Equilore Trustees Annual Report
February 2025
Reporting period of 2nd April 2023- 1st April 2024
Charity Number 1190998
CIO registered
CONTENTS
Report of Trustees
Independent examiner’s report Statement of financial activities Balance sheet Notes to the financial statements Detailed statement of financial activities)
Charity Registration
Charity registered number: 1190998
Office Address 15 The Glades Launton OX26 5ED
Equilore Yard Park End Croughton NN13 5LX
Bankers
Charities Aid Foundation Bank Limited 25 King’s Hill Avenue King’s Hill West Malling Kent ME19 4JQ
Auditors
Lindsay Worville 24 Bridge Street Brackley Northamptonshire NN13 7EW
Contact Information
Telephone: 07787 402236 E-mail: info@equilore.co.uk Website: https://equilore.co.uk/
Trustees:
Felicity Mallam (Appointed 24/08/2020 - retired July 2024) Nichola Garratt (Appointed 24/08/2020 - Retired 01/06/2023) Neil Tindall (Chair) (Appointed 03/05/2022) Emma Wilberforce (Appointed 03/05/2022) Karen Webb (Appointed 29/11/2022) Camilla Behrens (Appointed 01/06/2023- Retired 02/08/2023)
Director:
Dr. Loes Koorenhof (Founder and appointed Director 05/04/2020)
Statement from Chair
Our year in bullet points:
As Equilore celebrated its third birthday, this year has been one of growth and progress for our charity with several key achievements to celebrate:
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Referral Partnerships : Having settled into our new location on the border of three counties,
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our beneficiaries now mostly come from of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and West Northamptonshire. From our new location we are supporting people from different communities around us. Feedback from West Northants Council stated ‘There is very little locally to support young people, we are so pleased to have found you’.
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Our referrals have changed significantly from being 50-50 adults - young people to being predominantly young people. We think the change in referrals is related to the impact of COVID which has seen many young people struggling to engage with education. We saw increased referrals from local schools, virtual schools and Oxfordshire Health.
• Charity Collaborations : We’ve built new collaborations with Bicester Autism and SAFE and continued the existing collaboration with The Hummingbird Centre. We had meetings and discussions about future collaborations with several other local organisations that we are hoping to build on in the future. We also supported families referred by another charity: Help for Heroes.
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Team Expansion : This year we invested in our team in order for the organisation to grow.
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From our reserves we strategically invested in 3 part time members of staff.
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In August we recruited admin support to help relieve some duties of our Director. For 10 hours a week our newly recruited dedicated member of staff assists with the book keeping, organising fundraising events and Community engagement events as well as setting up our Sponsor a Horse Scheme. Helping put Equilore on the map within our local communities.
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Between September and April we employed a dedicated fundraiser for a short term, who, with her Charity Founding background, also helped us sharpen up our recruitment procedures. In this short term several grants were successfully obtained allowing us to plan for growth in terms of service delivery.
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Having relied on our amazing volunteer groom for two years, she announced she had to move on. This meant we had to find a new groom. We employed a part time Head Groom and on the back of our community awareness work, were able to recruit a volunteer crew of 15 staff members to help us care for the horses.
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Safer Recruitment : We’ve developed and implemented robust safer recruitment procedures.
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Herd Growth : To deal with the increase in referrals we expanded our herd of horses from 4
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to 5. Planning in advance, that one of our horses was elderly and may not be able to carry on work for much longer, we welcomed a new horse, Zekie. Zekie changed the dynamics of the herd. And because he also had a difficult past, many of our clients have learnt valuable lessons from this horse already. His integration process within the herd often demonstrated several parallels to our clients who had difficulty settling into their school environment.
• Community Engagement : Through a clear marketing strategy, we’ve improved our outreach. Being part of several local Summer Fete’s and Festivals raised awareness of our work within the community and helped us attract our volunteer team. We continue to work on this strategy to ensure Equilore remains on people’s radar. Highlights include a sponsored photoshoot to produce brochures for potential referrers, and our annual Christmas open day, which welcomed ex-clients and community members to engage in a horse shoe decorating workshop.
• Fundraising Efforts : This year was the first year we really focussed on fundraising. It was our aim to to able to offer our services to those people in our community who would benefit from our specialised services but may not be able to afford it. Therapeutic work with horses is a very nice and therefore costly process. We have to cost of the care for the horses and specially trained staff who possess counselling as well as equine skills. We wrote to many trusts and foundations to explain about our work and our projects and with the help of our part time fundraiser managed to get an understanding of the funding world, securing several grants as well as a notable initiative from the Director raising £2500 by running for charity,
The Board is excited to look towards 2025, as we continue to work together to support such a new charity as it works to respond to its changing client group and growing demand. We are committed to advocating and explaining the unique benefits of Equine Facilitated Therapy especially for those who struggle to verbalise the complexities of their mental health.
Thank you for your continued support as we look forward to another successful year ahead.
Introduction
The trustees present their report with the financial statements of the charity for the year ended 1st April 2024. The trustees have adopted the provisions of Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2019).
Objectives and how we met them:
(1) To provide animal-assisted interventions (predominantly, but not limited to, equine) to children, young people and adults in need of support.
Similar to last year, we provided Equine Assisted Interventions to 80 new referrals. 80% of these were under 18’s in contrast to last year when 69% of referrals were under 18. The current trend of our beneficiaries declining age is persisting. In our early years Equilore predominantly supported self referring adults. Now, we work more with referrals, although we still take self referrals, and the people referred tend to be children and young people. We speculate the cost of living crisis and the COVID Pandemic to contribute to this change. Similar to last year, 68% clients referred to themselves as female.
(2) Promote social and educational inclusion by relieving the needs of people who experience/d lack of opportunity and assisting them to integrate with society through interaction with horses.
The trend of increased referrals from schools who are looking for support for young people continued. We facilitated groups for local schools supporting young people who’s anxiety was such that they struggled to attend their lessons. Often these young people had a diagnosis of ASD and ADHD. Additionally, we saw more young people who after dropping out of school were now being home educated. Additionally, we supported 8 young people on a 1:1 basis because their
mental health challenges made school attendance impossible. All the young people we supported have reengaged in education again.
We offered work experience places to local college students and welcomed several DuFE students who needed to complete their voluntary work.
(3) Fill a gap in service provision for those who are finding it hard to engage with traditional room-based therapies or are on long waiting lists at oversubscribed existing services.
Most of the young people attending Equilore have found it difficult to engage with traditional services. Either the services are described as too direct, there is a lack of trust in those institutions offering the services or people report it is difficult to verbalise their feelings. Working with our herd of horses, our beneficiaries get a felt sense of what they would like to feel/ be. We turn around our referrals within a 6-week period. Our turn around on referrals marked as urgent has been even quicker.
(4) To support parents and professionals (including but not limited to social workers, teachers, psychologists) working with children and young people who need support.
Whilst honouring the confidentiality of our sessions, we have worked closely with parents, teachers and other professionals around the family (i.e. social worker, family therapists etc) to support the young people as best as possible in their mental health journey. Often our equine approach, which focuses on reading body language and the internal drive of the young person in question, helps the team around the young person to offer more suitable support.
(5) To promote the benefits of animal-assisted and nature-based therapies as an alternative therapy form within the standard healthcare setting.
Our photoshoot in March, followed by our new brochures ensured we have some marketing material to send out to schools and other services that support young people. In delivering services to Local Authorities, Schools, Adoption Support, and Social Services, our successes in supporting young people who have disengaged with traditional services, are being recognised. Attending multi disciplinary meetings and delivering progress reports to other professionals are evidencing the outcomes of our sessions.
(6) To advance our understanding of the power of animal-assisted and nature-based interventions through research collaborations with universities.
We continue to provide data for research projects and have joined HETI (The Federation of Horses in Education and Therapy International). HETI supports and looks to collaborate in research in horse-human interaction. We joined HETI with the aim to partake in the UK’s largest research collaboration between different EAS centre’s. Furthering our desire to work towards an evidence based intervention. We are supporting school projects of our young volunteers who have shown an interest in this topic.
(7) To test and evidence the equine-assisted interventions in order to evaluate outcomes and improve service delivery.
We gather feedback from our clients where suitable. Testimonials and goals based outcomes are used to provide referrers with an evaluation of our services. We have implemented a standardised measure to validate the effectiveness of our services.
2023-2024 in pittures: .111,4 2023-2024 Our year in pictures
Public benefit
The general charitable purposes, aims and policies of Equilore, financial reserves, staff remuneration and risk management are reviewed regularly by the Trustees.
When reviewing Equilore’s aims and objectives, devising the new programmes and setting the budget for the year, the Trustees confirm that they have referred to the latest information contained in the Charity Commission’s general guidance on public benefit and complied with their duty under Section 4 of the Charities Acts 2006 and 2011.
The Charity’s main aim, as stated in the constitution, states "To relieve the needs of people who are socially or economically disadvantaged and as a result disengaged from society.”.
Financial Review
Income and Expenditure
In the period 02/04/2023 - 01/04/2024 Equilore’s income was £61,123 and expenditure £70,444 (compared to £59,739 and £57,260 respectively last year).
Overall, the charity spent more than it received in the year; this has resulted in a reduction to cash reserves of £9.3k. The charity started the year with £26.1k cash reserves and closed with £16.8k. This was due to a planned investment in staff to allow for organisational growth.
The main variances contributing to this cash reserve reduction are:
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Overall income from service delivery (our main income source prior to engaging in more fundraising) were slightly higher, £61.1k compared with £59.7k the previous year.
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Higher wages and salaries - £49.7k (was £39.3k in 2022-23) Higher cost this year due to more paid help; one of which was a temporary fundraiser who subsequently helped us bridge our spending gap.
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Higher Rent & Rates - £9.6k (was £8.8k in 2022-23) and by higher electricity costs.
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A particularly wet spring has us spending more on Tack, Feed & Bedding Costs £2.7k (was £1.7k in 2022-23). These are general increases, nothing particularly out of the ordinary.
As demand for our services grew, income grew. This enabled, and required, an increase in staff costs. We have been able to reduce our staffing costs by expanding our volunteer team.
Reserves Policy
Equilore employs a reserves policy to cover six months of operational costs (£35,222). This policy has been reviewed as the charity grows to ensure the set limit remains adequate. Especially so because we deal with live stock. The trustees confirm that the charity holds adequate funds to meet its reserves policy. Our reserves to date stand at £35,000 of unrestricted funds with £16,560 as restricted funds from grant funding for specific projects . These funds are held in order to meet future expenditure.
Structure, Governance and Management
Equilore is a CIO registered with the charity commission on 24/08/2020 date under registration number 1190998
Trustees
Equilore is overseen by a Board of five trustees. In the first year of Equilore’s existence, the trustees met every quarter, and recently increased this frequency to bimonthly. In this reporting period, we said goodbye to one of our trustees, and Neil Tindall took over as Chair from Felicity Mallam.
The trustees all provide their time and services for free. No trustee received remuneration or expenses in the period covered by this report.
Apart from the first trustees, all Board members have a minimum term of 3 years of office. This ensures a retention of knowledge whilst also ensuring the opportunity for fresh perspectives and approaches with new trustees.
Organisation/structure
Equilore is a CIO, governed by a Board of trustees, recruited from the general public. The everyday management of the charity is delegated from the Board to the Director.
The charity operates with a small team consisting of 1 part time Equine Facilitated Psychotherapist who works clinically alongside the Director, 1 group facilitator, an admin assistant, 1 Head Groom these are paid positions. We benefited from a short term employment of a fundraising specialist.
The charity is incredibly lucky to have a wealth of support from volunteers on a regular basis. Our core team of volunteers grew to 15 this year. We have a high retention rate of volunteers who support the care of horses, field and stable management. The charity does not rely on any donated facilities, donated services, or other donations in kind or other intangibles.
Risk Statement
The Trustees will undertake a risk audit every two years with an assurance audit in the intervening years. Our risk register is reviewed and updated at each board meeting.
The Trustees have considered the major risks and uncertainties to which the charity is presently exposed and the systems and procedures to manage those risks. The Trustees identify the reliance on the Director as primary income generator and the increase in staff costs associated with minimising this risk as the biggest risk facing the charity in the short to medium term.
Key risks identified by the Trustees
(1) Risk: Severely reduced income when Director falls ill
Key mitigating controls already in place:
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Expand cover with additional therapists
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Developed strategic development plan to set out financial objectives and road map
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Implementation of fundraising strategy
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Continue to generate a network of reliable volunteers who could take on operating the yard in case of absence of Director.
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Regular review of financial performance to manage costs and monitor forecast for forthcoming quarter to identify potential gaps in funding.
(2) Risk: Reputational damage :
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Potential and actual conflicts of interests
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Charges of discrimination, unfairness and breach of trust
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Safeguarding
Key mitigating controls already in place:
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Formal Conflict of Interests policy
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Formal policies covering complaints, confidentiality and equal opportunities
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DBS checks of all staff and regular volunteers who have direct involvement with our clients
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Safeguarding training for trustees and staff every three years
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Trustee trained and with dedicated Safeguarding oversight
Statement of responsibility of Board of Trustees
The Trustees are responsible for preparing the Trustees’ Report and financial statements in accordance with applicable law and regulations.
Charity law requires the Trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (United Kingdom Accounting Standards and applicable law). Under charity law the Trustees must not approve the financial statements unless they are satisfied that they give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity, including the incoming resources and the application of resources, including income and expenditure, of the charity for that period. In preparing these financial statements, the Trustees are required to:
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Select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently.
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Observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP.
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Make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent.
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Prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in operation.
The Trustees are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that are sufficient to show and explain the charity’s transactions and disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and which enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Charities Act 2011. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.
Neil Tindall, Chair of Equilore Board of Trustees
Loes Koorenhof, Director of Equilore.
Equilore 1190998 Receipts and payments accounts CC16a For the period 02/04/2023 01/04/2024 To from
| Section A Receipts and payments | Section A Receipts and payments | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1 Receipts | Unrestricted funds to the nearest £ 51,864 3,394 1,443 4,422 - - 61,123 - - - 61,123 49,736 9,550 808 - 1,124 530 2,693 622 322 - 60 640 1,483 424 200 1,548 704 - 70,444 - - - 70,444 - 9,321 - 26,077 16,756 |
Restricted funds to the nearest £ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Endowment funds to the nearest £ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Total funds to the nearest £ 51,864 - 3,394 1,443 4,422 - - - 61,123 - - - 61,123 49,736 9,550 808 - 1,124 530 2,693 622 322 - 60 640 1,483 424 200 1,548 704 - 70,444 - - - 70,444 - 9,321 |
Last year to the nearest £ |
|
| Private clients | 51,864 | 39,100 | ||||
| Referral income | 7,940 | |||||
| Livery | 3,394 | 3,680 | ||||
| Other Income | 1,443 | 367 | ||||
| Donations and Grants received | 4,422 | 8,652 | ||||
| - | ||||||
| - | - | |||||
| - | - | |||||
| Sub total(Gross income for AR) |
61,123 | 59,739 | ||||
| A2 Asset and investment sales, (see table). |
||||||
| - | ||||||
| - | - | |||||
| Sub total | - | - | ||||
| Total receipts A3 Payments |
||||||
| 59,739 | ||||||
| Wages and salaries | 49,736 | 39,267 | ||||
| Rent and rates | 9,550 | 8,808 | ||||
| Veterinarycosts | 808 | 2,388 | ||||
| Repairs and maintenance | - | 23 | ||||
| Insurance | 1,124 | 1,392 | ||||
| Hayand straw | 530 | 420 | ||||
| Tack,feed and beddingcosts | 2,693 | 1,703 | ||||
| Telephone | 622 | - | ||||
| CPD | 322 | 430 | ||||
| Refreshments | - | 71 | ||||
| Bank Charges | 60 | 72 | ||||
| Farrier | 640 | 400 | ||||
| Equipment | 1,483 | - | ||||
| IT & Subscriptions | 424 | 23 | ||||
| Equine Dentist | 200 | 160 | ||||
| Professional Fees | 1,548 | 1,773 | ||||
| Office Costs | 704 | 331 | ||||
| - | - | |||||
| **Sub total ** | 70,444 | 57,260 | ||||
| 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 |
||||||
| 57,260 | ||||||
| - 9,321 | - | - | - 9,321 | 2,478 | ||
| - | - | - | - | - | ||
| 26,077 | - | - | 26,077 | - | ||
| 16,756 | - | - | 16,756 | 2,478 |
CCXX R1 accounts (SS)
09/12/2024
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 B1 Cash funds B2 Other monetary assets B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use B5 Liabilities B3 Investment assets |
Signature Details Details CAF Account Lloyds Account Details Details Total cash funds (agree balances with receipts and payments account(s)) Details |
Unrestricted funds Restricted funds to nearest £ to nearest £ 14,084 - 2,671 - - - 16,756 - 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 |
Endowment funds to nearest £ |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| OK | |||
| Endowment funds to nearest £ |
|||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| Current value (optional) |
|||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| Current value (optional) |
|||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| When due (optional) |
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| Date of approval |
|||
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)
09/12/2024
2
Independent examiner's report on the accounts
Section A Independent Examiner’s Report
| Report to the trustees/ members of On accounts for the year ended Set out on pages |
Charity Name Equilore |
Charity Name Equilore |
Charity Name Equilore |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1stApril 2024 | Charity no (if any) |
1190998 | |
| 3-4 (remember to include the page numbers of additional sheets) |
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 01/04/2024. Responsibilities and As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the basis of report accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”).
I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.
Independent I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examiner's statement come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:
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the accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Charities Act; or
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the accounts did not accord with the accounting records; or
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the accounts did not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a ‘true and fair’ view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination.
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
Signed: Date: 09/12/2024 Name: Lindsay Worville, BrackBridge Ltd Relevant professional ACMA qualification(s) or body (if any): Address: 24 Bridge Street Brackley NN13 7EW
Oct 2018
1
IER
Section B Disclosure
Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight material matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).
Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .
Oct 2018
2
IER