encounter christianity ENCOUNTER CHRISTIANITYCIO ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS PERIOD ENDED 31 AUGUST 2025 Charity Number 1188680
ENCOUNTER CHRISTIANITY CIO
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS
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| CONTENTS PAGES Trustees’ Report 3 – 8 Independent Examiner's Report to the Trustees 9 Receipts and Payments Account 10 Statement of Assets and Liabilities 11 |
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| CONTENTS | PAGES | |
| Trustees’ Report | 3 – 8 | |
| Independent Examiner's Report to the Trustees | 9 | |
| Receipts and Payments Account | 10 | |
| Statement of Assets and Liabilities | 11 |
ENCOUNTER CHRISTIANITY CIO
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS
PERIOD ENDED 31 AUGUST 2025
Page 3
The Trustees of Encounter Christianity are pleased to provide our Annual Report, covering the 12-month period ending 31 August 2025.
Charitable Purposes, Activities and Achievements
The purposes of the Charity are:
The advancement of the education of the public in the Christian faith and Christianity; in particular, but not exclusively by:
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providing specialist teachers to deliver education lessons in schools and colleges;
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assisting and training non-specialist teachers in delivering Christian religious education;
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promoting Christian religious education lessons in schools and colleges; and
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making resources available for these purposes.
The Trustees confirm that they have referred to the guidance contained in the Charity Commission’s general guidance on public benefit when reviewing the Charity’s aims and objectives and in planning future activities.
“I was so impressed by the level of engagement, learning and knowledge displayed by the class…within a single lesson with Encounter Christianity.” Year 10 Teacher
Why we exist
Encounter Christianity is made up of a passionate group of four teachers who want to bring the Christian faith to life in the classroom. We want to demonstrate that Christianity is a lived-out, active faith, shared by people across the world.
We want to help teachers to teach the Christian elements of the RE syllabus well and we want children and young people to be able to interact with Christians, hear their stories and be able to ask them questions about faith and spirituality. We also want pupils to have the space to reflect upon and debate their own beliefs.
Our team of teachers works to enrich the RE curriculum and the social, moral, spiritual and cultural development of pupils in schools, through the provision of specialist people and resources. We also seek to build positive community relationships between schools, churches, volunteers and other charitable organisations.
“Thank you for visiting our school last week and for leading a wonderful workshop on Prayer. We all really enjoyed the activities which truly enriched the children's RE learning and our spiritual journey as a school.” RE Lead Teacher
ENCOUNTER CHRISTIANITY CIO
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS
PERIOD ENDED 31 AUGUST 2025
Page 4
What we offer
Encounter Christianity provides dynamic and engaging RE workshops for children and young people in Primary, Secondary and SEND schools. All our lessons are based on the national curriculum and exam board requirements. We work in partnership with schools, seeking to meet the needs of their curriculums. Our sessions are free to schools.
Our workshops are highly interactive with the aim of providing children with the opportunity to find out for themselves what Christianity is about. For some, this is the first time they have encountered genuine Christians sharing their stories.
“It was really fun. I loved it because even though it was learning it was fun.” Year 3 pupil
“Our RE scheme can be quite dry so it’s good to see the children engaged and enthusiastic.”
Year 6 teacher
Schools
In this reporting period, we delivered 193 primary sessions to approximately 5,880 pupils and 72 secondary sessions to approximately 1,721 pupils . We also delivered 10 SEND workshops to approximately 275 students . We delivered 3 teacher training sessions.
By August 2025 we taught a total of approximately 7,876 pupils in Bristol and South Glos.
Primary
Key Stage 1
The addition of a new primary specialist teacher allowed us to focus attention on our KS1 offer to schools. Sessions for such young children are highly resourced and require a greater number of volunteers, allowing us to connect more with volunteers from local churches. Wonderful World was an extremely popular lesson which was repeatedly requested by schools. The children learn about God as creator and enjoy the opportunity to create their own creature using junk modelling.
----- Start of picture text -----
The story of Creation told
in an interactive way.
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Key Stage 2
Our KS2 lessons remain in demand, with the workshop How Do Christians Make Moral Choices? being particularly requested. In this lesson the pupils examine the actions of the disciple Peter as well as considering how the Golden Rule is lived out by Christians today. The team has worked hard to make the crafts they use in workshops more purposeful, aiding the children’s understanding and enabling them to recall the teaching and explain it to others.
ENCOUNTER CHRISTIANITY CIO
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS
PERIOD ENDED 31 AUGUST 2025
Page 5
Primary Trails
This year we relaunched our interactive Trails for primary school children, running them in partnership with local churches. We hosted 220 children over 2 days for our Christmas Trail at one of our partner churches, and at Easter welcomed 90 children to another church in a different part of the city.
The advantages of running a trail are threefold. Trails bring a story to life for the children, and we have witnessed many ‘Wow’ moments when children enter a scene, beginning an adventure as they step into the story. Churches have also felt encouraged and inspired to do this themselves in the future, and we also have connected with new schools where we currently do not teach our workshops.
Pupils take part in our Christmas Trail at a partner church.
“That was my best journey ever!” Year 4 pupil
The Miraculous Catch of Fish – one of our new SEND workshops this year.
SEND
Following demand from schools, we developed 3 new workshops for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities this year. These workshops focused on stories about Jesus from the New Testament. We have run the workshops alongside our existing sessions on Creation, Christmas and Easter. We also started to deliver specialised workshops for children with complex autistic needs. All the sessions have received extremely favourable feedback from both staff and students.
“I think you’ve got it exactly right, you couldn’t have made it any better!” SEND Lead Teacher
Secondary
This has been a very busy year for our secondary team, with a greatly increased number of school bookings. We connected with 4 new schools this year and reconnected with 4 more which we had not visited in the previous year. We rewrote 3 workshops on Christians in the Media, Trinity and Prayer & Worship. We ran all three workshops in different schools and received excellent feedback. We collaborated with one of our church partners to offer 2 days of school visits to a church and taught pupils about key Christian beliefs, with the help of volunteers from the church.
“It’s useful to actually hear from a real Christian what they think and what they would do. I have wondered what these things would mean in reality for an actual Christian.”
Year 10 student
ENCOUNTER CHRISTIANITY CIO
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS
PERIOD ENDED 31 AUGUST 2025
Page 5
Teacher Training
This year we offered three different training opportunities for teachers. We ran a workshop on ‘How to teach Christianity effectively in Secondary Schools’ for secondary teachers at the SACRE Conference . We also ran a workshop on how to teach primary RE lessons in a fun and engaging way for primary teachers at a large Academy Trust in the city, as well as hosting our own training session on key Christian subject knowledge for primary teachers.
Team
We welcomed a new member to the Team this year to focus on our Key Stage 1 offer to schools. This has led to an increase in KS1 bookings. It has also allowed us to develop our Trails work, utilising our new member of staff’s extensive experience of running Trails in churches for schools.
With the increase in bookings this year, our team has focused more on their individual specialisms, with 2 of the team working mainly in primary and 2 working mainly in secondary. However, as bookings demand the team are still flexible and adept at teaching outside their Key Stage specialism.
Volunteers
We continue to take volunteers from local churches into schools with us so that they can form links with their local schools. We are pleased to be able to collaborate with Bristol Schools Connection (BSC) , who help us to find church volunteers. This year we have also welcomed several youth workers and chaplains to join us in school.
We have also developed a Volunteer Handbook to help our volunteers understand what is required of them when they visit schools in relation to safeguarding, conduct and the tasks they will undertake.
Prayer Ministry
We ran our first Prayer for Schools event in May, welcoming a diverse range of Christians from many different churches who wanted to pray for schools in Bristol. This has opened the way to partner with Mullers and BSC to run further prayer events focusing on children, young people and schools.
The numbers of people requesting our monthly prayer email has grown throughout the year and we relaunched our prayer meetings online at the beginning of each term to pray for the term ahead.
ENCOUNTER CHRISTIANITY CIO
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS
PERIOD ENDED 31 AUGUST 2025
Page 6
Community Engagement
We continue to develop relationships with churches . We visited five churches to speak about our work this year and presented the work of the charity at a ‘Churches Together’ meeting for 6 churches in the Redland area. We also had stands at 3 Christian Conferences to highlight our work for local Christians from a wide variety of backgrounds. We have also engaged with other local Christian organisations in order to work more effectively as a team. One of the results of this is working collaboratively on prayer meetings for Christian children and youth workers as well as a special day conference for Christian staff who work in schools, due to take place in June 2026.
Our annual Thanksgiving Service took place on 18 June. We celebrated all that has taken place in schools during the year, as well as giving thanks to God for the children, young people and school staff we have connected with this year, which has greatly increased in number. We welcomed Trustees, volunteers, representatives of churches and other Christian organisations, individual supporters and members of the public to this event.
Focus for the coming year
One of our key focal points this year is developing our Key Stage 5 offer to schools. We aim to develop a new workshop aimed at A Level students, as well as organising and running a Bristol wide 6[th] Form Conference for students studying A Level Religious Studies. We plan to focus on the topic of Arguments for the Existence of God and welcome a number of Christian experts in this area to speak at the conference.
Financial Review
The charity's cash receipts for the period ended 31 August 2025 were £63,037 (2024: £74,984) principally from local churches, Trusts and Foundations, and individual supporters. Cash payments in the period were £60,699 (2024: £52,492 ) relating primarily to salaries, materials and expenses.
Cash Reserves
The Trustees consider it prudent to maintain cash reserves to the value of at least 3 monthsworth of running costs, equating to approximately £15,175. As of 31 August 2025, the charity’s free cash reserves were £46,799 (2024: £44,441).
ENCOUNTER CHRISTIANITY CIO
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS
PERIOD ENDED 31 AUGUST 2025
Page 7
Reference and administrative details
Charity number: 1188680
Registered office: Redland Parish Church Halls, Redland Green Road, BS6 7HE Website address: www.encounterchristianity.co.uk
Trustees:
The Trustees serving during the year 2024-25 were as follows:
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A West (Chair) (resigned January 2025)
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C Salisbury (resigned July 2025)
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L Charles
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R Powlesland (Secretary)
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C Morgan
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A Long
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L Quinn (Treasurer)
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R Symmons
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J Ball (appointed December 2024) (Appointed Chair July 2025)
ENCOUNTER CHRISTIANITY CIO
ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS
PERIOD ENDED 31 AUGUST 2025
Page 8
Structure, Governance and Management
Governing Document
The Charity was established as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation on 20 March 2020 and is governed by its constitution.
Recruitment and Appointment of Trustees
New Trustees are recruited on the basis of the knowledge of the existing Trustees of suitable candidates. In selecting persons to be appointed, the Trustees shall take into account the benefits of appointing a person who is able by virtue of his or her professional qualifications or experience to make a contribution to the pursuit of the purposes or the management of Encounter Christianity CIO. Selected candidates are appointed by a simple majority of the votes cast by the Trustees at a meeting.
New Trustees receive an Induction pack appropriate to their level of existing knowledge of and involvement with the Charity. As a minimum, new Trustees receive a copy of the Charity Commission publication CC3 – The Essential Trustee: what you need to know together with the charity’s governing document and latest annual report and accounts.
Approved by the Trustees and signed on their behalf by:
……………………………………… Lisa Quinn – Treasurer 8th December 2025
ENCOUNTER CHRISTIANITY CIO
INDEPENDENT EXAMINER’S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF ENCOUNTER CHRISTIANITY CIO
PERIOD ENDED 31 AUGUST 2025
I report on the accounts of the Charitable Incorporated Organisation for the period ended 31 August 2025, which are set out on pages 10 to 11.
Respective responsibilities of trustees and examiner
The charity’s trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. The charity’s trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year under section 144(2) of the Charities Act 2011 (the 2011 Act)) and that an independent examination is needed.
It is my responsibility to:
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examine the accounts under section 145 of the 2011 Act;
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to follow the procedures laid down in the General Directions given by the Charity Commissioners under section 145(5)(b) of the 2011 Act; and
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to state whether particular matters have come to my attention.
Basis of independent examiner’s report
My examination was carried out in accordance with the General Directions given by the Charity Commissioners. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and the seeking of explanations from you as trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit and, consequently, I do not express an audit opinion on the view given by the accounts.
Independent examiner’s statement
In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention:
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which gives me reasonable cause to believe that, in any material respect, the requirements:
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(a) to keep accounting records in accordance with section 130 of the 2011 Act; and
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(b) to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and to comply with the accounting requirements of the 2011 Act and the regulations made there under
have not been met;
or
- to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
Paul Brown FCIE DChA Rose & Leaf Ltd
2 Ger y mynydd Hirwaun Aberdare CF44 9RD 2[nd] December 2025
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Encounter Christianity CIO
YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2025
RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNT
| RECEIPTS FROM: Donations Gifts from churches Grants from trusts/foundations Gifts from individuals Interest TOTAL RECEIPTS PAYMENTS FOR: Charitable Activities Payroll IT support Safeguarding fees Materials and expenses Governance Costs Bank fees Insurance Accounting and payroll TOTAL PAYMENTS NET RECEIPTS/(PAYMENTS) SURPLUS/(DEFICIT) FOR YEAR |
Unrestricted Funds £ 22,665 |
Restricted Funds £ - 7,500 - - |
Period ended 31 August 2025 £ 22,665 21,000 19,288 84 |
Period Ended 31 August 2024 £ 21,095 43,060 10,777 52 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13,500 | ||||
| 19,288 84 |
||||
| 55,537 | 7,500 | 63,037 | 74,984 | |
| 55,246 775 410 2,929 |
46,771 1,593 258 2,705 |
|||
| 50,699 | 4,547 | |||
| - - |
775 | |||
| 410 | ||||
| 2,929 | ||||
| 50,699 | 8,661 60 337 942 |
59,360 60 337 942 |
51,327 60 252 853 |
|
| - | 1,339 | 1,339 | 1,165 | |
| 50,699 | 10,000 | 60,699 | 52,492 | |
| 4,838 | (2,500) | 2,338 | 22,492 | |
| 4,838 | (2,500) | 2,338 | 22,492 |
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Encounter Christianity CIO
AT 31 AUGUST 2025
STATEMENT OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES
| Cash funds Current account Gift Aid not yet received at year end Total Assets Liabilities Accrued expenditure Total Liabilities CASH RESERVES Unrestricted funds Brought forward Net receipts/(payments) for the period Restricted funds Brought forward Net receipts/(payments) for the period Total cash reserves |
2025 £ |
2025 £ 46,779 |
2024 £ 16,949 24,992 |
2024 £ 44,441 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 46,779 - |
44,441 - |
|||
| 46,779 | 44,441 | |||
| 100 | 100 | |||
| 100 | 100 | |||
| 46,779 - |
41,941 2,500 |
|||
| 41,941 | ||||
| 4,838 | ||||
| 2,500 | 5,000 (2,500) |
|||
(2,500) |
||||
| 46,779 | 44,441 |
Signed on behalf of the Trustees on 8th December 2025
L Quinn (Treasurer)
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