Sutton Churches Tennis Club
Charity Number 1195245
Trustees’ Annual Report
for the period 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025
Objectives and Activities
Our objectives
The promotion of community participation in healthy recreation and the advancement of amateur sport in particular but not exclusively by providing facilities and coaching for participation in the sport of tennis.
Our Activities
New member courses
Throughout the year the club holds a series of New Member Courses. These are sixweekly introductory courses for adults which are particularly suitable for those wishing to try tennis for the first time or to return to the sport after a break. The course teaches the basics of tennis and introduces the participants to other club members.
Children’s courses
There are also various courses for children from the age of three upwards to learn the basics of tennis in a fun and friendly environment. These courses help to build a child’s love for tennis and sport in general and help to improve coordination, balance and agility.
Social tennis sessions
The club holds seven club sessions each week. One session is aimed at beginners or “rusty” players, another is for those who would like to play singles and the rest are for doubles matchplay. A new session has been started for junior members to introduce them to playing social tennis. A peg-board system is used to ensure a fair and easy rotation of players and the balls are provided by the club.
Surrey LTA league tennis
The club has 5 ladies’, 5 men’s, 4 mixed and 3 veterans’ teams in the Surrey LTA leagues where matches are played against other clubs in the area. The teams cover a wide range of standards and everyone is welcome to put themselves forward.
Internal tournaments and leagues for both adults and junior members
An annual tournament is held every summer with singles competitions for ladies, men, girls and boys. There are also ladies’ doubles, men’s doubles and mixed doubles events. All doubles events have a plate competition for first round losers to ensure every pair plays at least two matches. The events are open to all members.
Two box league competitions are held during the year for mixed doubles and singles where matches are played against other club members and trophies are awarded at the end of each season.
Cardio tennis sessions
Group based tennis sessions set to music offering a full-body cardiovascular workout. Suitable for all abilities and particularly good for those wishing to improve their fitness, though all participants are encouraged to go at their own pace.
Coaching
A wide range of group coaching courses or private lessons are available from the club’s qualified and experienced coaches.
Social activities
There are regular social activities where members and guests can socialise in a non-tennis setting. Recent events include wine tasting, art sessions, chocolate tasting and country walks.
Public benefit
All Trustees are aware of the guidance issued by the Charities Commission with regard to public benefit and have adhered to the guidance throughout the year.
Achievements and Performance
Summary of main achievements
Last year the club completed the purchase of the clay-side land from the Methodist church and since then a sub-Committee has been hard at work looking at building a new clubhouse. We are now at a stage where we have hired a firm of Architects, who are in the process of designing the new clubhouse and our hope is that the plans will be submitted for Planning Permission by the end of the year. We will then need to approach funding bodies to raise the money needed and hope to build it in 2027.
This year our Grounds Secretary, David Garrett is stepping down after an incredible 27 years in the role. We are all familiar with David’s innovations over the years from draggers to score-boards and his ability to fix pretty much everything! I hope that David doesn’t step away from this area entirely (there is certainly no shortage of things needing fixing at SCTC) but that he can concentrate on the things he likes doing without having the responsibility of having to do the whole lot! Thanks also to the Gardening gang who do a fantastic job every year.
Another person stepping down this year after three years of highly impressive innovations and contribution is our Hon Secretary Carolyn Jones. Carolyn has had a fantastic three years, from ending up on telly thanks to her leading the club’s Pledgeball involvement to reformatting the club’s Committee Summary into the Bulletin.
This year also saw the start of the SCTC WhatsApp Community. This is partly thanks to a new member who casually mentioned this concept to me and with CJ at the helm we set one up for SCTC. Now members aren’t reliant on other members inviting them onto individual groups, once on the Community they can come and go from most of the club’s groups as they please. It is much more transparent for members to see what the club has to offer from a WhatsApp point of view and easy to come and go. If you aren’t on it then let me know and I’ll add you.
Other initiatives from this year have included a birdwatching survey, a bug hunt and collecting blankets for a local hedgehog charity.
Last year the club created a fund to be used to provide free tennis coaching for local SEN children. On Wednesdays throughout the year the Head Coach and a team of volunteers have been working with SEN children from a local school.
Our junior programme continues to flourish, the Summer camps this year were one of the busiest ever and we had a good Open Day in April, thank you to all the coaches and members that volunteered at that.
Membership
Membership is booming! We passed the 500 member mark a couple of weeks ago, with 280 juniors and 325 adults we are doing brilliantly! We are continuing to attract new members and the majority of these members are engaging with club events such as Club Sessions, group coaching and tournaments. The New Members’ Tournament held on Sunday 12[th] October was a success with 12 new members playing and another 8 members playing in the Blackberry Gin Fizz tournament which enabled new members and existing members to meet each other. This was a great success that we will look to repeat next year. We also had LTA President Sandi Procter visit us on that day and she awarded the winners with their prizes. Sandi was really impressed with how sociable and welcoming the club is. She said of all the clubs she had ever visited she had never heard of a New Members’ Tournament before and was impressed with that.
Ball machine membership has now lapsed and we are currently trying to sell the ball machine on eBay. Thanks to those of you who tried to make it work, especially those of you who kept going to fix it when it hit difficulty but in the end it was just too much trouble.
Player Development Highlights
Several of our older juniors have gained permission to play in with adult events over the last year, and some have also taken their Level 1 LTA coaching qualification.
Competitions and Tournaments
The various internal competitions at the club continued to attract high numbers of entrants, from all ages and standards. For adults there are mixed doubles box leagues from January to April and September to December; the singles box leagues January to April, and the singles ladder August to December; and the annual knockout tournament running from May to July. We’ve had quite a few requests now for a Ladies Doubles and Mens Doubles Box league and this will feature in the tournament programme in 2026!
For younger juniors we offered Mini Red, Orange and Green tournaments in Easter and October half term. These are part of the LTA’s Team Challenge.
Once again both adults and juniors entered the LTA’s Play Your Way to Wimbledon competition. There were Girls Singles, Boys Singles, Ladies Doubles and Mens Doubles events held in May at the club. One of the junior members went on to win the next stage of the event at AELTC in Raynes Park and actually did get to play at Wimbledon.
As usual the Annual Tournament saw a huge number of entrants across the various singles and doubles events, I’m pretty sure it is one of the biggest club champs in the country! It’s so brilliant to have so many players taking part and being part of it. Thanks go to the organizers….and also to the BBQ team who then feed what has become the biggest social event of the year with around 100 people staying to celebrate.
Results for all our Annual Tournament matches, including the Plate events, can be found on the club website under the Competitions tab, and past winners of main events are listed on the online Honours Board (under the Information tag).
Wilson Surrey League Teams
Each summer and winter we enter five ladies' and five men's teams in the Surrey Leagues, a ladies’ team in the midweek league and in Winter 24/25 we entered a Men’s Over-55 team and a Men’s midweek team but in Summer 2025 we entered two men’s Over-55s teams (due to the Men’s O55s league being more competitive than the Midweek one) and each summer four teams in the mixed league. It’s all very confusing! Especially as now the LTA have decided to change from splitting the county by East and West to Group 1 and Group 2 with no obvious logic.
You can follow all our teams’ progress throughout the year via the link on our website: from the home page click on the Competitions tag, then the Wilson Surrey Leagues links.
Many thanks to all our team captains for all your work and patience this year, it is very much appreciated.
Social
SCTC continues to be a very sociable place, we even had James Bond at our Christmas Party last year! And we will all remember the SCTC Annual Awards (which this year included Best WhatsApper!). Among the club’s social events this year were country walks, curry nights, wine tasting, cider tasting, art sessions and a chocolate tasting event.
Well, I’m looking forward to seeing what the next 12 months brings, we’ve been nominated for the LTA Club of the Year Award and have a grant pending for a new Walking Tennis group, as well as the new Clubhouse project so it should be a good one. Thank you to everyone who makes SCTC so special, I’m sure you agree, it is a great place to be.
Financial Review for the period 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025
Financial position at the end of the period
Total receipts (gross income) for the period were £72,784 and total payments were £31,096. Overall cash and bank account balances increased by £41,688.
Membership subscriptions increased by 13.6% from £50,986 last year to £57,957. Although annual membership fees were increased in May 2025, the bulk of the subscriptions increase was due to an increase in membership numbers.
The Club Session for Junior members is available free of charge. This is thanks to the sponsorship of £1,040 from a local business.
The Sustainability Project Award of £500 was a prize from the LTA Pledgeball competition which will be used for sustainability projects at the club.
The largest item of expenditure this year was £9,524 for Professional Fees. These mostly relate to the plans for building the new clubhouse.
| Feasibility Report | 5,400 |
|---|---|
| Measured Survey | 3,060 |
| Cost Planning | 1,200 |
| Refund of solicitors fees relating to land purchase | (136) |
| -------- | |
| 9,524 | |
| -------- |
The transfer of £720 from coaching costs to Designated Funds (The Charity Fund) relates to costs for providing free coaching to local SEN youngsters.
Reserves
At 30 September 2025 the club’s reserves totalled £327,743.
| Cash and bank accounts | 256,559 |
|---|---|
| Fixed assets | 98,641 |
| Stock and debtors | 4,662 |
| less: Liabilities | (32,119) |
| ----------- | |
| 327,743 | |
| ----------- |
This was an increase of £27,397 on the position at 30 September 2024.
Cash and bank accounts increased by £41,688 from £214,871 to £256,559. Other assets and liabilities decreased by £14,291.
As well as the general undesignated fund, the club has a designated repairs reserve fund, a charity fund, a sustainability projects fund and now a new clubhouse fund. The repairs reserve fund is money set aside to pay for future maintenance work such as court resurfacing, repainting and floodlight maintenance that is essential to keep the club’s facilities in good condition. The charity fund of £1,608 is money that has been raised to provide free tennis lessons for local children with special educational needs and the sustainability projects fund of £1000 is the result of two prizes from the LTA Pledgeball competition which will be used for sustainability projects at the club.
£10,712 was added to the repairs reserve during the period leaving a balance of £93,502 at the end set aside for planned future maintenance.
The balance of £160,365 in the Clubhouse Fund is money that has been transferred from the general fund to be used for costs relating to the design and build of the new clubhouse.
This leaves the total undesignated funds balance in the general fund at £71,268.
The next major project the club needs to undertake is the replacement of the wooden clubhouse. A subcommittee has been formed to oversee this task. Once plans are agreed and planning permission has been approved then the club will begin the process of applying for grants to assist with funding the cost.
Structure, Governance and Management
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The charity’s constitution is it’s governing document.
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The charity is constituted as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) based on the Charity Commission’s association model.
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Trustees are selected in accordance with the constitution.
Reference and Administrative details Charity name – Sutton Churches Tennis Club Registered charity number – 1195245 Address – 99 Gander Green Lane, Sutton, SM1 2ES
Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity
| Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity | Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity |
|---|---|
| (Dates are shown where trustees acted for part of the period) | |
| Kirsty Garrett (Captain) | |
| Carolyn Graham (Vice Captain) | |
| Andrew Foulkes (Secretary) | appointed 12/11/2025 |
| Tony Farrell (Treasurer) | |
| Dominique Delhalle (Membership Secretary) | |
| David Garrett (Grounds Secretary) | |
| James Bryan (Social Secretary) | appointed 13/11/2024 |
| Helen Parnell | |
| Joan Sillery | |
| Richard Garrett | |
| Gerald Barry | |
| Jeffrey Rogers | |
| Ana Schanda | appointed 12/11/2025 |
| Deborah Hedges | appointed 12/11/2025 |
| Jacqueline Halls | resigned 13/11/2024 |
| Nasir Sulery | resigned 12/03/2025 |
| Carolyn Jones | resigned 12/11/2025 |
| Gill Nolan | resigned 12/11/2025 |
Declarations
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.
Signed on behalf of the trustees
| Signature | ||
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Kirsty Garrett | Anthony Farrell |
| Position | Captain | Treasurer |
| Date | 28/01/2026 | 28/01/2026 |
Sutton Churches Tennis Club
1195245
Receipts and payments accounts CC16a
| For the period from |
01/10/24 | To | 30/09/25 |
|---|---|---|---|
Section A Receipts and payments
| Undesignated funds |
Designated Repairs Rsrve |
Designated Funds-Other(1) |
Total funds | Previous 12 Months |
|||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| to the nearest £ | to the nearest £ | to the nearest £ | to the nearest £ | ||||||||
| A1 Receipts | |||||||||||
| Members subscriptions | 57,957 | - | - | 57,957 | 50,986 | ||||||
| Income from floodlights | 4,434 | - | - | 4,434 | 3,985 | ||||||
| Sponsorship | 1,040 | - | - | 1,040 | 1,040 | ||||||
| Visitor fees | 1,626 | - | - | 1,626 | 1,914 | ||||||
| Court hire fees | 180 | - | - | 180 | 360 | ||||||
| Fund raising | 365 | - | - | 365 | 2,894 | ||||||
| Sale of tennis balls | 225 | - | - | 225 | 245 | ||||||
| Teas | 300 | - | - | 300 | 293 | ||||||
| SustainabilityProject Award | 500 | - | 500 | - | |||||||
| Social Events | 500 | 500 | (500) | ||||||||
| SundryIncome | 328 | 328 | - | ||||||||
| Tournament | - | - | - | 72 | |||||||
| Interest received | 5,329 | - | - | 5,329 | 3,448 | ||||||
| Sub total(Gross | income for AR) | 72,784 |
- | - | 72,784 | 64,737 | |||||
| A2 Asset and investment sales, | |||||||||||
| (see table). | |||||||||||
| - | - | - | - | - | |||||||
| Sub total | - | - | - | - | - | ||||||
| Total receipts | 72,784 | - | - | 72,784 | 64,737 |
| A3 Payments Rates 542 Water & Sewerage 1,145 Electricity 3,253 Building insurance 1,429 Repairs & Maintenance 2,535 Cleaning 2,738 Tennis balls 1,783 Coaching 2,967 LTA fees 1,955 Music licences 417 Professional Fees 9,524 Account charges 514 Phone 72 Social Events 400 Sundries 352 Sub total 29,626 Ball Machine 750 Sub total 750 Total payments 30,376 Net of receipts/(payments) 42,408 A5 Transfers between funds (171,577) A6 Cash funds last year end 129,253 Cash funds this year end 84 A4 Asset and investment purchases, (see table) |
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10,712 82,790 93,502 |
542 1,145 3,253 1,429 2,535 2,738 1,783 3,687 1,955 417 9,524 514 72 400 352 30,346 750 750 31,096 41,688 - 214,871 256,559 |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| - | 542 | 481 | ||
| - | 1,145 | 725 | ||
| - | 3,253 | 2,638 | ||
| - | 1,429 | 1,325 | ||
| - | 2,535 | 10,177 | ||
| - | 2,738 | 2,356 | ||
| - | 1,783 | 1,974 | ||
| 720 | 3,687 | 3,650 | ||
| - | 1,955 | 1,770 | ||
| - | 417 | 401 | ||
| - | 9,524 | 2,748 | ||
| - | 514 | 403 | ||
| - | 72 | 72 | ||
| - | 400 | 33 | ||
| - | 352 | 1,045 | ||
| 720 | 30,346 | 29,798 | ||
| - | 750 | 60,001 | ||
| - | 750 | 60,001 | ||
| 720 | 31,096 | 89,799 | ||
| (720) | 41,688 | (25,062) | ||
| 160,865 | - | - | ||
| 2,828 | 214,871 | 239,933 | ||
| 162,973 | 256,559 | 214,871 |
- 3 -
Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
| Categories B1 Cash funds B2 Other monetary assets B3 Investment assets B5 Liabilities B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees |
Details Bank savings accounts Bank current account Stripe account GoCardless account Groundsman’s petty cash float Details Details Details Land Clay courts Clay court lights Ball Machine Stock Debtors & prepayments Details Advanced subscription income Sundry Creditors Signature Total cash funds (agree balances with receipts and payments account(s)) |
to nearest £ Undesignated funds |
to nearest £ Undesignated funds |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | 93,502 | ||
| 84 | - | ||
| - | - | ||
| - | - | ||
| - | |||
| 84 | 93,502 | ||
| OK | |||
| to nearest £ Undesignated funds |
|||
| - | - | ||
| - | - | ||
| - | - | ||
| - | - | ||
| Fund to which asset belongs |
|||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| - | |||
| Fund to which asset belongs |
|||
| Undesignated funds | |||
| Undesignated funds | |||
| Undesignated funds | |||
| Undesignated funds | |||
| Undesignated funds | |||
| Undesignated funds | |||
| Fund to which liability relates |
|||
| Undesignated funds | 31,791 | ||
| Undesignated funds | 328 | ||
| Anthony Farrell | |||
| Kirsty Garrett |
Notes -
(1) Designated Funds-Other are the Charity Fund £1,608. Sustainability Projects Fund £1,000 and the Clubhouse Fund £160,365
(2) One of the trustees, Kirsty Garrett, was paid £240 for new member fees from new members only doing cardio or walking tennis and was allowed to use the club’s facilities for coaching and other events she organised. Payments for coaching and other events were made directly by members on an “arms-length” basis.
- 4 -
CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examiner's report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner's Report Report to the Trusteeslmembers of Sutton Churches Tennis Club On accounts for the period 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025 Charity no 1195245 Set out on pages 34 I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity ("the Trusl") for the period from 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025. Responsibilities and basis of report As Ihe charity trustees ofthe Trust, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 {'Ihe Act"). I report in respert of my examination of the Trusl's acxounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in Carrying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charrty Commission under section 145(51{b) of the Act. I have completed my examination. I confimi that no material matters have 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 Independent examiner's statement I have no COnrnS and have Gome across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in Order to enable a proper understanding of the a¢¢ounts to be reached. Signed: Date: If/ z/7 Name: Slefano Cabras Relevant professional qualificationls) or body (if anyl: ACCA Address: 177 Cheam Common Road -1- IER October 2018
Worcester Park KT4 8SX Section B Disclosure Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts.. directions and gLsidance for examiners). Give hern brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose. Nl4. -2- IER October 2018