2023-09-30-accounts - Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team CIO / Tîm Achub Mynydd Llanberis Sce

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Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team CIO Trustees Report 2023 Adroddiad Ymddiriedolwyr Tím Achub Llanberis 2023

2023 has been the busiest year ever for Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team, with the total number of call outs for the Team likely to exceed 300 by the end of December.

This makes the team the busiest Mountain Rescue Team in the UK by a considerable margin, and accounts for over 10% of emergency calls for mountain rescue assistance over the whole of England and Wales.

At the time of writing Team members had provided over 8, 800 hours of voluntary time on rescues, with 54 members attending an average of 45 call-outs per member, with some members attending a considerably higher number of incidents. To date, 253 members of the public have been assisted by the Rescue Team in 2023. The total volunteer hours do not of course include the work carried out to maintain equipment, vehicles, training, committee meetings, work groups meetings, the admin work and other considerable work required to maintain other aspects of the team.

During 2023, the Team sadly attended to 9 fatalities, although this number is skewed by the Team’s involvement in the search for the missing four young men, subsequently found dead following a car crash that was out of our Team area and a further two fatalities following extensive multi-agency searches for missing hillwalkers out of our immediate operational area.

As always in its operations, the Team gets excellent operational support from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, most usually from the crew of the Search and Rescue Helicopter base at Caernarfon, with whom the Team has a superb working relationship. In 2023 we also had timely and specialist support on a number of incidents from the Wales Air Ambulance and of course as always, the RAF Mountain Resue Team at Valley provide invaluable and welcome support during with incidents busy times. The Team also had operational support from neighbouring rescue teams, in particular Aberglaslyn Mountain Rescue Team.

For most of 2023, the charity was governed by a team of 8 voluntary Trustees, two of whom were elected by team members at the 2022 AGM, four of whom became ex-officio Trustees by virtue of being elected officers of the Management committee at the 2022 General Meeting, and for the first time since the Team became a CIO, a further 2 were co-opted as External Trustees, bringing legal, fundraising, local community and charitable trustee experience to the Team.

The Trustees met formally four times in 2023, with a further two interim meetings to discuss specific matters, such as viewing possible new Team Base locations and to approve the appointment of the External Trustees.

In the Team’s financial year, the Team spent just over £145,000 and had an income of over £231,000, making a surplus on operating costs of over £86,000, with a year-end balance of over £531,000. The Trustees are very aware that the aim of the charity is not to keep increasing the team’s financial surplus and that the charity’s funds need to be used for the CIO’s charitable purpose not simply kept in bank accounts accruing interest. However, the Trustees are also aware that the Team will need to have considerable funds to acquire, build and maintain a new Base in the coming years, and that a decent reserve is required. Similarly, the Teams fleet of land rovers are ageing and will require a rotating replacement plan in the next few years.

As part of the strategy to make attending incidents as “cost-neutral” as possible for team members, it was agreed that a trial would start to enable Team members to reclaim personal travelling expenses while attending call outs. The CIO is very thankful that its operations almost exclusively continue to be directly funded by charitable donations from the public, with bequests and legacies becoming an increasingly important source of income.

Full details of the CIO’s finances and accounts are in the Annual Financial Report, thanks go to Willams Denton Cyf, the Team’s appointed Accountants based at Bangor for preparing and auditing the Teams’ accounts.

For all operational and day to day management purposes, and as stated in the CIO Constitution, the Trustees delegate the day to day running of the Team, subject to being compliant with the CIO approved policy and procedures, to the member elected Management Committee, with a financial cap of £15,000 for any individual spend before Trustee authorisation is required. The Management Committee, in conjunction with Operational Work Group leads, then set budgets, review spending, and audit progress against agreed budgets with the Work Groups at monthly meetings. A major purchase in 2023 was the decision to purchase and kit out a fourth Team vehicle, and in particular to agree on a vehicle that would provide different and additional capacity to the existing fleet of three ageing land rovers. The decision was taken, and fully supported by the Trustees to approve the purchase of a VW Transporter to enable better transport of Team Members and safer transport of casualties in stretchers, while being safely attended to by a casualty carer. It is fair to say that this decision did cause some

divided opinion among some team members, but after considerable debate was fully supported by the Trustees.

For 2023, many of the Trustees, and the elected Management Committee were new to the roles, and faced substantial challenges to modernise, and bring in the necessary changes required to the CIO’s processes and procedures to ensure that the CIO operated in a legally compliant manner and minimized the liabilities and risks to the CIO and Team members.

During 2023, the Trustees focused on strategic and external issues which also included a substantial review of banking arrangements to safeguard the financial assets of the CIO. Up to 2023, all of the Team’s funds were invested in only one current account with one bank, leaving the charity’s funds at considerable risk should that bank have any difficulties. Considerable work was successfully completed by the Treasurer to identify and open new bank accounts to “spread the risk” of such an event, and all of the Team’s funds are now protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, by being invested in multiple banks and Building Societies. In addition, the funds have been separated into operating accounts and reserve accounts, enabling the team to take advantage of the not insignificant income from interest payments on savings accounts. (See Financial report for details).

The CIO’s rules were also reviewed, streamlined and simplified, in particular, the sections relating to membership categories (more clearly identifying the category of membership, to those who could vote as “full members” and those who are classed as being “associate members” and ineligible to vote).

The Trustees and Management Committee also produced the first strategic Risk Matrix for the team, identifying the corporate, financial, legal and operational risks and challenges facing the CIO. While many of these risks are mitigated and processes are in place to minimise or even eliminate some risks, this is very much a work in progress.

The Trustees requested the Management Committee to review and implement a number of compliance and safety issues identified at the Team’s Base at Nant Peris, such as carrying out a full electrical safety inspection and test (we were supported in carrying out this for free by local electrical company Jones & Whitehead) and also at looking at safety and storage of equipment, in particular storage of explosive gases and compliance with Working at Heights Regulations at the Base.

The Trustees engaged with a number of local politicians, and senior officers from the statutory and emergency services over the year, including the local County Councilor, the local elected Member of the Senedd, the newly appointed Chief Constable for North Wales Police, District Police Inspector and the Senior Coroner for North West Wales.

In addition, a well-attended informal event was organised for local business and supporters, as both a thank you event and also to highlight the work of the Team and explain how local businesses (especially tourism) can help the team in future years.

A major challenge for the Trustees for 2023 has been to try to establish the security and legality of tenure of the current Rescue Team base at Nant Peris. The Team leases the Base and adjacent areas from the Church in Wales, but there have been concerns and confusion over the clarity and legal status of this lease. Trustees have sought clarification from the Church in Wales over the lease, and work is ongoing with representatives of the Church, to secure a new, more favorable and secure lease.

The Trustees also met to view and discuss options for a new base for the team during 2023. A number of sites and locations were visited, and discussions took place with major local land owners, local authorities and the National Park, but despite some positive discussions, as yet, no sites have identified that would be practical to proceed with at this time.

For 2024, it would be fair to say that the Team does face some considerable challenges, not least carrying out an overdue review of the Team policies, securing the lease on the Team’s base at Nant Peris, maintaining operational capability in the face of increasing numbers of call-outs and an increasing demand on members in terms of training requirements, some of which are legally mandatory.

A major and on-going task for 2024 is to continue the search for and to fund a new operating base, as it is clear that the current base is not suitable for the scale of operations that the Team undertakes. This is very likely to require applying for external grants and other funds. The charity will also continue to engage with and build relationships with the local communities in and around dyffryn Peris, the surrounding valleys and Yr Wyddfa, including adopting a formal Welsh language scheme in conjunction with the Welsh Language Commissioner.

A further challenge for the team is to be able to maintain its current level of operations given the huge burden on team members in light of increasing call-

outs. “Burn-out” is a real possibility for many members, while the expectations from other statutory emergency services, who are under increasing workloads and reduced budgets, is increasing with each passing day, with the Team increasingly being called out to assist with and often being the only service available at difficult to access road traffic incidents, water incidents on Llyn Padarn, medical incidents at local farms, (and even difficult to access residential gardens!), missing dementia patients or lost vulnerable young children in the local urban areas.

The Trustees are hoping that there will be opportunities in the coming year, for the Team to work with and encourage other agencies, such as Welsh Government, tourism agencies, National Park, and others to provide better information and advice to users of the area in order to try to reduce the rising number of incidents.

The Trustees are exceptionally grateful for all of the time, effort and commitment of all team members, frequently called upon at the most awkward of times in inclement weather but also for all of the “back office” work that goes on, almost invisibly by others to maintain the teams’ operations. All Team members have every reason to be exceptionally proud of their achievements this year, and as always, some are able to volunteer more than others, but every single member and volunteer contributes to the work and achievements of the team in saving people in distress on Yr Wyddfa and surrounding hills in some way.

Report prepared by Elfyn Jones

Chairman of Trustees of the Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team CIO on behalf of the Trustees.

27/11/2023

LLANBERIS MOUNTAIN RESCUE TEAM CIO I TIM ACHUB MYNYDD LLANBERIS SCE Accounts For The Year Ended 30 September 2023 eom Rogistored Charity Number . 1q84620

INDEPENDENT EXAMINER'S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF LLANBERIS MOUNTAIN RESCUE TEAM CIO I Tfim ACHUB MYNYDD LLANBERIS SCE CHARITY NUMBER: 1184620 I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (Ihe Trusv,) for the year ended 30 September 2023. Responsibilities and basis of report As the charity's trustees. 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 Trust's accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying oul my examination, I hav8 followed all th8 applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145{51(b) of the Aci. Independent examinerfs slatsment I have completed my examination. I confim that no material matters hav8 com8 to my attention in ¢onne¢tion with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in. any material respect: the accounting records were not kepl in accordano with section 130 of the ACL or the accounts do not accord with the accounting records., or I have no concerns and have ¢ome 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. Colin Boll FCCA Willlams Denton Cyf Chart8red Certified Accountants Glaslyn Ffordd Y Parc Parc Menai Bangor Gyrynedd LL57 4FE Date: illiamsder)ton

CHARITY COMMISSIO FOR ENGLANO AND WAL£ Charity Name LLANBERIS MOUNTAIN RESCUE TeAM ¢101 TIM ACHUB MYNYDD LLANBERIS SCE No lif any) 1114620 Recei tsand ents accounts CC16a For Ihg perlod from Period slaA rfale Period end dale 3010912023 0111012022 Section A Receipts and payments Unr¢$lri¢tod funds Restrlct8d lundg toth• nD•r••t £ t•th• n•w••ie Endowm8nt fund# Tot•1 fvnds Last y•ar lo lh• Mw•i A1 Rovl D$tn9- Weral L8yacyGifts 3g.976 159.757 38.560 21.439 3,075 10,401 HKIRC VAT Rèfund DM8Uons-Juat fy¥i Dt4yaIl8-wd Poy 0hDA-V1l91Th JS.2Jg 9¥ Bank In1wl tJhBrLDaD Ini•rt•i s¢¢1 aThI- Donell mss In¢ome 3.575 10 3.57S Is 10 ARJ 111SJ nv8#knent Sa se• tawo . N8rdSLATr Repawn)t 1,010 I,ooo 1.010 230.942 11 A3Pa •nts Fhjt0ra Travdliw Expense5 torvehklas Traknl TÈ8m Equipment CCrfnrnunkaurrf 01T Irrfura BaB¢ Coats sdAthin eifwe and FWJ PfSOl Féès Costs FuJralnll Swol AnI 3Q379 41736 9,275 30.850 214 1,725 T.146 iJ¢ 1228 30,37 43,736 9275 30N50 6314 1,725 7,146 8.472 1.111 2231• 14$ 5.747 1214 3228 £98 686 4$ Sub total 14X50ty 145,790 A4 A88Ot and Inv•$tment Sub total Totslp•yment$ 143.509 2281 45.480 Not ofrnC•lpts/(paYmts) A5 Trwsfers between lund$ A6 Cash funds last y•ar •nd C•sh fvnd$ th1$ y••r •nd 87,433 12,3301 85.818 2,330 52679 1,607 531.18fj Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period Unrèstricted Re$trl¢ted funds fund• Endowment funds Cat*gorlos D•tail$ B1 Cash funds Curr•rt BsnkAc£th 73AOI

Jslness BankArthmt 137B C4¥CaDeiS1tArr Socid Barl(Ao>JuN 1.SQ7 Total ¢•sh fiinds 329.on 1.507 Unrèstrieto fund$ tortt ReJtrict8d funds Endowm•nt lunds Detalls H8rdahip L(n8 tonD•rMt£ FundtoTthlch bo ¢wr•rtv•lu• knal DÈtall$ 83 Investment altsets to thl¢h asG•tbo UNeslrf¢ie Dgtalls ¢wll•pt tlonal B4 Ass•ts r•taIn for th• ehorftys own use Tearn E¢wprnfjt UnMknGigd Fwdt¢*hl¢h AlIt duD Détalls B5 Llabllltlos $Jd byMè orbyo Iruslees cn beha of aK th& tnJ8téès Signaluro Print Name Oate of Francds Jara Omer

LLANBERIS MOUNTAIN RESCUE TEAM CIO I TIM ACHUB MYNYDD LLANBERIS SCE Accounts For The Year Ended 30 September 2023 eom Rogistored Charity Number . 1q84620