2024-08-31-accounts - Slovak School And Community Manchester

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Trustees' Annual Report for the period

Period start date Period end date Day Month Year Day Month Year From 01 09 23 To 31 08 24

Section A Reference and administration details

Charity name

Slovak School and Community Manchester

Other names charity is known by

Registered charity number (if any) 1185004

Charity's principal address 2 Silchester Drive Manchester Postcode M408NT

Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity

Trustee name	Office (if any)	Dates acted if not for whole year	Name of person (or body) entitled to appoint trustee (ifany)
Anna Pazdurova	Chairman, Founder, Treasurer	1.7.2019	Trustee themselves, Previously trustee of Czech and Slovak School and CommunityManchester
Sandra Nazarej	Trustee, Online Manager Warrington Manager	From 1.1.2021	Trustee Themselves
JurajJanosko	Events	From 1.6.2024	Trustee Themselves
Miroslava Matusikova	Manchester School Operations	From 1.1.2024	Trustee themselves
Ingrid Harandza	Manchester School Operations	30.6.2022 till June 24	Trustee Themselves (Trusteeship ended due to reported Conflict of Interest, Breach of Duty of Loyalty, Confidentiality and use of Charityresources)

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Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)

Name	Dates acted if not for whole year
Sandra Nazarejova	Currentlynon active trustee board member

Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)

Type of adviser Name Address

Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)

Anna Pazdurova - Chairman

Section B Structure, governance and management

Description of the charity’s trusts

Constitution Type of governing document (eg. trust deed, constitution) Charitable Incorporated Organization How the charity is constituted

(eg. trust, association, company)

Appointed by the charity trustees, members of our community are always Trustee selection methods welcome and invited to step forward to become trustees (eg. appointed by, elected by)

Additional governance issues (Optional information)

You may choose to include additional information, where relevant, about:

policies and procedures adopted for the induction and training of trustees;
the charity’s organisational structure and any wider network with which the charity works;
relationship with any related parties;
trustees’ consideration of major risks and the system and procedures to manage them.

The organisation has adopted all required policies.

The trustees meet on a regular basis and manage all activities of the charity in accordance with the constitution. There are policies in place such as: Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy, Safe Recruitment policy based on principles outlined in Constitution of CIO Slovak school and Community Manchester, Teacher Information Sheet

The charity cooperates on contractual basis with 5 -6 teachers (Incl online) who help school on volunteering basis whilst their teaching time expenses are paid. Charity trustee board is completely unpaid function – Anna, Miroslava and Juraj doesn’t get paid for their work for SCCM. Parents contribute to cost of teaching and premises. Parents contributions however doesn’t cover even basic costs therefore charity trustees need to work on additional fundraising either via organizing events or through external grants search and applications.

Organization also cooperates with universities in Slovakia and we are providing teacher training via Ministry o Education in Slovakia, University of Matej Bel and Manchester Council – Supplementary Schools Department.

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School cooperates with Office for Slovakians Abroad (Urad pre Slovakov zijucich v zahranici). 2023/2024 we haven’t received any financial support from USSZ.

The school cooperates with other Slovak Schools in the UK as well and is a founding member of the Association of Slovak Schools in the UK.

SCCM also cooperates with other Charitable organizations in the UK and actively supports care homes with “act of kindness” activities with children. School cooperates with St Annes Church Crumpsall. The charity also works closely with the Embassy of Slovakia in London.

The greatest risk for Charity has been lack of financial support for non profits of our kind, lack of qualified volunteering teachers on market and breach of policies by trustees and volunteering staff

1.Lack of financial support. We didn’t get any external donor money from Slovakia for this period and we purely managed full year from reserves and parents contributions to cost of teaching and premises. We managed to receive grant that Anna Pazdurova wrote project for and was awarded grant (came in June 2024) Mitigation of this risk: Anna will keep continuing applying for grants

. 2. Breach of policies and procedures

We believe our procedures were self-explanatory in terms of conflict of interest and Data Protection Act. Unfortunately, first time in history of our organization since its beginning in 2017, we had to report Charity commission that there was serious breach of conflict of interest and breach of Data Protection Act by one teacher and one charity trustee. In addition, Trustee breached also Duty of Loyalty and misuse of charity resources. This was reported on forms CC29 based on charity commission guidelines. Breach was conducted by Maria Musutova (teacher on regular basis since Sept 2023 – March2024, and Ingrid Harandza (Charity Trustee officially on Charity commission since 30.6.2022 and was in charge of Operations of Machester school).

Mitigation of this risk: Named 2 persons left. We reviewed all our policies and added strength aspects to volunteering contracts, and code of conducts for all members of charity leadership, volunteers and teachers, so that they can act in the best interest of charity.

Section C Objectives and activities

Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document

	I.	To advance education for the public benefit in particular but not
		exclusively in the language, history, geography, the arts, culture and
		heritage ofSlovakiaby:
	• teaching theSlovaklanguage and Slovakhistory and geography to children,
	young	people;
	• teachingSlovaklanguage to adults;
	• promoting and organising events that supportSlovakculture, art and folklore;
	and support internation social inclusion with other communities
	• organizing workshops to promote Slovakian natonal heritage
	II.	The promotion of social inclusion for the public benefit among people
		who are nationals of Slovakia settling in the North West region of
		England who are socially excluded on the grounds of language and
		their social position by providing:
	•	education and training in the English language;
	•	support and general advice; and

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social and recreational facilities and events involving the local
community.

Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public benefit in relation to these objects (include within this section the statutory declaration that trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit)

When planned and organized our activities for the year, we kept in mind the Charity Commission's guidance on public benefit at our trustee meetings. The main focus of our activities was on the education of the children, sustaining national heritage and teaching them the Slovak language, traditions and our cultural heritage. The charity ran 6 classes including adult classes Slovak. Active classes and online: 1 class preschool kids – class “Motyliky” , class “Sovicky” and Adults classes online, plus children Warrington online. In additiona we ran English class 1-1 – 1 class which ended 2024. . ln total, we had up to 35 children enrolled, up to 28 active including online. All children lessons were held at Manchester Communication Academy on Saturdays term-time or online. We held events too. Weekly sessions in premises lasted of 3 hours each, online classes max 2 hours depending on age group. Signification miles stone for school was leaving of 1 trustee and 1 teacher due to serious breach of policies – resulting in breach of loyalty duty, Confidentialty breach and misuse of charity resources. Therefore 1 new trustee – Juraj Janosko was appointed. Sandra Nazarejova has been non active member of charity trustee board due to personal circumsances. However she attended emergency meeting held due to misconduct of above mentioned members. For the whole Slovak community, we organised a number of expats events, for children, whole families as well Slovak adult population. Regarding events, we managed to make small Carnival 2023, May Day and Saint Nicolas Day. Sports day. At the events we hosted up to max 130 people per event, depends on event. The highlight of events was St Nicolaus day where “Santa” was traveling all over to Manchester in costume and delivered presents as alternative to traditional folk dance events.

We have also some small folk group of singing / dancing children in traditional dresses who perform at our activities. SLOVACIK WAS FOUNDED IN 2018 as first SLOVACIK in the UK We were privileged to be featured in Slovak TV JOJ and Radio Slovakia.It was great honor to host also His Excellency Mr Lubomir Rehak in Feb 2020, Slovak Ambassador at Slovakia Embassy at premises of our school. We have now secured visit of new Ambassador in 2024. Our teachers took part in trainings specialized in teaching o bilingual kids – Slovakian as second language. LEMON AID – fundraising has had break this term due to rebranding and streategy change also due to health conditions of its founder SP. Stall projects where they were fundraising money for school on internal school events. Now Lemon-aid has a break due to founders decision and transformation process to different style of fundraising and rebranding.

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At majority of events we were fundraising to cover operational costs of school since parents contributions doesn’t cover full operations of school despite of fact leadership is not paid.

Volunteers assisted a lot during events and without them we wouldn’t be able to organize it.

Trustees took active part in leadership, especially at the events and acted as deputees during running of Manchester operations . Online lessons are running smoothly, there is financial risk though as they have been in loss. Aim is to cover it by grants or increase fees after responsible trustee analyses the situation.

Our aim toto involve more our community during our events and lessons. That said, we are very grateful to the parents of the children enrolled at the school who support our events with contributions to our food stalls or tombolas and who help with some of our events.

As a part of school we founded Theatre in June-August 2024 and were in the process of recruiting members.

For unexpected situations, although we do not have an official policy on reserves, we monitor our cash flow very carefully and always have funds to cover the vitals costs during the year, such as rent and teachers' payments. Thanks to reserves we survived this year and we hope to get grants for next years.

We plan to continue cooperation with local charities international communities and actively promote social inclusion which is our purpose and passion of our people.

Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)

Main income of the school is from the school fees. We keep them to the bare minimum (the lowest in the UK and in the world at Slovak schools abroad as far as research shows) as we want the school to be affordable to the widest

possible community. The fees have remained on the same level since the school opened

You may choose to include further statements, where relevant, about:

policy on grantmaking;
policy programme related investment;

The fees are supplemented by our fundraising events and activities during our events, such as tombolas, children performances food donations to our food stalls, etc. We got grant in June 2024.

WE are grateful for regular volunteers who helped to run school successfully online and offline.

Our aim is to increase marketing levels to attract more community, either Slovakian or international, organize more events and apply for funding to be able to deliver quality events for community to feel like “at home” and make lasting connections and friendships.

contribution made by volunteers.

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Section D Achievements and performance

The trustees endeavour to continue the successful management of the Summary of the main school, which has grown significantly since its foundation and has achievements of the charity established itself as major and the only one Slovak community in the North during the year West with Children from radius of 100 km and online children from all over the UK and Scotland.

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Section E Financial review

There in no official policy on reserves, however we proactively keep Brief statement of the charity operating charity model in way that reserves are created for charity’s policy on reserves unforeseen circumstances. We strictly monitor our cash flow in order to support our operating charity model to create reserves and keep charity and community going thus support communities in the UK.

Details of any funds materially in deficit

Further financial review details (Optional information)

You may choose to include additional information, where relevant about:

the charity’s principal sources of funds (including any fundraising);
how expenditure has supported the key objectives of the charity;

Parents contribute to cost of teaching, however parents contributions doesn’t cover full operations of school despite of signification volunteering free of charge work is involved.

We organize community fundraising events to cover costs of teachers and premises and accounting, we keep expenditures to minimum by keeping volunteers on site. In the future we plan to apply for grants from Slovakia office for Slovaks abroad.

investment policy and objectives including any ethical investment policy adopted.

Section F Other optional information

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Slovak School and Community Manchester Balance sheet as at 31.08.2024 Period Current Assets Cash at bank and in hand Bank Account Cash 19817.40 °Grant June24 587,71 A¢count ReceNables 0.00 Total Current Assets 20405,11 Current Liabilities 0,00 0,00 Total Current Liabilities 20405.11 Ca itsl and Reserves Retained Earnings 1744.85 Current Year Earnings 18660.26 20405,11 Total Ca ital ReseThes TAR Mar¢h 2012

Section G Declaration

The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.

Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees

Signature(s) Mirka Matusikova Full name(s) Anna Pazdurova Position (eg Secretary, Chair, Chair, Acting Treasurer Trustee etc) Date 30th June 2025

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