## **Trustees’ Annual Report for the period** 

**From** 14/08/2023 **To** 13/08/2024 

**Charity name:** National Estate Churches Network 


## **Charity registration number:** 1192423 

## **Objectives and Activities** 

The purposes of the charity are the advancement of education through developing and promoting Christian faith communities for the purpose of shaping church policy and supporting community development, learning, social cohesion, sustainability and well-being in the social housing estates of England and Wales. 

The main activities of the charity in relation to those purposes for the public benefit, in particular, the activities, projects or services identified in the accounts: 

- Monthly newsletter sent to front line workers supporting communities on social housing estates. 

- Regular social media posts to Facebook and Twitter promoting resources to support front line workers. 

- Facilitation of local groups of front-line workers. 

- Website highlighting resources for those in estates ministry to use and sharing positive stories of ministry to encourage others through written articles/video interviews and podcasts. 

- Conferences to support Christians who work/live in social housing estates. 

- One to one support via phone/e-mail contact to direct front line workers to relevant resources/specific sources of support. 

The trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commissioner on public benefit. 

The charity does not make any grants 

The charity is grateful to the volunteer local hub leaders as well as to the trustees who lead the strategic direction of the organisation. 

## **Achievements and Performance** 

The main achievements of the charity, identifying the difference the charity’s work has made to the circumstances of its beneficiaries and any wider benefits to society as a whole: 

- Over 700 front line church leaders based on social housing estates receive the monthly newsletter providing resources and support for their work in the communities in which they serve. 

- Around 15 local groups are operating to provide a means for local leaders to support and learn from each other. New groups are being encouraged and new contacts made through links with Church of England diocesan estate focal leads and others 

NECN Trustees Annual Report 2023-24 

1 



- Website including ‘NECN directory’ to assist estate church leaders in finding resources for leadership training, supporting their communities through social action projects, specialist ministries etc. 

- Inspiring and encouraging church leaders on social housing estates by sharing others’ stories through website, videos and podcasts. 

- The Executive Director represents the charity at events with key partners eg Church Urban Fund, Churches Together in England (of which the charity is a Body in Association) 

- London regional conference in February 2024 with over 40 attendees. 

- Two national conferences held in autumn 2023 at Sheffield Cathedral and Bristol attended by a mix of practioners and support organisations 

- 20[th] anniversary birthday party events held at different locations across the country with material being gathered for a booklet and podcast on prayer. 

## **Financial Review** 

Financial position at the end of the period 

|Total receipts:|£ 31,475.81|
|---|---|
|Total expenditure:|£ 34,366.88|
|Net deficit:|£   2,891.07|



Designated funds are as follows: 

- £435 of a £600 Grant from Society of Retreat Conductors for retreat postponed in May 2020 due to Covid. £165 deposit paid for a retreat booked for November 2024 

- £1,000 has been allocated as redundancy provision based on the tenure of the staff 

Unrestricted funds provide a cash-flow buffer and supports the general operations of the charity. 

The charity had reserves of £23,241.24 at the end of the financial year of which £1,435 were designated. 

## **Additional information** 

The charity received two grants during the year from the Church of England (£20k) and URC (£2k) national church bodies that covered the majority of the cost of employment of the two part-time members of staff during 2023-24. 

Both grant making organisations have indicated that they will make further grants in 2024-25, albeit the Church of England grant reduces to £17k. 

The trustees are aware of the need to identify additional sources of income to maintain and/or expand the paid staff team. 

NECN Trustees Annual Report 2023-24 

2 



## **Structure, Governance and Management** 

The charity’s governing document is a foundation constitution. The charity is a CIO 

New trustees are elected to post by the charity’s existing trustees. 

## **Additional information** 

The charity has informal partnership arrangements with over 40 para-church organisations that support front line work of churches in social housing estates. 

## **Reference and Administrative details** 

|Charity name|National Estate Churches Network|
|---|---|
|Other name the charity uses|NECN|
|Registered charity number|1192423|
||c/o Barking Lodge<br>Verulam Avenue<br>Walthamstow<br>LONDON<br>E17 8ES|
|Bank|Metrobank|



## **Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity** 

|**Trustee name**|**Office (if any)**|**Dates acted if not for**<br>**whole year**|**Name of person (or body)**<br>**entitled to appoint trustee (if**<br>**any)**|
|---|---|---|---|
|Eunice Attwood||||
|Patricia Brown||||
|David Champness|Treasurer|||
|Lynne Cullens|Chair|||
|Andrew Dorton||||
|Clare King||||
|Jonathan Macy|Vice Chair|||
|EmilyMcDonald||Elected 27thNov 2023||
|Nigel Poole||||
|Dean Pusey||||
|John Rafferty||Period of office ended<br>27thNov 2023||
|Andrew Turner||||



## **Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members** 

Sara Barron (Executive Director) 

NECN Trustees Annual Report 2023-24 

3 



## **Declarations** 

**The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.** 

**Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees** 

|**Signature(s)**<br>**Full name(s)**<br>**Position (e.g. Secretary,**<br>**Chair, etc)**<br>**Date**|_+Lynne Cullens_|_DAV Champness_|
|---|---|---|
||Rt Rev Lynne Cullens|Mr David Champness|
||<br>Chair|Trustee and Treasurer|
||||
||27/11/24|27/11/24|



NECN Trustees Annual Report 2023-24 

4 



||**Charity Name**|**Charity Name**|**Charity Name**|**Charity Name**|**Charity Name**|**No (if any)**|**No (if any)**||**CC16a**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**National Estate Churches Network**<br>|||||**1192423**<br>||||
||**Receipts andpayments accounts**|||||||||
||**For the period**<br>**from**||Period start date||**To**||Period end date|||
||||14/08/2023||||13/08/2024|||
|||||||||||
|**Section A Receipts and payments**||||||||||
||**Unrestricted**<br>**funds**||**Restricted**<br>**funds**||**Endowment**<br>**funds**||**Total funds**||**Last year**|
||**to the nearest**<br>**£**||**to the nearest £**||**to the nearest £**||**to the nearest £**||**to the nearest £**|
|**A1 Receipts**||||||||||
|Grants|**23,542**||**-**||**-**||**23,542**||**54,448**|
|Donations|**1,669**||**-**||**-**||**1,669**||**1,371**|
|Tax refund forgift aided donations|**775**||**-**||**-**||**775**||**-**|
|Conference|**5,484**||**-**||**-**||**5,484**||**4,160**|
|Book Royalties|**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**500**|
|Othergrants|**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
|Misc|**5**||**-**||**-**||**5**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for_<br>_AR)_|<br>**31,476**||**-**||**-**||**31,476**||**60,478**|
|||||||||||
|**A2 Asset and investment sales,**<br>**(see table).**||||||||||
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**|**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
|||||||||||
|**_Total receipts_ **|**31,476**||**-**||**-**||**31,476**||**60,478**|
|||||||||||
|**A3 Payments**||||||||||
|Research|**1,542**||**-**||**-**||**1,542**||**9,500**|
|Conference costs|**3,892**||**-**||**-**||**3,892**||**2,871**|
|Salaries|**18,468**||**-**||**-**||**18,468**||**18,782**|
|Other Employment costs|**5,665**||**-**||**-**||**5,665**||**5,235**|
|Website and IT|**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**36**|
|Insurance|**173**||**-**||**-**||**173**||**-**|
|Equipment|**477**||**-**||**-**||**477**||**-**|
|Staff Expenses|**3,791**||**-**||**-**||**3,791**||**3,477**|
|Legal fees|||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
|Bank Charges|**240**||**-**||**-**||**240**||**398**|
|Memberships|**75**||||||**75**|||
|Trustee Expenses|**44**||**-**||**-**||**44**||**188**|
|**_Sub total_ **|**34,367**||**-**||**-**||**34,367**||**40,486**|
|||||||||||
|**A4 Asset and investment**<br>**purchases, (see table)**||||||||||
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|||
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|||
|**_Sub total_ **|**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
|||||||||||
|**_Totalpayments_ **|**34,367**||**-**||**-**||**34,367**||**40,486**|
|||||||||||
|**_Net of receipts/(payments)_**|**-                2,891**||**-**||**-**||**-                2,891**||**19,992**|
|**A5 Transfers between funds**|||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
|**A6 Cash funds lastyear end**|**26,132**||||**-**||**26,132**||**6,140**|
|**_Cash funds thisyear end_**|**23,241**||**-**||**-**||**23,241**||**26,132**|



NECN Trustees Annual Report 2023-24 

5 



**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period** 

|**Categories**|**Details**|**Details**|**Details**||**Unrestricted**<br>**funds**||**Restricted**<br>**funds**||**Endowment**<br>**funds**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||||||**to nearest £**||**to nearest £**||**to nearest £**|
|**B1 Cash funds**|Metro Bank Account||||**23,241**||**-**||**-**|
||||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**_Total cash funds_**||||**23,241**||**-**||**-**|
||(agree balances with receipts and payments<br>account(s))||||OK||||OK|
||||||**Unrestricted**<br>**funds**||**Restricted**<br>**funds**||**Endowment**<br>**funds**|
||**Details**||||**to nearest £**||**to nearest £**||**to nearest £**|
|**B2 Other monetary assets**|||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
|||||||||||
||**Details**||||**Fund to which**<br>**asset belongs**||**Cost (optional)**||**Current value**<br>**(optional)**|
|**B3 Investment assets**|||||||**-**||**-**|
||||||||**-**||**-**|
||||||||**-**||**-**|
||||||||**-**||**-**|
||||||||**-**||**-**|
|||||||||||
||**Details**||||**Fund to which**<br>**asset belongs**||**Cost (optional)**||**Current value**<br>**(optional)**|
|**B4 Assets retained for the**<br>**charity’s own use**|||||||**-**||**-**|
||||||||**-**||**-**|
||||||||**-**||**-**|
||||||||**-**||**-**|
||||||||**-**||**-**|
||||||||**-**||**-**|
||||||||**-**||**-**|
||||||||**-**||**-**|
||||||||**-**||**-**|
|||||||||||
||**Details**||||**Fund to which**<br>**liability relates**||**Amount due**<br>**(optional)**||**When due**<br>**(optional)**|
|**B5 Liabilities**|||||||**-**|||
||||||||**-**|||
||||||||**-**|||
||||||||**-**|||
||||||||**-**|||
|||||||||||
|Signed by one or two trustees on<br>behalf of all the trustees|Signature||||Print Name||||Date of<br>approval|
||||||Mr David Champness|||||
||||||Rt Rev Lynne Cullens|||||



NECN Trustees Annual Report 2023-24 

6 




## **Independent examiner's report on the accounts** 

**Section A                        Independent Examiner’s Report** 

|**Report to the trustees/**<br>**members of**<br>**On accounts for the year**<br>**ended**<br>**Set out on pages**|Charity Name<br>National Estate Churches Network|Charity Name<br>National Estate Churches Network|Charity Name<br>National Estate Churches Network|
|---|---|---|---|
|||||
||13/08/2024|**Charity no**<br>**(if any)**|1192423|
|||||
||5-6|||
||I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above<br>charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended**13/08/2024.**|||



- **Responsibilities and** As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the **basis of report** accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”). 

I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act. 

- **Independent** I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have 

- **examiner's statement** come to my attention in connection with the examination (other than that disclosed below *) which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect: 

   - the accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Charities Act; or 

   - the accounts did not accord with the accounting records; or 

   - • the accounts did not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a ‘true and fair’ view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination. 

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. 

**Signed: Date:** 14/10/24 **Name:** Ole Black **Relevant professional** MA, MSc, Retired senior government economic statistician **qualification(s) or body (if any): Address:** 12 The Hawthorns, Caerleon Newport NP18 1LX 

NECN Trustees Annual Report 2023-24 

7 



## **Section B                           Disclosure** 

Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight material matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners). 

**Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose** . 

NECN Trustees Annual Report 2023-24 

8