## **Trustees' Annual Report for the period**
Period start date Period end date Day Month Year Day Month Year **From** 1 1 2023 **To** 31 12 2023
## Section A Reference and administration details
**Charity name Other names charity is known by**
Merseyside County RAYNET
Merseyside RAYNET
> **Registered charity number (if any)** 1192411
**Charity's principal address** 90 Plymyard Ave
Bromborough Wirral **Postcode** CH62 6BR
## **Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity**
|1
2
3
4|**Trustee name**|**Office (if any)**|**Dates acted if not for whole**
**year**|**Name of person (or body) entitled**
**to appoint trustee(if any)**|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||Mr S A Wood|Chair / Secretary|||
||Mr L J T Boylan|Treasurer|||
||Mr A Ward||||
||Mr P A Robinson||13/04/2023 - 31/12/2023||
**Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)**
**Name Dates acted if not for whole year**
## **Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)**
**Type of adviser Name Address**
## **Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)**
## **Section B Structure, governance and management**
## **Description of the charity’s trusts**
Constitution 19 November 2020 as amended on 15 Apr 2023. Type of governing document
- (eg. trust deed, constitution)
Charitable Incorporated Organisation - Association How the charity is constituted
- (eg. trust, association, company)
**TAR**
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1
Trustees are appointed or reappointed annually at the Annual General Meeting held in April.
Trustee selection methods (eg. appointed by, elected by)
## **Additional governance issues (Optional information)**
You **may choose** to include additional information, where relevant, about:
- policies and procedures adopted for the induction and training of trustees;
- the charity’s organisational structure and any wider network with which the charity works;
- relationship with any related parties;
- trustees’ consideration of major risks and the system and procedures to manage them.
Merseyside County RAYNET is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) with voting members other than its charity trustees and was first Registered on 19 November 2020.
The **day to day running** of Merseyside RAYNET is overseen by the Merseyside County RAYNET Committee and the Committee seeks the views of all RAYNET members on Merseyside. Full Membership of the Committee is at the discretion of the Committee and is open to persons aged 18 or over, having demonstrable interest in furtherance of the Committee’s objects.
Merseyside RAYNET is a member of the Merseyside Local Authorities’ Local Resilience Forum (LRF) Telecoms Working Group, and the LRF Community Resilience Working Group, through which we plan and coordinate our **services** . RAYNET can also be called upon at any time by any of the emergency services and is an integral part of the Merseyside Resilience Forum UNITY Plan and the Merseyside Emergency Response Plan.
RAYNET members are registered members of RAYNET-UK and are subject to RAYNET-UK codes of conduct. RAYNET-UK also provides members insurance cover for Public Liability and Personal Accident.
## **Section C Objectives and activities**
**Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document**
The objects of the Group are the protection of human life and property for the public benefit, by providing an additional source of communications for emergencies or disasters or the prevention thereof.
We provide a freely accessible Merseyside wide communication system for civil emergencies, search and rescue, and community events.
In planning our **activities** for the year we kept in mind the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit.
Our main purposes and activities are as follows:
(i) To assist the Local Authorities’ Resilience Forum, the emergency services, and other organisations involved in rescue services and in **Summary of the main** protecting human life and property in the event of a local or national **activities undertaken for the** emergency, or public event, by supplementing existing communications **public benefit in relation to** or providing alternative forms of communications. **these objects (include within** (ii) To provide: (a) a team of trained and equipped volunteers/radio **this section the statutory** operators to undertake the purposes of Merseyside RAYNET; (b) a **declaration that trustees have** Merseyside wide PBR Repeater system, and flexible communication **had regard to the guidance** facilities, to undertake the purposes of Merseyside RAYNET. **issued by the Charity** (iii) To assist organisations that provide activities in the interests of social **Commission on public** welfare for recreation and other leisure time occupations with the object **benefit)** of improving conditions of life, health and wellbeing, and public safety; by supplementing existing communications or providing alternative forms of communications.
(iv) To promote such other charitable purposes as may from time to time be determined by the Merseyside County RAYNET Committee.
**TAR**
March **2012**
2
The direct benefits flowing from our organisation’s purposes are:
The particular relevance of our role where the communications of the frontline emergency services, and the public, have become compromised such as for instance at major events or emergencies when the mobile phone network fails and/or becomes overloaded.
An improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of charities, and organisations whose purposes are charitable, in direct pursuit of their objects by the provision of resilient communications and ancillary services.
Event organisers that do not have their own communications expertise or equipment are able to ensure public safety and security at their activities in a flexible, cost effective, and sympathetic way.
A direct public benefit from purpose (i) above, our involvement in supporting the Local Authorities’ Resilience Forum, the emergency services, and other organisations involved in rescue services and protecting human life and property, is that the additional capacity, the interoperability our systems offer, and the resilience of our systems enhance the effectiveness of the emergency response and can help provide a more beneficial outcome for members of the community affected. Some of the voluntary emergency responders benefit from relying on our communication systems, either entirely, or as a supplementary resource.
The direct public benefit that flows from purpose (iii) above is the increased efficiency and effectiveness of the community and voluntary groups and organisations that use the facilities, resulting in enhanced outcomes and service delivery, and consequently, improved quality of life for those who benefit from the work of these groups and organisations.
Some of the organisations would be unable to operate their activities, or activities on such a scale, without our support. Therefore an indirect public benefit is increased opportunities to engage in new activities that bring people together, leading to greater social cohesion and fulfilment, enhanced active citizenship, and involvement in community life.
## Specifically:
Purpose (ii) above: A direct benefit is that the lead organisation for a community event, and the emergency services in the event of a local emergency, can delegate less urgent/routine activities allowing more of their resources to be deployed to front line more urgent tasks.
Purpose (iv) above: Many of the events we support raise money for specific charities and over the years we have helped to raise millions of pounds for good causes.
## **Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)**
You **may choose** to include further statements, where relevant, about:
All trustees, other members of the Committee, and RAYNET members, give their time voluntarily and receive no remuneration or other benefits.
- policy on grantmaking;
- policy programme related investment;
- contribution made by volunteers.
**TAR**
March **2012**
3
Section D Achievements and performance
Throughout 2023 our MEARL Community Repeater system continued to **Summary of the main** provide 24/7/365 operational communications facilities for Merseyside **achievements of the charity** Search and Rescue as well as standby communications for: St John **during the year** Ambulance Merseyside; the local authorities; and the voluntary organisations involved in the Merseyside Resilience Forum UNITY Plan. The MEARL System was remotely monitored and operationally tested several times a week throughout 2023 to ensure 24/7/365 readiness, and members own equipment was maintained at Standby Status Green - ready to go, charged and readily accessible. Events supported in 2023 included: • April: Provision of comms and safety for the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation “Adventures in Wonderland” sponsored walk. • June: Annual provision of comms for the Wirral Coastal Walk. Supporting the Wirral Branch of Rotary International - one of the MRF Voluntary Sector Partners. Ensuring our provision remains appropriate to the needs of other MRF voluntary partners’ abilities and requirements. • June: Annual MOD Exercise Blue Ham. Practical exercise communicating with Air Cadets and their supervising Officers. Maintaining awareness of MOD’s protocols and procedures. • June: Wirral Endurance Horse Ride – as well as supporting a local community charity this allowed us to practice collating and passing event situation reports and management information. Support involved setting up specialist Amateur Radio equipment, and using our MEARL PBR handhelds operated by the organisers. • June: Provided management and safety coms support along the route for the Rainford Walking Day Parade. • June: Provided back-up communications in support of St John Ambulance at the Southport Armed Forces Day Parade. • July: Took part in the National RAYNET NVIS test across the UK • October: DMR Awareness / Training day We participated in the National government Exercise Mighty Oak concerning a National Power Outage (NPO) scenario, as well as completing our resilience arrangements in the event of local power shedding, and providing information and advice to the Community Resilience member groups regarding the imminent PSTN telephone shut down and the effect this would have on their own callout procedures under the Local Authority Emergency Plan. Throughout 2023 RAYNET has continued to attend the Merseyside Resilience Forum Telecoms Working Group alongside the blue light and other Category 1 and 2 Responders and the Merseyside Community Resilience Working Group where we have a key place providing expertise regarding communications. Although we have lost a handful of members due to retirement we have continued to attract new members and our membership is stable. However our committee has reduced in size and in April 2023 we changed our Articles of Association, and Constitution, Quorum for meetings to “ _50%+1 of members_ ” in order to ensure it would be easier to achieve a quorum.
**TAR**
March **2012**
4
## **Section E Financial review**
**Brief statement of the charity’s policy on reserves**
Cash at the bank at 31/12/2023 was £4861.18 in unrestricted funds. The main financial risk to the charity is loss of funding from the Local Authorities and reduced donations.
Sufficient funds are held to cover each 12 month operational programme costs in the event of a loss of income and to meet any unforeseen expenditure that may occur
**Details of any funds materially** Not applicable **in deficit**
## **Further financial review details (Optional information)**
You **may choose** to include additional information, where relevant about:
- the charity’s principal sources of funds (including any fundraising);
- how expenditure has supported the key objectives of the charity;
- investment policy and objectives including any ethical investment policy adopted.
Our principal source of funds this year has again been the regular annual grant of £1575 from the Merseyside Local Authorities. Income from the usual community and charitable events that we provide services for remained reduced. However the cash reserves at the financial year end remain approximately the same as the previous year end.
The major expenditure this year has again been the running and upkeep of the Mobile Control Vehicle, upkeep of the MEARL Repeaters, and our OFCOM area wide repeater radio licence.
We will continue to support charitable and community events during 2024; not just to assist their own charitable aims but to keep and develop our existing skills, and as a source of income through donations received from the event organisers.
## **Section F Other optional information**
## Future Plans
Exercise Mighty Oak, a major National Exercise took place in 2023, and in 2024 we will continue to strengthen our role in co-ordinating the support of other Radio Amateurs expected to come forward spontaneously in the event of an extended local or National Power Outage. In collaboration with the Merseyside Resilience Forum Community Resilience Working Group we will support other voluntary agencies regarding alternative call-out procedures and ongoing communications in the event of a sudden immediate power outage – particularly in respect of the effect of the rolling out of the replacement of the PSTN phone network with digital optical fibre.
## **Section G Declaration**
**The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.**
**Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees**
**Signature(s) Full name(s)** Stanley Alexander Wood Lee James Thomas Boylan **Position (eg Secretary, Chair,** Secretary Treasurer **etc) Date** 17/04/2024
**TAR**
March **2012**
5
||**Charity Name**
**Merseyside County RAYNET**|**Charity Name**
**Merseyside County RAYNET**|**Charity Name**
**Merseyside County RAYNET**|**Charity Name**
**Merseyside County RAYNET**|**Charity Name**
**Merseyside County RAYNET**|**No (if any)**
**1192411**|**No (if any)**
**1192411**|**No (if any)**
**1192411**|**CC16a**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**For the period**
**from**||Period start date
01/01/2023||**To**||Period end date
31/12/2023|||
|||||||||||
|**Section A Receipts and payments**||||||||||
|**A1 Receipts**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**600**
**1,575**
**-**
**100**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**2,275**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**2,275**
**787**
**643**
**250**
**116**
**56**
**-**
**315**
**-**
**-**
**-**||**Restricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**||**Endowment**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**||**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**
**600**
**1,575**
**-**
**100**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**2,275**
**-**
**-**
**-**||**Last year**
**to the nearest £**|
|Events|**600**||||||||**571**|
|Grants|**1,575**||||||||**1,575**|
|From Groups to County|**-**||||||||**150**|
|Misc Income|**100**||||||||**1,598**|
||**-**||||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for_
_AR)_|**2,275**||||||||**3,894**|
|||||||||||
|**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**||||||||||
||**-**||||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**|**-**||||||||**-**|
|**_Total receipts_**
**A3 Payments**||||||||||
||||||||**2,275**||**3,894**|
||||||||**787**
**643**
**250**
**116**
**56**
**-**
**315**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**2,167**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**2,167**
**108**|||
|2020 Vehicle Insurance,Tax,MOT|**787**||**-**||**-**||**787**||**756**|
|MCV RunningCosts|**643**||**-**||**-**||**643**||**-**|
|OFCOM Licence|**250**||**-**||**-**||**250**||**250**|
|GroupMemberships|**116**||**-**||**-**||**116**||**-**|
|Insurance|**56**||**-**||**-**||**56**||**225**|
|2021 Bank Charges - Total for 2021|**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**17**|
|Misc Expenditure|**315**||**-**||**-**||**315**||**683**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
|**_Sub total_ **|**2,167**||**-**||**-**||**2,167**||**1,931**|
|||||||||||
|**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_**||||||||||
||||||||||**1,931**|
|||||||||||
||**108**||||||**108**||**1,963**|
||**-**||||||**-**||**-**|
||**4,754**||||||**4,754**||**2,791**|
||**4,861**||||||**4,861**||**4,754**|
CCXX R1 accounts (SS)
15/03/2024
1
|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|**Categories**
**B5 Liabilities**
**B3 Investment assets**
**B2 Other monetary assets**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
**B1 Cash funds**|**Details**
n/a
**Details**
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))
n/a
Available Cash in Bank
**Details**
**Details**
Mobile Control Vehicle and its equipment
Two MEARL Systems
Five EVX5300 Transceivers
23 x Vertex EVX531
**Details**
n/a|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**4,861**
**-**
**-**
**4,861**
OK
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
Unrestricted
Unrestricted
Unrestricted
Unrestricted
**Fund to which**
**liability relates**|**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
OK
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||OK|
|||||**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
|||||**1,410**|
|||||**590**|
|||||**700**|
|||||**2,461**|
||||||
||||||
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**When due**
**(optional)**|
||n/a||**-**||
||||**-**||
||||**-**||
||||**-**||
||||**-**||
||||||
|Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees|Signature|Print Name
Lee James Thomas Boylan||Date of
approval|
|||Lee James Thomas Boylan||17/04/2024|
||||||
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)
15/03/2024
2