Trustees’ Annual Report
01 April 2024 to 31 March 2025
Charity name: The Pill Trust
Charity registration number: 1197441
Aim and Purpose
The Pill Trust is founded on Christian principles of generosity and justice. We aim to serve alongside others to see a hope-filled and flourishing Pillgwenlly.
The charity was born from a shared Christian faith and passionate desire to work collaboratively with existing local community groups and partnerships, whilst also bringing our energy and experience to help pioneer fresh and creative thinking to the challenges in our community.
Objectives and Activities
The current focus of The Pill Trust is working with children, clothing, and food.
Every week during term time we run 2 toddler groups, an after-school play session, and a play cafe. In the holidays we run a free 2 hour 'holiday games' holiday provision which runs for a minimum of 2days (previously called 'breakfast and boardgames). We also hosted a big light party at Halloween for the families of the community, with about 100 children attending, plus their parents.
We have changed how we run our clothing swap shop. We noticed that for some people it was a great help to them to be able to bring a high volume of poor-quality clothing, which was a lot of work for us to process and they would end up with lots of points that they didn't need. Conversely, we had some attendees who didn't have spare clothes to donate but were in great need of more clothes, so we were bending the points rule to accommodate them. Now we no longer use the points system. The swap shop is open during every Tuesday toddler group and people can take what they like provided they don't exceed the one bag limit. Donations are then received on a much rarer basis, where we welcome all quantity and quality of clothing, which we then process.
Finally, we give food provision – we delivered 1500 food 'Bags of Hope' to the residents at Christmas, plus toiletries and other treats to local care homes.
We continue to run a small community pantry which can be accessed on an 'as needs be' basis, which has grown due to the closing and suspension of other local food provision. We also support the Pill Millennium centre in their weekly food co-op, by providing boxes of cereal for their provision. We have donated at least 1200 boxes so far.
When planning activities for the year, the Trustees consider the Commission’s guidance on public benefit and ensure that activities are carried out in line with this.
To facilitate this work, it is important that we maintain a network of volunteers, and these come from St Stephen’s church as well as the local community. We also have key links to other organisations in the community and work together with these.
Achievements and Performance
Children
Our toddler group has nearly 80 families connected with it via the toddler group WhatsApp, which translates to around 12-18 children plus carers attending the Tuesday group, and between 5-12 attending the Monday group. The Monday toddler group is steadily growing, as Beth now teaches functional English to the parents during the session, which is proving to be popular and meeting a need.
We run Holiday Games every holiday break and receive on average 30 children and their parents/carers each session – our highest was a record breaking 70 children.
Thursday play is an afterschool play session for families where we bring out more play equipment in the garden play space, open the hall and provide cheese toasties. The number of attendees of children can range from 10-30 children.
We now also run a play cafe two days a week in the church hall. This has fluctuated in numbers; it began by attracting parents outside of Pill but now has settled to some local regulars. Numbers have dropped from around 6-8 families a session to 3-4, and we are developing new strategies to improve this.
Youth Bus
We are planning on installing a converted bus onto the church car park. Purchase of the bus was enabled by donations, and then its refurbishment was thanks to The Wooden Spoon charity. The hope is that it can be a youth space for older kids to hang out and connect in a safe place.
Future developments
We are looking at options for two containers to be installed on the church car park. One will be used for the community pantry, as the current solution of storing all the food in the church is not sustainable, and the other will be used as a meeting place for small groups.
Financial Review
This year, total receipts were £81876, a significant increase from previous years. The increase was across all areas of our work and specifically we applied for funding or requested donations to support some exciting new projects.
These projects include; a youth bus to give older children a safe space to meet, grants to convert an area of the church hall into a play space and sensory area so we could open our play cafe, funding to create an additional post of Assistant Outreach worker and donations towards buying a container to run our community pantry from.
Our principal sources of income were from Pill Unity (via POBL), Newport City Council (for Playcafe), Love Christmas (for Bags of Hope). We also partnered with TocH who helped us apply for a large grant from Community Funding to support the Outreach Worker and Assistant salaries for the next year.
As previous years, most of our income was given for specific projects and therefore was restricted.
During the year we spent £59681, a slight increase on the previous year.
Our largest outgoing remains the provision of wages, plus employee administration costs for the Outreach worker (£21k). We also have significant outgoings for our annual Bags of Hope
(£16k). Another main area of spend was creating the play space and continuing to provide play spaces and sessions for the local community (£10k). We were also able to buy the bus for the youth project with additional money being carried into next year for renovations.
Smaller outgoings included a Community Eat Out event and hosting the Extreme Tour.
There are then additional spends for administration of the charity.
The net result of the year was a surplus of receipts over payments of £22195. This is all restricted funds ready to support the work of the coming year (mainly for the salary of our Outreach worker as well as reserves to support the Youth bus and Community Pantry).
To continue the work of the charity, the committee will continue looking for sources of funding and we are in the process of reviewing other areas of grants and support that the charity can tap in to.
Structure, Governance and Management
The method of appointment of the Trustees is set out in the Constitution.
Current Trustees consist of the incumbent of St Stephen’s, along with V. Ede and K. Hasler. C. Edwards resigned from the Trustee board and was replaced by K. Hasler on 18[th] January 2025 as per constitution.
The trustees continue to be supported by the Outreach worker, the Finance Officer along with other key members of St Stephen’s congregation and the local community.
Future trustees will be selected with preference on residents who reflect the community of Pill and can represent the needs of the community.
The Pill Trust is a charity excepted from registration with the Charity Commission.
Reference and Administrative details
The Pill Trust is situated in Pill, Newport. The correspondence address is St Stephen’s Vicarage, Adeline Street, Newport., Gwent, NP20 2HA.
The Pill Trust is a charity excepted from registration with the Charity Commission.
Trustees who have served from 1[st] April 2024 until the date this report was approved are:
Chair: The Reverend Justin Groves Elected Trustees: Valery Ede Kevin Hasler
Declarations
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.
Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees:
Financial Statements for the Year ending 31[st] March 2025
The Pill Trust
Financial Statement for 24/25 for the year ended 31 March 2025
| Unrestricted Receipts £ Donations 2504 Grants 1315 Fundraising 367 Other 4186 Unrestricted Payments £ Cost of fundraising events Other running costs 1964 Wages / salaries Pension contributions Hall Rent / Heating 400 Repairs and maintenance 1372 Insurance 257 Telephone, internet and postage 560 Printing, postage, stationery and computer supplies Grants and donations paid Costs of charitable activities Children Bags of Hope Outreach Other Youth Work Purchase of fixed assets 4553 Excess of Receipts over Payments -367 Transfers between funds 685 318 Bank Current Account 01 Apr 17 Bank Current Account 31 Mar 335 Restricted funds Remaining Bags of Hope Children Youth Outreach worker Outreach Fees |
Unrestricted £ 2504 1315 367 |
Restricted Total £ £ 23721 26225 53941 55255 28 395 0 |
|---|---|---|
| 4186 | 77690 81876 |
|
| Restricted Total £ £ 0 628 2592 21467 21467 1107 1107 400 1372 257 72 632 80 80 0 10070 10070 16443 16443 2262 2262 3000 3000 |
||
| 4553 | 55128 59681 |
|
| -367 685 |
22562 22195 -685 |
|
| 318 | 21877 22195 |
|
| 17 | 10634 10651 |
|
| 335 | 32511 32846 |
|
| Bags of Hope Children Youth Outreach worker Outreach Fees |
2278 2806 2050 18009 5159 2211 32511 |
CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examinerfs report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner's Report Report to th• trustoes HE PILL TeuST On aCUnts for the year nded 31 IMARCH 2025 Charlty no (if any) II C4it+Lkl Set out on pag I report lo the tfuslees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity I'lhe Trusfi for the year ended Responsibilitiès and basis of report As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 {Yhe Act.). I report in respect of my examination of the Trust's accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act ar¢d in carrying out my examination, I have followed all the applicable Diredions given by the Chanty Commission under section 145(5llbl of the Act. Independent tThe charity's gross income exceeded £250,000 and l am qualified to examine9 ststement undertake the examination by being a qualified member of linsert name of applicable listed bodyll. Delete I l rfnot applicable. I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attgnlion in connection with the examination lolher than that disdosed below") which gives me cause lo believe that in, any material respect". the accoLtnting records were not kept in a¢¢ord8nce with section 130 of the Charities Ad., or the accounts ditl not accord with the accounting record$,' or the accounts did not comply with the applicab requirements Concerning the fom and content of accounts set out in the Charf(ies (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a true and fairf view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination. I have no concems and have come across no other matters in connection wf(h the examination lo which attention should drawn in thi$ report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts lo be reached. . Please delete the words in the brackets if they do not apply. Slgngd: Date". 1110912025 N•mo: G£n)m8 LO(A IS6 IIRe£ Relevant profgssional quallflcatlonlsl or body Icne6J IER Oct 2018
Ilf any): Addr•$s: 2 EISCA tsAO EWPOQT NPZO Section B Disclosure Only Complete if the examiner needs lo highlight material matters of Goncern (see CC32, Independent examination of charty accounts.. direc*ion5 and guidance for examiners). Glvo horn brlof d8lall¥ of any Items that the examiner wishes to dlsclose. IER Oct 2018