2021-04-05-accounts

Mindful Surrey End of Year Report, April 2021

Overview of April 2020 to March 2021

Throughout the year we have delivered regular mindfulness training sessions to support people with their mental health and wellbeing.

We adapted to the need to run courses online, and Zoom works very well for mindfulness training. This has meant people from further afield than Surrey have been able to access our classes, including someone who attends every week from Australia.

It has also meant that local people who cannot travel, regardless of Covid restrictions, can also be offered support. More elderly people and also those with young children have been coming to online sessions compared to in-person.

In September 2020 we started in-person classes again in Dorking, but these had to stop due to lockdown restrictions resuming. Participants were offered a partial refund, transfer to online classes or postponing to a future course. Most people decided to continue online, one had a partial refund and one postponed to a future in-person course.

Finance

Income from online courses and classes: £5,765

CN submitted 3 invoices, in accordance with governing document, for £4,992. Other expenses were Posters £40, Training £94, Zoom £120, website & email £109, venue hire £170, social media ads £80, leaflets £80.

End of year balance: £80

The price of the MBSR course was £180, with £120 or less for concessions. (Most established companies charge between £220 and £280 for the course.) The price rose in January 2021 to £225, with generous discounts for anyone with a low income.

In March we reduced the online course to £195, and kept the in-person one at £225.

Fund-raising

The Mindful Surrey mission is to provide mindfulness training to all, regardless of age and income.

We submitted four grant applications during the year.

In August we applied to the Community Foundation for Surrey for £5,000 – primarily to support our work with older people, and also carers; a smaller part of the funding would go towards work with young people in schools.

We also applied to the Surrey Education Trust for £5,000. This is exclusively for mindfulness training for young people (up to the age of 25) and school staff.

We were not successful with these applications. There was a lot of competition

with these bodies receiving many applications. The reasons given for not getting the grants were strange, especially as CN had had a phone assessment from the CWS. We applied to each body for about 30% of what the cost of the project; this was not a successful strategy as they each considered we needed to raise too much from elsewhere, and the CFS wanted to fund something that could definitely go ahead.

In a follow-up phone call CN explained the courses were always going to go ahead anyway, regardless of how much grant was awarded, but it would remain something that only people who had disposable income could access. A further application was made to the CWS in October, with an adjusted budget, taking into account the feedback; this was also rejected, and it was not clear why.

There is a vast amount of scientific evidence about the benefits of mindfulness training, and CN included several case studies in the application showing the lifechanging impact of our courses. But mindfulness training to support mental health is still something most people do not understand; other causes, such as refurbishing a village hall, are easier for grant-making bodies to appreciate.

Courses and classes

MBSR 9 weekly classes, 2 hours each, plus a 5 hour retreat day Summer, online 7 participants Autumn, in-person 9 participants Autumn, online 5 participants Winter/Spring, online 5 participants

Drop-ins, all online: Weekly classes, 1 hour, people pay for 2 months Monday evenings, for people who have taken the MBSR course or are currently doing it. Tuesday mornings, for anyone

Most people do these for about 6 months, some have come regularly for over a year.

Future plans:

1:1s

CN has been asked to run 1:1 sessions with teenagers. Charge will be £30 an hour or £75 for three sessions.

CN uses the Mindfulness in Schools Dotbreathe and Dotbe programmes as the basis for mindfulness with under 18s.

Schools

CN has been asked to do mindfulness with 210 children in one day, in a primary school in Guildford. This is part of their wellbeing week. The school initially wanted CN to do sessions with 60 children at a time, but she suggested 30 should be the maximum. This will take place in June, 2021, and the school will pay Mindful Surrey £250.

Other contacts: Waitrose and East Surrey Hospital

The new Wellbeing Champion from Dorking Waitrose attended a taster. She wants us to do a taster for Dorking staff. At present they are not having visitors to take staff sessions due to Covid. Hopefully this might take place later in the year.

The East Surrey chaplain also attended a taster. He is knowledgeable about mindfulness and aware of its benefits. It is good he is aware of our offering to people on low incomes and will promote what we do to people. He found out about us through the Macmillan Centre based in the hospital, who have always promoted our courses.

Volunteers

Mindful Surrey is registered with three agencies that connect charities with volunteers who offer professional help for free. Reach, Ethical Angels and Google Non Profits. This has been time-consuming and led to variable results. Currently working with two women who are helping with the website and SEO, but their knowledge and English skills are variable. Google matched us with a team of students from Finland University for the Ads, but they had limited knowledge and the ads did not lead to any sign-ups, and has merely resulted in daily contacts from around the world; CN replies to each person but then never hears back. Google Ad grants mean we can have ads and ‘spend’ up to $380 a day. At present we are not taking advantage of this opportunity. CN continues to try and find someone to help with the ads.

Future funding

For the grant applications, CN contacted local schools and colleges. We had four responses from places who would like us to deliver mindfulness training to students and/or staff if it can be for free. St Bede’s, Redhill – secondary school The Priory, Dorking – secondary school Nescot College, Epsom – students from 18-25 Roseberry primary school, Guildford.

Future grant application

CN applied to be on the CFS Funder-Plus programme, where expert advice is given to small charities to help with grant applications.

The focus for the next grant will be on people under the age of 25. Children and teenagers have been greatly affected by the events of the last year, and the situation is also extremely difficult for young adults who have had a difficult last year, do not necessarily get any support and continue to face employment challenges.

Conclusion

Being able to offer mindfulness training to individuals, schools and organisations who cannot afford to pay for it is quite a unique offering – not many mindfulness classes are run as part of a charity or for free. It is worth spending a lot of time on fund-raising in order to fulfil our mission of making our classes accessible to

all.

There continues to be a great need to support people of all ages with their mental health, and there has been a marked rise in younger people and children. The NHS waiting lists are long and for many people, they are unable to pay for support.

Mindfulness training is very effective at helping people deal with stress, anxiety, depression, bereavement, sleep problems, as well as difficulties with relationships and physical pain or illness. It is great that it works so well with online sessions.

It is rewarding to read people’s testimonials following the courses and to hear how beneficial they have found them over the last year. Many people say how coming to the sessions has really helped them cope with lockdown and the challenges of Covid.

Charity Name Mindful Surrey

No (if any)

Receipts and payments accounts For the period Period start date To from 01.04.20

Period end date 31.03.21

Section A Receipts and payments

Unrestricted Restricted Endowment funds funds funds

Total funds

----- Start of picture text -----
to the nearest
to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
£
A1 Receipts
Summer MBSR 920 920
Autumn MBSR 1,940 - - 1,940
Winter MBSR 1,125 - - 1,125
Spring MBSR 390 - - 390
April-June drop-ins 200 - - 200
July-Sept drop-ins 320 - - 320
Oct-Dec, drop-ins 450 - - 450
Jan-March drop-ins 420 - - 420
- - - -
5,765 - - 5,765
Sub total (Gross income for AR)
A2 Asset and investment sales,
(see table).
- - - -
- - - -
Sub total - - - -
Total receipts 5,765 - - 5,765
A3 Payments
April-July CN salary 1,216 - - 1,216
Aug-Nov CN salary 2,000 - - 2,000
Dec-March CN salary 1,776 - - 1,776
Posters 40 - - 40
Training (MW, BW, SB) 94 - - 94
Zoom 120 - - 120
Website, email 109 109
Dorking venue, 5 sessions 170 170
Social media ads 80 80
Leaflet printing 80 - - 80
- - - -
Sub total [ 5,685 ] - - 5,685
A4 Asset and investment
purchases, (see table)
- - - -
- - - -
Sub total [ - ] - - -
Total payments 5,685 - - 5,685
Net of receipts/(payments) 80 - - 80
A5 Transfers between funds - - - -
A6 Cash funds last year end - - - -
Cash funds this year end 80 - - 80
----- End of picture text -----

Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period

			Unrestricted		Restricted
Categories	Details		funds		funds
B1 Cash funds		Total cash funds	to nearest £ - - -		to nearest £ - - - -
	(agree	balances with receipts and payments account(s))	Agreement Error	OK
			Unrestricted		Restricted
			funds		funds
B2 Other monetary assets	Details		to nearest £ - - - - - -		to nearest £ - - - - - -
B3 Investment assets	Details		Fund to which asset belongs	Cost (optional) - - - - -
B4 Assets retained for the	Details		Fund to which asset belongs	Cost (optional) -
charity’s own use					- - - - - - - -
B5 Liabilities	Details		Fund to which liability relates		- - - - - Amount due (optional)
Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees		Signature	Print	Name

----- Start of picture text -----
CC16a
----- End of picture text -----

Last year

to the nearest £ - - - - - -

-

-

-

Endowment funds

to nearest £ - - - -

OK

Endowment funds to nearest £ - - - - - - Current value (optional) - - - - - Current value (optional)

When due (optional)

Date of approval