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2022-03-31-accounts

ANNUAL REPORT 2021- 2022

The Trustees (who are also the members of the charity) present their annual report together with the financial statements of Share and Repair (a CIO, a Charity Incorporated Organisation) for the year ended 31 March 2022.

The Trustees confirm that the Annual report and accounts comply with the current statutory requirements of the Charity Commission’s regulations for small organisations with an income less than £250,000.

POLICIES AND OBJECTIVES

The principal activities of Share and Repair are: to protect and safeguard the environment for the public benefit through (in particular but not exclusively) the promotion of share, repair and re-use of products as a means of preventing and minimising waste disposal; and advancing public education on the protection of the environment through the sharing, repairing and re-use of products.

Activities are guided and driven by the creation of the following opportunities:

Although there are many organisations delivering Repair Cafes, Libraries of Things or Tool Libraries, Share and Repair is a unique organisation as it delivers a wider range of services as one organisation, It is an independent and local charity..

Share and Repair has an affiliation with the Repair Café Foundation and is an active partner in The Community Repair Network UK and in The UK Sharing Libraries Network. It also works with The Restart Community, a national umbrella organisation supporting the expansion of the re-use community in the UK. Through this, it has access to a network of support, information and grants.

Share and Repair started the year delivering four key activities:

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE

During the year, Juliet Reid resigned as Treasurer and Prue Richardson as Trustee both of whom gave great support, commitment and value to Share and Repair before, during and after becoming a CIO and we thank them. We welcomed Eleanor (Paulina) Household as Trustee in June 2021 and Owen Rogers as Treasurer in January 2022.

We started the year with 2 part-time General Managers managing the shop and many volunteers working there. During the year we bade a sad farewell to one of our General Managers, Abi Finch, our first ever employee, in September and welcomed Emma Carlisle in October. In addition to these roles, Share and Repair uses a freelance social media manager for around 10 hours a month to deliver awareness across social platforms.

To function, Share and Repair has a bank of more than 160 incredible volunteers whose enthusiasm and dedication is outstanding.

OUR ACTIVITY STREAMS

Our aim in delivering these practical activities is to inspire a change in behaviour to reduce consumption and waste, carbon and landfill.In the year our project income did not cover our costs so we relied on grants and donations, prudent housekeeping, and the generosity of many volunteers. This combination meant that we achieved considerable growth in all areas on the modest budget of £45,000.

LIBRARY OF THINGS

Our Library consists of a wide variety of items, 99% of which are donated. During the year our inventory of items for lending grew to 550 items with a total value of almost £27,000. 1150 loans were made, up 102% compared to the previous year. (This growth has continued strongly in the 2022/23 year.) Figure 1 shows how quarter by quarter (on a calendar year basis) loans have gone up while also demonstrating a clear seasonal pattern to borrowing which tends to peak in autumn coincident with clearing and cleaning activities.

THE TOP TEN most borrowed items are Carpet cleaners, Pressure washers, Sanders, Strimmers, Drills, Hedge Trimmers, Garden shredders, Gazebos, Circular saws and Steam cleaners.

We continued to be busier and busier and rely on our amazing volunteers.Our membership grew by 68% so that by the end of March 2022 we had 716 people with active memberships. In total 928 people have ever joined the library indicating a strong retention rate. While the majority of people have borrowed once, some people are extremely frequent borrowers, having used the library up to 24 times (figure 2). These figures illustrate that our membership is both growing and borrowing more. We know we are only scratching the surface of the Bath community and continue to work hard building awareness and improving the quality of service we provide.

The Library also relies on the support of Bath and North East Somerset Council for premises. This necessitated a move from our previous Broad Street shop to our present location in George Street. This was accomplished in early August 2021 and although a short distance involved all modes of wheeled vehicles and many volunteers who enjoyed the generous support of the Wagamama restaurant

The George Street premises have given us so much more visibility and space for our community to share and repair, and is very well suited to our offering. We officially launched our new premises in September again benefiting from the support of Revolution next door who provided food and drinks for our audience. The value of this shop reaches further than the immediate population and we meet many visitors. Bath & NE Somerset Council are to be thanked and congratulated for their initiative in supporting this innovative community service.

To reduce travel by car and increase accessibility, we deliver and loan items to people across Bath using our electric cargo bike, the Flying Satsuma. Our trusty team of volunteer bike riders set forth in all (safe) weather conditions, thus reducing pollution, and saving people time and money. The Flying Satsuma delivered an amazing 506 items last year.

REPAIRS

Repair sessions take place in the shop and at Repair Cafes held in the community across Bath and NE Somerset. All our repairers are volunteers and cover a wide range of skills, broadly categorised as Mechanical, Electrical/Electronic and Sewing.

636 items were seen at the Repair Cafes held in the community (compared to 384 in 21) since reopening after the pandemic in June 2021. We started a new Repair Café in Farmborough in July (was due to start in May 2020) and this has built in popularity as has the other new recruit in High Littleton (February 2020). We have also restarted our pop-ups at The University of Bath and our latest Cafe is just over the county border into Wiltshire at Bradford on Avon in March 2022.

At the shop 580 items were seen compared to 563 in the previous year. This lower level of growth was largely due to the re-location of the shop in August which inevitably reduced activity for a while and took time to build up again.

Our records show that some 903 people have ever used the Repair Cafés and sessions to undertake an item repair, with some using them multiple times.

Since starting we have seen over 4,000 items and our repair success rate remains at more than 70%.

Figure 3 shows a chart of item categories for repair. This shows that electrical items are the most common followed by sewing repairs and electronics.

HOW TO WORKSHOPS:

The portfolio of Workshops including How To Use a Sewing Machine, How To Maintain a Bike and How To Use Hand and Power Tools was boosted by the very popular ‘Visible Darning’ Workshop which attracted a much younger audience. We delivered 14 Workshops in the final 6 months of the year for 79 people with excellent feedback. We are planning Schools’ Workshops on Reducing Waste aimed at 10/11 year olds.

HOMEKIT

This project sources small electrical items such as kettles, irons, toasters, lamps and heaters for low income households. This operates in conjunction with the homeless and social housing charities such as Genesis, Julian House, DHI. It has been a slow start but once the charities concerned became engaged more items were delivered to those in need. In its first 9 months, 104 items were donated.

THE ELVES’ SWAPSHOP

This was a Bath BID initiative to replace Santa’s Grotto by encouraging children to swap their unwanted toys for something new to them but donated by others. It was organised at very short notice due to late confirmation of premises and came together in only 3 weeks.

The Elves’ Swapshop was exceptionally successful in projecting a few environmental messages of ‘new is not essential’ and’ sharing toys is good’ and in gaining good publicity. In summary:

MARKETING, PR AND AWARENESS:

We have been successful in appearing on various BBC and local radio interviews, we presented to the Bathnes Schools Climate Conference, a Jewish Community meeting online, The Future Economy Network, Quartet Philanthropy event, many others. We were interviewed as an example of good practice by The Welsh Government who are supporting such initiatives across Wales. We are an integral part of the development of A National ‘Community Repair Network’ and A Sharing Network and have responded to many enquiries on how to establish both Repair Cafes and a Library of Things across the country as well as working with students doing dissertations at different levels on how sharing and repairing can impact on the community and the environment. 2021/22 has been an incredible year of learning, growth, development and exposure. We increased our following on social media over the year by over 80% on Facebook to 2270 followers, 70% on Twitter to 1381 followers and almost 600% on Instagram to 1674 followers. The Elves’ Swapshop postings had exposure to 27000, reaching a younger audience.

In September we were delighted to be awarded Bath Life Environmental Winner and proudly display this in the window.

VOLUNTEERS

We are immensely grateful and super-proud of our growing volunteer base. We have over 160 people aged between 20 and over 80 who do a range of roles from meeting and greeting, repairing,

data crunching, bike riding, payroll, teaching, bookkeeping, item caring, tech input, window display, baking and so much more for all our projects in our shop and in

the Repair Cafes in the community. We are constantly recruiting and training and thanking and we need more resources to manage this wonderful team of people. We thanked our volunteers with a late summer Garden Party and to say a fond farewell to General Manager, Abi Finch, who played such a significant part in the establishing our shop in Broad Street and then in George Street.

GOING CONCERN

After making appropriate enquiries, the Trustees have a reasonable expectation that the charity has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. For this reason, they continue to adopt the going concern basis in preparing the financial statements. Further details about the adoption of the going concern basis can be found in the Accounting Policies.

FINANCIAL REVIEW

INCOME

Total income for the year 1st April 2021 to 31st March 2022 was £50,020 of which £16,624 was from charitable services such as the Library of Things, Repairs and Workshops. compared with £8,069 last year reflecting the almost 100% increase in activity in almost all projects. Our grant income of £30,257 is made up of the following: £3,276 from donations on our Local Giving page from Repair Cafes and our Cargo Bike Appeal including a £1,000 matched donation from Local Giving. £4,000 was a final payment from a local Government Covid grant and £23,000 donated by Grant Making Trusts, corporate donations and from BathNES Council for the Cargo Bike Appeal. Of the £23,000, £13,800 is restricted for salaries to manage the shop and our Schools ’Workshops. We are incredibly grateful to The Medlock Charitable Trust, Bath & West Community Energy Fund, HPH Ltd, Quartet Community Foundation, Every One of Us and Bath & West Building Society for their support of our work.

EXPENDITURE

Total expenditure for the year was £45,493, the largest component was wages and salaries of £26,568 which includes both our salaried General Managers and freelance workers for Social Media, Workshops and temporary staff for the Elves ’Workshop. Our running costs remained low at £3,300. Our expenditure on parts and consumables for repairs to our Library of Things items and the items for distribution to low income families through the HomeKIT Project amounted to £3,982 and our main capital outlay was the cargo bike (£5,482) and some £1,367 on refurbished laptops and new tables for the repair space.

ASSETS AND LIABILITIES

A net surplus of £5,502 was recorded at the end of March 2022 which together with our cash balance at the start of the year of £61,376 gives a year end cash balance of £66,879. The only liability is £1,587 to HMRC for PAYE, meaning the cumulative surplus at 31 March 2022 is £65,292.

Of this surplus, Share and Repair Trustees designated the previous Government COVID-19 grants of £39,000 in 2020/21 together with £4,000 from this year to pay a Director in 2022/23. Grants of £14,601 are restricted to specific purposes by the awarding bodies, which leaves £7,691 in Reserves.

FINANCIAL REVIEW CONT…

RESERVES POLICY

Share and Repair’s strategy is to build reserves in each of the coming 3 years to cover three months operating and wind-up costs as its responsibilities for legal and redundancy payments increases which going forward would amount to £35,000

MATERIAL INVESTMENTS POLICY

Under the Constitution the charity has the power to invest in any way that the trustees see fit.

RISK MANAGEMENT

During the year, the Trustees have been working to identify the strategic, business and operational risks the charity faces, prioritised these risks and identified actions needed to offset these. Work has continued to address the key risk areas and a system of monitoring put into action on a 2-monthly basis, at Board meetings. The charity did not have a risk strategy for a health pandemic, however the plans in place enabled Share and Repair to react quickly and respond proportionately.

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

CONSTITUTION

Share and Repair was established on 22nd of April 2017 as a Community Group. It was later registered as an independent charity by the Charity Commission as a Charity Incorporated Organisation on April 14th 2020 registration number 1189015 and a registered office at 22, Malvern Bldgs, Bath BA1 6JX.

The charity is governed by its Constitution. At the year-end, there were nine trustees of whom all are directors of the charity. The trustees form the Board of Trustees. The paid employees who form the staff team report to the Board of Trustees. The staff team is responsible for carrying out all areas of the charity’s activities.

METHOD OF APPOINTMENT OR ELECTION OF TRUSTEES

New trustees are recruited by open advertisement in line with the charity’s policy on equal opportunities or co-opted to fill specialist roles e.g., people with environmental, business or marketing experience. They are formally voted in at the next Annual General Meeting.

POLICIES ADOPTED FOR THE INDUCTION AND TRAINING OF TRUSTEES

New trustees are given an induction pack and are encouraged to undertake external training events where these will facilitate the undertaking of their role. All trustees are given opportunities for training on new regulations or changes within the voluntary sector.

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE AND DECISION MAKING

The Board of Trustees administers the charity and meets more than four times a year. Where appropriate Trustees have a designated responsibility for areas e.g. health and safety, finance, PR & Marketing, we use third sector support organisations for small charities, for HR and legal issues. The current Chair of Trustees manages the operations of the organisation as a volunteer.

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT CONT…

PLANS FOR FUTURE PERIODS

Share and Repair started the new budget year in a good position thanks to government COVID grants. We have planned an ambitious strategy to match the enthusiasm and environmental need for what we do and therefore as a Board have designated these funds to build the capacity of the organisation and remove current organisational responsibility from the Chair of Trustees. This will enable improved systems and processes for the staff, the building and development of activities and the monitoring and evaluation of what we do.

This year has shown an increase of between 70 - 100% in most areas and we intend to maintain growth year on year to provide growth of 300% over 3 years.

Our overall goal is to contribute to changing behaviours to make sharing and repairing second nature to more people. With this in mind we will grow the numbers above by:

We will do the above while building our efforts to be a resilient and agile organisation by nurturing our volunteers; valuing the staff team and enabling them to feel engaged and confident in their work; learning as much as we can from others and generally improving efficiency and effectiveness across the organisation.

This report was approved by the Trustees on January 16[th] 2023

and signed on their behalf by: Lorna Montgomery, Chair of Trustees

Share and Repair For the year ended 31 March 2022 All figures to nearest pound sterling

Charity number: 1189015

Receipts and payments

TOTAL
Of which
unrestricted
Of which
restricted		 2021
RECEIPTS
Share and Repair Shop
Library of Things - loans
5,146
5,146
-
Library of Things - membership
5,692
5,692
-
Repairs - donations
3,244
3,244
-
Sales
353
353
-
Other income
513
513
-		 6,253
110
1,706
60
7,926
Community Projects & Education
Repair Cafes - donations
2,000
2,000
-
How-To workshops
542
542
-
Other events
2,275
2,275
-		 415
-
-
Grants & Fundraising
Fundraising
30,257
9,402
20,855		 65,266
TOTAL RECEIPTS
50,020
29,165
20,855		 81,736
PAYMENTS
Utilities
1,086
1,086
-
Insurance
1,157
1,157
-
Equipment, parts and consumables
3,982
3,982
-
Print and stationary
478
478
-
Marketing
1,730
1,730
-
IT, web and telephone
579
579
-
Repair café expenses
345
345
-
Salaries, NI, pension, training
23,061
10,454
12,607
Freelance staff
3,557
3,557
-
Volunteer events and expenses
1,276
1,276
-
Cost of fundraising
495
495
-
Other
124
124
-		 1,284
433
883
739
1,484
437
145
13,616
-
137
225
-
SUB TOTAL PAYMENTS
37,869
25,263
12,607		 19,384
ASSET AND INVESTMENT PURCHASES
Computer Equipment Purchase
400
-
400
Office Equipment Purchase
967
967
-
Tools and MachineryPurchase
5,282
119
5,163		 975
TOTAL PURCHASES
6,649
1,086
5,563		 975
TOTAL PAYMENTS
44,518
26,349
18,169		 20,359
NET RECEIPTS/PAYMENTS
5,502
2,817
2,686		 61,376
Cash funds lastyear end
61,376
49,461
11,915
CASH FUNDS THIS YEAR END
66,879
52,278
14,601

Statement of assets and liabilities

TOTAL
Of which
unrestricted
Of which
restricted
Cash Funds
Cash in bank, and in hand 66,879
52,278
14,601
Assets retained
Computer equipment, related to Wessex W
Cost: 1,175
Electric bike, related to Bath Community F
Cost: 5,163
Liabilities
PAYE tax due to HMRC
1,587
Signed on behalf of the trustees:
Lorna Montgomery
Chair of Trustees
30 January 2023

CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examiner's report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner's Report Report to the trusteesl members of On accounts for tho year ended Sl st rI@c￿ Charlty no lif any) Set out on pages Illf.liic ihp p4e DL11nb￿F5 3ddiliuiiGI sÉ I reprAt to trustees on my examin¢Jli￿l i of the accounts of the above charity {"Ihe Trusl") for the ybar ended Responsibiliti8s and As tl e charity trustees of the Trust, ycil are responsit4e for the preparation basi5 of roport of the accounts in accordance with the I"e,I'Jiremenls of the Charities Act 201 .' ('the Acr). I report in respect of my examination of ti'.e Tntst's accouns carr￿d out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in -arrying out my examination, I havE fdlowed the aptAic2ble Directions Éi ven by the Charity commi￿on unde r section 14515llbl of the Act. I hai'e bom ￿eted my examinatior¢. I conf imi that no material matters have COITI ) io my attention (other than that dial losed below ') in connection wrth the tr xaminalion which gives me cause. lo believe that in. any material resp,: Independent examiner's statement accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or the accounts do not accord with li 1.8 accounting records I have no concems and have come acrc¢,s no other matters in ¢¢)nnection with the examination lo which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts lo reached. ' Please del8te the words in the brackets if they do not apply. Date: Name: Relevant profe$slonal quallfl¢atlon{s) or body {If any): Addross: IER October 2018

Section B Disclosure Only Com[￿Ote rf the examiner needs lo h￿hlIght matters of con¢em (see CC32. Indwndent examination of charty accounts: dir￿tKirts and gurdance for examin￿$). Gfve hero brfef detalls of any Items that the oxamlner wishos to dlscjose. IER October 2018