## Friends of Speke ## – Monthly / Bimonthly summaries: February 2025 January 2026 ## Charity Registration Number: 1195310 ## Trustees contributing to this annual report: - Thomas Hill (Chair) - Mark Ord - Lorna Griffiths - Ian Marquis - Lisa Hill - Ronald Hart – Sadly Ronald past away and will need to be removed as a - trustee. - Heather Parkinson - Kimberley Preston ## February 2025 Friends of Speke have continued to have open communication with the local Councillor Mary Rasmussen, Liverpool City Council and now Banks View School, who lease parklands building from Liverpool City council. The school are undergoing some major structure changes and have requested some time to move students into the building and settle things. As some of the structure work will take place in the main hall. All user groups as part of Friends of Speke, continue to use alternative spaces. Halewood Academy has been booked for many of the dance groups to support them with raising funds. Discussions with Mary, regarding funds that would support the groups has taken place. Mary will have more information mid-March. Sadly, trustee Ronny Hart has become very poorly. He has been a huge asset to the Speke community supporting and encouraging many of the young people over the years to take positive steps and ensure they become good role models for the area. ## April 2025 Unfortunately we have to report that a very loyal and dedicated Trustee has very sadly past away. He will be forever remembered as a inspiration to the Speke area. The building work at Banks views (Parklands building) continues to take place. Mary has secured £1750.00 for each dance group, with the view that Friends of Speke would distribute this to all. All groups will benefit from this massively. Kimberly has been sending this to each groups banks account. All of the user groups are continuing to work well and are preparing to enter the competition season. The Drama group are continuing to use STEC, thanks to the support of Mark. Lisa Hill has continued to keep communication open with Banks view school to see if any future agreements have been put in place as yet. ## June 2025 Unfortunately, the Harris group that supports with the disability group has had to stop meeting. The founder has become so poorly, since Covid and the loss of access to the Parklands facility the numbers have reduced. All other user groups are continuing to offer services and work in conjunction with the Venny. There are 100s of young people in the Speke are that are benefitting form the positive work of these groups. All of which run these activities as volunteers. Many of the dance groups have already held fundraising dance events this year, the work they have done is exceptional. ## August 2024 Martin Carter our communicator at Liverpool City Council has left. However Tony Reed has shared a potential contract for access to the main hall. There were no prices included. Lisa Hill has requested further information, to enable them to agree a way forward prices are required. Tony informed Lisa that he would be taking this forward, but some of the council workers and staff at Parklands are currently off due to holidays. Lisa will provide feedback to the wider team once the Council have responded. This, however, is the most positive news that the groups have had ain a good while. Trustees have met with all user groups to keep them informed of the progress. All continue to offer excellent access to a variety of voluntary hobbies and interests at affordable prices given the variety of needs within the local community. ## October 2025 Lisa Hill has remained in contact with Tony Reed, with the hope of arranging a meeting between the Trustees Friends of Speke, the Senior Management Team at Banks View. This meeting will take place in November. ## December 2024 Lisa Hill has completed a funding application for Friends of Speke, the panel to review this will not meet until mid-2026. A positive meeting was held with the Senior Management team at Banks view. Tony Reed and Keith Parkinson from Liverpool City Council. Local Councillor Mary Rasmussan and trustees Lisa Hill, Kimberley Preston and Mark Ord. The school continue to want to push community usage. However. Amey staff do not want to open or close out of hours. The price for the Sports Hall is yet to be determined. Lisa asked if Banksview would consider enabling the building to be used to host dance events to help the user groups raise money. The Senior Management team The school remain very keen on community groups regaining access. ## January 2026 Lisa Hill has supplied lots more information to Banksview school, in supporting the community groups regaining access, however, no replies have been received as yet. Friends of Speke will continue to monitor, however feel extremely optimistic about an imminent return. ## **Part Two Annual Accounts** ## **– For the period of 31/01/2025 28/01/2026** **Income:** £3750.00 **Expenditure** £3750.00 **Balance** £0.00 Received Funds: - 27[th] March 2025: £1750 funding was received from Liverpool City council funding was shared between the voluntary groups as named below: - 17[th] October 2025: £2000 funding was received for Merseybeats majorettes from Lloyds bank foundation. Outgoing Funds: - South Liverpool Diamonds - £250 – 31[st] March 2025 - Speke Balmoral - £250 – 31[st] March 2025 - Kavs - £250 – 31[st] March 2025 - Merseybeats - £250 – 31[st] March 2025 - Aisling Morris - £250 – 1[st] April 2025. - Liverpool Fusiliers - £250 – 13[th] August 2025 - Liverpool Elite - £250 – 13[th] August 2025 - Merseybeats Majorettes- £2000– 11[th] November 2025 The past year Friends of Speke has had access to some funding from Liverpool City Council, this funding was distributed to the different user groups that form Friends of Speke. All the user groups have continued to do their own fund raising and are managing to afford rent costs in their temporary homes.