1.1Reference and administrative details of the charity, its trustees, and advisers
Charity name: Little Bundles Charity registration number: 1190794
Address of principal office: 72 Pathfinder Way, Northstowe, Cambridgeshire, CB24 1AU
Website: http://www.littlebundles.org.uk/cambridge/
Names of trustees: Katie Mee (Chair), Rachel Norridge, Helen Atkins, Sarah Wilson, Judy Roberts
TRUSTEES’ REPORT
The trustees are pleased to present their annual report on the affairs of Little Bundles, including the Receipts and Payments Accounts for the year ended 10 August 2023.
1.2Structure, governance and management
Little Bundles is a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO). We are governed by a constitution, with CIO status assigned on 10 August 2020. We operate on a foundational model, where the only voting members are the charity trustees. Apart from the initial trustees, every trustee is to be appointed for a term of three years, with a minimum of three trustees and a maximum of eight trustees. Trustees are to be appointed by a resolution passed at a properly convened meeting of the charity’s trustees.
All new trustees are to be given a copy of our constitution, most recent trustees’ annual report and our accounts.
Due to a couple of short-lived trusteeships, as of 2022 we ask all potential trustees to spend at least six months in a volunteer role with us before being appointed a trustee.
1.3Public benefit
Little Bundles’ objectives fall within the classification of:
Disability
- The Prevention and Relief of Poverty
The trustees confirm that their activities are fully consistent with the Objectives and the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit has been borne in mind throughout the year. Most benefits are provided to families who lack the necessities to care for and support their young children and are provided as resources in kind (e.g. cots, pushchairs, highchairs, children’s clothing, nappies, safety equipment etc.)
The benefits are provided to people referred to Little Bundles by health and social care professionals and various other charities, housing associations, and support organisations. The referral system is a reasonable restriction to ensure goods are directed towards genuine need and provides accountability to our donors.
The charity’s operations are restricted to residents of Cambridgeshire. The trustees consider this a reasonable restriction given the network of baby banks across the UK that serve particular localities, the size of our organisation, the
available storage facility, location of our donors and the practicalities of collection of goods, and the need to build and sustain close relationships with referring organisations.
1.4Objectives and activities
The objectives of Little Bundles are the relief of poverty in Cambridgeshire by providing essential items of baby clothing and equipment to parents and families with young children, who are in conditions of need or hardship by reason of their economic or social circumstances.
Our activities in 2022–2023 have supported our duty of public benefit.
We have received 219 referrals in this period, which is an 83% increase on last year. This is possibly due to the cost-of-living crisis increasing the number of families in need of help.
While we continue to receive a lot of applications from local council teams and children's centres, we have also seen an uplift in referrals from midwives at the Rosie and working from community teams.
We have offered deliveries to referrers from Cambridge Citizens Advice and refugee and migrant charities (which are based in London but have clients in Cambridge), plus also some for Cambridge Housing Society and CCC.
We have also used social media and in-person events to promote awareness of our charity and its activities.
1.5Achievements and performance
1.5.1 Operating model
We have continued the self-service operating model that we adopted during the pandemic period, in order to facilitate quick access to goods for referrers and have continued to offer deliveries direct to clients’ homes when referrers are unable to collect. There is increased security with an added code to the outer gate.
Our thanks in particular go to volunteer drivers Helen Bengtsson, Tim Morley, Sarah Wilson and Rachel Norridge and occasional volunteer drivers Helen Atkins and Katie Mee. Stock levels have remained healthy, although we have made some purchases of the most in-demand items from funds.
1.5.2 Donors
We remain grateful to a generous regular monthly donation which covers our operating costs.
We have also had one off donations from 2 businesses and 1 Cambridgeshire community organisation.
We have seen an increase in donations via our Amazon Wishlist, to the value of £327 from 95 gifts in kind over the 2022–2023 financial period.
1.5.3 Roles within the organisation
Katie Mee took over as Chair of Little Bundles on 1[st] October 2022 from Judy Roberts.
At the last AGM a volunteer role of fundraiser was proposed. Despite advertising on social media and through word of mouth this has not been recruited to. We will continue to actively promote recruitment to this.
1.5.4 Events
Thanks to Sarah who had a stall at Longstanton Village Market on 17[th] September, here some unwanted donations were sold and we took donations of some of our needed items. The funds raised were used to restock the baby bank with nappies.
Clothing sorts have continued to be conducted by a smaller team of volunteers, led by Rachel.
1.5.5 Social media
Our presence on social media has continued to be developed by Sarah Wilson and Rikki Parry.
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Our Facebook page, managed by Sarah Wilson, now has over 2,600 followers. It enables us to recruit volunteers, advertise our attendance at community events, link up with other similar charities, and keep our supporters up to date with our needs, especially via the Wishlist Wednesday feature.
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Rikki Parry also set up an Instagram page this year, with 161 followers to date, which is now linked to our Facebook for instant posting on both.
1.5.6 Relationships with other charities
We support and promote other local charities with similar purposes such as GrowKids Cambridge and Trumpington Clothing Hub.
We liaise with other local baby banks as needed.
A relationship has been formed with the Arthur Rank hospice shop who contact Little Bundles via Sarah when thy have baby items in stock. They have recently donated a highchair, pram, moses basket and nappies.
‘Party on Potton’ a local community organisation gave us a donation from one of their annual events.
1.5.7 Development activities
a) Little Bundles clothes donations: There has been no changes to the way that donations have been received over the past year.
b) Little Bundles branding: In the summer of 2022 Little Bundles commissioned Andy Coldron from Fish Van Graphic Design and Website Building to do a much-needed update on Little Bundles’ branding and website. The new website went live late 2022 and is much improved.
c) Hospital bag project: On social media we ran an ‘advent calendar’ project of asking people to donate the contents of a hospital bag for an expectant mother, we had the contents for 5 bags donated as well as an increase in
wish list donations during this period. We hope to develop this project further over the next year.
C) Sarah as stock manager has increased out Facebook presence and advertised our Wednesday amazon Wishlist. This has led to an almost 50% increase in our Amazon Wishlist donations.
1.6Financial review, 2021–2022
Little Bundles finances remain healthy with a balance on 10 August 2023 of £2,814 (£2,788 August 2022). The balance stays reasonably constant throughout the year and from one year to the next as most of our donations are in the form of goods received from the public and then redistributed. It is impractical to estimate the value of these in financial terms. However, we have had some generous financial donations this year, resulting in a slight increase in our end-of-year balance.
This year our income from financial donations amounted to £5,167 (£4,933 2020/2021). This is made up of a regular corporate donation of £1800, £1800 from two, one off corporate donations, £250 from a community organisation, £226 in personal donations (mainly via paypal) and £1090 worth of stock donated through our amazon wish list (£763 in the previous tax year). The Wishlist donations are an almost 50% increase on last year, ensuring that we can subsidise the goods donated and provide a high level of support for local families in need
Our outgoings were £4,990 (£3,529 2021-2022) – made up regular expenditure £2,008, detailed below, a one-off cost of £1,182 for website development and £858 (£1490 2021/2022) for purchase of items needed to fulfil referrals. This decrease in the amount spent to fulfil referral from last year reflects the number of items that are being directly donated via the amazon wish list.
Our main expenditure is for the rent of the storage garage which amounts to £1800 per year. Our other regular outgoings are for insurance (£201) and the website host (£7). These regular outgoings have remained constant from last year to this.
Little Bundles No (if any) Receipts and payments accounts CC16a For the period 8/11/2022 8/10/2023 To from
Section A Receipts and payments
Unrestricted Restricted Endowment funds funds funds
Total funds Last year
to the nearest £
to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
A1 Receipts
| A1 Receipts | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| donations from Open Arch | 1,800 | - | - | 1,800 | 1,800 | ||||||
| Donations | 3,367 | - | - | 3,367 | 3,133 | ||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | |||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | |||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | |||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | |||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | |||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | |||||||
| Sub total(Gross income for AR) | 5,167 |
- | - | 5,167 | 4,933 | ||||||
| A2 Asset and investment sales, | |||||||||||
| (see table). | |||||||||||
| - | - | - | - | ||||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | |||||||
| Sub total | - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
| **Total receipts ** | 5,167 | - | - | 5,167 | 4,933 | ||||||
| A3 Payments | |||||||||||
| Rent for storagegarage | 1,800 | - | - | 1,800 | 1,800 | ||||||
| Insurance | 202 | - | - | 202 | 202 | ||||||
| Website host | 1,192 | - | - | 1,192 | 7 | ||||||
| purchase of babybank items | 1,948 | - | - | 1,948 | 1,490 | ||||||
| cvs | - | - | - | - | 30 | ||||||
| - | - | - | - | ||||||||
| - | - | - | - | ||||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | |||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | |||||||
| **Sub total ** | 5,141 | - | - | 5,141 | 3,529 | ||||||
| A4 Asset and investment | |||||||||||
| purchases, (see table) | |||||||||||
| - | - | - | - | ||||||||
| - | - | - | - | ||||||||
| **Sub total ** | - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
| **Total payments ** | 5,141 | - | - | 5,141 | 3,529 | ||||||
| **Net of receipts/(payments) ** | 26 | - | - | 26 | 1,404 | ||||||
| A5 Transfers between funds | - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
| A6 Cash funds last year end | 2,788 | - | - | 2,788 | 1,384 | ||||||
| **Cash funds this year end ** | 2,814 | - | - | 2,814 | 2,788 |
imakeit 2478
Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
| Categories B1 Cash funds B2 Other monetary assets B3 Investment assets B5 Liabilities B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use |
Details Barclays Coop Details Details Details Details Total cash funds (agree balances with receipts and payments account(s)) |
to nearest £ - - - - Agreement Error to nearest £ - - - - - - Unrestricted funds Unrestricted funds Fund to which asset belongs Fund to which asset belongs Fund to which liability relates |
to nearest £ - - - - OK to nearest £ - - - - - - Cost (optional) - - - - - Cost (optional) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Restricted funds Restricted funds Amount due (optional) |
to nearest £ Endowment funds |
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| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| OK | ||||
| to nearest £ Endowment funds |
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| Current value (optional) |
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| Current value (optional) |
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| When due (optional) |
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| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| - |
Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees Signature
Date of Print Name approval