteer hours across all our activities.

Events

We limited our attendance at events in 2024 to those where we could be certain of covering our costs (and raising funds if possible), reaching our intended audience and making a difference. We attended 2 large public events with our Water Bar (OceanFest, Bideford Soapbox Derby) and lent these tools to 4 other events.

We also worked with 5 events on their sustainability journey.

Sustainable Community Groups

We ran a pilot project to address the overarching sustainability with 2 local Sustainable Community Groups - Woolacombe Surf Life Saving Club and Saunton Surf Life Saving Club. We worked with Devon Surf Life Saving Committee to take the concept to the Devon wide committee.

Earth Action North Devon

Report of the trustees

For the year ended 31 December 2024

Cleanse and Clean

We regularly organise community cleans under our Cleanse and Clean banner, with the local community using data collected to inform national surveys such as the Marine Conservation Society and Surfers Against Sewage.

In 2024 we ran a Day of Action with 780 volunteers collecting over 1,500 kg of waste across various sites in our community. We also ran a Tarka Trail clean up day with 100 volunteers collecting 650 kg of waste along a section of the Tarka Trail.

In addition to this, we ran regular beach cleans at Saunton beach and Instow beach, and supported other local community groups in their own cleans, with 913 volunteer hours and 1,354 kg of waste removed from the community.

Croyde Ocean Triathlon

The Croyde Ocean Triathlon, which we purchased late in 2022, continued to be successful in 2024, and is now in profit. In 2024 we repaid a loan that was given to us to enable us to buy the event, and also made around £19,000 from fundraisers, donations and profit from vendors at the event.

Financial review

EAND has had a successful year with some substantial grants and sponsorship.

This has left the charity in a very good financial position and we have continued to receive support from the local community and partnerships we have made.

We have an ongoing programme of grant applications which we will continue to sustain during 2025, with the help of our experienced researcher / bid writer.

We partnered with the North Devon Biosphere to deliver a 4 year programme of education in selected areas of North Devon, which will guarantee us income of £20,000 for 4 years (2024 being the first year).

At the end of the financial year, we have £89,537 in the bank and in cash (2023: £74,460).

Reserves policy

The Trustees policy for holding reserves is to maintain 6 months of running costs. As at the year end, there were unrestricted reserves of £69,413 (2023: £54,361), which is equivalent to approximately 6 months of unrestricted expenditure.

Restricted reserves were £20,124 (2023: £20,099).

Plans for future periods

The Trustees plan to take on a fundraiser whose role will be to set up and run events on EAND’s behalf, specifically to raise funds.

The Charity will be rebranding in 2025 to better reflect the work that we now do. Our new name is Earth Action North Devon and our proposed revised objectives are undergoing a review with the Charity Commission at the time these accounts are being produced, but will be along the lines of:

Tackle environmental damage head on, by raising awareness, changing behaviour and cleaning up our environment;
Inspire reconnection with nature;

Earth Action North Devon

Report of the trustees

For the year ended 31 December 2024

Facilitate sustainable behavioural change;
Accelerate and intertwine environmental awareness and action into the fabric of our society; and
Create movements of change within our region and beyond.

The Charity remains committed to promoting and publicising the Charity to create greater public awareness of the Charity's aims and achievements to date.

Independent examiners

Godfrey Wilson Limited were appointed as independent examiners to the charity during the year and have expressed their willingness to continue in that capacity.

Approved by the trustees on 4 March 2025 and signed on their behalf by

Lyn Strahan, Trustee

Independent examiner's report

To the trustees of

Earth Action North Devon

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of Earth Action North Devon (the charity) for the year ended 31 December 2024, which are set out on pages 7 to 8.

Respective responsibilities of trustees and examiner

As the trustees of the charity you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’).

I report in respect of my examination of the charity’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent examiner's statement

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:

(1) accounting records were not kept in respect of the charity as required by section 130 of the Act; or
(2) the accounts do not accord with those records.

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

William Guy Blake

Date: 5 March 2025 William Guy Blake ACA Member of the ICAEW

For and on behalf of:

Godfrey Wilson Limited

Chartered accountants and statutory auditors 5th Floor Mariner House 62 Prince Street Bristol BS1 4QD

Earth Action North Devon