## **London Zen Group (LZG)** ## **Trustees Report for the year ending 31[st] December 2025** ## **OUR AIMS** The trustees confirm that they have had regard to the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit and consider that the charity’s activities further its charitable purposes for the benefit of the public. It is our aim to advance the Sōtō Zen Buddhism religion in London for the benefit of the public through the holding of - regular classes and guided sessions of zazen meditation, - ceremonies for attendees who are bereaved or have friends or relatives who are ill, - open lectures and workshops on Buddhist ethics and doctrines, sutras and stories, - and other open communal activities related to Zen practices and culture ## **REVIEW OF ACTIVITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS** ## **Schedule and Activities** LZG maintained a daily schedule of zazen meditation entirely staffed by its volunteers and trustees. This year, in April, we halted our Saturday afternoon sessions due to a loss of the volunteer who ran that session. Members of the public were welcome to join our daily morning sessions from Monday to Friday from 07:00 to 08:00 in person at our dojo or via our Zoom channel. Regular evening sessions of zazen have been held on Mondays 18:30 – 19:45, Thursdays 19:30 – 20:00, and Fridays 18:30 – 19:15. Drop-in introductions to the practice of zazen-meditation were offered on Monday, and Thursday evenings. These were always a half-hour duration, and took place just before each session’s normal start time. On Sunday mornings LZG offered a slightly extended period of zazen from 9:00 to 10:30, followed by an extended ceremony, communal cleaning of the dojo space ( _samu practice_ ) and socializing with coffee and biscuits. Evening and Sunday morning periods of meditation also offered opportunities for training attendees in various ceremonial elements of our tradition. LZG continued its successful study group activity on Monday evenings following the regular evening zazen sessions on these days. Participants discussed texts from the Buddhist and Zen traditions under the guidance of one of LZG’s ordained priests. This year was focused on traditional koans from The Gateless Gate and transitioned to a study of Master Dahui’s Treasury of the True Dharma Eye. Each Friday evening, after our scheduled sitting, from 19:00 - 20:00, LZG offered public talks on Zen-Buddhist doctrine, philosophy and history. The talks are followed by socializing and free discussion. Guided workshops for sewing Zen-Buddhist ceremonial robes ( _kesas_ and _rakusus)_ were offered on Sunday afternoons. This activity was designed for those seeking to formally Take Refuge in the Three Treasures and receive the Buddhist Precepts, or for those to be formally ordained as priests in the Sōtō Zen tradition. Of those who attended the sewing workshop, four of our regular members received the precepts at a formal ceremony at our location. Others attended to sew for ceremonies to be held at our head temple in France, or at ceremonies held at other temples or sesshins within our lineage. For the first time, this formal precept ceremony was held AT our dojo location by one of our resident priests who had recently received formal qualification and recognition as a teacher in the lineage. As with previous years, our sewing workshops were also attended by another person from a different group/lineage who needed direct advice and supervision in their sewing for receiving the precepts. As we are open to all, we welcome people from different groups to this activity. In preparation for the formal ceremonies held at our dojo, we held 6 additional Sunday afternoon workshops dedicated to precept study and the bodhisattva path. LZG also offered Japanese calligraphy classes on selected Wednesday evenings at its premises. LZG held a full day event of Zen practice at an external location, The Highbury Roundhouse Community Hall. This event included teachings, formal meals, meditation and ceremony and was attended by 42 people from, primarily London, but also from around the United Kingdom. ## **ATTENDANCE** From January to December 2025, LZG hosted **525** events and meetings with a total of **3,197** attendees. This included: - 384 regular zazen meditation sessions, - 103 introduction classes, - 104 combined sessions, - 31 sewing workshops, - 6 Jukai/precept workshops, - 6 calligraphy. The statistics describe a 4.1% decrease in attendance over the previous year. A detailed statistical summary of activities is maintained and is available upon request. ## **OUR FINANCES** As a small, non-company charity, we prepare our annual accounts in the receipts and payments format according to the Charity Commission CC16a standard. LZG received £21,049.46 worth of donations for the financial period of 1st January to 31st December 2025. This figure includes Gift Aid and GASDs collected during this year for the previous three years since our registration as a charity (Gift Aid/GASDs totalling £5071.25). LZG earns a small amount (£700) by allowing the use of our practice space by a group which is in line with the goals of our charity (another Soto Zen Group). This supports Buddhist practice while contributing to the charity’s running costs. LZG operates a small used book shop operating broadly on a break-even basis which exists to provide Buddhist and Zen texts at low cost to support study and practice. This year book sales generated £236 of income against £199 of costs. We had higher costs this year, reflecting the cost of having our sutra books professionally printed. Other expenses this year included our special event, the Zen Practice Day which cost £1064 but resulted in a surplus of £476 after expenses During the same time, LZG made payments of £13,690 in operational expenses. Of note this year, LZG invested £30,000 in a 3 year fixed-term high interest account with Cambridge and Counties Bank in line with our minuted investment policy from January 2025. LZG realised a net surplus of £9834. This surplus reflects a significant increase over our surplus from last year, and is due to us receiving £5071.25 in Gift Aid and GASDs from the HMRC covering previous years as well. LZG’s total funds (including that in our fixed-term interest account) increased to £49,918 by the end of the year. The charity maintains a level of reserves to ensure continuity of its activities and to support its longer-term objective of acquiring a permanent practice space. ## **Trustee Payments** During the year, a trustee received modest payments for services provided to the charity, including web hosting and the delivery of a teaching event. These payments were made in the best interests of the charity and with appropriate management of conflicts of interest. ## **STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT** LZG is governed by its board of trustees who are at the same time the caretakers of the group. Trustees meet several times per year and manage the current operations. They plan events and plan future operations and direction of the charity. The trustees reviewed and implemented the charity’s Investment Policy during the year. The trustees are working towards reviewing and formally adopting the safeguarding, complaints, and ethics policies of our parent organisation. ## **TRUSTEES** New trustees are co-opted by the body of existing trustees. New trustees will typically be long-standing members of the community who are also responsible to run regular sessions of zazen. Volunteers are experienced members of the community who may volunteer and be trained and qualified to lead zazen sessions or introductory sessions. No new trustees were appointed during 2025. ## **Volunteers:** - Anna Fahey - Richard Gallen ## **Trustees of LZG in 2025:** - Rev Alana Berrington - Treasurer - Rev Edgar Koeb - Secretary - John Blythe - Rev Martin Landolt - Rev Ryan Roberts - William (Bill) Lamdin - Chair ## **SIGNATURES** Rev. Alana Berrington 17 March 2026 Rev. Edgar Koeb 28 March 2026 |**Charity Name**|**No (if any)**||| |---|---|---|---| |**London Zen Group (LZG) - CIO**|||| |**Receipts andpayments accounts**|||**CC16a**| |Period start date
1/1/2025
**For the period**
**from**|**To**
Period end date
31/12/2025||| ## **Section A Receipts and payments** **Unrestricted Restricted Endowment Total funds Last year funds funds funds to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £** ## **A1 Receipts** |**A1 Receipts**|||||||||||||||||||| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |Donations - Online||**5,740**||||**-**||||**-**||||**5,740**||||**-**|| |Donations - Direct Transfer/StandingOrders||**6,361**||||**-**||||**-**||||**6,361**||||**-**|| |Donations - Cash||**1,411**||||**-**||||**-**||||**1,411**||||**-**|| |Donations - Contactless||**2,466**||||**-**||||**-**||||**2,466**||||**-**|| |Income - 3rdpartyusergroups||**700**||||**-**||||**-**||||**700**||||**-**|| |Zen and Sutra Book Sales||**236**||||**-**||||**-**||||**236**||||**-**|| |Gift Aid and GASDS||**5,071**||||**-**||||**-**||||**5,071**||||**-**|| |Zen Day/ Event Income||**1,540**||||**-**||||**-**||||**1,540**||||**-**|| |**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for AR)_||**23,525**||||**-**||||**-**||||**23,525**||||**-**|| |**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for AR)_||**,**||||||||||||**,**|||||| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |**A2 Asset and investment sales, (see**|||||||||||||||||||| |**table).**|||||||||||||||||||| |||**-**||||**-**||||**-**||||**-**|||||| |||**-**||||**-**||||**-**||||**-**||||**-**|| |**_Sub total_**||**-**||||**-**||||**-**||||**-**||||**-**|| ||||||||||||||||||||| |**_Total receipts_ **||**23,525**||||**-**||||**-**||||**23,525**||||**-**|| |**A3 Payments**
Rent
**9,000**
Gas and Electric
**984**
Internet/broadband
**484**|**A3 Payments**
Rent
**9,000**
Gas and Electric
**984**
Internet/broadband
**484**|**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**|**9,000**
**984**
**484**|| |---|---|---|---|---|---| |
Rent|**9,000**|**-**|**-**|**9,000**|**-**| |Gas and Electric|**984**|**-**|**-**|**984**|**-**| |Internet/broadband|**484**|**-**|**-**|**484**|**-**| 03/28/2026 1 |Council Rates|**468**||**-**||**-**||**468**||**-**| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |Bookshopcosts|**199**||**-**||**-**||**199**||**-**| |DIY|**42**||**-**||**-**||**42**||**-**| |Equipment|**754**||**-**||**-**||**754**||**-**| |Supplies|**290**||**-**||**-**||**290**||**-**| |Zoom|**156**||||||**156**||| |Event Expenses|**1,064**||||||**1,064**||| |Miscellaneous Expenses|**250**||**-**||**-**||**250**||**-**| |**_Sub total_ **|**13,691**||**-**||**-**||**13,691**||**-**| |**A4 Asset and investment purchases,**|||||||||||||||||||||||| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |**(see table)**|||||||||||||||||||||||| |Fixed-term deposit||**30,000**|||||**-**|||||**-**|||||**30,000**||||||| |||**-**|||||**-**|||||**-**|||||**-**||||||| |**_Sub total_ **||**30,000**|||||**-**|||||**-**|||||**30,000**|||||**-**|| ||||||||||||||||||||||||| |**_Total payments_ **||**43,691**|||||**-**|||||**-**|||||**43,691**|||||**-**|| ||||||||||||||||||||||||| |**_Net of receipts/(payments)_ **||**- 20,166**||||**-**|||||**-**|||||**-**|**20,166**||||**-**||| |**A5 Transfers between funds**||**-**||||**-**|||||**-**||||||**-**||||**-**||| |**A6 Cash funds last year end**||**40,084**||||**-**|||||**-**||||||**40,084**||||**-**||| |**_Cash funds this year end_ **||**19,918**||||**-**|||||**-**||||||**19,918**||||**-**||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||| ## **Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period** |**Categories**
**B1 Cash funds**|**Details**
Cooperative Account 65214200 (old)
Cooperative Account 67397811 (new)
Stripe
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))|**to nearest £**
**257**
**19,522**
**139**
**19,918**
OK
**Unrestricted**
**funds**|**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
OK
**Restricted**
**funds**|**to nearest £**
**Endowment**
**funds**| |---|---|---|---|---| |||||**-**| |||||**-**| |||||**-**| |||||**-**| |||||OK| 03/28/2026 2 ## **B2 Other monetary assets** ## **B3 Investment assets** ## **B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use** |**Details**
**Details**
Cambridge & Counties Fixed-term Deposit
**Details**|**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Unrestricted**
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**|**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Cost (optional)**
**30,000**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Restricted**
**funds**|**to nearest £**
**Endowment**
**funds**| |---|---|---|---| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**Current value**
**(optional)**| ||||**30,000**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**-**| ||||**Current value**
**(optional)**| |||**-**|**-**| |||**-**|**-**| |||**-**|**-**| |||**-**|**-**| |||**-**|**-**| |||**-**|**-**| |||**-**|**-**| |||**-**|**-**| 03/28/2026 3 ## **B5 Liabilities** Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees |||||**-**||**-**| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |||**Fund to which**||**Amount due**||**When due**| |**Details**||**liability relates**||**(optional)**||**(optional)**| |||||**-**||| |||||**-**||| |||||**-**||| |||||**-**||| |||||**-**||| |Signature|Print Name
Alana Berrington
Edgar Koeb|Date of
approval| |---|---|---| ||Alana Berrington|17/3/2026| ||Edgar Koeb|28/03/2026| 03/28/2026 4