## **Trustees’ Annual Report for the period 1 August 2024 to 31 July 2025**
**Yorkshire Rewilding Network (YRN)**
## **Charity registration number: 1190992**
## **Objectives and Activities**
The objects of the CIO are to advance biodiversity and environmental improvement through rewilding, principally in Yorkshire, by providing support, education, information and encouragement to the public and other stakeholders, including but not limited to those with an interest in rewilding. In this sense, rewilding is defined as the restoration of ecosystem functions to a point where nature can take care of itself. It seeks to reinstate natural processes and, where appropriate, missing species – allowing them to shape the landscape and the habitats within. Rewilding embraces the role of people – and their cultural and economic connections to the land – working within a wider, healthy ecosystem.
YRN carries out a range of activities to fulfil its purposes, including publishing newsletters and other relevant stories about rewilding, facilitating a discussion forum, hosting publicly available webinars and arranging small group visits to rewilding projects.
The majority of time and effort on YRN activities during the period covered by this report is voluntary. Volunteers have maintained the YRN website, written material for newsletters and articles and arranged and hosted webinars. Without such contributions, YRN would have been unable to operate.
During this period, we also engaged a paid contactor on a part time basis to deliver our Hub innovation project, funded by Rewilding Britain. This project helped us to build on rewilding momentum at local places within Yorkshire. In this period, we also delivered our summer site visit programme, winter networking days and our webinar programme.
At the end of this period in June 2025 we were successful in receiving a grant from Engie ltd. This funding was granted to enable YRN to deliver a Rewilding Schools project and also to fund running costs.
YRN adopts an inclusive approach, centring all of activities around public benefit, ensuring that the charity operates in line with the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit.
YRN is rarely in a position to make grants. Where it does so, it refers to its purpose and ensures that any grants are aligned with that purpose.
## **Achievements and Performance**
YRN has connected many individuals with peers and advisors, ranging from those looking for moral support or occasional grazing advice to people concerned that trees would not establish on an exposed coastal site to those wondering how to start rewilding, and many
others. It has also signposted people to funding sources such as the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme.
In the corporate/public sector, as well as with landowners, YRN is also seeing opportunities for enabling positive rewilding projects. YRN is increasingly in contact with large estates who are considering nature recovery/rewilding to enable it to make further similar contributions. Increasingly, YRN is engaging at a senior level with other stakeholders such as Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Yorkshire Water, the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and Nidderdale National Landscape to influence them to include rewilding in their future plans.
YRN has its own website, as well as over 1,500 newsletter subscribers, an active discussion forum and has staged a well-attended webinar programme on a range of rewilding topics with local relevance. A number of site visits have taken place and volunteering opportunities for both surveys and wild wood planting have been arranged. A presentation about rewilding has been developed, and delivered to various community groups, aiming to increase the reach and diversity of the network.
In line with the emergent, less structured nature of rewilding, YRN has deliberately avoided fixed, measurable objectives to date, instead following the energy of the network to achieve the most impact.
## **Financial Review**
YRN’s financial position at the end of its fifth year was healthy when compared to its running costs. Ongoing fundraising efforts aim to provide sufficient resources to enable part time contractors to continue to be funded.
Funds come from individual and corporate donors and from a range of small grants.
YRN aims to maintain reserves of a minimum of £2,000 which is enough to cover its committed costs and to enable an orderly wind-down of the charity if the Trustees take the decision that that is necessary.
The main risk facing YRN is its resources becoming overstretched to cope with the increasing interest in rewilding in Yorkshire and the consequent requests for its services. To manage this risk, the charity prioritises its activities to best meet its purposes and seeks to raise sufficient funds to retain appropriate resources.
## **Structure, Governance and Management**
As a CIO, YRN has a written constitution, based on the standard proforma for a CIO.
Selection of new trustees is by existing trustees, usually from those who have already engaged with YRN so that potential new trustees know about the charity, its activities and aspirations.
YRN is wholly independent from Rewilding Britain but liaises with the national charity and with other regional networks regularly.
## **Reference and Administrative details**
|Charity name|Yorkshire Rewilding Network|
|---|---|
|Registered charity number|1190992|
|Charity’s principal address|18 Cheltenham Avenue
Ilkley
LS29 8BN|
**Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity**
|1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9|**Trustee name**|**Office (if any)**|**Dates acted if not for whole**
**year**|**Name of person (or body) entitled**
**to appoint trustee (ifany)**|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||Jeff Davitt|||N/A|
||Deborah Davitt|Treasurer||N/A|
||JennyWatson|Secretary||N/A|
||John Hartshorn|||N/A|
||Antonia Beardsall||To 16/11/24|N/A|
||Samantha Mennell||To 03/06/25|N/A|
||Sarah Mason|Chair||N/A|
||Dr Susan Wood|||N/A|
||James Wood|||N/A|
No trustees hold title to property belonging to the charity
No funds are held as custodian trustees on behalf of others
## **Declarations**
**The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.**
**Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
Signature Sarah Mason
Full name(s) Sarah Mason
Position Chair
Date
06 May 2026
**----- End of picture text -----**
||**Yorkshire Rewilding Network**|**Yorkshire Rewilding Network**|**Yorkshire Rewilding Network**|**Yorkshire Rewilding Network**|**CC16a**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**For the period**
**from**|01/08/2024|**To**|||
|||||||
|**Section A Receipts and payments**||||||
|**A1 Receipts**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**5,759**
**3,226**
**1,327**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**10,312**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**10,312**
**1,658**
**217**
**77**
**900**
**40**
**435**
**-**
**-**
**3,328**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**3,328**
**6,985**
**-**
**4,222**
**11,207**|**Restricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**9,000**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**9,000**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**9,000**
**9,838**
**1,502**
**-**
**11,340**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**11,340**
**- 2,340**
**2,340**
**-**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**
**5,759**
**3,226**
**9,000**
**1,327**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**19,312**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**19,312**
**1,658**
**217**
**77**
**10,738**
**40**
**1,937**
**-**
**-**
**14,668**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**14,668**
**4,645**|**Last year**
**to the nearest £**|
|Individual donation,inclgiftaid|**5,759**||**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**||**5,457**|
|Corporate donations|**3,226**||||**1,590**|
|Grants received|||||**3,000**|
|Event sales|**1,327**||||**1,500**|
||||||**-**|
||**-**||||**-**|
||**-**||||**-**|
||**-**||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for_
_AR)_|
**10,312**||||**11,547**|
|||||||
|**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**||||||
||**-**||**-**
**-**
**-**|||
||**-**||||**-**|
|~~**_Sub total_**~~|**-**||||**-**|
|**_Total receipts_**
**A3 Payments**||||||
||||**-**||**11,547**|
|||||||
|
Software and licences|**1,658**||**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**||**1,724**|
|Insurance|**217**||||**210**|
|Bank charges|**77**||||**72**|
|Contractors|**900**||||**8,404**|
|Postage and Stationery|**40**||||**102**|
|Event costs|**435**||||**-**|
||**-**||||**-**|
||**-**||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_ **|**3,328**||||**10,512**|
|||||||
|**A4 Asset and investment**
**purchases, (see table)**||||||
||**-**||**-**
**-**
**-**|||
||**-**|||||
|**_Sub total_ **|**-**||||**-**|
|**_Total payments_**
**_Net of receipts/(payments)_**
**A5 Transfers between funds**
**A6 Cash funds last year end**
**_Cash funds this year end_**||||||
||||**-**||**10,512**|
|||||||
||**6,985**||**-**||**1,035**|
||**-**||**-**
**-**|**-**
**6,562**|**-**|
||**4,222**||||**5,527**|
||**11,207**||
**-**|**11,207**|**6,562**|
CCXX R1 accounts (SS)
18/12/2025
1
**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**
|**Categories**
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees
**B5 Liabilities**
**B3 Investment assets**
**B2 Other monetary assets**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
**B1 Cash funds**|**Details**
None
**Details**
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))
None
Current account
**Details**
**Details**
None
**Details**
None
Signature|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**11,207**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**11,207**
**-**
OK
OK
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**liability relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
Print Name
J Davitt|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
|---|---|---|---|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||OK|
||||**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**When due**
**(optional)**|
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
||||Date of
approval|
|||J Davitt|03.12.25|
|||||
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)
18/12/2025
2