1[st] YATE SCOUT COUNCIL Annual General Meeting
1. Introduction and welcome
Chair made brief introductory remarks. Welcomed the Group Scout Council and guests and then previewed the meeting; also referencing reports from the various sections.
2. Apologies for absence
Chair: We’ve received apologies from 10 persons for their absence today, and their names are listed below:
Victor Minkov gave apologies but managed to attend for most of meeting.
3. Governance topics
Chair: This part of the meeting is used to make sure the charity's foundations are in good order.
Document created in February 2024 Version 4 – Edited in April 2025
3a. Approve the minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on 28/09/2024
Chair: The Group Trustee Board have reviewed the minutes of last year’s AGM at the meeting held on 28/09/2024. I propose that these minutes are taken as read and ask the Group Scout Council to agree that they’re a true record of that meeting.
The minutes were approved.
3b. Adopt the model constitution from Policy, Organisation and Rules (POR)
Chair: In line with the recommendation from The Scout Association, the Group Trustee Board proposes we adopt the model constitution for a Scout Group from Chapter 5c of Policy, Organisation and Rules.
The model constitution was adopted.
3c. Note the Group’s financial year
Chair : Can the Group Scout Council members please note our charity’s financial year is 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025.
3e. Agree the number of members that may be appointed to the Trustee Board
Chair: Following good practice recommendations from the Charity Governance Code, POR states Trustee Boards should have a minimum of 5, and no more than 12, Trustees in total. This includes ex officio and co-opted Trustees.
The Group Scout Council must agree the number of people to be appointed to the Trustee Board. The outgoing Trustee Board recommends that 7 people are appointed. I propose the Group Scout Council approves that recommendation, which has been seconded.
The trustee membership was agreed as 7.
3f. Agree the quorum for future meetings of the Group Scout Council (excluding this AGM)
Chair : The Group Scout Council must agree its quorum – the minimum number of Group Scout Council members that must be present at Group Scout Council meetings. The outgoing Trustee Board recommends the quorum should be set at 4 people for future meetings of the Group Scout Council (the quorum for this AGM was agreed at last year’s AGM).
Does the Group Scout Council approve that recommendation, which has been seconded.
The trustee quorum of 4 was approved.
4. Review of the previous year
Chair: We’ll now use this part of the meeting to reflect on the activities of the past year.
4a. The Group Lead Volunteer’s review of Scouts in the 1[st] Yate Group
Chair asked the Group Lead Volunteer to present their Annual Review.
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The Group Lead Volunteer started the annual review with a video that she had put together at the request of County.
Group Lead Volunteer
I hope you all enjoyed the video showcasing just a small part of our last year, This is also being shown at the county AGM next week.
I would like to thank everyone for joining us here today for our annual AGM and afternoon Tea, hope you all enjoyed the cake.
We’ve had another active year in Scouting, We’ve have said goodbye to some of our leadership team but have also welcomed some new faces, The district appointed a new District Lead Volunteer, Nick Gingell who has been a great support to our group already and has also donated various items of kit to us.
Our new Adult members system and training programme went live last November and I want to thank all our adult volunteers for bearing with me while I got my head around a new system, its by no means fully functional and there is still quite a lot to learn but I am getting to grips with it and apologise for my persistent messages regarding training and deadlines, I am however very happy to report that we are fully compliant and that all our adults have been great at ensuring their training is completed before the expiry date.
This year our group membership numbers have stabilised and we currently have…
42 Squirrels
46 Beavers
46 Cubs
48 Scouts
Although these numbers will change again shortly as we have various children moving up in the sections and have invited some new members from our waiting list which will bring us back to just below 200 members.
Our waiting list currently stands at 75 with the youngest on our list being just over 1 year old.
Our Adult leadership team has grown too, we currently have 26 members soon to be 27 when another one of our young leaders turns 18 next month, its great to see an increase in our adult volunteers and this increase has been helped by some of our young leaders that have decided to stay with us as Adult Volunteers.
As ever all our Adults work incredibly hard to deliver a fun and engaging programme of activities to our young people. They dedicate many hours to planning evenings, camps and day trips as well growing their skills, and completing training.
This year we have seen 3 of our leaders become Qualified Air Rifle instructors and are about to send 2 more off to become Crossbow instructors, several of our leaders have also updated their 1[st] Aid training and renewed various safety and safeguarding training all this alongside their day jobs and Family life!
Our Trustee board currently has 7 members, and it would be great to increases this as the trustees are a vital part of our group and support myself and the leaders enabling us to offer as much as we can to the young people in our group. They help with the governance of the group
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and dedicate many hours to dealing with our finances, arranging fundraising and putting up with my endless requests. Thank you for all your support this year.
We now have 20 Young Leaders supporting our sections, These Young people are so important to us, They help plan and run evenings (sometimes not by choice!!) and adapt incredibly well to being thrown in at the deep end when we need a game running or are short of an adult to help run an evening. Seeing several of our young leaders move onto Adult Leadership is amazing and our hope is that many more will take up the challenge and follow in their footsteps while they will continue to grow their skills and be future leaders of 1[st] Yate!
I want to take the time to say how proud I am of 1[st] Yate, as Group Lead Volunteer I am very lucky to have a strong and dedicated leadership team and a supportive and guiding trustee board this will be vital over the next 12 months as we continue with our roof development project, a project I’m sure we will all be glad to see finished!!!
During the last year we were visited by Bob the County Lead volunteer, he spent some time with our Thursday scouts learning Semaphore and other communication skills and then came back a few weeks later and spent an evening with our Monday Squirrels learning oral hygiene, shoelace tying, packing for an adventure and various other skills. The feedback from his visit was amazing to quote Bob ‘I was so impressed with the members, their behaviour, their involvement and their smartness. The meeting was very traditional and reminded me of my earlier days in scouting. The respectfulness to the flag ceremonies was fantastic and I was very proud to be a part of it’
He also asked that his thanks were passed on to the volunteers and leadership team and said we should all be very proud in what we are doing as a group. His email was signed in Semaphore so well done to the scouts that taught him this new skill!
So to round up, This year we have been camping lots! Been on trains, day trips, hiked, Held Archery sessions, Rifle sessions, completed experiments, Cooked, held an election at pool court, bounced at Airhop ( and will be again soon so prepare yourselves Akela and Baloo!!) Attended lots of community Events to fundraise, took part in Remembrance Day, Took part in a VE day celebration, Relayed, completed Survival camp, took part in Sodbury challenge and awarded LOTS of badges I could go on but we would be here all day. more details of the section’s activities can be seen on their annual reports around the room.
Finally, I would like to update you on our Roof project and thank everyone for their support with our various fundraising activities and there have been a few!
Christmas fair, Tescos day, stalls at local community events are just a selection of what we have done. Our latest being our Sponsored Walk, Scoot, Cycle to Brownsea island over the summer holidays, as yet I don’t have a final total for the distance the group covered, or the total raised. I would like to make a special mention to 2 of our cub young leaders (well 1 cub young leader and 1 adult leader as of this week!) and their family who took the challenge on and cycled to Brownsea island in just 24 Hours covering a distance of 100 miles. We have a short video to share with you all of their journey after this meeting.
So where are we with the roof project? The plans have been submitted to the council for building regs are currently in the review stage, we have had to make some changes to our initial design to incorporate some access changes to the ground floor.
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We have raised a large amount of the money required to complete the project and want to say a huge thanks to Avon County for their very generous donation of £30k to support this project. They have also agreed a further £30k loan to the group to get us a step closer. Yate town council also gave us a grant of £5k which was used towards the costs of having the asbestos removed from the soffits over the summer holidays so a huge thanks goes to them for their support. We are hoping that the next phase of work will start around easter this will involve removing our current roof, lowering the internal ceiling hight and putting on the new roof as well as creating a new staircase and external fire exit. It’s a Huge project for us and one that our Trustees have spent many hours working on but will mean we have a much better space to meet in, additional storage and a usable upstairs area.
My final thankyou goes to you, the parents and young people that make 1[st] Yate such a great group, we do all we do for the young people and get as much enjoyment from their growth and excitement as they do from being a part of our group.
We look forward to another busy year ahead and to facing some new (and ongoing) challenges head first and in 1[st] Yate Style.
Chair thanked Group Lead Volunteer for their review.
4c. Receive and consider the Group Trustees’ Annual Report including the annual Statement of Accounts
Chair noted the Group Trustee Board prepared the Trustees’ Annual Report and Statement of Accounts, and has received and considered the report on the accounts from the Independent Examiner.
Chair asked the Group Treasurer to give an overview of the Statement of Accounts.
Treasurer described key points from the Statement of Accounts.
This covers the financial position from April 2024 to March 2025 inclusive.
My year has involved processing the subs and camp payments for 200 children, gift aid, processing expenses & providing the set of accounts that have been distributed around the room.
Our membership income increased by 23%. This is mostly due to having continually full groups & waiting list. As anticipated, our costs to group increased also to absorb most of this increase.
As anticipated, all the overhead costs for the building also increased. All listed on the set of accounts.
I mention gift aid every year, but as it gives us a 25% boost on any subs the parents pay, then it is worth highlighting the value of it and the need to get the forms signed by any new starters that qualify. We got the highest ever gift aid in 2024/25 due to some hard work by Claire to convince any parents that hadn’t already submitted a form to sign one. Also, the summer scavenger hunt organised by the fundraising team, also produced a great boost. We jumped from 2.6k in 2023/24 to 5k raised in 2024/25. Almost double.
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Significant efforts were put into fundraising, from multiple archery sessions, fundraisers like the fiesta & summer challenges, and Tesco tokens, to passive earners like lottery sales & bank interest. Thank you to everyone one that ran or took part in events, shook a bucket and reached out to people to help us raise what we need to provide the funds we need to max on activities and reach what we need to fix the roof. We did also used some of it to get some more rifles and archery equipment.
The roof: The roof has dominated everyone at 1[st] Yates thought for a long while now. Due to the incredible work by everyone at the end of Mar 25 we had 95k towards the roof. As shown in the financial accounts 30k of that is a loan from group. This needs paying back over the next 5 years, which is achievable, but still needs future fundraising events. We are also very grateful for their one off donation of 30k.
In summary, we are still in a stable financial position, with the closing balance of £3.5k in our running bank account, which as a not-for-profit charity, means we are operating within budget, and £95k in the savings account, which we are continuing to build upon and use for the replacement roof.
The total balance overall is £98k, although if you remove the 60k received from group (loan & donation) to get 38k, this is gives a fairer comparison of the previous year and shows us 10k up on the previous year, although it’s all currently to be used on the roof.
Thank you again to our independent auditor for their timely and diligent work.
If anyone has any questions regarding our audited accounts then I’m more than happy to answer them.
Chair thanked the Treasurer for completing the Statement of Accounts and for all their work during the year.
Please note: No vote is required, the Group Scout Council only ‘receives and considers’ the report. It is the report of the Group’s Trustees’ to the members of the Group Scout Council.
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1st Yate Scout Group Receipts and Payments Account For the Year from tst April to 31st March 2024IZ5 2023124 2022123 Membership subscriptions less subscrlption paid on INationallCountylDistrirt} Net Membership subscription retained 31415.5 11132 20283.5 25424 19617.59 9515 9396 15909 10221.59 Loan for replaMent roof Glft Aid Income from Hut Rental Bank Interest Other Grants Necker Sales etc. Fund raising le amazon 5mSle Camp deposits Totsl Gros5 Income 3(KW.LK+ 5089.so 2659.24 4442.18 1080.CKJ 489.(X) 408.0) 841.81 197.55 7.05 O.U) 15CKJ.co 15CQ.(M) 2219.45 1735.70 1472.14 35039.23 1947.55 483.99 11415.9) 8717.25 12388.50 105968.99 33155.29 30923AS Pa ments Squlrrels Beavers Cub5 Scouts 6adge5 Scout Camps Cub Camp Beaver Camp Squlrrel Camp Group camps Adult support and Trainin8 Council Tax Bank Fees Water anil Sewerage Electricity Insurance Cleaner Repairs and renewals Materials and equlpment GSL and Group Exec Uniforms Relay for life, world jamboree. Tree of Life Hut maintenance Extraordinary item. Wrrte off of hlstoriral fkjats pre2015 Total Gross Expendlturn 577.33 178.16 S.75 497.66 283.43 630.42 949.92 325.59 1271.56 788.08 IlQ).72 592.18 2672.19 2555.91 2S40.86 1498.21 1281.38 1282.09 1637.18 1127.17 925.35 458.61 901.50 389.49 279.72 449.87 15.63 2618.13 8298.75 1242.33 630. 34.93 35.84 71.68 o.c o.c 62.54 447.99 327.97 251.57 1359.E 882.48 1835.47 2526.75 o.(X) 1547.39 1462.12 1259.53 1109.88 217.78 299.19 283.82 1850.62 1392.43 7314.18 193.65 221.27 631.63 3750.94 2386.31 2257.21 397.40 396. IS314.72 6(Kl.00 36003.26 1865188 48108.94 4542.02
Net of Recelptsl{payments) J965.73 14502.41 -17185.49 Cash funds last year end 284(8.26 139)6.85 31trJ2.34 Cash lund5 thls year Ènd 98374.99 284CIJ.26 13906.85 Cash Funds 8ank Current Account Bank Deposit Account Closed 2022- transferred to Nknest Bank deposit account opened 2023 Cash Floats Arcadla £31XI Otympla £300 Scouts £3(K+ 3469.8 11010.75 I3.85 945.19 17398.51 98374.99 28409.26 13 Uabllltles: 0% Interest loan wlth Av¢yJ County Scouts to replacement of the Stout hut roof. £30,LW over 5 years Due dates.. Year I Mar-26 £6,C year 2 Mar-27 £6.( Year 3 Mar-28 £6,CKKI Year 4 Mar-29 £6.LK Year 5 MaT-30 £6,C(Kl £30.C( The above recelpts and payments account were approved by the Trustees on the and slgned on thelr behatf by Sl8nature Chalr Trèasurer Audltor
Independent examinerfs report to the tTU5tee5 of 11¢ Yats Scout Group I reporttothe trustees my examination ofthe c(nts0fthe l Yate Sccrt Grwp forthe year ended March 2025. ResponsibHities and basis of report As the charty trustees ofthe l-yats Scout Group you we responsilAe forthe preparation ofthe act(yJnts in aecordance with the requrrements of the Charrts Act 2011 (Ihe ACVI. I report in res of my examination of the istyate Scout Grw accounts Caled out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carying out my examination I havefoiiowed ail the aPpIable DirtttKns given by the Charity Commission utyler section 14515llbl of the Act Independent examinerfs statement I have comAeted my examinat)n. I tonfimi that no material matters have cometo my attenti in connecttrjn wrth the examination giving me cause to bel$e that in any material respect accounting recordswere not kept in respect of the I" Yate Scout Grwp as required by sectKJn 130 oftheAc¢or 2. the accwnts do not xeord with those records. I have no ccncems and have come across no other rnatte in connectk)n with the examiiat)n to whrh attention shwld drawn report in ert0 enable a proper understsnding ofthe COUnts to be reached. Signed., Nama.. Relevant professional qualificath)n or membetship of prolssKJnal t>Jdies Irf anW'. Address.. 31L rLoseLL qR-i É, 6srt7 - O¥c)gJ @