## **Trustees' Annual Report for the period**
Period start date Period end date Day Month Year Day Month Year **From** 01 01 2025 **To** 31 12 2025
## Section A Reference and administration details
Merseyside County RAYNET
**Charity name** Merseyside County RAYNET **Other names charity is known by** 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 (ifany)**|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||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[th] April 2023.
- (eg. trust deed, constitution)
How the charity is constituted
Charitable Incorporated Organisation - Association
- (eg. trust, association, company)
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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 Party, and the LRF Voluntary and Faith Sector Forum (V&FSF), 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 Emergency UNITY 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 assist organisations that provide activities in the interests of social **this section the statutory** welfare for recreation and other leisure time occupations with the object **declaration that trustees have** of improving conditions of life, health and wellbeing, and public safety; by **had regard to the guidance** supplementing existing communications or providing alternative forms of **issued by the Charity** communications. **Commission on public** (iii) To provide: (a) a team of trained and equipped volunteers/radio **benefit)** operators to undertake the purposes of Merseyside RAYNET; (b) a
(iii) To provide: (a) a team of trained and equipped volunteers/radio operators to undertake the purposes of Merseyside RAYNET; (b) a Merseyside wide PBR Repeater system, and flexible communication facilities, to undertake the purposes of Merseyside RAYNET. (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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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 (ii) 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 (iii) 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)**
All trustees, other members of the Committee, and RAYNET members, give their time voluntarily and receive no remuneration or other benefits.
You **may choose** to include further statements, where relevant, about:
- policy on grantmaking;
- policy programme related investment;
- contribution made by volunteers.
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Section D Achievements and performance
Throughout 2025 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 2025 included:
- 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 with an emphasis on safety in the wake of the Liverpool Football homecoming Parade incident.
- • July: Provided management and safety coms support along the route of the Wirral Coastal Walk and enabled rehearsal of providing portable wide area radio coverage.
- • September to coincide with the National Alert Exercise we broadcast an immediate associated follow up mock Merseyside Situation report and checked reception and call-in from various locations across Merseyside.
- Our Mobile Communications Vehicle (MCV) is housed at Bromborough Fire Station. It is in the process of being given has a facelift as it is now mainly used for recruitment and publicity purposes; although it still provides the final backup mobile communications resource for the MRF Emergency Plan. As a direct result of the focus on Societal Resilience of HMGovernment’s PREPARE Campaign we have: • Further progressed plans to expand the MEARL System to include resilient call out and communications facilities for the Resilience Forum Voluntary and Faith Sector Members, and have upgraded our MEARL Repeaters to dual analogue and digital DMR; and
- • Continued to develop our plans for Community Information Points and support for Community Hubs as part of the Merseyside Resilience Forum’s response to HMGovernment’s the 2023-03-24 National Power Outage LRF Planning Guidance v3-1
- • Taken the lead role in advising and coordination the MRF Resilience Group other partners in reviewing their own resilience capabilities, and updating them, as a result of the findings of HMGovernment’s Exercise mighty Oak.
- Throughout 2025 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.
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## **Section E Financial review**
Cash at the bank at 31/12/2025 was £4121 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 in deficit**
Not applicable
## **Further financial review details (Optional information)**
Our principal source of funds this year has again been the regular annual You **may choose** to include grant of £1575 from the Merseyside Local Authorities. Income from the additional information, where usual community and charitable events that we provide services for relevant about: returned to normal levels again this year. The cash reserves at the • the charity’s principal financial year end remain approximately the same as the previous year sources of funds (including end despite some increased expenditure. The MRF has promised any fundraising); financial support next year for our EmCom project.
- how expenditure has The major expenditure this year has again been the running and upkeep of the Mobile Control Vehicle, upkeep of the MEARL Repeaters, and our
- supported the key objectives OFCOM area wide repeater radio licence.
- of the charity;
- We will continue to support charitable and community events during
- • investment policy and 2026; not just to assist their own charitable aims but to keep and develop objectives including any our existing skills, and as a source of income through donations received ethical investment policy from the event organisers. adopted.
## **Section F Other optional information**
## Future Plans
Roll out of the EmCom Project in consultation with the MRF lead Officer. Purchase and commission the MEARL kit for the JCC and provide induction training.
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 now re-scheduled to end in 2027.
## **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|
||31/12//2025||||
||31/12//2025||||
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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
01/01/2025||**To**||Period end date
31/12/2025|||
|||||||||||
|**Section A Receipts and payments**||||||||||
|**A1 Receipts**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**350**
**1,575**
**33**
**100**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**2,058**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**2,058**
**822**
**534**
**250**
**818**
**56**
**87**
**84**
**-**
**-**||**Restricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**||**Endowment**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**||**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**
**350**
**1,575**
**33**
**100**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**2,058**
**-**
**-**
**-**||**Last year**
**to the nearest £**|
|Events|**350**||||||||**925**|
|Grants|**1,575**||||||||**1,575**|
|From Groups to County|**33**||||||||**-**|
|Misc Income|**100**||||||||**-**|
|Donation Ref FT8900 St Helens|**-**||||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for_
_AR)_|**2,058**||||||||**2,500**|
|||||||||||
|**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**||||||||||
||**-**||||||||**-**|
||**-**||||||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**|**-**||||||||**-**|
|**_Total receipts_**
**A3 Payments**||||||||||
||||||||**2,058**||**2,500**|
||||||||**822**
**534**
**250**
**818**
**56**
**87**
**-**
**84**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**2,651**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**2,651**
**- 593**|||
|Vehicle Insurance,Tax,MOT|**822**||**-**||**-**||**822**||**807**|
|MCV RunningCosts|**534**||**-**||**-**||**534**||**32**|
|OFCOM Licence|**250**||**-**||**-**||**250**||**250**|
|Payments toGroups|**818**||**-**||**-**||**818**||**-**|
|Insurance|**56**||**-**||**-**||**56**||**225**|
|Misc Expenditure|**87**||**-**||**-**||**87**||**145**|
|EmCom Project Radios|||**-**||**-**||**-**||**728**|
|Equipment|**84**||**-**||**-**||**84**||**433**|
|Payment on behalf of Liverpool Group|**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**27**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
|**_Sub total_ **|**2,651**||**-**||**-**||**2,651**||**2,647**|
|||||||||||
|**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_**||||||||||
||||||||||**2,647**|
|||||||||||
||**- 593**||||||**- 593**||**- 147**|
||**-**||||||**-**||**-**|
||**4,714**||||||**4,714**||**4,754**|
||**4,121**||||||**4,121**||**4,607**|
CCXX R1 accounts (SS)
04/08/2026
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
Bank Balance
**Details**
**Details**
Mobile Control Vehicle and its equipment
Two MEARL Systems
Three EVX5300 Transceivers
23 x Vertex EVX531
2x Motorola 3000
**Details**
n/a|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**4,121**
**-**
**-**
**4,121**
OK
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
Unrestricted
Unrestricted
Unrestricted
Restricted
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)**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**When due**
**(optional)**|
||n/a||**-**||
||||**-**||
||||**-**||
||||**-**||
||||**-**||
||||||
|Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees|Signature|Print Name
Stanley Alexander Wood||Date of
approval|
|||Stanley Alexander Wood||09/07/2026|
||||||
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)
04/08/2026
2