Malvern Radar And Technology History Society (MRATHS) - Charity 1183001
Annual Report - 2025
Summary
The continuing success and public interest in our museum, “The Technology Station” benefits the charity in several ways. Improving our visibility in the UK and abroad has increased opportunities to give outreach talks and engaged the public in the social aspects of our history. The Technology Station is enabled by our archive and the knowledge of our Trustees, members and visitors.
Our Archive, hosted at the QinetiQ plc site in Malvern, continues to receive donations. During 2025, parts of the archive were moved at QinetiQ’s request and rationalisation continues. As we grow, we receive an increasing number of enquiries from the public and other organisations.
Trustee meetings have been held in person thanks to the generous provision of meeting facilities at QinetiQ.
We continue to hold bi-monthly open meetings with news of our activities and a talk about a topic of interest to the members. These are held at Malvern College.
Our financial position remains strong, allowing investment in public facing work planned for 2026.
1 Public Benefit
Exhibitions and Publications
Our museum “The Technology Station” received a further 1000 visitors in its 2025 season. Notably, visitors from outside the county and from abroad have increased as local visitors have decreased. This museum has benefitted the charity in a number of ways. Our visibility in the UK and abroad has improved. It has increased opportunities to give outreach talks and engage the public in the social aspects of our history.
Our charity has provided 16 public talks including our open meetings and 3 exhibitions
We gave a talk and had an exhibit about VE Day in Malvern in Victoria Park on Armed Forces day and produced a display for Malvern Museum and QinetiQ Family Day on VE and VJ Day.
Our best seller book, ‘Boffins come to Malvern’, written by Trustee Martin Hutchinson has sold a further 137 copies this year. We have written two articles for the Malvern Civic Society’s journal ‘Bandstand’ , which is distributed to 400 members.
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A new book, telling the story of Malvern’s high performance cooled thermal imaging programme has been published with the help of our archive.
We are currently supporting Dennis Williams (MRATHS) in writing a book on radar research flying 1935 to 1977 which will be published by Crécy.
We provided advice and some 80 photos for the play ‘Malvern's Secret War Heroes’ by Rachel Tobin, staged at Malvern Theatres and at Elgar's birthplace to paying audiences.
Our website at https://mraths.org.uk has been updated and a section added called Malvern Connections. This mirrors the work of Bawdsey Radar Trust, one of our collaborative partners, in collecting the stories of staff members who served at Malvern.
Requests for Information
We continue to receive requests for information (39 in 2025 with several still active), which are collated and managed through our on-line Ticket system. Of these, 20 concerned family members’ careers. In most cases, we have been able to provide at least some information. The remainder were to provide information or images to support other historical societies and researchers.
2 Board of Trustees and Board of Management
The Board of Trustees are sad to report the death of Trustee David Williamson. David was an enthusiastic and knowledgeable Trustee and a driving force behind our progress from an informal club to the CIO Charity we are today. David will be sorely missed.
At the AGM on the 12th March 2025 three of the Trustees retired by rotation as required by the Charity Commission. The membership re-elected all three as indicated in the table below. The Trustees are currently:
Roger Appleby† Chairman and Website Admin Mike Burstow Public Engagement David Williamson†* Secretary Lew Amphlett Treasurer Martin Hutchinson† Exhibitions co-ordinator Darren Coe John Gillham Education Dennis Williams† Ron Henry Enquiries from the Public David Humphrey Collection Manager
† Re-elected Trustees
*Deceased
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3 Membership
The total number of members at the end of 2025 was 179, including 6 honorary members.
4 The Archive
The physical move of much of the archive between rooms within QinetiQ has taken considerable volunteer effort this year. It has, however, provided an opportunity to consolidate and rationalise the collection. It has also revealed a considerable number of items which are yet to be catalogued.
We have continued to catalogue these items as well as donations and the large collection of material from other establishments and organisations which relate to work at Malvern. We are maintaining a box-level catalogue of the complete archive and a map of their physical location. The cataloguing of the contents of the boxes (e.g. reports and memoranda) is used to inform our on-line document search tool . We are grateful to the volunteers who have worked on this.
We have established a digital store for electronic media (e.g. scanned reports and images) in the archive, which we continue to update.
We have web-based search tools for reports and for images. The image tool requires further development, but the images and negative register from the photographic unit for 1941 to 1953 have been combined. These images can be viewed via the member’s wiki.
Enquiries continue to arrive, many of which take a significant amount of time and effort to answer.
The archive is providing much of the material for the displays at The Technology Station.
5 External Bodies
We have continued to work with our colleagues in closely related charities, the Defence Electronic History Society (charity 5148919) and the Communications and Electronics Museum Trust (charity 293539) to produce jointly exhibitions and talks at The Bawsey Radar Trust (charity 1125600).
6 Volunteers
Our volunteers have been busy in the Archive, conducting research for future projects, designing and building exhibition pieces, restoring historic equipment for display and helping at exhibitions. They also run “The Technology Station” and visitors particularly appreciate their knowledge in answering questions and sharing more about our history and the stories behind the technologies.
7 Challenges for 2026
We are in a period of steady growth, membership is increasing as is the public benefit delivered through the Technology Station, Lectures and invited talks. Our major challenges for 2026 are:
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Recruit further suitably skilled Trustees
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Increase volunteer numbers to spread the load and enable us to deliver more public benefit
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Continue to promote the social history behind the scientific work and its effect on the local area
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8 Financial Statement
Income & Expenditure
Malvern Radar & Technology History Society (MRATHS) For the year ended 31 December 2025
| Account | 2025 General 0.00 205.00 2,575.00 50.00 0.00 1,425.00 271.00 4,526.00 0.00 0.00 655.78 655.78 3,870.22 73.92 199.80 3,392.42 171.77 578.84 371.76 30.99 105.33 52.64 0.00 2,160.00 382.73 172.80 7,693.00 (3,822.78) 3,602.23 2,464.00 0.00 6,066.23 2,243.45 2,243.45 |
General Restricted 920.00 230.00 2,360.00 832.19 1,414.00 764.89 6,521.08 0.00 1,206.13 117.20 (317.33) 1,006.00 0.00 5,515.08 0.00 255.81 300.60 2,108.12 1,033.73 1,517.50 346.62 120.65 81.48 15.45 276.08 2,563.12 156.09 191.63 8,966.88 0.00 (3,451.80) 0.00 2,353.26 793.49 0.00 1,722.00 Purchased assets - see Balance sheet tab 3,146.75 1,722.00 (305.05) 1,722.00 1,416.95 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Turnover | ||
| Income-Events | ||
| Income-Talks | ||
| Membership Subscriptions | ||
| Miscellaneous Income | ||
| Sales-Archivist | ||
| Sales-Books | ||
| Sales-Museum | ||
| Total Turnover Cost of Sales |
||
| Museum merchandise | ||
| Speakers Expenses | ||
| Stock Movement | ||
| Total Cost of Sales | ||
| Gross Profit | ||
| Administrative Costs | ||
| Bank Charges | ||
Consumables |
||
| Depreciation Expense | ||
| Equipment<500 | ||
| Exhibition Expenses | ||
| Insurance | ||
| Light, Power, Heating | ||
Meeting expenses |
||
Postage, Freight & Courier |
||
Printing & Stationery |
||
Room Hire |
||
| Software | ||
| Subscriptions | ||
| Total Administrative Costs | ||
| Operating Profit | ||
| Other Income | ||
| Donations | ||
| Gift Aid | ||
| Grants-Restricted | ||
| Total Other Income | ||
| Profit on Ordinary Activities | ||
| Excess Income over Expenditure (in year) |
Notes:
Petty cash income and expenses for 2025 are included in the figures above
Donations all in one code 2025 - see by Workgroup for breakdown
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Balance Sheet
As at 31-12-2025
Balance Sheet
Malvern Radar & Technology History Society (MRATHS) As at 31 December 2025
| Account | 31 Dec 2025 | See Assets Sheet See Stocktake 2025 sheet See Stocktake 2025 sheet See Accruals & Prepayments Sheet See Accruals & Prepayments Sheet See Inc & Exps 2025 sheet |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed Assets | |||
| Tangible Assets | |||
Asset-Equipment (inc IT) |
5,121.54 | ||
Asset-Equipment (Restricted Grants) |
5,875.86 | ||
Asset-Furniture & Fittings |
2,690.99 | ||
Less Accumulated Depreciation on Equipment (inc IT) |
(2,031.04) | ||
Less Accumulated Depreciation on Equipment (Restricted) |
(5,875.86) | ||
Less Accumulated Depreciation on Furniture & Fittings |
(1,495.00) | ||
Total Tangible Assets |
4,286.49 | ||
| Total Fixed Assets Current Assets |
4,286.49 | ||
| Cash at bank and in hand | |||
| Current Bank Account | 24,032.56 | ||
| Petty Cash | 30.00 | ||
Petty Cash (Museum) |
30.00 | ||
Total Cash at bank and in hand |
24,092.56 | ||
| Accounts Receivable | 80.00 | ||
| Book Stock | 2,119.35 | ||
| Museum stock | 1,080.54 | ||
| 622.09 | |||
| 27,994.54 | |||
| Accruals Total Creditors: amounts falling due within one year Net Current Assets (Liabilities) Total Assets less Current Liabilities Net Assets Capital and Reserves |
2,584.49 | ||
| 2,584.49 | |||
| Net Current Assets (Liabilities) | 25,410.05 | ||
| Total Assets less Current Liabilities | 29,696.54 | ||
| Net Assets | 29,696.54 | ||
| Current Year Earnings | 2,243.45 | ||
Retained Earnings |
32,381.09 | ||
| Total Capital and Reserves |