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2024-10-31-accounts

Hampshire History Trust

Registered Charity Number 1191377

Registered Address Winchester Business Hub, 32 St. Thomas Street, Winchester, Hampshire, SO23 9HJ

Trustees’ Annual Report

1st November 2023 to 31st October 2024

Trustees

The Trust is required to have at least 3 and no more than 12 trustees. During the year two of the founding trustees, Nicky Gottlieb and Robert Rees resigned at the end of their term of office.

Heritage Open Days was established in England in 1994 (as a contribution to the European Heritage Days) and has since grown into the country's largest community heritage festival. Despite this, Winchester hosted very few events in 2015. This all changed in 2016, when local resident Nicky Gottlieb decided that Heritage Open Days should be an integral part of the local cultural calendar, and she arranged that year a programme of over 40 free events in and around the city. In 2017, she was joined by another local resident, Becky Brown, and they worked voluntarily year-round to maintain and develop Winchester’s largest community heritage event. Expanding and diversifying from less than a dozen events in 2015 to 200 in 2024, Winchester Heritage Open Days is now flourishing.

Our thanks go to Nicky and all the Trustees who stepped down during the year for their hard work on behalf of the History Trust.

Hampshire History Trust was set up as a registered charity in 2020 to oversee Winchester Heritage Open Days, and to take on other projects to create opportunities to discover and

celebrate Hampshire’s rich and diverse history and heritage, giving long-term sustainability to those aims and the work required to make them happen.

Description of the charity’s trusts

  1. Hampshire History Trust is governed by a constitution document that was in place when the charity was incorporated and approved by the Charities Commission on 21[st] September 2020.

  2. Hampshire History Trust is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) (governed by the Foundation Constitution document).

  3. The founding trustees were appointed from the people who had developed the original projects (Winchester Heritage Open Days) and brought them to the current size and scale. Further trustees have been appointed to build a wider team with the appropriate skills and knowledge to support the aims of the charity and run it effectively.

Additional governance information

  1. New trustees are provided with the appropriate guidelines and information to allow them to undertake their roles effectively.

  2. The formal business of the charity is conducted through regular trustee meetings (typically quarterly) and actions are agreed and followed up regularly.

  3. Additional meetings of trustees (working groups) take place outside the boardroom to carry out the work of the trust and, where necessary, board decisions can be made via email.

  4. In the financial year the charity employed one part-time administrator to coordinate the Winchester Heritage Open Days festival alongside one of the founding trustees. The two main projects (Winchester Heritage Open Days and Hampshire HistBites) are supported by up to 20 part time volunteers at any one time.

  5. All Trust policies are accessible online by all trustees and key policies for volunteers are sent to them prior to them signing their volunteering agreement.

  6. The Trust has a risk management policy and associated risk register which is used to develop appropriate policies and procedures.

  7. The Trust’s lead sponsors in 2023/2024 were again Winchester College and Winchester BID.

  8. The Trust also has working relationships with the University of Winchester and Winchester Radio and is in regular communication with Hampshire Cultural Trust and Hampshire Archives Trust.

Objects

Hampshire History Trust has the following stated objects:

  1. To advance the arts, heritage, and culture for the public benefit by promoting and organising events, festivals, and workshops in and around Winchester, Hampshire with a particular focus on the development of a Winchester History Festival.

  2. To advance the education of the public (and particularly amongst those living in, working in, or visiting Hampshire) in the subjects of history and heritage by providing lectures and talks, guided walks, staging exhibitions, educational materials, podcasts and other similar educational activities and projects as the charity trustees think fit.

Activities

2024 saw a full programme of activities. Hampshire History Trust:

  1. Coordinated and promoted Winchester Heritage Open Days as a full live festival of events.

  2. Successfully developed fundraising activities

  3. a. Growth of our Friends scheme, to give supporters access to information and events as a thank you for their financial support.

  4. b. Dan Snow (historian, broadcaster and television presenter) gave a fundraising talk which was kindly hosted on our behalf by Winchester College.

  5. Resumed the HistBites podcasts with the release of Series 9

  6. Continued to develop the board structure and foundations of the Trust.

Achievements and performance

Winchester Heritage Open Days – 2024 Festival Review

The Festival

This year’s ninth annual Winchester Heritage Open Days festival, organised by Hampshire History Trust, took place from Friday 6 -Sunday 15 September 2024.

The 2024 theme was ‘Routes, Networks and Connections’. With close to 200 free events available across Hampshire ranging from talks, crafts, walking tours and museum open days, there was something for everyone to enjoy. They attracted 18,000+ visits – an increase of 20% on the previous year.

How did it go?

In 2024 41% of festival events were based around the city of Winchester (compared to 65% in 2023) but other events reached across Hampshire from the New Forest to Hayling Island, to Petersfield and northeast to Aldershot and Farnborough. Festival attendees engaged in the rich culture of Hampshire attending events throughout the county.

Among the most popular events were those allowing access to places not normally open to the public such as Merdon Castle and (IBM) Hursley Park.

Behind the Scenes

During the run up to the festival, we had over 112,000 visits to our website illustrating the huge interest in Hampshire’s history and heritage.

Our regular e-newsletter now has 2,356 subscribers, an increase of 18% on 2023. Our e-newsletters keep our supporters up to date with all the latest festival news including forthcoming events, volunteering opportunities, and other activities.

This year our box office opened on the 15[th] of July and over 620 tickets were booked in the first 4 days. Over 1,700 tickets were booked for the festival, and thousands of visitors enjoyed the wide range of “Just Turn Up” events. The ticket sales were slightly lower than the previous year, largely because 39 events took their own bookings rather than using our Ticketsource option.

Feedback

We again received some wonderful feedback from attendees. Among the comments were suggestions to try and include more places that are not normally accessible, walking tours, more family friendly events and more on early Winchester history.

Sponsors

Hampshire History Trust is grateful for the continuing support of our sponsors and funders, including Winchester College, Winchester BID and Hampshire County Council.

Local businesses supporting our work included Belgarum estate agents, Adam Architecture, Peter Marsh Consulting, Andrew Smith & Son, Warrens Office and Urban Green.

Supporters

We were grateful for the support of the Rupert & Elizabeth Nabarro Trust and Bakhaty Property in the year. Hampshire Chronicle continued to support with coverage of our activities during the year.

Our Friends Scheme, launched in 2023, allowing individuals to contribute to supporting our work, continued to grow through the year.

Fundraising Talks

We organised several talks during the year, including Dan Snow at Winchester College, and several smaller events kindly hosted by Adam Architecture at their offices. These events helped greatly with our funding for the year.

Patrons

John Pilkington (explorer and travel writer), our original patron who helped the charity come into existence, continued to provide support to our activities throughout the year and (as noted above) Dan Snow provided a talk in January to support our fundraising.

Hampshire HistBites

Having struggled to recruit new volunteers during 2023 (when the production of new content was paused), The HistBites podcasts resumed in 2024 as Series 9 was released.

Financial review

Reserves

Hampshire History Trust have a reserves policy which aims to support the charity in balancing short-term expenditure needs with longer term support to our activities and planned future events. Because our income is not ongoing or guaranteed, we need to hold reserves to ensure that we can continue to support our charitable activities in future months and years.

Reserves are unrestricted funds that are available to spend on our charitable purposes.

Reserves and funding requirements will be reviewed by Trustees as part of the annual budget

setting process and through regular Trustee meetings. Reserves will be needed to meet:

Details of any funds materially in deficit

  1. None to report

Financial review details

  1. Income for the year was £17,299

  2. a. Sponsorship income was generated from Winchester College, Winchester BID and Belgarum estate agents.

  3. b. A grant from Hampshire County Council also supported our work.

  4. c. Fundraising events, the Friends scheme and other donations made up the balance of income.

  5. The main outgoings in the period related to the production and promotional costs of the festival events and activities along with the costs of a part-time administrator to co-ordinate festival creation and running of the activities. Costs also include the software subscriptions to create and host the HistBites podcasts.

  6. The overall net surplus of £0.9K reported shows further progress in matching our funding with the costs of putting on all the activities that we provide.

  7. The trust ended the year with £14.4K of funds to support the growth of the charity and to provide the programme of Heritage Open Days in 2025.

  8. Detailed figures are provided in the accounts below.

i@l
CHARITY COMMISSION
FOR ENGLANDANDWALES		 i@l
CHARITY COMMISSION
FOR ENGLANDANDWALES		 Hampshire HistoryTrust
and		 Hampshire HistoryTrust
and		 Hampshire HistoryTrust
and		 accounts 1191377 1191377
Forthe period from 01-Nov-23 To 31-Oct-24
SectionA and
Unrestrictod
funds		 Restricted funds Endowment funds Total funds
to thenearestf, to the nearest g to the nearest€ to the nearest€
A
Sponsorship - Winchestar Colleqe 5,000 5.000
Sponsorship - Winchester Business
lmprovement District		 2,000 2,000
Sponsorship-Belgarum 1,000 1,000
Sponsorship - Other 1,335 1.335
Grants WinchesterCC/HampshireCC 500 500
Fundraisino Events 4,8'11 4.811
Friends Scheme 1,'t6E t.'t 68
Donations 1,483 1.483
Sub total(Gross rncomeforAR) 17,297 17,297
Totalreceiptslm l--.-7;.26v l-l
A3
Heritage OpenDays Festival
lilarketing 2,055 2,055
Festival co-ordinator costs 8,108 8,108
Venuecosts 'i.650 1,650
lT Costs 1,211 1,2't4
Other costs 112 't1
Histbites Podcasts 125 1.125
Fundraising Events '1,359 1.359
OverheadCosts
lT Costs 161 161
lnsurance 344 314
Other 278 278
Subtotal 14,756 1,650 16,406
r---l
r------i		 H
Netofreceipts/(payments)
A5Translersbetweenfunds
AOCashfundslast yearend
Cashfundsthis yearend
Totatpaymentr		 [-%El
2
11.441
14,		 I
1,650
1,650		 l-?rz6;l
-1
I
13,491
I
r+,sszI
BStatement of assets andliabilitiesatthe end assets andliabilitiesatthe end assets andliabilitiesatthe end oftheperiod
Unrestricted funds Restricted Endowment
*ategcrles Details funds funds
BlCashfunds Accounl
PayPalAccount		 tonearest €
't4,097
285		 tonearest €
t----l
++		 tonearestf
t----l
Total cashfunds 14,382 l-ll-l
(agreebalances withreceipts and paymentsacaunt(s))
Unrestrictedfunds Restricted Endowment
funds funds
tonearest e to nearest f, tonearestt
82Other monetary assets Prepaid lT costs 363
Fundto which asset Cost (optional)
83lnvestment assets
Fundto which asset Cost (optional) Current value
84Assetsretainedfor the
charity'sown use
Fundtowhich liability Amount due When due
B5Liabilities Other costs
Signedbyone or two trustees on behalf
of all the trustees		 Signature
d-91"4
*...
Y€n-		 Print Name Dateof
approval
L,,or,rorul
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