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2023-12-30-accounts

Registered Charity Number: 1188486

Trustees’ Annual Report and Financial Statements

For the period

31[st] December 2022 – 30[th] December 2023

Contents

Reference and Administration details

History

Objectives and Activities

Key positions and staffing within ELM

Achievements and Performance

Trustee Statement

Financial Review

Structure, Governance and Management

Future Plans

Chairman’s / Manager’s 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 2022 – 30[th] December 2023.

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 Office Devon House
Ruckamore Road
Torquay
TQ2 6HF
Rescue Address Unit 5 Hayter Hames
Seale Hayne
Newton Abbot
TQ12 6NQ

TRUSTEES:

Mr Richard Parker (Chair)

Mrs Jacqueline Parker (Secretary)

Mr Neil Langridge MBE

Mrs Emma Hickson (Treasurer)

Mrs Gayle Bloomfield (Appointed 8 Feb 2023)

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, Richard (Rick), Jacqueline (Jacky) and Emily. They started rescuing wildlife in 2010 and for many years, they 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.

The rescue centre gradually filled their house until ELM finally found a new home at Seale Hayne in July 2020; within 6 months ELM had filled the 2000sqft and continue to look for larger premises with outside space.

ELM became a Registered charity in March 2020.

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 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 lack of familiarity 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, goes straight to the vets and at our expense.

Unlike other smaller rescues, ELM does not farm out casualties/hoglets for care at people’s homes, there is no adequate way of monitoring or medicating casualties this way; continually moving wild animals is stressful. At the centre, the cages are cleaned out and

the hedgehogs checked every day, their weight and general condition are monitored by the volunteers and then the trained staff. If any action is needed, for example medication, fluids or incubator, treatment 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 rehabilitated hedgehog. 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 safety of the animal and its 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 in 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.

At present ELM’s public interaction, guidance/information and support, is mainly via social media and telephone, although this year we have attended more in person events. We have a main ELM 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 do 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 fourth year at Seale Hayne, manning each day has been pretty difficult to fill. It is an ongoing struggle to source the increased number of volunteers needed for all the shift spaces 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 basis has become a major task, so much so that it takes two trustees to manage it daily.

We have an ‘Ambulance Group’ on ‘Messenger’ that we use for members of the public to assist with relaying sick and injured animals to the rescue centre. This does work well and saves us going out to collect casualties. However, with the cost-of-living crisis and rising costs, it’s been a tricky year for support, so the amount of time people are willing to give is much less.

Key Positions

Rick and Jacky Parker continue to work on average 90+ hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Their dedication and commitment to saving wildlife and building ELM is immense.

Emily receives a small salary for the tremendous number of hours and dedication to the charity. Unfortunately, until ELM is better funded, she only gets paid for 25 of the 90+ hours she works every week.

We are grateful to the other Trustees who also contribute many hours a week dealing with all aspects behind the scenes to ensure ELM keeps running. We do, however, still need much more help and support daily with admin etc and, without funding for paid staff, this is proving difficult.

Achievements and Performance

In January we had to make the bold declaration that we were running out of time in our current premises, through no fault of our own, and we needed to find some land to purchase and quickly. The BBC Spotlight team and ITV Westcountry News came to interview us and get us out on the local news. This was a real boost to

our Go Fund Me Appeal and general awareness of our situation.

We were delighted to welcome Ann Widdecombe MP to the rescue centre in February, a true hedgehog lover and supporter. Unfortunately, it didn’t spark the press coverage we were hoping for as we desperately try to raise funds to buy land to relocate ELM.

March saw our very first Tea and Tours event at the rescue centre. With 5 tours throughout the day, tickets sold out in less than 24 hours! It was our opportunity to have small groups of the public into the rescue centre to see, firsthand, the work we do with the animals. One of the Trustees gave a talk whilst walking around and after the visitors were invited to join us for some wonderful homemade cakes with tea and coffee. The day was a huge

success making just over £1,000 in donations. It’s definitely something we will be doing again in the future - demand was so high for the tickets.

Milder weather in the beginning of April saw us release 107 of our hedgehogs that had been over wintering with us and were ready to go. Although we try where at all possible to get the hedgehogs back out into the wild as soon as possible, we need the right weather window to be able to do this.

Later that month we saw our first Hoglets of 2023 arrive…roll on the late nights and early morning hand feeds! This was the start of a deluge of Hoglets into the centre, the poor weather at the start of the year had massively affected their breeding season.

We were at Devon Country Show for the first time in May, whilst this was a huge cost to the Charity to be there, we felt it was important to be at such a large, high-profile event. We have mixed feelings about the show; the Thursday was very quiet, Friday and Saturday were much busier with interaction with the public; we are undecided if it’s the right for us for 2024.

During June we attended several village fairs, getting out to speak to the public and provide information and education leaflets was brilliant. We have always been well-supported by our followers who make wonderful craft items for us to sell, raising essential funds.

In July we really ramped up our campaign to Save ELM, we desperately need to raise money to buy some land to relocate the rescue centre. We had a fantastic response to our Go Fund Me appeal from the public; no one wants to see ELM close - our services and knowledge are so vital in our local area.

We hit a massive milestone in August, ELM had admitted 4000 animals since starting in 2018! Not only Hedgehogs were helped during this time, we had also helped Weasels, Stoats, Foxes, Buzzards, Owls, Badgers, Squirrels and even a Swan!

Gayle and Emma delivered a number of Hedgehog talks at a Plymouth Garden Centre in September. It was a great day with lots of interesting conversations with the public about how they can encourage hedgehogs into their garden and look after them once they have arrived.

Wow! We started to get really busy in October! The weather turned colder and in came the Autumn Juveniles in large numbers! We have the capacity to hold up to 220 animals at a time and we were getting very full very quickly. Luckily, we had a good response to a recruitment drive to find new volunteers to help keep the shifts full, without full shifts it’s a disaster.

November we had our final Craft Fair of the year and it was a good one. The Christmas shoppers supported us, found some amazing gifts and helped us raise over £800 in 2 days. Again, it was great to interact with the public answering any questions they had about Hedgehogs in their gardens. We hope to do many more village fairs and craft fairs in 2024.

In December we decided to try something new and started some online raffles to help with our fundraising towards the land purchase. We had a few items donated and the online raffles seemed to go very well. It’s still early days, but something we will most definitely be taking through into 2024 with bigger and better prizes.

Our food donation points in the community continue to be 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, other wildlife and those in intensive care.

2023 overall was another busy year at ELM, we admitted just over 1200 casualties in total, which doesn’t include any ‘dead on arrival’. We have made great strides forward with our hoglet care, perfecting a new formula to feed the tiniest hand fed hoglets. This has resulted in a massive decrease in mortality rate. These tiny hoglets, generally under 30g at the time of admission, are the most ‘tricky’ to save and we have seen great results this year.

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

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 2022 – 30th December 2023

Summary:

2023 2022 2021 2020
Income for the
year		 £65,495 £46,805 £69,585 £34,244
Total expenses £60,868 £44,891 £34,965 £13,351
Taken over £4,627 £1,914 £34,620 £20,893

Major sources of income:

2023 2022 2021 2020
Donations £31,535 £35,689 £62,758 £20,789
Fundraising £33,960 £11,116 £6,827 £1,200
Total £65,495 £46,805 £69,585 £21,989

Major expenditure:

2023 2022 2021 2020
Rent £8,400 £8,400 £8,400 £3,500
Medical costs £3,328 £4,517 £4,864 £1,238
Vehicle costs £8,300 £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 2023 ELM Wildlife had approximately £20,000 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:

It’s a strange paradox we seem to be in, every year we try and learn and improve on the last year with funding; but it still brings us back to roughly the same amount. This is very frustrating as we desperately need to be able to employ more staff.

Q1 & 2 showed much improved donations over 2022’s donations, but this was generally a case of having more time to run fundraisers. Having time / manpower to run fundraisers is really our weak point; I guess you have to include our lack of time to getting our heads

around grant funding. It is so frustrating continually running ELM on a shoestring, there is so much more we could do with better funding.

We were down in in Q3 & 4 from 2022, a great deal of this was due to the uncertainty of whether ELM could carry on; due to attempts to make us leave, by the owner of Seale Hayne. To be fair we did have some large donations in 2022 and nearly pulled this gap back with a push to save ELM campaign.

The daily operational manpower requirements of running the rescue centre is heavily dependent on the amount done by Jacky and I. We do what is necessary to keep ELM running and believe me, we’d prefer to, and indeed, need to slow down. Each of us easily work the equivalent of two employees. We work 365 days a year, although we did manage to have four days away in 2023, albeit I still had to answer the rescue calls! It’s much the same with ELM’s finances, Jacky and I have never taken a wage and still support ELM with some of the day to day, smaller costs; this is accounted for in Trustee loans to ELM.

We feel humbled and touched by the support has from the general public / our supporters, the simple fact is that ELM would not exist if it wasn’t for the monetary and hands on help ELM receives.

Thank you all so much for your support, which helps us save wildlife.

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 as a trustee 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 2023, ELM Wildlife has two paid members of staff; neither of these have been, or are presently, Trustees.

Future plans

throughout 2023. The plan is to purchase land or a building to create larger premises apart from the internal space, exterior space will also be needed. We have approached local land-owners, placed adverts on our Facebook page, spoken to the local council, but nothing has come to light yet.

Chairman / Manager’s thoughts

Drama seems to run hand in hand with creating and running a wildlife rescue centre and true to form 2023 excelled itself with heartache, disappointment and frustration!

The beginning of the year (Q1) was busy in the centre as usual, but intake of casualties always runs down to a trickle. We have a policy of releasing through the winter if the weather is mild enough. Obviously, this can only be done with animals that have finished treatment and put on a substantial amount of weight, sometimes more than you would like.

Although natural food is in short supply, they are better in the wild; as cage stress can manifest all type of problems. The weather allowed us to get a few, which made life a little easier in the centre.

The casualties slowing to a trickle has the detrimental effect of a lot less donations. It was decided that with the centre slightly quieter, we’d take advantage and hold an open day (Tea & Tours as Emma likes to call it). Tickets sold out in one day and the people who attended were very generous with donations whilst at the centre. A good start to the year.

Anyone who read last year’s report will know what is coming; I couldn’t help but add that it was and is a nightmare. I’m referring to our landlord, the owner of Seale Hayne, deciding to increase our rent by 114%. You can read about it in 2022 report, but I’ll try and give you a brief overview in this one.

Dealing with all this drama on top of running the centre and coping with casualties, left hardly any time for all the activities we wanted to do and much needed fundraising. We did create a Go Fund Me appeal that had amazing support, plus some extremely generous donations; but it still left us a long way behind going into 2024, but a lot better than it might have been. Amongst all these problems, there were some good points.

We’re desperately underfunded, but getting out information to save wildlife is paramount to us.

I was so glad that we managed to fit in other wildlife during 2023, it wasn’t easy, scrounging space, cobbling together enclosures, sourcing materials to make ad hoc enclosures and find the time for the husbandry needed wasn’t an easy task. Some of these animals were in an extremely bad way when they came in, the majority were very young; I’m proud to say that they all made it to release, mainly thanks to Jacky and Emily’s care. I must also thank David at YurtCamp, Liverton and Bloor Homes, for the use of their land. These animals were a fraction of the rescue requests that we cannot accommodate; until we have new premises

While we’re on the subject of thanking people, as with everything in life, there is always a team that make it work. I can’t name everyone here, but a massive thank you to Jacky, Emily, Gayle, Emma, Neil, ELM’s volunteers and all of our supporters.

It's hard to put the following down as good point for the year, as the impact that it has had on our family is horrendous. Jacky and I had five nights away in the whole year, sadly this was actually an improvement on other years; I still had to man the casualty phone line. Emily for another year running, had no holiday at all. This is why we desperately need to get a handle on raising more finance.

We had a successful year with hoglets and yet again managed to keep the mortality rates low, unfortunately, the payoff for this success is massive amounts of care hours; thanks, has to go to Jacky and Emily again. We dread hoglet season as ELM takes the majority of hoglets from around Devon. It started a little later in 2023, but once it did, there was a deluge of litters coming in; this went on well into October. It is frustrating as the majority of litters are disturbed by people, it’s the same every year and can’t be helped some of the time; it can take hours monitoring to decide when to intervene.

The weather wasn’t good in late Autum. Luckily, we’d been getting the hoglets and casualties out as quick as possible, but the heavy early influx, caught us out a little. On the whole, it was a year of long stay casualties, the hoglets are always with us for a fair amount of time, longer if they come in sick. Most of the other wildlife we took in, were in care for some time. The Tawny owl was the quickest turn around, the fox cubs were the other extreme, with us still support feeding them well into 2024; at some point we were afraid they would leave before 2024’s cubs arrived.

I had to leave the best for last, just before the New Year, Jacky and I made an offer on another plot of land which was accepted in early 2024. Spoiler alert, we are now the owners of 10.75 acres of land and excited to start another new chapter for ELM.

I hope you enjoyed my snapshot of ELM’s year, please come to our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/savinghedgehogs and follow our exploits. ELM is Devon’s largest capacity rescue centre and when we build the new centre; we’ll be stepping up to another level. We need your support in so many ways, with more opportunities coming with the land.

If you love and care about wildlife, like we do, please think of supporting us with a monthly bank transfer; remember that individual rescue like ELM are the places your wildlife end up at and every penny is spent on saving animals.

NatWest account name: ELM Wildlife Account Number 749 532 73 Sort Code 55 – 70 – 01

Thank you for following and supporting ELM. Kindest regards,

Rick Parker

CEO ELM Wildlife

Declaratlon The Trustee5 declare that they have approved the tru5tees' report above. Slgned on behalf of the charltys trustees Signatures Full namelsl Position (Chair etcl £LLgreQ- . Date

ELM Wildlife (Every Life Matters Wildlife) Charity number 1188486 Income & Expenditure account For the year ended 30 December 2023

Income
General donations
Paypal
Rent contribution
Cash donations
Expenditure
Accountancy
Advertising
Rent
Food, bedding etc
Vet & medicines
Repairs incl cages
Insurance
Mileage and travelling
Office expenses & sundries
Shelving
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		 2023
£
17469
33960
7000
7066
65495
54
464
8400
5585
3328
444
267
8300
5197
185
28644
60868
4627
27354
47388
19889
94630
39713
39713		 2022
£
30585
6483
6300
9920
53288
258
392
8400
3996
3990
2626
251
5855
3026
135
15961
44890
8398
51582
13738
15334
80654
30453
30453

Ind endent Exatninees R to Ehll Wildlife Life Motters Wildlife istered Chatit Number. [188486 I report to tbe cbarity tr￿ttt8 on my cxlmitiation of the arLounts of the above charity (the Trnst) for tbe ycarended 31 D£(xnEtr 2023. RespoDsibilltles and basls ofrep&rt As the Charity trustees of the Trust you are respon51Th1e for the preparatii>n of the accounts ' a￿Ordance with the requiremell￿ of the Cbarities Aci 2011 fthe Act). I rq)ort iti respcct of my exatDsnation of the Tmsvs accounts carried out under section 145 of the AGt and in carrying out yny ¢xamination I have followEd all applicable D1￿ctionS givell by the Cbarity Con]tuissi¢)n under 6￿tion 145{5Mb) of the AGL 1ndepellde￿t examiner's Statement I have compleled Jny exatninatioll. I confllm that no mattffl3 have come tt> my attention in connection with the exaTnin8ti0rt givlng me ¢ause w believe that ill any Jnaterial respect: accoullting record8 wcre tK*t kept in rtspxt ofthe Tnjst as required by section 130 of the Ack or the accounts do not accord th(￿e records. or the accounts do not comply with the appLicable requirements concerning the for and content of accounr8 set out in thc Charitic% (Account8 atLd Reports) RegulatIot￿ •(K)8 other any nxwirement that thc accounts givc & trne and fair view which is not a mattw con5id¢rcd as part of au indwd¢nt ¢xaminatiotL I have no concerns attd have come across no other matter5 in ¢or￿￿tio0 v/ith the examination lo whiclL attention should be drawll iti this report in order to enable a proper under5tsnding of the acu)uttts to be reached. David Rudall Greenwood Accollrtt8n¢yLtd 5.7 Pellew Aroade Teignmouth Devon TQ14 8EB Date: 29.th Octobtt 2024