## Birmingham Talking Newspapers for the blind & visually impaired (BTNBVI) Registered Charity (England) No. 1185917 **Trustees' Annual Report** – 1 April 2024 31 March 2025 Section A ' Charity s principal address Strangford Rd Lichfield Hopwas Tamworth B78 3AG ## Names of the charity trust ees who manage the charity David Gowdy - Chair - Danny Collman VC (South) Rob Halley - VC (North) Kath Collman - Secretary - Ian Alexander Treasurer - Brian Sansom Webmaster Marion Dance Alan Johnson (to Aug 2024) Section B Governance BTNBVI is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation whose trustees are elected by its Members at each Annual General Meeting. Members are mainly the volunteers who produce the recordings each week. BTNBVI is affiliated to the national Talking Newspapers Federation (TNF) and to Birmingham Voluntary Service Council (BVSC) Since 2020 BTNBVI has with the of continued pattern operations established by Birmingham Talking Newspaper Association (BTNA) over its 40 years providing a talking newspaper service. Our trustees are mainly experienced senior volunteers but we do need to widen our skills base. We were successful in engaging several volunteers in a formal survey exercise, and were pleased to find significant in-house skills to undertake this work. A “more than reading” initiative has been effective in developing a volunteer team to develop publicity efforts Section C ## Charitable Objects The object of BTNBVI is to relieve the blind or visually impaired in the Birmingham area by the provision of recorded material read primarily from newspapers and magazines. In meeting its object and to provide public benefit, each week BTNBVI provides 3- 5 hours of recorded material which is distributed by post using USB memory sticks to blind and visually-impaired listeners across Birmingham. This is current material, mostly from local print newspapers, and therefore not readily accessible to visually impaired people. Recordings can also be accessed via our website: www.btnbvi.org, via smartphones using the BWBF Talking News app and via Alexa or similar smart speakers. The service helps reduce social isolation and listeners often comment on the companionship of familiar voices “in the room”. We continue to receive encouraging comments from listeners: - Dear lovely people, Thank you for your entertaining Talking Newspapers. Unfortunately, this one appears to be blank; - Please find enclosed cheque. Thank you for your prompt service; - Thank you. This is my second BTN. Very informative and - interesting. Many thanks to everyone who contributed to this recording. Thoroughly enjoyed it; - Please accept this £10 cheque. Thank you for all you do; - Thank you for the Talking Newspaper. I do enjoy the articles and the History talk. I enclose a donation and wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year; and also a further significant bequest. Section D ## Performance At year end we are serving fewer than the 300 listeners we had last year. of Attention is being given to increasing our publicity efforts. The pattern usage is often irregular rather than a constant weekly turnover. A major disturbance across 2024-25 stemmed from the unexpected loss of the Alan Geale House [AGH] studio capacity which provided 50% of our operational capacity. We were very pleased when the efforts of the South team identified new space in Bournville Village Trust [BVT] HQ building, available from June 2024. This is an excellent modern building, used free-of-charge, but lacks the storage space and single-user arrangements that were enjoyed in AGH. BVT staff have been exemplary in their welcome and support. During the few months at the start of the year, before BVT was identified, the trustees considered the overall response and quickly agreed that BTNBVI could operate from one site if necessary, but struggled to translate that position to actuality. The obvious difficulty was the 50% redundancy implications for volunteers if one of the two centres closed. Trustees to review the From a continue position. governance position there is no justification for running an organisation that is twice as big as it needs to be, especially as the listener numbers decline. One development that does need more people is the “more than reading” concept that encourages volunteers to support areas like publicity, training, listener contact. There is evident energy in areas like ECLO contact, but trustee support in terms of leadership and training is not yet secure. Our long-running and repeated History programme material was replaced in Jan 2025 with a commercial podcast series (The Rest is History). Evaluation of this will be undertaken in early 2025-26 once people get used to the different format ( a single female-voice enthusiastic lecture format has been overtaken by two “blokes” talking through the issues). So far we have seen both and criticism, negative positive. Policy work continues, but slowly. Progress in recruiting new trustees will be reported at the July 2025 AGM Section E Finance The Treasurer has continued to improve our money management and is preparing a Gift Aid submission to HMRC. At present income donations do not fully cover running costs, leaving a small annual deficit that is offset from reserves. BTNBVI bank accounts are with The Co-Operative Bank. The arrangements have now bedded in with most handled online. transactions Trustees are keen to see a higher return on reserves than the 2.8% pa currently being achieved Section F - Section G ## Declaration The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above. Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees Signature _A D Gowdy_ ## Full name ALFRED DAVID GOWDY Position CHAIR Date 8 JULY 2025 Note: this report is presented in sections that align with the Charities Commission Trustees Annual Report CC16 template CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGIAND AND WALIS IRMINOHAM TALKING NIWSPAPIRS FOR THF IILINn K VlSllALLY IMPAIRF.D IB TNoini 1111917 Receipts and ayments accounts CC16a CC168 For ih• period from 0ln4120?4 311UJ12025 Unr•sirict•d fund• R•ilrlcl•d Endowm•nl fund• Total fund¥ L•¥t y•ir 31103124 irj ¢h• n••r••l n•*r••t e Al R•c•i J.U09 8.710 und l￿d Sub toial(Gross mcome for ARJ 4.721 4,728 A2 A*sef •nd Invèsim•nt Jal•%. Sub total Toial recelprs 4,T26 4,726 6.376 A3 P*ym•nts P O Boxes Sutton Studio Rent hire Other meetin Email ￿¢ ￿StIn Web srte desi n & hostin 522 2.040 180 2,040 180 2,040 122 50 so 216 216 t.2Q$ 144 TNF Subs Conf fees Tr2vd Ex Insurance Surve Listeners. Vols 42 42 74 2$2 252 240 505 565 Rec(KdirF rnent US8 P18 ers. char USB Slick5 Ink cartrfs OtrEr Tech E Misc I Sundries Accountanc fees 1,627 301 ers 479 57 179 479 57 179 rnenl 32$ 103 2$2 Z52 Sub total 4,995 4,995 7.018 A4 Asstt and investment purehases, (S￿ tabl•) Sub total Net ofrecelpts/(paymenls) A5 Tran$fers be￿een fund$ A6 cash funds last year ?nd Cash funds thls year end 42, Section B Statement of assets and Ilabllities at the end of the Uniestiict•d fund erlod Roslricted funt1$ Endowmenl funds Catogorles Detail$ to r••nf•AI£ to n•ar••t E 81 Cash funds Cw cwr•M Ctrop 4,457 37,398 Total cash lunds 41,855 Unrestricted funds Restrlcted fvnds Endowment fund5 Detallj to n•ar•st t to r*•reJl £ B2 0th8r monetary asse to whkh *¥¥et belo Dolails CurT•rtt Yalu• 83 Invostm•nt as8•t$ Futhd towhlGh Dotalls $￿d￿￿￿pMtsnt. US8 e4wofs,laplop4 rrly4 eurr•nt v•lu• 41 B4 Ass•ts retaSned for the charlty's own use GèDeial 10,000 Fundto whl¢h re￿1¢¥ Detalls Nw• *rnount due lonal Vthen dy• BS LlablltUo• SSwd by cfflé ￿p￿tUre irt Namè Oat4 of 8pproval the Iru81eei l. AbxaTrJer 23rd July 2025 Notes:" M¢)5t equipmènt i34+ yèèrs okl aThd has no forrnal book ¥alue. Two ièptOP5 and one rnixerwer¢ repkced prfot tg end 2021 at l ¢05101 £9