2021-07-31-accounts

THE FRIENDS OF THE CHERWELL SCHOOL OXFORD

Registered Charity 1183779

friendsofcherwell.org

ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

For the year ended 31 July 2021

The trustees present their Report for the year 1 August 2020 to 31 July 2021. This Report should be read in conjunction with the attached financial statements for the same period.

Legal status

The charity was established by a Constitution as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (‘Foundation’ model constitution) and entered on the Register of Charities by the Charity Commission for England and Wales on 7 June 2019 with the registered number 1183779.

Registered address

Pennwood House Pound Lane Cassington Oxfordshire OX29 4BN

Bank

The Co-operative Bank plc PO Box 250 Southway Skelmersdale WN8 6WT

Independent Examiner

Camerons Accountancy Consultants Ltd 9 Worton Park Cassington Oxfordshire OX29 4SX

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Objectives and activities

The objects of the charity are: To advance the education of the students at The Cherwell School Oxford by providing and assisting in the provision of facilities for education and educational wellbeing at the school.

The charity raises funds through donations and general fundraising activities in order to provide grants to The Cherwell School Oxford to help provide facilities for education and educational wellbeing at the school in all areas of the curriculum, including arts, sciences and sports.

Structure, Governance and Management

The charity is governed and managed by its trustees in accordance with its Constitution. The trustees met five times during the year with an overall attendance level of 94%. Meetings were held remotely online thoughout the period because of the ongoing Covid19 pandemic, as allowed in the Constitution. There are no committees nor sub-committees and in the event of decisions being required between meetings all trustees are consulted and involved by group email.

Five trustees served throughout the period:

Catherine Aldridge

John Hemingway - Chair Niall McWilliams Alex Thomas - Secretary Jackie Weaver

During the year two further trustees were appointed for a period of three years each in accordance with the Constitution and have served since the meeting dates given below:

Jennifer Ingham - appointed 25 August 2020 Jolyon Harris - appointed 3 February 2021

No trustees were due to retire during the year.

2

REVIEW OF THE YEAR

This was only our second year of operation and again the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic continued to have a major impact on our activities, although fortunately schools were finally allowed to re-open in September 2020 after the lockdown. The lack of opportunities for face-to-face contact with parents and other potential donors made fundraising activities virtually totally dependent on electronic methods, and it was a major advantage that we had invested in powerful software to maximise our ability to communicate with people on a regular basis. As a result, a snap survey conducted by the school towards the end of the year showed a very high level of awareness of The Friends amongst Cherwell’s parents and staff, and of the impact we have now begun to make.

Our Impact for the School

Our mailing lists of Friends and potential Friends are still tiny compared to the target populations out there, but we continued to grow steadily and produced a very creditable result. This year we were able to pledge over £70,000 to the school to fund improvement projects to benefit the education of its students. We owe massive thanks to all our supporters and donors who made this possible.

During the year we gave grants to the school of just under £42,000 in total. In addition we committed around another £30,000 to support ongoing projects which the school was not able to complete until after the year end - mostly because of complications and delays caused by the pandemic situation. These have all now been completed and the committed funds have been granted.

In particular, we focused our grants to make an impact for the students by:

• providing every child in need with a Chromebook

• refurbishing the South Site Library

• creating a new North Site Library

• adding extra outdoor seating and recreation areas

Providing more Chromebooks

The school’s campaign for Chromebooks was a huge success, providing hundreds of extra machines. They proved vital for students to access lessons during lockdown and selfisolation, and continue to be essential for work both in class and at home. Knowing that every child has access to a computer has enabled the school to raise the level of its online capability to benefit all its students. Many thanks to the Oxfordshire Community Foundation and the Doris Field Charitable Trust who also gave us grants to help.

Refurbishing the South Site Library

Students on South Site can now enjoy a far more welcoming and better equipped library. We provided the funds for it to be redecorated, with new carpet, blinds and furniture, some Chromebooks for online research, and a growing selection of the latest books both fiction and non-fiction. Building and improving the library’s collection is an ongoing commitment by The Friends.

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Creating a new North Site Library

Space was identified by the school to convert a couple of little-used rooms in the art block into a new North Site Library, with a small sanctuary of calm alongside for any student needing to take time out for a moment. The space was being used for overflow teaching capacity because of social distancing and zoning, but major conversion work started towards the end of the school year and continued during the summer break to make the new library ready to open in the first term of the new school year in 2021.

Adding extra outdoor seating

Sociable fresh air spaces are good for student well-being at all times, with or without a pandemic. We provided funds to help the school add a steady flow of new picnic tables and benches on both sites, and to repair and improve the seating area in the Humanities Garden on North Site.

Our Income

Our total income for the year was just over £90,300. Donations from Friends made up around two-thirds of this at almost £59,000, and we also raised £6,000 from other charitable bodies. 100% of every donation is duly granted to the school to fund agreed projects to benefit the education of its students.

During the year the Cherwell School PTA decided to end its charitable status and to transfer its existing funds to The Friends, as the focus for all future fundraising. As a result we received just under £6,500 in cash and a long-term investment holding in the Low Carbon Hub, which at the end of the year was valued at approximately £4,500. This investment produces a small annual income plus a steady pay-back of the initial capital over a 25 year period.

Other sources of income included an online yoga de-stress session, organised by a parent volunteer through the PTA, which was well supported and generated a donation to The Friends of just under £1,000. We also set up accounts with online shopping schemes (Amazon Smile and easyfundraising) which in total generated some £500. We run a very efficient system for reclaiming Gift Aid on donations where possible, and this generated just over £13,000 in additional income that more than covered all our operating costs.

Our Operating Costs

Day-to-day operation of the charity depends totally on volunteer time and resources. We have no paid staff, no premises, no equipment. We operate a website that we have to pay to host, but all the design and maintenance is provided free of charge by an independent professional volunteer. Our software is managed by one of the trustees, with support free of charge from another independent professional volunteer. Our accounts are managed by one of the trustees, and all our trustees give their time and expertise in various ways to support the charity’s operations. Our Independent Examiner also very kindly provides her professional services without charge.

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Apart from hosting the website, our main costs are the software we use and the card processing fees we pay for online donations and events. The software we run is the leading fundraising software Raiser’s Edge NXT from Blackbaud. This cloud-based system underpins everything we do and enables the charity to minimise its overheads, to communicate easily with donors and potential donors, and to receive direct online donations simply and securely. Our total operating costs for the year were just under £9,300.

We are committed to the principle that all our operating costs should be covered without charge to donations from Friends, and again this year we have successfully achieved this.

Balance sheet movements

During the year we received from the former charitable PTA the transfer of cash and the long-term investment in the Low Carbon Hub, as reported above.

Also during the year, an interest-free loan of £3,000 from one of the founding trustees, made to help cover our start-up costs, was very generously converted to a gift. In addition, we were able to repay in full two other interest-free start-up loans of £1,000 each from two of the founding trustees. On the balance sheet, this now leaves just one loan of £3,000 outstanding. Again, this is an interest-free loan from one of the founding trustees to cover our start-up costs which may be repaid as and when felt appropriate by the charity.

At the close of the year our total funds stood at just over £42,500, most of which had already been committed in principle to several school improvement projects awaiting completion. At the time of approving this report, these have all now gone ahead and the grants have been paid.

Volunteers

The trustees would like to thank the many volunteers at Cherwell School who continue to assist with advice, support and fundraising initiatives, including parents, staff members, and especially Headteacher Chris Price.

In addition, we would like to thank three independent professionals for their very generous gifts-in-kind of their time and expertise:

Amy Hemingway, Community Manager at Wolsey Hall Oxford and freelance designer, for creating and maintaining our website and providing ongoing promotional design services

Ellen O’Donnell FCA, Head of Camerons Accountancy Consultants, for acting as Independent Examiner of our annual accounts

Lucy Wells, consultant Director of Development for Climate Science Legal Defence Fund, for strategic and operational support with our fundraising strategy and systems.

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Looking ahead

Opened in 1963 and little changed since then, Cherwell’s ageing buildings are now yet another year older. In addition to funding annual improvement projects to make an immediate impact for the school’s students, we have begun to work alongside the school’s leadership team to develop a Masterplan vision for the wholesale improvement and redevelopment of both school sites. Priorities continue to be a performance hall and a sports hall, and during the year ahead we will be aiming to help turn the Masterplan vision into a detailed strategic plan for implementation.

This work will build on the proven success of the project to build a new £750,000 floodlit all-weather sports pitch at Cherwell, which is currently under construction and scheduled to be ready for play by the spring of 2022. This project, funded principally by the Football Foundation with support from River Learning Trust and Cherwell School, was started before The Friends was created, but two of our trustees played a vital part as Chair and Secretary of the steering group that made it happen. We hope to be able to emulate that success in projects yet to come.

With many thanks to all our Friends and supporters.

Approved by the trustees at their meeting on 8 December 2021

Signed on behalf of the trustees

John Hemingway Chair

Alex Thomas Secretary

Date: 8 December 2021

Financial Statements

The Trustees are responsible for the preparation of the Financial Statements and for keeping proper accounting records, which disclose the financial position of the Charity.

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