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2022-12-31-accounts

Trustees' Annual Report for the period

Period start date To[Period end date ] 1[st] January 2022 31[st] December 2022

From

Section A Reference and administration details

Charity name Out Together (formerly Friends of Dorothy) Other names charity is known by Registered charity number (if any) 1188461 Charity's principal address 19 Church Lane Bardsey Leeds Postcode LS17 9DH

Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity

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20		 Trustee name Office (if any) Dates acted if not for
**whole year **		 Name of person (or body)
entitled to appoint trustee (ifany)
Tim Gittins Chair
Katie Robinson Vice Chair
Judith Firman Treasurer
Hannah Bithell
AntonyBall Secretary Aug- Dec

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

Name Dates acted if not for whole year

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Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)

Type of adviser Name Address

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

Section B Structure, governance and management

Description of the charity’s trusts

Type of governing document Constitution

How the charity is constituted Charitable incorporated organisation (eg. trust, association, company)

Trustee selection methods Appointed by board of trustees (eg. appointed by, elected by)

Additional governance issues (Optional information)

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

Section C Objectives and activities

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

To promote social inclusion for the public benefit by working with people who are socially excluded on the grounds of their age and sexual orientation (in particular, elderly people who identify as

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LGBT+) to relieve the needs of such people and assist them to integrate into society, in particular by:

During the period the trustees have had due regard to the Charity Commission’s public benefit guidance and have taken this into account when making a decision to which the guidance is relevant.

Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)

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

All our activities are volunteer led and we encourage and support our membership to be involved in the works of the charity.

Section D Achievements and performance

Overview

After the challenges faced during the previous two years, 2022 was a period of great progress for the charity. It began with optimism, and we significantly increased the scope and extent of the support to members, boosted our membership and external profile and ended the year with a positive agenda of how the charity would continue to thrive and grow.

The name change

The charity operated under its formal name of Friends of Dorothy during all of 2022. We began using ‘Out Together’ as a working ‘brand’ name in 2021, and it continued to be very successful during 2022. Towards the end of 2022 the decision was taken to register ‘Out Together’ as the official name of the charity, and this took place in 2023. For the purposes of this report on 2022 we will use the new name.

Membership

We define our membership as those people who have opted to be included on our database to receive details of our events and activities. Those wishing to attend an event are required to agree to a code of conduct. By the end of 2022, we had more than doubled the number of members to 127.

Events and Activities

The programme of scheduled subsidised gatherings for members was extended.

We continued the weekly coffee and cake sessions at an LGBT+ owned café in Leeds and the number of regular attendees grew steadily throughout the year.

We introduced monthly events

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Section D Achievements and performance

The new ‘hub’ established in Huddersfield began with a twice monthly drop-in session at a city centre café and quickly established a core group of 6-8 attendees.

One-off events included:

The regular gatherings have become important fixtures on many of our members’ calendars, especially those with limited social opportunities, because they can look forward to meeting people they have got to know. The one-off events have proved very popular.

Members’ feedback indicates that having the chance to make new friendships and to look after each other has made a positive impact on their lives, increasing their wellbeing.

Befriending

The 12 month pilot scheme we negotiated with Opening Doors to provide an LGBTQ+ telephone “befriending service” began in May. By the end of the year the scheme had trained 10 telefrienders who were able to have weekly chats with 10 members across our region. This is an invaluable service for the befriendees, many of whom have little connection with other LGBTQ+ people or are unable to attend social events.

Communications

The most significant achievement for the charity was the start of the successful brand migration to ‘Out Together’, helped by the Leeds arm of the And Digital consultancy.

Our partnership began when their employees chose us to donate the proceeds of their own charitable fundraising. The company has an innovative policy of selecting community projects to support with pro-bono work provided by a team of problem solvers with diverse knowledge, skills and expertise in the digital market. Our relationship deepened when they offered to work with us to produce and implement a strategy to change our name across all our legal and operational activities. Beginning in September, we worked closely with their team to research and scope what was needed to:

The support we were given by AND was exemplary, going far beyond our expectations, and we are extremely grateful to the company and the team members who helped. They enabled us to plan with confidence the actual transition scheduled for early 2023. The new branding helped us build a much greater profile, especially across social media.

We invested in regular support from a social media agency to establish regular postings on key platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

Income, fundraising and relationship building

Our income in the year increased from £14k in 2021 to £64k in 2023.

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Section D Achievements and performance

There was a significant increase in personal and corporate donations, and our own fundraising, rising from £3.8k to £19.3k

We strengthened our capacity and expertise in making funding applications. During the year we received £44k in grants compared to £10k in 2021.

The grants were as follows (£k): Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation 5 LGBT Consortium Futures Fund 25 Leeds City Council 1 Prince of Wales Trust 1.5 Albert Hunt Foundation 1 Awards for all 9.5 Live Well Leeds 1

The contract with a former trustee to provide part-time support our fundraising and operations was continued. He has a high profile as a fundraiser in the charity sector with many connections, has a large personal following on social media platforms and makes many personal appearances supporting other charities. His attributes were invaluable in helping us to build networks with corporate and other supporters as part of our fundraising activities.

This was clearly demonstrated by the outstanding success of the first Out Together Ball in June, which made a profit of £8500, and was attended by 130 people, including representatives from many public and private sectors .

Other notable milestones were our first corporate partnership with Weightmans Solicitors; a relationship with Wellington Place, Leeds – who chose us to receive large donations raised from their bespoke fundraising events -Stride for Pride, Drag Bingo and the Christmas Fayre lights launch. We were delighted to be chosen by the incoming President of the Leeds Law Society as his charity of the year for 2022/23, benefiting from his fundraising activities. This brought our profile to a much higher level amongst professional firms across the region.

Governance and management

Like many smaller charities, a small team is responsible for both our strategic and operational direction. We have always been conscious of the need for trustees to focus on long term sustainability and mission fulfilment, while leaving the day-to-day management to those responsible for operations. However, in a charity that is small and growing, it often proves difficult to separate the roles.

We were successful in raising the funds needed to engage the part-time operations manager, who joined a three-person management team, with the chairman and treasurer. This team was also advised by our new Secretary, Antony Ball a partner at Weightmans Solicitors, and a retired highly skilled businessman from the private sector. An operations committee, which included three volunteers, was formed to deliver the events and activities for our members, and they ensured that all our safeguarding policies were complied with.

It is a credit to all those involved with the significant development of the charity over the year that this was achieved by them volunteering to work far harder and longer than any of us expected would be needed. The experience of having to learn new skills, especially in the digital world, overcoming technical and other hurdles whilst at the same time maintaining the all-important focus on the wellbeing of our members was a challenging time. However, it became clear that there was a ‘skills gap’ and that we needed to have people involved at board and management level with experience in key disciplines, especially marketing and social media, finance and administration, as well as helping our members.

We were also acutely aware that that there were likely to be many more people in the LGBTQ+ community in our region who were suffering loneliness and isolation but who didn’t know about us and we weren’t able to locate them as, in many respects, we are an invisible community.

Hence we concentrated on planning for the rebranding initiative for early 2023 to be the foundation for our immediate future. This would ensure we maintained progress on achieving our constitutional objectives, both

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Section D Achievements and performance

in numbers of members and becoming less Leeds centric. The relaunch would also be a springboard for us to find new trustees and volunteers with the skills to help develop the charity further.

Section E Financial review

Brief statement of the The charity aims to ensure that there are sufficient funds to allow it to charity’s policy on reserves continue its operations for at least three months without income. As the operational costs of the charity have been very low, the policy will be reviewed to reflect the plans for future expansion.

Section F Other optional information

Section G Declaration

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

Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees

Signature(s) Tim Gittins ABall Full name(s) Timothy Paul Gittins Antony Ball Position (eg Secretary, Chair, Chair Secretary etc)

Date 28/10/2023

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OUT TOGETHER No (if any) 1188461 Receipts and payments accounts CC16a For the period Period start date Period end date To from 1/1/2022 12/31/2022

Section A Receipts and payments
A1 Receipts
FUND RAISING AND DONATIONS
19,327
GRANTS
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
19,327
-
-
Sub total -
Total receipts 19,327
A3 Payments
Direct cost of charitable activities
9,954
Administration
4,491
Communications and PR
5,275
Insurance
-
Legal
-
consultancy
1,950
-
-
-
Sub total 21,670
-
-
Sub total -
Total payments 21,670
Net of receipts/(payments) - 2,343
A5 Transfers between funds
-
A6 Cash funds last year end
13,063
Cash funds this year end 10,720
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 £
-
44,000
-
-
-
-
-
-
44,000		 -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-		 19,327
44,000
-
-
-
-
-
-
63,327		 -
14,028
-
-
-
-
-
-
14,028
-
-
-		 -
-
-		 -
-
-
-
-
44,000 - 63,327 14,028
9,618
-
535
-
-
21,450
-
-
-
31,603		 -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-		 19,572
4,491
5,810
-
-
23,400
-
-
-
53,273		 5,422
1,713
2,720
2,273
1,050
-
-
-
13,178
-
-
-		 -
-
-		 -
-
-
-
31,603 - 53,273 13,178
12,397
-
-
12,397		 -
-
-
-		 10,054
-
13,063
23,117		 850
-
-
850

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
CAF BANK
Details
Details
Details
Details
Signature
Total cash funds
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))		 to nearest £
to nearest £
10,270
12,397
-
-
-
-
10,270
12,397
Agreement Error
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

CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND ANO WALES Independent examlner's report on the accounts Section A Independenl Examiner's Report Report to the trusteesl mernbers ol Out Together (formerty Friends of Dorothy) On accounts for the year ended 31 December 2022 Charlty r (if any) 1188461 Set out on page$ CC16a I report lo the trustees on my exarninalion of the a¢¢ounts of th8 above charty {Ihe Trusf) for the year ended 3111212022. Responslbllltles and As the charity truslees of the Trust, you are responsible for the pr8paralion basis of report of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (kne knr). I report in respect ￿ my examinatffi ol the Trust's accounts carried out uThJer section 145 of tha 2011 Act and in ¢arying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission urKler section 145(5)(b) of the Act. I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention {other than thal I￿SCk)Sed below ") in connection with the examination which gNes me cause to believe that in. any matarial respect: accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Acl or the accounts (Jo not accord wilh the accounting records Independent examiner's slatement I have no concems and have come across no other matters in connection with the eXam1r￿1]0n to wh￿h attenticfi should be drawn in order to enable a prcper understanding of the a¢¢ounts to be reached. ' 1I8as8 d818t8 th8 words in the brackets il they do not apply. Signed: Dale: 3W1012023 Narne: Charlie Dunning ACA Relevani professional qualification(s) or body {If any): Chartared A¢￿untant (UAE￿)3 Address: 32 Coronatb)n Avenue, Nomianton. WF6 2LW IER October 2018

Section B Disclosure Onty compl8te il the examiner needs lo huhlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity aCc(￿nIs. directions and guidance for examiners). Glve here brlef detalls of any Items that the examiner wishes to disclose. None. IER October 2018