## **Charity Mentors Sussex Trinity House**
## **School Hill**
## **Lewes BN7 2NN**
**Charity Number: 1186593**
## **Trustees: Chantal Wilson (Chairman), Christopher Gebbie, Jane Roberts, Richard Pearson, Timothy Hancock**
## **Chairman’s report November 2024 – October 2025**
The trustees continued to fulfil the objectives of the charity, thereby helping to achieve a sustainable, confident and vibrant charitable sector in Sussex, while also inducting the new Co-ordinator, Alison Lake, who had joined the charity in September 2024. As I said in my previous report, by the end of the 2023-4 reporting year, Alison had hit the ground running but there are many complexities involved in serving the whole charity sector across East and West Sussex and the trustees worked with Alison to manage these.
A budget and business plan were drawn up, aiming to increase the number of completed mentoring projects during the year to 40 compared to 34 in 2023-4. This was to be achieved by using every publicity tool available to us, particularly developing our contacts with the Councils for Voluntary Service in Sussex and improving our website.
The budget to achieve the business plan was set at £16,800.
The trustee cohort remained unchanged from 2023-4 with one trustee having served more than 9 years.
At the end of October 2025, 11 projects had been completed, a further 16 were live and we had 8 mentees waiting to be assigned mentors. We had 25 mentors, amongst whom 3 were taking a brief pause from their mentoring due to other personal commitments.
Examining the shortfall against our business target, we realised that we had been unrealistic in expecting that so many would be **completed** in the year. More realistically, we should recognise that some projects would still be live and others would be in the pipeline awaiting a mentor. Furthermore, we had not taken account of the gap in the mentee pipeline resulting from 2 changes of Project Co-ordinator as outlined in the previous annual report. Overall, we are optimistic that the mentoring is now on a good footing, our co-ordinator has settled in well, and our pipeline of new charities awaiting mentoring is looking healthy.
For the following year we have adjusted our target to 30 completed projects, plus additional live/pipeline projects which we feel is more realistic.
Funding is a key, on-going responsibility of the board and in looking at potential funding sources, the trustees became increasingly aware of the need for robust, accurate and meaningful metrics in relation to outcomes of mentoring and spent time considering the best ways of recording them. Applications for funding brought grants totalling £6000. The necessary reserves, as identified in the charity’s reserves policy, were exceeded throughout the year except for a few weeks in September & October 2025.
However, funding awards totalling £9000 were received in early November 2025, just after the reporting period, thereby re-establishing reserves headroom against the charity’s reserves policy. Total expenses of the charity in the year were £11,776.
An unsuccessful funding application was made to the National Lottery. This was a considerable disappointment, given that we had received funding previously. The criteria had changed and our application did not satisfy either of the criteria of being geographically based on specific needy areas, nor was it aimed at meeting a specific need. A second application was made with these points in mind and it, too, was unsuccessful.
Having found fund-raising particularly challenging, we revised our approach to collecting impact data from mentees and information from our mentors on how well their projects worked. The forms for mentees to complete at the end of a project were re-written to provide more granular impact information and assess satisfaction levels. We also started to ask for insights from the mentors’ points of view.
A buddying system was introduced so that new mentors could turn to a more experienced mentor “buddy” for guidance, thus giving new mentors more support and hopefully giving them more confidence.
We received many expressions of thanks and gratitude from mentees who explained what a difference having a mentor had made. These comments and the content of the feedback forms which mentees submit will help improve the qualitative and quantitative data needed for credible and successful grant applications.
Despite a year of change, our volunteer mentor cohort remained exceptionally committed to the charity. There were only 2 resignations, from mentors who had both given the benefit of their expertise and experience to many charities over the long-term and I would like to thank them for giving so generously of their valuable personal time. We are fortunate in having recruited new mentors to take their place.
The charity continued to be an active member of the network of Charity Mentors entities in various counties nationwide.
During the year, the trustees worked on elements of governance. A formal list of all governance documents was compiled and the following policies added: a revised risk register;
a funding strategy a trustee recruitment policy
a lone-working policy
a safeguarding policy. The Co-ordinator was appointed safeguarding officer
I would like to thank all our mentors for their dedication and loyalty to CMS. We are most fortunate to have an exceptionally high-quality group of individuals with an immense range of skills and experience and mentees often compliment the charity on this.
On a personal note, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the small but perfectly formed board of trustees which supports me so comprehensively. Each trustee takes the initiative in his or her sphere of expertise, creating a highly functional and integrated team.
Chantal Wilson Chairman, CMS 7[th] August 2026
||**Charity Mentors Sussex**
|**Charity Mentors Sussex**
|**Charity Mentors Sussex**
|**Charity Mentors Sussex**
|**CC16a**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**For the period**
**from**|1-Nov-24|**To**|||
|||||||
|**Section A Receipts and payments**||||||
|**A1 Receipts**
Chalk Cliff Trust
**5,000**
Albert van den Bergh Trust
**1,000**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**6,000**
**-**
**-**
**_Sub total_ -**
**_Total receipts_ 6,000**
**A3 Payments**
Insurance
**112**
Website,e-mail and IT costs
**455**
Social media
**-**
Coordinator fees
**10,584**
Travel expenses
**600**
Venue hire & event costs
**25**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**_Sub total_ 11,776**
**-**
**-**
**_Sub total_ -**
**_Total payments_ 11,776**
**_Net of receipts/(payments)_ - 5,776**
**A5 Transfers between funds**
**-**
**A6 Cash funds last year end**
**11,883**
**_Cash funds this year end_ 6,107**
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for AR)_
**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**
**A4 Asset and investment**
**purchases, (see table)**||**to the nearest £**
**Restricted**
**funds**|**to the nearest £**
**Endowment**
**funds**|**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Last year**
**to the nearest £**|
|||**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**5,000**
**1,000**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**6,000**|**-**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**9,000**|
|||||||
|||**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**||
||||||**-**|
||||||**-**|
|||||||
|||**-**|**-**|**6,000**|**9,000**|
|||||||
|||**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**112**
**455**
**-**
**10,584**
**600**
**25**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**11,776**|**-**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**12,900**|
|||||||
|||**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**||
|||||||
||||||**-**|
|||||||
|||**-**|**-**|**11,776**|**12,900**|
|||||||
|||**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**- 5,776**
**-**
**11,883**
**6,107**|**- 3,900**|
||||||**-**|
||||||**15,783**|
||||||**11,883**|
## **Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**
|**Categories**
**B1 Cash funds**
**B2 Other monetary assets**
**B3 Investment assets**
**B5 Liabilities**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees|**Details**
Cash at bank
**Details**
**Details**
**Details**
**Details**
Signature
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))|**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**6,107**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**6,107**
**-**
OK
OK
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
Print Name
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Fund to which**
**liability relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**|**to nearest £**
**Endowment**
**funds**|
|---|---|---|---|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||OK|
||||**to nearest £**
**Endowment**
**funds**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**When due**
**(optional)**|
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
||||Date of
approval|
|||||
|||||