**HM FORAGE water for a better life**
## **HM Forage Annual Return of Activity 2023-2024**
In April 2023 three of the Trustees visited The Gambia. to finalise the registration of HM Forage Gambia, set-up our base for operations in The Gambia and interview potential staff. This turned out to be a pivotal visit for the organisation.
This was the first opportunity the Trustees had to inspect the stored drilling equipment, and it was confirmed that the crates collected from the port were HM Forage’s and all had arrived. It gave Trustees the opportunity to narrow the options for a permanent base for our offices in The Gambia, as the landlord outlined, they were happy to adjust the temporary store to meet HM Forage’s needs and offered a lease with very reasonable terms.
Trustees met with the Minister of Water and Fisheries to introduce HM Forage and outline the work we were looking to carry out in The Gambia. This enhanced the Trustees understanding of how to operate as a non-government organisation (NGO) in The Gambia and led to the constitution of HM Forage Gambia being modified before registration with the Minister of Justice and The Gambian tax authorities.
Identifying potential staff with the skills to lead the drilling operations was a crucial part of this trip and Trustees met an experienced engineer currently working in the drilling industry. The Trustees felt that this engineer had the knowledge, expertise, and ability to manage operations, and were confident that they had found the right person. Discussions with the individual were productive and they agreed to join HM Forage when we were able to employ staff. The Trustees took the opportunity to draw on the individuals' expertise, who inspected the drilling equipment and gave their opinion on the size of the team that would be required to operate it, how it should be transported and what vehicles would be required to move the equipment and staff.
During this trip, Trustees also investigated opening a bank account for the organisation in The Gambia and identified a Gambian individual to act as an administrator for HM Forage Gambia.
The April 2023 trip was built on over the next few months, with the building work being completed on the premises in May 2023 and a yearly lease signed. We contracted the engineer we had previously met as a Drill Operations Supervisor to start in August 2023 and in July 2023 purchased a truck in The Gambia to transport the drilling equipment. July also saw us travel to Holland to purchase two further vehicles to be exported to The Gambia for our operations.
After the Drill Operations Supervisor started In August 2023 we arranged with Village Drill, the suppliers of our equipment, to provide training on building the drill and its operation. This was planned for September 2023 with a trainer flying in from Kenya. This gave the supervisor a month to identify five other local Gambians to join the drilling team.
The team was joined on 10[th] September by two Trustees for the training, which was expected to be carried out the charity’s leased premises. However, our Drill Operations Supervisor secured a contract for drilling a basic well with no pump in the village of Gida, and to drill a borehole at house of a local family in the village of Sare-Pateh. Trustees reported that this was an excellent five days, which confirmed we had made a great choice in contracting the Drill Operations Supervisor whose knowledge and management skills were impeccable. The team worked well together and drilled to provide the customers with crystal clear water. Described by a Trustee as “the sweetest water I have ever tasted”.
Before returning to the UK our Trustees opened an account at the Zenith Bank for HM Forage Gambia adding our Drill Operations Supervisor and Administrator as joint signatories, with agreed signatory levels and instruction for statements to be sent electronically to Trustees in the UK.
September 2023 ended very positively for HM Forage. We were given the opportunity to tender, and was successful in winning, a contract to drill eight wells in the neighbouring country of Guinea Bissau for another NGO. This was a 3 to 4 month contract which had several legal hurdles to overcome before it could be undertaken. Our team in The Gambia worked hard to purchase all the parts required, and get all permissions, certificates and visas in place for the drilling team to leave for Guinea Bissau on 8[th] October 2023.
By 13[th] October work was well underway, and the Drill Operations Supervisor reported to the Trustees on a successful drilling of the first well in Guinea Bissau in the community of Njochteh. This drilling had taken 2 days and was very challenging due to having to penetrate rock. The team moved on to Abocca and despite drilling two boreholes they were unable to find water. This disappointment did not deter the team, and they moved on to a third village, Umaru Cosse. Again, it was very challenging as the team spent 2 weeks penetrating hard rock down to 57 metres, but their efforts were not in vain as they finally struck clean water.
Whilst the team were away in October 2023 the two vehicles purchased in Holland were delivered to The Gambia and founding Trustee Howard Measham flew to The Gambia to arrange customs clearance and delivery to our team in The Gambia.
In early November 2023 Howard was joined in The Gambia by our UK Secretary (Trustee Graham Hawkes), who worked with the Gambian Secretary to set up the processes for financial reporting to the Trustees, the Gambian Revenue Authority and the Social Security and Housing Finance Corporation. This is enabling our UK Secretary who is in receipt of our Zenith Bank statements to monitor how funds are being used in The Gambia.
Our drilling team continued to drill into December 2023 with mixed success. In the fourth community of Pet-Colobah they drilled two boreholes. The first was abandoned due to collapsing earth and the second found water but it was unfortunately saline due to the community’s proximity to the sea. The drilling at the fifth community of Nhinte however successfully found clean drinking water at 50 meters.
The team returned to The Gambia for their Christmas break having successfully found water in three of the wells they had drilled, having gained a lot of experience and knowledge from there trip to Guinea Bissau.
In January 2024 the team returned to Guinea Bissau to complete the contract. This unfortunately ended in disappointment as faced by deep rock formations they were unable to find water in the other communities they visited. However, they had
impressed the NGO they had been working with and discussions were already taking place to work together in other communities in Guinea Bissau.
Following his return from The Gambia in early December 2023 our Founder and Chairman Howard Measham became seriously ill and the Trustees were deeply saddened and devastated by the news at the end of March 2023 that he had died.
The remaining Trustees are committed to fulfilling Howard’s legacy and plan to build on the success of this year. We plan to work with the Drill Operations Supervisor to secure new contracts for HM Forage Gambia and look forward to being able to continue our work in The Gambia and surrounding countries, to provide employment to local people and bring clean water to African communities in Howard’s memory.
## Graham Hawkes, Chairman and Trustee
Account approved at a meeting of the Trustees on 21st September 2024.
**In the memory of Howard Measham 1930 – 2024**
## **Registered Charity Number:**
1192132
## **Registered and Correspondence Address:**
30 Sydney Road
Newquay
Cornwall
TR7 1NQ
**Trustees:**
Graham Hawkes
Tim Greenwood
Will Luff
0
|**HM Forage**|||**1192132**||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|**Receipts andpayments accounts**||||**CC16a**|
|**For the period**
**from**|01/04/2023|**To**|31/03/2024||
|**Section A Receipts and payments**|**Section A Receipts and payments**||||**Last year**
**to the nearest £**
**14,427**
**9**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**14,436**
**-**
**-**
**14,436**
**13,857**
**151**
**3,309**
**80**
**1,038**
**72**
**-**
**-**
**18,507**
**-**
**18,507**
**- 4,071**
**-**
**10,792**
**6,721**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**A1 Receipts**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**Restricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**27,499**
**9**
**2,635**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**30,143**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**30,143**
**28,346**
**-**
**197**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**60**
**-**
**-**
**28,603**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**28,603**
**1,540**
**-**
**6,721**
**8,261**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**||
|Donations|**-**||**-**|**27,499**
**9**
**2,635**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**30,143**|**14,427**|
|Interest|**-**||**-**||**9**|
|Income from charitable works|**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**
**-**||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for AR)_|**-**||||**14,436**|
|||||||
|**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**||||||
||**-**||**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**||
||**-**||**-**
**-**||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**|**-**||||**-**|
|**_Total receipts_ **
**A3 Payments**||||||
||||**-**|**30,143**|**14,436**|
|||||||
|Charitable activities|**-**||**-**|**28,346**
**-**
**197**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**60**
**-**
**-**
**28,603**||
|Equipment|**-**||**-**||**13,857**|
|I.T.|**-**||**-**||**151**|
|Travel|**-**||**-**||**3,309**|
|Accomodation|**-**||**-**||**80**|
|Legal|**-**||**-**||**1,038**|
|Bank Fees|**-**||**-**||**72**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**
**-**||**-**|
|**_Sub total_ **|**-**||||**18,507**|
|||||||
|**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_**||||||
||||**-**|**28,603**|**18,507**|
|||||||
||**-**||**-**|**1,540**|**- 4,071**|
||**-**||**-**|**-**
**6,721**|**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**10,792**|
||**-**||**-**|**8,261**|**6,721**|
## **Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**
|**Categories**
**B1 Cash funds**|CAF Bank
Metro Bank
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))
**Details**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|||**-**|**7,580**
**2**
**-**|**6,040**|
|||**-**||**681**|
|||**-**||**-**|
|||**-**|**7,582**|**6,721**|
|||OK
**Unrestricted**
**funds**|Agreement Error
**Restricted**
**funds**|Agreement Error|
|||||**Endowment**
**funds**|
|Signed by one or two trustees on behalf
of all the trustees
**B5 Liabilities**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
**B3 Investment assets**
**B2 Other monetary assets**|
Signature
**Details**
**Details**
**Details**
**Details**|**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
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**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**liability relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
Print Name
GRAHAM HAWKES|**to nearest £**|
|---|---|---|---|
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||||Date of
approval|
|||GRAHAM HAWKES|21/09/2024|
|||||
To Whom it mayconoern.
I have reviewed the accounts of HM Forage as submitted tothe British Charity
Commission and everythingappears to be in order.
B8rry Richardson
Tel: +44 7931773013
Emall: barry@myfathersbusiness.co.uk