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2025-03-31-accounts

Trustees' Annual Report for the period

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Period start date Period end date
Day Month Year Day Month Year
From 01 04 2024 To 31 03 2025
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Section A Reference and administration details

Charity name Grounded Community

Other names charity is known by Grounded Registered charity number (if any) 1187272 Charity's principal address[45 Maxwell Road]

Bournemouth Dorset Postcode BH9 1DQ

Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity

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Dates acted if not for whole Name of person (or body) entitled to
Trustee name Office (if any)
year appoint trustee (if any)
John Hanson Chair Until Jan 2025 N/A
John Richards N/A
Helen Gialias Trustees
Eleanor Wills From 14/11/2024 onwards Trustees
Michael French From Sept 2024 Trustees
Mark Stimson Chair From Jan/Feb 2025 Trustees
Theresa McManus Trustees
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Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)

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Name Dates acted if not for whole year
N/A
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Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)

Jonathan Watson-Short, Karen Everett, Sharon Brinkman

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Section B Structure, governance and management

Description of the charity’s trusts

Constitution Type of governing document (eg. trust deed, constitution)

CIO Foundation Model How the charity is constituted

Every trustee must be appointed for a term of three years by a resolution passed Trustee selection methods at a properly convened meeting of the charity trustees. (eg. appointed by, elected by)

Section C Objectives and activities

Summary of the objects of the
charity set out in its governing
document
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)		 Our charity’s purposes as set out in the objects contained in the CIO
Foundation Constitution are: -
1.To advance the education of the public in subjects of sustainable
development and the protection, enhancement, and rehabilitation of the
environment by teaching, demonstrating, and supporting people how to grow
food to improve health and well-being.
2. The relief of those in need, by reason of age, ill-health, disability, financial
hardship or other disadvantage through the gathering, collection and
distribution of food, the provision of support to grow food and the reduction
of food waste.
Ensuring our work delivers our aims
We review our aims, objectives, and activities each year, held at a team Away
Weekend at the end of January. This review looks at what we achieved and
the outcomes of our work in the previous 12 months. The review looks at the
success of each key activity and the benefits they have brought to those
groups of people we are set up to help. The review also looks at our financial
position for the next financial year including our budgets for each of our main
activities. The review also helps us ensure our aim, objectives and activities
remained focused on our stated purposes. We have referred to the guidance
contained in the Charity Commission’s general guidance on public benefit
when reviewing our aim and objectives and in planning our future activities.
In particular, the trustees consider how planned activities will contribute to
the aims and objectives they have set.
The focus of our work
Our main objectives for the year continued to be the advancement of
education related to teaching people food growing skills and distributing food
to those in need.
The strategies we used to meet those objectives included:

Developing skill sharing workshops to educate our volunteers and the
local community in learning about Food Growing Skills.

Hosting volunteer sessions in our Secret Garden and other sites,
including Little Gardeners.

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Below you will read about the six projects (in green) that form our charity, including our pilot project(s). Our Community Food Map below shows how we are engaging our community partners (in orange) with our projects.

The Secret Garden:

Skills and Learning Workshops

The educational workshops mostly took place at the Secret Garden, but some workshops took place in the Nursery Garden and/or on the roof of the Sovereign Centre in Boscombe, Bournemouth.

From the workshops we aimed to equip people with the basic knowledge they needed to then grow their own fruit and vegetables at home, with the ultimate ambition of helping the community become self-sufficient, and to share their food within the local community. Our skills and learning programmes included one-off workshops to the public and ongoing volunteer training workshops, of which had been delivered during our weekday volunteer sessions.

The workshops generally start with an introduction to the theory, followed by a practical session in which participants get an opportunity to practise their

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new skills. After the practical sessions, there is always a Q&A session with suggested home activities and resources to follow up what the participants have been learned about. There is usually something to take home – a detailed handout, seeds, plug plants or harvested food.

Our fortnightly advanced volunteer training sessions go into further depth on seasonal topics to share skills and support growing at the Secret Garden. Topics this year included mushroom growing, rainwater harvesting, making nettle soup, companion planting, composting and the Summer Solstice.

Volunteer sessions

Our garden volunteer sessions have continued to run throughout the whole year on Monday and Friday mornings from 9am to 1pm.

These volunteer sessions at The Secret Garden have provided several key services for our local community:

Monday and Friday sessions have continued to be inclusive and open to all. The sessions attract people with a range of ages, abilities, nationalities, backgrounds, beliefs and life circumstances, representative of our diverse area. Garden activities vary with the season and are catered to the interests, skills and ability of our volunteers. The activities have included sowing, weeding, planting, harvesting, watering, seed saving, chicken care as well as DIY, creating wildlife habitats, composting, painting and developing new growing spaces. As mentioned above, we also held advanced volunteer skills training session twice a month. As well as helping our volunteers develop new skills, these sessions have greatly contributed to the volunteers physical and mental health. At these sessions there is always time for a hot drink and chat, usually with cakes and snacks contributed by our volunteers or staff.

Little Gardeners Stay & Play Sessions

During term time we have continued to run a nature play group for under 7s and their adult carers. In these weekly 90-minute sessions, children have taken part in a variety of play-based activities based connecting the children with the outdoors, soil, plant and wildlife and growing organic, seasonal food and conserving wildlife habitats. The nature play group activities have included pond-dipping, plant and bug identification, making insect habitats,

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feeding the chickens, craft activities, play-kitchens and reading books related to nature and food growing. As like with the volunteer sessions, there is always hot/cold drinks and healthy snacks available for adults and children.

Parents often comment on the calm, playful and friendly atmosphere. New friendships and connections are formed, and we have families signing up to our projects as a result of coming to the Little Gardeners play sessions.

As well as the activities that are laid out, all children and adults are encouraged to freely explore and enjoy our beautiful walled Secret Garden, complete with a sheltered outdoor classroom/kitchen area, wildlife pond, chicken run and polytunnel.

The aim of the sessions has always been to initiate a positive lifelong connection with the outdoors, soil, plant life, chickens, wildlife and where our food comes from, to learn through play and to respect and take care of each other and our planet.

The Little Gardeners sessions run every week in all weather conditions (apart from dangerously high winds and thunderstorms!). Our measurable outcomes are that 90% of adult attendees report that a) their children are more comfortable playing outside in nature, and b) are more familiar with where their food comes from, as a result of attending our Little Gardeners sessions.

Grounded Growers:

Our Grounded Growers project provides design and installation services to create bespoke growing spaces throughout our local community. Their services include the supply, delivery and installation of reclaimed timber frames, a waste product of the shipping industry along with locally sourced soil and compost, created from collected green and local food waste. Our Growers project also provide seasonal organic seeds and plug plants and with their outreach support, help individuals, groups and organisations to learn how to grow their own nutritious food with access and connection to a range of grower’s skills workshops within our Secret Garden or within the setting of the new installation. Our Grounded Growers project has volunteers often young men and some form refugee asylum seeking community.

Feed Our Community – The Pantry:

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Established in 2017 as a community fridge, this project merged with Grounded in 2020 to become ‘Feed our community’ and is our surplus supermarket food collection and distribution project. The project collects surplus food from supermarkets, cafes, home growers and allotments.

In 2024 we intercepted and redistributed 60,000 kgs of supermarket surplus and each week we are feeding over 100 individual households and providing 75 additional people with emergency food. Annually, since the spring of 2024 and to meet increased demand, our service is now open seven days per week.

The challenges in this financial year have been the continued drop in food donations, reduced volunteer availability as volunteers have needed to seek paid employment, together with the rising cost of living impacting on both volunteers and beneficiaries. Additionally, we have noticed our beneficiaries are not accepting fresh produce as they do not have the practical/financial means to cook or the necessary skills/knowledge to know how to cook with fresh ingredients.

In September 2024 we undertook some research and listened to what our community needed and with the support of some funding, we undertook a full refurbishment of our feed our community space which included the newly refurbished and named ‘The Pantry’. This new model is an open ‘farm shop’ style area where rather that come and collect a pre-prepared food box, the beneficiaries are encouraged to take a basket and browse the shop to select the items they need.

Examples of those people that benefit from ‘The Pantry’ are vulnerable individuals, single parent families, elderly, large families, those with mental health issues and/or substance abuse and low-income households. Many of the volunteers are also beneficiaries and our project team encourages everyone who can to get involved, building a more confident and resilient community.

Grounded Gatherers:

The aim of Grounded Gatherers has always been to put surplus food to good use – whether it’s unwanted fruit from gardens, foraged fruits from public spaces or even supermarket veg that needs using fast. Our Gatherers come together to create a whole range of seasonal delicacies such as nettle soup, rosehip syrup & three-cornered leek pesto as well as producing a variety of soups, juices, cakes, bakes and makes from food that would otherwise end up in landfill.

Community Composting:

We transform food waste from local businesses into nutritious compost, using our rocket composter on the roof of the Sovereign Centre in Boscombe. In the early part of the year, the rocket composter was not operational for a while due to a technical problem. Once resolved, it was back up and running on the Sovereign Centre rooftop, turning food waste into high quality compost for community growing.

Grounded Bees:

We keep beehives on the roof of the Sovereign Shopping Centre. We also keep a beehive at our Secret Garden 2 for educational purposes.

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It was a busy educational year for our bees, volunteers and attendees. We exceeded our delivery plan target and grew our own stock of beehives from 4 at the start of the season to a total of 10 colonies going into the winter. Over the summer season, our bee project saw great success with the running of ‘Busy Little Bee-Keeper’ experience days for children aged 3 to 11. We ran six sessions with 52 children and 37 adults. The children learned about beekeeping, saw the hive and honeybees at work. We also ran beeswax crafting, an introductory beekeeping workshop, as well as two adult bee keeping experiences attended by 25 adults.

Staffing Challenges for the year: 2024/2025

As a charity we have grown considerably. Although we are still operating all our projects on four full-time equivalent days, we increased our outputs considerably. We increased the staff team to 9 and 2 contractual staff.

In May 2024, our Treasurer resigned as Trustee and Treasurer with immediate effect. The resignation led to delays in financial operations, difficulties in accessing and maintaining the financial information on Sharepoint, and also created issues with accessing funds and making payments until we were able to change all passwords and signatories. In June 2024 we eventually recruited on a recommendation an Interim Finance Accountant who assisted us in moving our financial systems over to Zero, of which we have now accomplished.

At the start of the summer period in July 2024, our Impact Reporting Coordinator suddenly left, and this was not picked up again until September 2024, so we lost valuable impact data across the charity. The good news is that we now have a new trustee who specialises in impact reporting, and we are pleased to say we have moved forward in this area.

In September 2024, our lead Feed our Community Coordinator resigned from the project. Again, this came as a complete surprise to staff and trustees. This was at the same time as the refurbishment of the community space. Our assistant Feed our Community Coordinator immediately stepped up, and she has been amazing for the project – her energy, commitment and dedication has shone through. To fill the staffing gaps created by the lead Feed our Community Coordinator, we recruited a new Volunteer Coordinator for ‘The Pantry’ and a Drivers/Pick-up Coordinator.

At the beginning of December 2024, our Social-media and Communications Coordinator became ill and had to take some time away from the projects. Her role had always been to promote and increase our Friends of Grounded, planning and preparing for a crowdfunder campaign and promoting us through public communications and networking events.

Lots of staffing challenges but we overcame them – together we can grow.

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Section D Achievements and performance

Summary of the main
achievements of the charity during
the year		 Brief Introduction to Summary
We had another successful year in 2024/25 in running our charity – we have
seen an increase in volunteer engagement with the involvement of some
amazing skilled and diverse people who have been dedicated to our cause
and the environments we create. We also connected with more agencies from
GP and partner referrals, and we attracted more beneficiaries that are
dependent on our services. Our local presence has certainly been hugely
significant in supporting our local community during these challenging and
ever-changing times.
Summary of the Main Achievements for the year 2024/2025
In this section of the report, we would like to share with you a summary of our
main achievements in 2024/2025.
Let’s start with the training and development opportunity that was given to
some of our staff and volunteers to gain a Level 1 and Level 2 in Practical
Horticulture, now accredited by City and Guilds. The course was facilitated by
BCHA Learn and held at the Secret Garden and BCHA’s own New Leaf
Allotment. The course combined practical activities with learning the theory
behind horticulture techniques. Everyone who attended the course enjoyed
learning and connecting with other people, and most importantly enjoyed
being out in nature in the Garden and learning new skills. The course was
successfully completed by all attendees. The Level 1 course is suitable for
learners who are new to the sector as it provides knowledge of preparing soil,
applying organic mulch, pruning, houseplant care and the skills demanded by
horticultural practice. The Level 2 course builds on the existing skills
developed at Level 1.

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Section D Achievements and performance

In Spring, we focused our DIY team on the building of a new hen house for our beautiful, feathered friends. Our existing small flock of ex-commercial laying hens, adopted through the British Hen Welfare Trust are a friendly, productive, and educational feature of the Secret Garden, loved by volunteers, visitors, and children alike. Their old coop was over 8 years old, leaky, with a potential for invasion by pests and predators.

Our fantastic new coop was built by 44 volunteers over multiple sessions with donations received from Organix Baby Food, Skipton Building Society, our Chair of Trustee’s - London marathon run, and the 26th Bournemouth Cubs, with building materials donated by Elliotts Builders Merchants, Christchurch. It included improved nesting boxes, roosting perches, accessibility and included a new living roof.

During the same period, our Grounded Growers Coordinator attended the Spring Fair at the Craigleith Housing Development in Boscombe, where she met the Housing Manager for Sandbourne Housing Association.

The residents of the Housing Association wanted to start a Gardening Club but did not know where to start and had nowhere to grow anything at an accessible height. With the help of our volunteer and our newly appointed Growers Installation Coordinator, three raised beds with benches were installed in their communal garden. Everyone worked together to organise a minibus trip, with the residents visiting the Secret Garden for a VIP tour aimed to motivate, engage and connect the residents.

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Section D Achievements and performance

Our Grounded Growers Coordinator then returned to hold further growing sessions, which have been well attended and great fun. Residents participate in sowing, propagating, thinning out, cropping and weeding their new raised beds. For Easter 2024, we held our Good Friday Gathering, of which was a wonderful day and our biggest Easter gathering yet! We welcomed over 70 adults and 30 children to enjoy freshly made pizzas, making new like-minded connections, whilst children were busy hunting for Easter eggs. Our Gatherers made a colourful spicy vegetable soup to put in food boxes with surplus food from Feed our Community. It was gratefully received by people who were outside as the van pulled up to store it, and so the people received the food whilst it was warm. Gatherers also prepared tasty banana bread and honey cake for the Amnesty International Fair that was taking place that same evening. At the end of April 2024, Chaplin’s launched their new Belgian Blonde Ale home brew. Our Bee’z Project Coordinator provided the delicious honey sweetener for their brew, and we received the spent grains for our composting project on the roof of the Sovereign Centre. During May 2024, in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Week, our Home Growers Coordinator teamed up with The Parks Foundation and BCP Council, to deliver a sowing and planting workshop at Henry Brown Community Centre for the wonderful West Howe Community Enterprises. To highlight the importance of getting outside and meeting friends, the keen group of 10 from the Henry Brown Men’s Shed group, planted up a great selection of donated veggie plug plants in their new raised beds installed by our Growers team last year. New ideas were also sown, alongside the salad crops, inspiring the local community with new confidence and even an offer to build frames for accessible raised beds for home growers! The fabulous team at the community centre then ran a fresh and healthy food prep session inside, to complete the seed to plate cycle. In June 2004, we marked World Localization Day - an annual celebration to highlight the many efforts and initiatives that foster ecological economies,

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Section D Achievements and performance thriving communities and healthy local food systems. This event was free and open to everyone including our volunteers, supporters, and corporate sponsors. The event was a great success. In July 2024, our founder relinquished his paid role with Grounded and became a Trustee from September 2024. The duties that our founder was undertaking were then divided between four of our existing team members who now have formed our Core Operations Circle supporting the wider core needs of the charity. Also in July 2024, our Grounded Growers Installation team installed a total of 14 vegetable beds, five fruit beds and three ornamental beds. By adding the raised beds for the customer, her available growing space was hugely increased, and the quality of the soil was improved, of which meant that the soil was deep enough for her to plant her favourite Acer trees, of which needed more space in which to flourish. September 2024 proved to be a busy month…. We made modifications to improve access and useability for wheelchair users at the Secret Garden and those with mobility issues. We upgraded access ramps, installed height varied raised beds and upgraded our compost toilet. We also held our Harvest Festival and welcomed over 120 visitors. Our local families enjoyed taking part in the pressing of 40 litres of delicious apple juice, which was enjoyed on the day and bottled for the generous donors too.

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Section D Achievements and performance

Also in September, our then Feed our Community project closed for one week for a refurbishment following a move from the community centre at the back of St George’s Church to what was previously the Church entrance hall. The team had spent months researching the benefits of a “social supermarket” concept, as an alternative means to re-distribute surplus food via food boxes. The refurbishment enabled us to offer a much better service of a “weekly shop” to our beneficiaries, instead of handing them a food box they are now able to come into the space and browse the shelves and have a more normal shopping experience which provides them with choices, dignity and respect, they are always assisted and supported by 3 or 4 volunteers on standby. This new social supermarket set-up not only empowered members of our local community to choose which items they personally need but also cut out the lengthy preparation of food boxes by our volunteers before our doors open from 11am each day. Throughout the refurbishment we had several joyful volunteers, including recipients of food boxes, who stepped up to help us create this brand-new space. Demonstrating the power of community support, we moved out old and impractical chest fridges, painted the walls, and moved two brand new glass fronted fridges, thanks to generous funding from the BCP Foods and Energy Fund. When we re-opened our doors, now known as ‘The Pantry’, we were greeted with so many happy faces and positive comments. Everyone enjoyed being welcomed to the beautiful new layout and our volunteers were able to relax and chat, as they browsed the shelves and fridges to select their 10 items per household. Our improved ‘The Pantry’ model has allowed us to redress the power balance by bringing people together, promoting community cohesion and building resilience, it is giving people more autonomy over their food choices and gives us more opportunity to engage with people and offer suggestions on how to use different produce, plan meals and help with budgeting.

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Section D Achievements and performance

On one Thursday evening in September, we had the great pleasure of joining a gathering to celebrate the passion and commitment of volunteers across BCP, hosted by Access to Food Partnership and The Parks Foundation. Many charitable organisations across the conurbation were recognised for their work in supporting local communities with access to food during these challenging times, of which Grounded was one of the organisations. All our volunteers thoroughly enjoyed celebrating together and hearing about other local projects.

And finally in September, some members of the team attended a two-day workshop – Asset Based Community Development, as suggested by Kirsty Main. ABCD is an approach to sustainable community-driven development. It is concerned with how to link micro assets to the macro-environment. ABCD’s premise is that communities can drive the development process themselves by identifying and mobilising existing but often unrecognised assets. Thereby responding to challenges and creating local social improvement and economic development. The course was extremely encouraging and uplifting as it demonstrated how you can utilise your community and develop them in ways they did not think possible. It was also helpful to meet other likeminded people from similar organisations and link in with them for future networks.

In October 2024, our Grounded Gatherers team thoroughly enjoyed a twolight workshop at the Secret Garden recently learning how to grow and craft new recipes with mushrooms. Much learning and laughter was had by all.

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Section D Achievements and performance

One of our new growing projects to evolve in 2024 was Microgreens. Initially piloted between 2022-23 by our volunteer team, we spent much time researching the product and perfecting our production methods. We recognised that to take the pilot forward we needed to appoint a paid facilitator to bring it to life and so in October 2024 and thanks to a mixture of capital and core funding, our project launched. We also partnered with the Sovereign Centre in Boscombe to use their shopping centre balconies as a growing space. Our aims are to use the project as a source of income for the charity; make it available to low-income families through our community pantry; provide cookery and demonstration workshops to raise the profile locally of this highly nutritious food; teach people how to grow microgreens using organic and sustainable techniques.

At the beginning of November 2024, our founder and now Trustee, spoke at the Dorset COP 2024 event taking place at Bournemouth University– his session was part of a group cooperative, presenting talks and break out workshops to focus on Food Governance and Strategy and “The Power of Good Food Partnerships across Dorset”.

In November 2024 we were thrilled to receive The King’s Award for Voluntary Service. This is the highest award any voluntary group can receive in the UK and is equivalent to an MBE.

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Section D Achievements and performance

John Hanson, our Chair of Trustees said: “It’s an honour that our efforts have been recognised, working with our community to give everyone access to healthy and nutritious food. It’s a testimony to the passion and commitment of our volunteers, who work so hard to achieve this mission together.” Grounded Community is one of 281 proud local charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups to receive this prestigious award this year. The King’s Award for Voluntary Service aims to recognise outstanding work by local volunteer groups to support their communities. The Award was created in 2002 to celebrate Her Majesty The late Queen’s Golden Jubilee and, was continued following the accession of His Majesty The King. 2024 marks the second year of The Kings Award for Voluntary Service and recipients are announced annually on 14th November, The Kings Birthday.

In December, our Gatherers project team gathered to carefully pack 75 Christmas bags ready to be given out to our beneficiaries. In this bag of presents was a thermos and a reusable cup as well as other goodies.

In January 2025 we held our Annual Away Weekend in Studland for staff and some volunteers, of which was attended well by all. The weekend focused on Inputs, Outputs, Outcomes and Impact. A presentation was given by Jono on how to a) recognise the difference between outputs, outcomes and impact, b) to know which Output data to record and where to store it, c) to agree upon a plan for collecting outcome data, and d) to start updating outcome indicators for each project. As a result of his presentation, we agreed as a team to update, monitor and continually review the Delivery Plan, run the Annual Survey in February 2025 and embed collecting and reporting into our work. Our trustee, Ellie, has been given the role of Impact Coordinator so she can ensure we do record our impact. Since the Away Weekend our Project Coordinators have further explored the recording and monitoring of our Outcomes and Impact.

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Section D Achievements and performance

At the beginning of February 2025, we opened The Pantry Kitchenette. This is an extension of The Pantry where we now provide a warm and welcoming takeaway service where our beneficiaries can now get a hot drink or soup, or a pastry. All the beneficiaries have to do is bring with a thermos or mug, and it will get filled up with something comforting – coffee, tea, herbal blends, or even a cuppa soup, or fresh soup made by a team of Gatherers. On 8th February 2025, Chaplin’s & Cellar Bar hosted an ‘Increase The Peace festival’ – an all-day fundraiser in support of Grounded Community and raised an incredible one thousand pounds. This just shows the power of togetherness and generosity. Every penny of the donations raised were invested into our six projects. In March 2025 we received funding to expand our workshop programme in line with our mission. The funding enabled two of our skilled facilitators to deliver our ‘Home and Community Herbalist’ workshop and to also deliver our Mindful Photography workshop. Our targeted outreach included engagement with our community partners; International Care Network and the Dignity Centre supporting asylum seekers and refugees; via the Access to Wellbeing Hub reaching people requiring support with mental health and emotional wellbeing, Help and Care who particularly focus on supporting independence for people in later life. The workshops empowered people to make choices to improve health and wellbeing, reduce feelings of isolation, improve English and literacy, support people to feel connected and have a strong sense of belonging, address feelings of isolation and breaking down barriers in accessing community services. Last but not at all least, we are proud of our volunteers and our community, and all we have been able to achieve with their support and commitment. We currently have over 200 active volunteers that’s work for our charity. At its core, volunteering is a selfless gesture, we believe that ‘together we can grow’ and without doubt, our charity would not be where it is today without our volunteer family. We are continually humbled by the love, passion and time invested by our amazing volunteers, from all age groups with incredible diversity. Our volunteers are creative and bring new opinions, ideas and approaches to our work and they help us stay connected to our community, supporting us to adapt and stay relevant. They are welcoming, patient, and

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Section D Achievements and performance compassionate in supporting each other and nurturing new friendships and connections. They demonstrate incredible patience, understanding and resilience as we navigate change while, in many cases facing their own challenges, they are passionate about our cause and share our mission with everyone they know; they demonstrate incredible teamwork taking on both the leader and the follower role at different times and frequently going above and beyond their role to achieve a common goal. As a volunteer led charity, our Volunteer Coordinator has played a crucial role in the attraction, retention, care and nurturing of our 200 active volunteers; ensuring long-term sustainability and growth and providing the best support possible for the people that are key to our survival. Our Volunteer Coordinator has personally engaged with every volunteer that joins us, making them a part of the charity from day one. She has facilitated monthly wellbeing and drop-in surgeries for volunteers and has identified and trained volunteers to up skill them to take on more responsibilities as facilitators. Our Volunteer Coordinator has also developed our community partnerships and interactions and has been connecting with local groups and engaging the broader community. She has also supported refuges and asylum seekers and works with social prescribers and primary care trusts to engage those with mental/physical challenges. Testimonials “Grounded Community is a little heaven, a place where you feel seen, heard and needed. The serenity of the Secret Garden is like a light bulb to one’s inner being. Every time I attend a volunteer session, I feel lighter and freer”. “A lovely place to introduce small children in nature that do not usually get this opportunity normally” “This is a fantastic community project bringing healthy food to those who may not be able to afford it and creating a local community spirit” “Grounded Community is a wonderful, important charity, helping the community with vital mental health and support”.

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Section D Achievements and performance

Section E Financial review

Brief statement of the charity’s The trustees discussed the following factors in arriving at their reserves policy: policy on reserves It would be prudent to keep three months running costs in reserves, or a minimum of £10K, in case of an unexpected drop in income/funding to be able to cover current salaries; and To be able to provide the charity with adequate financial stability and the means for it to meet its charitable objectives for the foreseeable future. It is the policy of the Charity to hold in reserves the equivalent of three months general core costs or a minimum of £10K to cover our regular monthly outgoings of which currently includes our staff management salaries. This policy will be reviewed on an annual basis to ensure a minimum reserve is maintained to accommodate any financial and/or operational changes such as the recruitment of additional staff.

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the charity’s principal sources of funds (including any fundraising).

Grants Received during 1st April 2024 – 31st March 2025
We primarily relied on funding from grant applications during this period, the
charity’s principal sources summarised below.
Grant Body
Amount
National Lottery Community Fund
£61,347.00
Dorset Community Foundation
£25,309.00
Talbot Village Trust
£20,000.00
Wessex Water
£1,950.00
Alice Cooper Dean
£5,000.00
Hub-bubs Foundation
£1,000.00
National Lottery Rewards for All
£19,965.00
Unrestricted Donations
£12,574.00		 Grants Received during 1st April 2024 – 31st March 2025
We primarily relied on funding from grant applications during this period, the
charity’s principal sources summarised below.
Grant Body
Amount
National Lottery Community Fund
£61,347.00
Dorset Community Foundation
£25,309.00
Talbot Village Trust
£20,000.00
Wessex Water
£1,950.00
Alice Cooper Dean
£5,000.00
Hub-bubs Foundation
£1,000.00
National Lottery Rewards for All
£19,965.00
Unrestricted Donations
£12,574.00
Grant Body Amount
National Lottery Community Fund £61,347.00
Dorset Community Foundation £25,309.00
Talbot Village Trust £20,000.00
Wessex Water £1,950.00
Alice Cooper Dean £5,000.00
Hub-bubs Foundation £1,000.00
National Lottery Rewards for All £19,965.00
Unrestricted Donations £12,574.00

Section F Declaration

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

Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees

Signature(s)

Full name(s) Mark Stimson Position (eg Secretary, Chair, etc)[Chair ] Date 27.01.2026

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April 2024 - March 2025

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Sectio
Charity Name No (if any)
Grounded Community 1187272
Receipts and payments accounts CC16a
For the period Period start date Period end date
To
from 01-Apr-24 31-Mar-25
Receipts and payments
Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
Total funds Last year
funds funds funds
to the to the nearest to the nearest
to the nearest £ to the nearest £
nearest £ £ £
A1 Receipts
Grants 68,002 77,344 - 145,346 127,717
Donations 12,574 - 12,574 17,963
Fundraising (crowdfunder) - -
Sub total 80,576 77,344 - 157,920 145,680
A2 Asset and investment sales - - - - -
Sub total 0 0 - - -
Total receipts 80,576 77,344 - 157,920 145,680
A3 Payments
Salaries/ Pensions and
41,836 45,711 - 87,547 83,655
Employment costs
Contractor fees 5,236 9,968 - 15,204 16,641
Direct project costs inc materials 4,145 23,417 - 27,562 18,336
Office and admin 841 1134 - 1,975 630
General Expenses 90 224 315 599
Training and Development 1261 400 - 1,661 1,508
Vehicle Running Costs 292 2,219 2,511 - - - - -
Rent and land 1200 1,300 - 2,500 7,237
Other indirect expenses 3466 2,047 - 5,513 3,206
Sub total 58,368 86,420 - 144,788 131,812
A4 Assets purchases - - - - -
Sub total - - - - -
Total payments 58,368 86,420 - 144,788 131,812
Net of receipts/(payments) 22,208 -9,076 - 13,132 13,868
A5 Transfers between funds - - - - -
A6 Cash funds at last year end 9,374 39,230 - 48,604 34,736
Cash funds this year end 31,582 30,154 - 61,736 48,604
Date of
Signature Print Name
approval
Signed by Chair of trustees on
Mark Stimson 27.01.2026
behalf of all trustees
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Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A
Independent Examiner’s Report		 Section A
Independent Examiner’s Report		 Section A
Independent Examiner’s Report
Report to the trustees /
members of		 Grounded Community
On the accounts for
the year ended		 31st March 2025
Charity number
1187272
Set out on page Section C below
Responsibilities and
basis of the report		 I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the
Trust”) for the year ended31/03/2025.
As the charity trustees of the Trust, 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 out my examination, I have followed the applicable
Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.
Independent
examiner's
statement		 · accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or
· the accounts do not accord with the accounting records
_ Please delete the words in the brackets if they do not apply._
I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my
attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in,
any material respect:
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the
examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper
understanding of the accounts to be reached.*
Address:
Signed
Name
Relevant professional
qualification(s) or body		 37 SHERWOOD AVENUE, POOLE,BH14 8DH
Date
ANTHONY J. ELLIS
A.A.T.
21/01/2026
Section B
Disclosure
Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32,
Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).
Give here brief details of
any items that the
examiner wishes to
disclose

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