## **Trustees' Annual Report for the period**
Period start date Period end date Day Month Year Day Month Year **From** 1 1 2024 **To** 31 12 2024
## Section A Reference and administration details
**Charity name Other names charity is known by Registered charity number (if any)** 1192411
Merseyside County RAYNET
Merseyside RAYNET
**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||||
**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**
Type of governing document
Constitution 19 November 2020 as amended on 15 Apr 2023.
- (eg. trust deed, constitution)
How the charity is constituted
Charitable Incorporated Organisation - Association
- (eg. trust, association, company)
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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.
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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.
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Section D Achievements and performance
Throughout 2024 our Merseyside Emergency Area Radio Link (MEARL) **Summary of the main** Community Repeater System continued to provide 24/7/365 operational **achievements of the charity** communications facilities for Merseyside Search and Rescue as well as **during the year** standby communications for: St John Ambulance Merseyside; the local authorities; and the voluntary organisations involved in the Merseyside Resilience Forum UNITY Plan. Events supported in 2024 included:
February: Provision of handheld communications, and two radio cars, for the Southport Mad Dog 10K Run organised by Southport Round Table. This exercise also helped in ensuring our provision remains appropriate to the needs of other voluntary partners’ abilities and requirements. June: Annual MOD Exercise Blue Ham. A 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. Our support involved setting up specialist Amateur Radio equipment, as well as our MEARL Private Business Radio licenced system in difficult terrain. June: Provided management and safety coms support along the route for the Rainford Walking Day Parade and Wirral Coastal Walk. In May we held an “Away Day” for all members introducing, and discussing, the Official Outcome Report from last year’s Exercise Mighty Oak, and the recently launched HMGovernment’s “NATIONAL POWER OUTAGE - Local Resilience Forum Planning Guidance”. As a direct result of the focus on Societal Resilience of HMGovernment’s PREPARE Campaign we are: Progressing plans to expand the MEARL System to include resilient call out and communications facilities for the Resilience Forum Voluntary and Faith Sector Members, and are in the final stages of upgrading our MEARL Repeaters to dual analogue and digital DMR; and Carried out reception tests at 100 locations across the whole of Merseyside to assess the feasibility of extending the use of MEARL and inexpensive radios, in a National Power and Communications Outage, to provide situation reports to strategically located “Information Points” Reviewing our arrangements for facilitating the involvement, and coordination, of other licenced Radio Amateur spontaneous volunteers. Throughout 2024 RAYNET has continued to attend (i) the Merseyside Resilience Forum Telecoms Working Group alongside the blue light and other Category 1 and 2 Responders; and (ii) the Merseyside Community Resilience Working Group where we have a key place providing expertise regarding communications. Our membership remains relatively stable.
**TAR**
March **2012**
4
## **Section E Financial review**
Cash at the bank at 31/12/2024 was £4714.32 in unrestricted funds. **Brief statement of the** The main financial risk to the charity is loss of funding from the Local **charity’s policy on reserves** 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;
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 increased this year. However the cash reserves at the financial year end remain approximately the same as the previous year end because we invested in additional digital equipment.
The major expenditure this year has again been the running and upkeep of the Mobile Control Vehicle, upkeep and updating two of the MEARL Repeaters, and our OFCOM area wide repeater radio licence.
- investment policy and We will continue to support charitable and community events during objectives including any 2025; not just to assist their own charitable aims but to keep and develop ethical investment policy our existing skills, and as a source of income through donations received adopted. 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. During 2025 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)**
**Position (eg Secretary, Chair,**
**etc)**
**Date**|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
||||||
||Stanley Alexander Wood|||Lee James Thomas Boylan|
||
Secretary|||Treasurer|
||16/04/2025||||
||16/04/2025||||
**TAR**
March **2012**
5
||**Merseyside County RAYNET**
**Charity Name**|**Merseyside County RAYNET**
**Charity Name**|**Merseyside County RAYNET**
**Charity Name**|**Merseyside County RAYNET**
**Charity Name**|**Merseyside County RAYNET**
**Charity Name**|**1192411**
**No (if any)**|**1192411**
**No (if any)**|**1192411**
**No (if any)**|**CC16a**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**For the period**
**from**||01/01/2024
Period start date||**To**||31/12/2024
Period end date|||
|||||||||||
|**Section A Receipts and payments**||||||||||
|**A1 Receipts**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**925**
**1,575**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**2,500**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**2,500**
**807**
**32**
**250**
**-**
**225**
**145**
**728**
**433**
**27**
**-**||**Restricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**||**Endowment**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**||**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**
**925**
**1,575**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**2,500**
**-**
**-**
**-**||**Last year**
**to the nearest £**|
|Events|**925**||||||||**600**|
|Grants|**1,575**||||||||**1,575**|
|From Groups to County|**-**||||||||**-**|
|Misc Income|**-**||||||||**100**|
||**-**||||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for_
_AR)_|**2,500**||||||||**2,275**|
|||||||||||
|**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**||||||||||
||**-**||||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**|**-**||||||||**-**|
|**_Total receipts_**
**A3 Payments**||||||||||
||||||||**2,500**||**2,275**|
||||||||**807**
**32**
**250**
**-**
**225**
**145**
**728**
**433**
**27**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**2,647**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**2,647**
**- 147**|||
|Vehicle Insurance,Tax,MOT|**807**||**-**||**-**||**807**||**787**|
|MCV RunningCosts|**32**||**-**||**-**||**32**||**643**|
|OFCOM Licence|**250**||**-**||**-**||**250**||**250**|
|GroupMemberships|**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**116**|
|Insurance|**225**||**-**||**-**||**225**||**56**|
|Misc Expenditure|**145**||**-**||**-**||**145**||**-**|
|EmCom Project Radios|**728**||**-**||**-**||**728**||**315**|
|Equipment|**433**||**-**||**-**||**433**||**-**|
|Payments on behalf of Liverpool Group|**27**||**-**||**-**||**27**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
|**_Sub total_ **|**2,647**||**-**||**-**||**2,647**||**2,167**|
|||||||||||
|**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_**||||||||||
||||||||||**2,167**|
|||||||||||
||**- 147**||||||**- 147**||**108**|
||**-**||||||**-**||**-**|
||**4,861**||||||**4,861**||**4,754**|
||**4,714**||||||**4,714**||**4,861**|
CCXX R1 accounts (SS)
06/06/2025
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**
**B1 Cash funds**
**B2 Other monetary assets**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
**B5 Liabilities**
**B3 Investment assets**|n/a
**Details**
**Details**
Mobile Control Vehicle and its equipment
Two MEARL Systems
Five EVX5300 Transceivers
23 x Vertex EVX531
1x Motorola 3000
Available Cash in Bank
**Details**
**Details**
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))
n/a
**Details**
n/a|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**4,714**
**-**
**-**
**4,714**
OK
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
Unrestricted
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**|
|||||**700**|
||||||
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**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)
06/06/2025
2