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2021-12-30-accounts

Registered Charity Number: 1188486

Trustees’ Annual Report and Financial Statements

For the period 31[st] December 2021 – 30[th] December 2022

Contents

Reference and Administration details

History

Objectives and Activities

Key positions and staffing within ELM

Covid

Achievements and Performance

Trustee Statement

Financial Review

Structure, Governance and Management

Future Plans

Chairmans / Managers thoughts

Declarations

The Trustees of ELM Wildlife are pleased to present the financial statement and Annual Report for the charity for the period 31[st] December 2021 – 30[th] December 2022.

Reference and Administrative details

Name of Charity ELM Wildlife
Other name the
charity uses		 ELM Hedgehog Rescue and Rehabilitation
Centre
Registered Charity
Number		 1188486
Registered Ofce Devon House
Ruckamore Road
Torquay
TQ2 6HF
Rescue Address Unit 5 Hayter Hames
Seale Hayne
Newton Abbot
TQ12 6NQ

Names of the trustees who manage the charity:

Mr Richard Parker (Chair)

Mrs Jacqueline Parker (Secretary) Mr Neil Langridge MBE Mrs Juliet Harvey

Mrs Emma Hickson (Treasurer)

There are no corporate trustees or directors or any trustees holding title to property belonging to the charity.

History

ELM Wildlife (Every Life Matters Wildlife) was created in October 2018 by the Parker family, who are Richard (Rick) Parker, Jacqueline (Jacky) Parker and Emily Parker. They started rescuing wildlife in 2010 and for many years, they basically worked by word of mouth until 2018 when they took on the void created by Devon’s then largest hedgehog rescue “Prickly Ball Farm” due to its closure.

Since that time, they have worked tirelessly to build ELM into the successful rescue it is today. The rescue centre gradually filled their house until they finally found ELM a new home at Seale Hayne in July 2020; within 6 months they had filled the 2000sqft and are now again looking for larger premises and outside space.

Not knowing how the rescue centre (ELM) would evolve they chose to financially support it until its registration as a charity in March 2020; they worried that if it did not work, they would have to fold the charity so felt it was better to wait for registration. The main trigger for registration was the rising costs of running the centre which is obviously a consequence of the demand on ELM’s services.

Objectives and Activities

Aims and Objectives:

  1. To promote positive human behaviour towards animals, specifically hedgehogs, by providing appropriate care, protection, treatment and security for those who are in need of rescue, care and attention through sickness, maltreatment, poor circumstances or ill use.

  2. To provide advice and education to the general public concerning hedgehog and wildlife welfare. Highlighting the need to alleviate cruelty and suffering by increasing the understanding of their needs.

Main Activities:

ELM Wildlife is open 365 days a year to rescue, rehabilitate and release native European hedgehogs in order to support and preserve the species. We actively promote to the public hedgehog awareness and our ability to help when needed through telephone and social media. Members of the public contact us when they find an injured, sick, injured or distressed hedgehog; advice is given via telephone in the first instance. If deemed necessary the hedgehog is brought to our rescue centre where they go through a triage process and if necessary, admitted for care.

Hedgehogs are assessed upon admittance with all casualties initially going into an incubator while being monitored and given subcutaneous injection (subcut) fluids, when stable a course of treatment is decided; during the treatment assessment all casualties have a faecal sample tested, which gives an overall health picture.

The treatment process can range from rehydration and food, flystrike removal (which can take several hours), pain medication, a range of different specialised medications and antibiotics to treat all types of internal parasite burden, x-rays and major surgery supported is by off-site veterinary practice ‘Moorgate’, hand feeding or nurturing care until the hedgehog is heavy enough to be released to raising new born hoglets.

We have a mortality rate of between 25-30%, this rate reflects our policy of taking any casualty and not suggesting the finder to take to a vets before coming to us, this practice is used by some rescues so as not to incur more cost, but unfortunately a lot of vets are not familiar with

treating wildlife and their first reaction is to euthanize (PTS). This is not a reflection on vets and vet practices, their actions are driven more by unfamiliarity and the ability to give long term care. Any casualty brought to us that is deemed beyond help or in too much stress and pain for us to cope with, goes straight to our vets and at our expense.

Unlike other smaller rescues, ELM does not farm out casualties for care at people’s homes, there is no adequate way of monitoring casualties this way. At the centre they are cleaned out and checked every day, their weight and general condition are monitored, by the volunteers and then the trained staff. If any action is needed i.e. medication, fluids, incubator, it can be administered immediately.

Once the hedgehog is healthy and has been rehabilitated, we aim to release them as soon as possible to where they came from, unless it’s not safe to do so, if the latter is the case, they go into our extensive rehoming program.

Our rehoming program starts with offering hedgehogs to finders that have brought in an animal from their property or nearby, if the animal has died from symptoms not related to its original environment, we may offer another hog to them that needs rehoming. The next option is to vet members of the public and their property/location who contact us to rehome a casualty. We constantly have requests for rehoming, this is a difficult time consuming process and ultimately sometimes leads to bad feelings when turned down; our focus is always on the animals safety and ability to lead a normal life. I wouldn’t call it our final option but we are working on creating small new communities in safe areas, this is not an easy process and does include a lot of work and angst to finding the correct sites, but we feel this is extremely important way to help aid the survival of the species. Our starting criteria for these sites are villages with no through roads, no badger population too close and a willingness from the community to want to help as a group.

For example, our first site was the village of Kingston in Devon. After contacting Kingston Parish council, we did a survey of the villagers on their willingness to partake and sightings of hedgehogs and badgers; this yielded 5 suitable households and no hedgehog or badger sightings in the last 3 years. All 5 houses prepared with one or two hedgehog boxes/house and the release went well with us taking 2 hedgehogs for each household. Unfortunately due to the heavy workload at ELM we lost contact with the village’s progress and it was with some trepidation that we remade contact in 2021. We were hugely delighted to hear that the original 10 hedgehogs were doing well and that they had bred, the news got even better when we found the village had become hedgehog friendly with road signs and highway holes. We have repeated the process again with another 10 in Kingston.

At present ELM’s Public interaction, guidance/information and support, is mainly via social media and telephone. We have a main Facebook page and several Facebook groups, from the main page we can impart information and the public can contact us on Messenger via the same page. We try to avoid contact from the public via email for animal issues as it is not as easy to share questions, messenger allows any of the staff to drop in and answer a question. The rescue/advice mobile number is manned by Rick; this is contacted roughly between 30 and 80+ times a day, with an average call length of 5 minutes. That equates roughly to around 22,000 calls a year and if we say 5 minutes a call, that is 1,833 hours.

If the call taken was to rescue a casualty and the caller cannot transport, a request via the ELM Ambulance group on Messenger is generated, with the hope that one of the group has free time to attend, in some circumstances, Rick or Jacky have to recover the casualty. It is interesting to note that even though this mobile number is for rescues or casualty and general advice, there is a fair amount of abuse taken via this number from the public.

Now going into our third year at our larger premises at Seale Hayne, the increased number of volunteers needed each day has been pretty difficult to fill. When everyone returned to work after all of the furlough periods we saw a huge drop in our numbers and we struggle to recruit enough new people to fill all the shifts required each day, 365 days a year.

The total volunteer members fluctuate between 70 and 150, which is very fluid with people joining and leaving all the time. Motivating and organising the group and spaces on a daily bases has become a major task, so much so that it takes two trustees to manage it daily.

Key Positions

Trustees unpaid positions are as follows:

As a side note, Rick and Jacky Parker have worked on average 90-98 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, for 5 years. Their dedication and commitment to saving wildlife and building ELM is immense.

Emily Parker deserves a special mention here.

Although Emily is one of the founders of ELM, with Jacky and Rick; she is pivotal to the growth of ELM and its day to day running. She has a degree in ‘Animal Science’ plus many other animal casualty qualifications. Emily did not become a Trustee so as to abide by the Charity Commissions rule for paid workers, she receives a small salary for the tremendous amount of hours and dedication to the charity. Emily worked full time at ELM since 2018 with no wage until November 2021 Emily; unfortunately until ELM is better funded she now gets paid for 25 of the 98 hours she works a week. Here is Emily’s role within ELM

In October 2022 we were able to employ Bekki Harringtom on a part time 25 hours a week in an assistant animal care role. Bekki will work closely with Emily to learn the day to day rescue centre housekeeping, animal medication, triaging animas on arrival, managing volunteer shift etc.

COVID

didn't happen.

Achievements and Performance

December 2022 saw the return of our very popular calendar, all the photographs are of animal casualties who have been treated at ELM, from a mixed bag of photographers; we’d like to thank those who donated images. It actually takes a fair amount of time to organise and even though we had a great deal on printing; the post COVID prices were crippling. Unfortunately, due to the uncertainty of ELM’s survival in 2023, plus the cost, we fear there will not be a 2024 calendar.

We built a hoglet room by cutting the treatment/triage room in half. This is treated as an isolation room, with all its own equipment, to stop cross contamination. Having a separate room also helps us to regulate the temperature. The building work was kindly done free of charge, by a local maintenance company.

In November 2022 we employed our second new member of staff, Bekki. She is employed for 25 hours a week, over 4 days; to date Bekki has been with us for a year and is doing really well. Our aim is to employ another person in later part of 2023, we need to try and lighten the load on Jacky and Emily, unfortunately there are a lot of jobs that cannot be covered by volunteers.

We’ve had some branded hedgehog highway fence openings produced, a template to fix to the fence and make a neat hole inside; fairly expensive as opposed to mass produce. We also had some rear screen sticker produced, which haven’t been selling particularly well.

The network of food drop off worked excellently throughout 2022, with the organisation of full boxes and recovery to ELM being much improved; this cut down on friction with drop off points being overrun with food. As always, the support from the public have been amazing.

We have been able to get out and meet with the public again this year which has been brilliant. We have attended craft fairs, village fates,

Christmas fairs and held talks/presentations in the community.

Our plans for 2023 is to hold regular wildlife educational talks at the rescue centre on a diverse range of animals and especially hedgehog first aid and rehabilitation.

We have several thousand new followers on Facebook; we ensured we have important messages about hedgehog preservation available on our Facebook page.

We have exciting plans for a new website in 2023 where more vital information will

be available to members of the community.

During 2022 we revisited both the above villages to assess progress; both sites have been doing well, so a further five potential breading pairs were released at both sites.

2022 was slightly down on numbers from last year, with around 1200 casualties admitted; it didn’t actually seem quieter with only a two-week lull in March. We do keep fairly accurate records, but quick treatments or straight to the vets, do slip through the system. The hoglet period of April to October seems to now be the norm, but we did still have hoglets coming in during November. Unusually we did not have so many <30g hoglets coming in; we learnt that every year is different with hedgehogs.

As usual we went to our maximum capacity over the winter months, which meant the imposing the waiting for space regime again. The saving grace was that we went to max capacity later in, late November and with a mild winter, we could continue releases

We also have an ‘Ambulance’ group which is constantly growing; with this growth we can cover a greater area with more regularity. As ELM’s public

presence increases so does the demand, with a marked increase in calls for help from Devon’s neighbouring counties. We are fortunate this group of Ambulance drivers give up their free time to help collect the sick and injured hedgehogs for us, there is no way we have the

time or financial ability to do this on our own. Unfortunately during Covid periods within 2021 the majority of the ambulance cover wasn’t available.

Our food donation points in the community are a real success story, the number of drop of places is growing and we have a great little team in the Supply Group who happily collect food donations as and when needed.

These drop off points have given ELM a healthy supply of donated food and kept us going throughout the year. We haven’t had to purchase any day to day food all year, only the specialist food for the hoglets.

We have also set up a Working Party Group that meets once a month, this is primarily to help with fundraising, the small group is playing an important part in raising additional funds for ELM. They did a lot of work toward our winter auction and Christmas Raffle, the running of these types of events always take a significant amount of time.

There are a few events we really wanted to organise, one was an event to thank our volunteer, with which whom ELM would not be able to run and the other was public open days. We are constantly asked for access to the centre and guided tours, as a wildlife rescue centre working under the ‘Wildlife Act’, we are able to hold 4 open days per year. Unfortunately, we could not find the time to run an open day for the public; but we did manage to run a volunteer ‘Tea Party’ in July and a Christmas party in December. They both went really well, I’d have to say that the ‘Tea Party’ was amazing, the weather was perfect, we used the carpark and the office/kitchen room in the rescue and the feedback was that it was a resounding success. The only downside was that Jacky and Emily were so busy with casualties coming in, they missed the majority of the party.

The Trustees would like to express their thanks and gratitude to the volunteers for their ongoing dedication to ELM, we couldn’t have done it without their help.

In November 2022 we held another online auction to raise much needed funds. We approached many local business and our valued supporters to find donated items to include in the auction. We had approx. 120 items in the auction and we’re blown away by the generosity of our supporters and raised a tremendous £3,741 We hope to hold another online auction in 2023

Trustee Statement

The trustees confirm that they have complied with their duty to have due regard to the guidance on public benefit published by the Charities Commission in exercising their powers and duties. The public benefit of the Charity’s activities is to raise awareness of the endangered status of hedgehogs in the UK and to provide information about how to preserve the species.

Financial review for the period 31st December 2021 – 30th December 2022

Summary:

2022 2021 2020
Income for the
year		 £46,805 £69,585 £34,244
Total expenses £44,891 £34,965 £13,351
Taken over £1,914 £34,620 £20,893

Major sources of income:

2022 2021 2020
Donations £35,689 £62,758 £20,789
Fundraising £11,116 £6,827 £1,200
Total £46,805 £69,585 £21,989

Major expenditure:

2022 2021 2020
Rent £8,400 £8,400 £3,500
Medical costs £4,517 £4,864 £1,238
Vehicle costs £5,855 £5,331 £3,938

Reserves Policy:

The Trustees monitor the financial situation throughout the year to ensure there are sufficient reserves to support the charity in case of difficulty, such as increased running costs, veterinary bills or a drop in donations. We aim to have 3 months running costs in reserve at any time. At the end of the last financial period 30[th] December 2022 ELM Wildlife had approximately £40,000 in reserve.

Details of any funds mutually in deficit:

The trustees declare that the charity had no funds which were in deficit at the date of the statement of assets and liabilities.

Charity’s financial stability:

Historically donations are low in Q1, this is mainly due to the natural cycle of casualty admissions; which are low in this period, which in turn, impacts footfall into the centre. Q1 is when the centre is at maximum capacity with, casualties awaiting their Spring release. Historically Q3 and Q4 are the most productive as donations, plus this is when we run events like our raffle.

The carry over figure for 2022 is poor with only £1,914, this needs to be address in 2023. We are still struggling to find someone to source funding/grants for ELM, I would try, but the workload on myself is overwhelming. The other option is to pay for searches and applications; this seems to be a very lucrative business and unfortunately out of our price range for the quoted returns. There is a fairly substantial buffer in the bank account, but this is slightly skewed as the Parker family have not withdrawn any cost/money put in; to create a safety net, this will probably be withdrawn in 2023.

ELM is very well supported by public donations, but the funding issue needs to be addressed.

Particulars of any outstanding guarantee given by the charity:

The trustees declare that the charity has not given any guarantee where potential liability is outstanding at the date of the statement of assets and liabilities.

Particulars of any outstanding debt:

The trustees declare that the charity has no outstanding debts on any of the assets of the charity at the date of the statement of assets and liabilities.

Remuneration of trustees:

All trustees act in a voluntary capacity and receive no remuneration or other material benefits from their services to the charity.

Reasonable out of pocket expenses incurred by the trustees in promoting the purpose of the charity are reimbursed at cost.

Structure, Governance and Management

Governing Document:

ELM Wildlife is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) Registered Charity Number 1188486, which was constituted on 11th March 2020. Constitution – based on the Charities Commission’s model governing document for Charitable Incorporated Organisation (where trustees are just members of the charity)

Governance:

The Charity is governed by the trustees who hold twice yearly meetings, or more frequently

If deemed necessary. There must be at least three trustees. New

trustees can be appointed

at a Special Meeting following agreement from all the existing trustees and must be

selected for their skills, knowledge and experience needed for the effective administration

of the charity.

New trustees are given access to the ELM Wildlife’s governing document, policies and copies of previous meetings minutes and reminded regularly of their responsibilities.

Organisation:

The trustees oversee the financial position and management of the charity, the day to day running of the charity is left to Richard (Rick) Parker as CEO, assisted by Jacqueline (Jacky) and Emily Parker.

By the end of 2022, ELM Wildlife has two paid members of staff; neither of these have been, our are presently Trustees.

Future plans

Chairman / Managers thought’s

I looked back at what I wrote last year and was tempted to just cut and paste, as nothing seems to have change; well not much that’s positive has

happened. It has been the same old slog for Jacky, Emily and I, with absolutely no let up with work and not much progress moving ELM forward. As with last year, I’m sitting here again trying to beat the deadline. I know what you’re say, “you should have done it earlier”, honestly, it’s not for the lack of trying. It’s a strange predicament the three of us have got ourselves in, we work constantly, with the burnt-out stage a long distant memory; the only thing keeping us going is the love of the animals and the guilt of what will happen if we close. As I say, it’s strange, there seems to be some misconception that we own ELM, when in fact Jacky and I are only Trustees/volunteers who work constantly for ELM with no wage.

I am worried about the future of ELM though; our plan was to build a centre of excellence for all wildlife casualties, then for Jacky and I, would slowly relinquish the majority of our roles; for fresh younger people to take it on into the future. I’m proud to say that what we do and achieve is amazing for so many reasons. I’m worried because our search to find land to build a new centre on, is not going well and staying at Seale Hayne is not an option. Seale Hayne was supposed to be a quick fix, as we had an inkling that our lease space and the site was a real compromise. In July 2022, we had been at Seale Hayne for two years and from the start we’d had peeling floors, several leaks in the roof, uncoded electrics, hardly any working lights (due to electrics), insufficient heating that was turned off on the weekends plus aggressive and rude site staff who intimidated women on site; I think you may be getting the idea of why this is untenable. Skipping forward to the present day (October 2023), we were given six months to move out of our leased unit by email, which had us have to leave and close at the end of August. Just before the date we needed to leave, we found out that we had ‘Sitting Tenant’ status due to being in our unit two years after our twelve-month lease had elapsed; this is not a comfortable situation to be in, but if it gives ELM a little more time to find a new place, we had no choice.

If you are a grant funder reading this, will you please help us!

As I’m writing this, we are now 6 years into running ELM and as a family, we have given everything we can to it. ELM is a major asset to Devon and surrounding counties, there is nothing out there to replace the care and support it gives to wildlife; not to mention the expertise, infrastructure, employment and the support to the public’s mental health. Distraught people call me every day and wants us to save the animal they have found. I hope that you can understand from what I have written, that ELM needs saving, it needs your help!

In September and October of 2022, we had our first experience of advertising and interviewing for a paid staff position. I can’t say that we enjoyed it, there are so few jobs in this line of work, that we were swamped with applicants. The responsibility of choosing between so many good applicants, was a nightmare!

Running and working at ELM is extremely stressful, exhausting and for a lot of the time heart wrenching; we don’t see enough of the upside of

when the animals is well and being released, as the majority of the time they are sent back with the finder and released by them. We also must deal with nasty, cruel and rude people, from members of the public to unfortunately sometimes volunteers. That all being

said, the warmth and generosity of our volunteers and supporters of ELM is amazing. What ever people give, be it time or money, we are humbled and grateful for every ounce.

Let us hope that we can find somewhere for ELM to live and thrive into the future, so wildlife and distressed finders can have somewhere for advice and help.

Become part of our dream and help ELM become the true saviour of Devon’s wildlife.

Best regards,

Rick, Jacky, Emily and the team at ELM

DecLiratlon The Trustees declare that ihey have approved theTru5tee5 reportabove. $18ned on bÈhaff dthe charltses Trust¢e$ SiEnature Full namel51 Mr Richard W Parker Mts Emrna L Hlckson Chairman Treasurer Dats 30 October 2023

ELM Wildlife (Every Life Matters Wildlife) Charity number 1188486 Income & Expenditure account For the year ended 31 December 2022

Income
General donations
Paypal 2021
Rent contribution
Cash donations
Expenditure
Accountancy
Advertising
Rent
Food, bedding etc
Vet & medicines
Repairs incl cages
Insurance
Incubators
Mileage and travelling
Office expenses & sundries
Shelving etc paid cash
Wages
Surplus for the period
Statement of Assets & Liabilities
For the year ended 31st December 2022
Bank balance
Paypal
Cash in hand
Monies owed at year end
Accumulative Trustee Loan		 2022
£
30585
6483
6300
9920
53288
258
392
8400
3996
3990
2626
251
0
5855
3026
135
15961
44891
8397
51582
13738
15334
80654
30453
30453		 2021
£
51529
8400
9656
69585
0
0
8400
1902
4597
3988
231
1996
5332
8519
0
0
34965
34620
56192
0
7808
64000
22195
22195

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