## **TALK CLUB TRUSTEES' REPORT**
## **FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2022**
—
The trustees present their report and the financial statements of the Charity for the year ended 30 SEPTEMBER 2022.
## **Status**
Talk Club is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), registered charity number 1194033, and is governed by a constitution dated 08 Apr 2021. Prior to this it was We Talk Club CIC, registered company 12216881
## **National Location**
The principal address of the Charity is in England, at: The Tobacco Factory Raleigh Road Bristol BS3 1TF England
## **Trustees of the Charity**
The trustees who served during the year and up to the date of signing are as follows: Blue O’Connor Simon Brooke Tom Watson Claire Wilkinson Rich Gundry James Wheale Cory Stewart Stuart Baker Andy Evans Claire Amos Michael McCarthy Sam Oaks
## **Appointment and recruitment of charity trustees**
In selecting individuals for appointment as charity trustees, the charity trustees have regard to the skills, knowledge and experience needed for the effective administration of the CIO. New trustees are recruited by invitation following recommendations from trustees and officers, based on matching candidates' skills, knowledge, experience and commitment to the current identified needs. New trustees are mentored by experienced members and given access to on-line and/or direct training in appropriate areas.
## **Objectives and activities**
The Charity's objectives are to promote and protect the physical and mental health of men, in particular, but not exclusively, by:
a) Providing mental health talking clubs for men in their community
b) Raising awareness of mental health via events and online resources, and; c) Providing a supportive network for men both online and offline so that they can talk about their mental health.…
## **Public benefit statement**
The trustees have given due consideration to the Charity Commission's published guidance on the Public Benefit requirement under the Charities Act 2011, and are satisfied that the Charity's main activities described above are for the public benefit
## **Activity Report**
## **Overview**
Talk Club has continued to grow and expand over the past twelve months. The growth of its financial income and social impact has been complimented by the scaling up of the internal team and infrastructure. The Charity has expanded its offer across three distinctive pillars; Fundraising, Talk Clubs and Community.
## **Fundraising**
Using a blended approach of fundraising, donations, membership, corporate services, merchandise and product partnerships, Talk Club continues to live out its innovative approach to generating sustainable income.
Operating under the approach of a “brains of a business and heart of a charity” model, they continue to demonstrate an entrepreneurial mindset to income generation with flagship income streams such as an Alcohol-Free Beer product partnership with the Bristol Beer Factory, their annual ‘Miles for Miles’ physical activity based fundraising campaign, a webbased membership model and various forms of merchandise including a limited edition Bristol City/Bristol Rovers FC football shirt collaboration.
To highlight one example, the goal for the ‘Miles for Miles’ fundraising campaign was to raise £50,000 across a number of large and small fundraising groups and individuals during the month of May. The campaign was a huge success and across the wider fundraising team, the target of £50,000 was met.
These diverse and innovative income mechanisms have allowed Talk Club to grow rapidly through unrestricted funding and empower the charity to be more flexible when meeting the needs of its community.
## **Talk Clubs**
The charity has added to its portfolio of Talk Clubs across the globe, with over fifty Talk Clubs based in their community serving a diverse group of men. In addition to training and supporting ‘Captains’ to deliver Talk Clubs in their communities, Talk Club has now launched its first-ever Therapy Groups for men. These groups are low-cost services for men with more complex needs and are delivered by qualified Counsellors. The charity has trained eight therapists to run these therapy groups.
As Talk Club evolves it aims to increase the volume and quality of Talk Clubs and Therapy Groups around the globe with plans to expand to potential one-to-one therapy and to grow the commercial services arm of its organisation.
## **Community**
The charity has successfully moved away from using Facebook groups to house and communicate with its community and now offers free and paid memberships via a web and mobile platform. This move to a segregated digital platform means that the charity can now offer more services, information and resources to the male community, and for the first time, encourage a ‘pay what you can’ membership service that is now generating £500-£1,000 non-restricted income.
As well as a digital space, Talk Club has also recently launched its first ‘Captains Convention’. It’s a chance for captains across the world to come together for a weekend of
camping, connecting and collaborating, and a great way for the charity to say ‘thank you’ to its valuable volunteers.
## **Financial review**
Overall, the Charity is on a viable footing. Reserves are in line with a prudent reserves policy ,which is designed to ensure that sufficient reserves are in place to meet contractual commitments in the event of unforeseen circumstances, and can only be used in mitigation with Board agreement.
The outcomes for 2021/22, with reserves of £39,000, are in line with his policy. The Board reviews the reserves policy annually.
Risks and uncertainties are reviewed regularly. Current key risks identified are:
- insufficient or reduced funding from donations, fundraising, product partnerships and other income
- uncertain financial climate;
- High levels of stress and burnout in the staff
Action has been taken to mitigate all identified risks.
- Continued diversification and exploration of new income generation models to spread the risk of relying on a small volume of income streams
- Continued review of financial metrics with board of trustees and co-CEOs led by our treasurer
- Explore opportunities to utilise increased income and cash reserves to employ more staff to alleviate capacity issues
## **Structure, governance and management**
The Charity's core activities are carried out by a small team comprising appropriately skilled persons, including two Co-CEOs, a CTO, a team of international volunteers and an array of freelancers and partners. Their work is overseen by board of trustees and Co-CEOs.
Trustees come from a variety of public and private sector backgrounds. The range and balance of trustees' skills and experience are regularly reviewed to ensure full coverage of governance responsibilities. Each trustee takes the lead in overseeing an area of the Charity's activities appropriate to their skills and experience. New trustees receive induction and training in their roles.
## **Trustees' responsibilities**
The trustees are responsible for preparing the Report of the Trustees and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice). The law applicable to charities in England and Wales, the Charities Act 2011, Charity (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 and the provisions of the trust deed requires the trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year that give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the Charity and of the incoming resources and application of resources, including the income and expenditure, of the Charity for that period. In preparing those financial statements, the trustees are required to:
- Select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently
- Observe the methods and principles in the Charity SORP
- make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent
- state whether applicable accounting standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed
- and explained in the financial statements
- Prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the Charity will continue in business.
The trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the Charity and to enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Charities Act 2011, the Charity (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 and the provisions of the trust deed. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the Charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.
Signed on behalf of the board of trustees
Blue O’Connor Chair of Trustees
Date 18/09/2023
**Talk Club**
**1194033**
## **Receipts and payments accountspts and payments accountsts and payments accountspayments accountsayments accountsyments accountsments accounts**
**Receipts and payments accountspts and payments accountsts and payments accountspayments accountsayments accountsyments accountsments accounts CC16a For the period** 01/10/2021 30/09/2022 **To from**
## **Section A Receipts and payments**
|**A1 Receipts**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Restricted funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Restricted funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Last year**
**to the nearest £**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Clearhead Sales|**13,360**||**-**||**-**||**13,360**||**-**|
|Donations|**40,390**||**-**||**-**||**40,390**||**44,224**|
|Merchandise Sales|**697**||**-**||**-**||**697**||**-**|
|Miles for Miles|**12,959**||**-**||**-**||**12,959**||**-**|
|Services - Therapy|**444**||**-**||**-**||**444**||**-**|
|Website Subscriptions|**5,299**||**-**||**-**||**5,299**||**1,569**|
|Dividend Income|**1,250**||**-**||**-**||**1,250**||**313**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for AR)_|**74,399**||**-**||**-**||**74,399**||**46,106**|
|||||||||||
|**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**||||||||||
||**-**|||||||||
||**-**||||||||**7,875**|
|**_Sub total_**|**-**||||||||**7,875**|
|**_Total receipts_**
**A3 Payments**||||||||||
||||||||||**53,981**|
|||||||||||
|
AccountancyCosts|**1,702**||**-**||**-**||**1,702**||**1,740**|
|Bank Charges|**292**||**-**||**-**||**292**||**-**|
|FundraisingExpenses|**5,274**||**-**||**-**||**5,274**||**6,702**|
|RunningCosts|**66,835**||**-**||**-**||**66,835**||**18,733**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|
|**_Sub total_ **|**74,103**||**-**||**-**||**74,103**||**27,175**|
|||||||||||
|**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_**||||||||||
||||||||||**27,175**|
|||||||||||
||**296**||||||||**26,806**|
||**-**||||||||**-**|
||**37,598**||||||||**-**|
||**37,894**||||||||**26,806**|
## **Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**
|**Categories**
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees
**B5 Liabilities**
**B3 Investment assets**
**B2 Other monetary assets**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
**B1 Cash funds**|**Details**
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments account(s))
Total Funds
**Details**|**Details**
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments account(s))
Total Funds
**Details**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|**Restricted funds**
**to nearest £**|**Restricted funds**
**to nearest £**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||||**37,894**||**-**||**-**|
||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||||**37,894**||**-**||**-**|
||||||||OK|
||||||||**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||||**-**||**-**||**-**|
||**Details**
Crystal Amber Fund Ltd
**Details**
**Details**
HMRC
Pension
Signature||**Fund to which asset**
**belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which asset**
**belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**liability relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**
Unrestricted
**855**
Unrestricted
**350**
**-**
**-**
**-**
Print Name
Simon Brooke||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||||||**8,125**|
||||||||**-**|
||||||||**-**|
||||||||**-**|
||||||||**-**|
||||||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||||||**-**|
||||||||**-**|
||||||||**-**|
||||||||**-**|
||||||||**-**|
||||||||**-**|
||||||||**-**|
||||||||**-**|
||||||||**-**|
||||||||**When due**
**(optional)**|
|||||||||
|||||||||
|||||||||
|||||||||
|||||||||
|||||||||
||||||||Date of approval|
||||Simon Brooke||||09/10/2023|
|||||||||
## **Independent examiner's report on the accounts**
## **Section A Independent Examiner’s Report**
**Report to the trustees/** Talk Club **members of On accounts for the year** 30[th] September 2022 **Charity no** 1194033 **ended (if any) Set out on pages** 5 & 6
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 30/09/2022.
- **Responsibilities and** As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation **basis of report** of the 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 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 which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:
- accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or
- the accounts do not accord with the accounting records
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
**Date:** 11/10/2023 **Signed: Name:** Mr Leigh Wiltshire **Relevant professional qualification(s) or body (if any): Address:** 32 Award Road Wimborne BH21 7NT
1
**October 2018**
**IER**