Borwick and Priest Hutton War Memorial Hall Charity Number: 1197898
Trustees’ Report 2024-2025
The Trustees present their report and the financial statements of the charity for the year ended 5 April 2025.
Trustees
The trustees who served for the year were:
Kenneth Dunn Chair and Secretary David Roy Smith Eric Rooney Keith Brady Deputy Chair Christine Heginbotham Maureen Thomas Nigel David Adams Treasurer Steven Vaughan Richard Mellor (ex-February 2025)
Names of other persons who served as trustees in the financial period:
Claire Helme, resigned in September 2024
Chair: Kenneth Dunn Structure, governance and Management: Nature of the governing document: Constitution How the Charity is constituted: Charitable Incorporated Organisation Date of registration: 14[th] February 2022 Constitution
Governance:
Method of recruitment and appointment of trustees:
The Trustees are elected annually and are drawn from representative user groups and community members. The Chair of Borwick Parish meeting and the Chair of Priest Hutton Parish meeting are each invited to act as Trustees of the charity.
Policy and procedures adopted for the induction and training of Trustees:
New trustees are inducted into the workings of the Charity, including policies and procedures, in a timely fashion and understand their responsibilities.
Our purpose, aims and activities for the year 2024-2025:
The object of the Charity shall be the provision and maintenance of a village hall for the use of the inhabitants of the Parishes of Borwick and Priest Hutton and the surrounding neighbourhood.
The village hall is the designated community refuge for our district of Lancaster and, in times of need, is required to serve as a hub for emergency services and as a shelter for local residents.
In addition, the Charity administers certain funds held on behalf of community action groups (CAGs) involved with short term projects within the community served. Currently these are: The Borwick and Priest Hutton Heritage Trail
The Priest Hutton Parish lands project (Whitebeck nature reserve).
As we write, hall bookings overall continue to improve with revenues from hires increasing by some 6% year on year. However, the steady decline in regular use by local clubs and societies sadly continues. This year saw the closures of the Tai chi and Somatic movement classes.
On a more positive note, our private hires are steadily improving especially weekend hires for parties and celebrations. We, continue to be a popular and attractive venue and overall external bookings have increased by some 42%
In general, entertainment events present challenges in terms of profitability. We have ended our involvement with Eden Arts community cinema since audience numbers did not allow full recovery of film licensing charges. Numbers attending Spot On events were encouraging but still insufÏcient to cover artist fees. In future, we plan to continue our long collaboration with Spot On but to be more selective with choice of artists. We will supplement this with one or two shows each year where we directly hire the performers and can therefore keep a better control of our costs and margins.
Short term we continue to maintain and wherever possible upgrade our facilities and offering. This year we were fortunate to receive a substantial grant from Electricity North West’s Storm Arwen fund, which allowed us to replace the kitchen stove and to renew all of our cookware. We, also invested in upgraded stage lighting.
In terms of long-term planning, despite the government’s extension of fossil-fuel conversion targets we still intend to invest in a replacement heating system. We wish to eliminate the use of LPG and switch to a nonfossil fuel-based system.
During the latter part of the financial year, we expended much effort on design and fundraising for a Greening project. This will take the form of an air-to-air heat pump and air conditioning for the main hall, Far Infra-red panel heaters to the toilets, kitchen and committee room, along with the installation of a direct water heating for hot water provision. This will increase electricity consumption significantly, but we hope to ameliorate this by installation of a large PV panel array
In terms of resource improvement our main targets for the coming year will be the completion of this project during the autumn.
Financial review:
The unrestricted income for the year was £13,716 (2024: £18,030) and unrestricted expenditure was £10,353 (2024: £10,431) giving a net operating surplus of £3,363 (2024 net operating surplus £7,599). Restricted income for the year was £4,665 and restricted expenditures in the year totalled £3,301. The funder agreed that the £864 balance on the Storm Arwen grant be allocated to the Greening project planned for autumn 2025.
The Village Hall supervises funds, funding and governance on behalf of a number of Community Action Groups (CAGS). In the financial year 2023-24 these were.
| £ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opening Balance | Income | Expenditures | Closing | |
| Whitebeck Nature Reserve | 768 | 500 | 66 | 1202 |
| B&PH History Trail | 200 | 200 | ||
| Total £1,402 |
Principal financial management policies adopted in the year:
A budget for the year was established and agreed prior to the beginning of the financial year, and it was monitored and amended as necessary over the period.
Management accounts were prepared and presented eath tour months to the board of Trustee5 for their monftorlng and aaS15 of income and expenditures against the btsdget. In addrtkin. a Financial Dashboard was developed by our Treasufer which gives Trustees an aCsble picture of financial IndS and developments. Policies regardlng spending authortties, operation of petty cash systems and payment ol expenses are held bv the Charity and are reviewed at intervals. Reserves are held In easy acce55 Interest bearlngaccounts. Dlstrlbutlon of hobdln85 are re4iewed each 4 months. Res•ms polity. The Trustees bellevethatthe Charfjtyshould hold financial resefves inorderthat it mlBht meetanticipated future costs, along with contingent liabilities and that rt can continue to operate anfl meet the needs of users in the future. To thls end th¢ charlty has e5tabllshed and holds the followlng reseThe fvnd5: l. General reseNe 2. Capital developrnent reserye.. to fund future refvrblshments and purthases of equlpment. furnlshln85 and fittings. 3. Buildings reser¥e.' to pro¥ldÈ funds for fvture repairs and irnpro¥ennts. 4. Contlngeneles reserve.. to provlde fvnd5 for unforeseen and unbudgeted expenditures which rnay be necessary from rne to time. Prlnclpal fundlnl sourus: Surplus on opèratlons IHall hlresl. Grants and donatlons. IDNstment pollcy and obJ•rtl¥•s: Fund5 which are not required immedlately are held In easi1 a¢¢essed Interest bearfng accounts. Rlsk MaA•TrMrt: The trustee5 revlew the rlsks at regular Interyals and set up predre$ to those risks. The maln rlsks prevlously Identlfied are. . the loss of external fundin8 511PPOrt for rnaior projects, Insufflclent trustees . loss of key twstees and ¥olunte•rs. partkUl•rtyth sNln8 as offictrs - feduced Income from external hires. Subsldl•rl•s'. none to report Responslbllltl•s of th•TnMte•s: The Trustees are responsible for prepartn8 the Trustees Annual Report and the financlal statements In accordance wlth appllcable regulations. The Trustees are reSEsIble for keeping adequate accounting records that are sufficlent to show and explain the charltys tran53rtions and dlsc105e wfth reasonable tUra(V at any tlme the financizl position of the charity. They are also responsible for safe8uardin8 the o55ets of the chartty and hence for taking reasonable steps for the preventlon and detectlon of fraud and other irTe8ularftles. They are similarty responslble for safeguardlng the a55ets olthe relevant communlty actlon groups and matnta4nin8 overslghl of their prudent operatlon. Sl8n•d on b•hall of tht Board of Trusle Kènneth Dunn thair of Trust¢es_-.--......_.
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AMDuntsduefromtradirE Atthjed ?rep4kl Expenms L125 Im IeTlI ify) 855 £ TX Dutto>¥pl•rs 37B At6th1 •AAt5thW 2025 General ReseNe &17B Isn6 E 103$2 I2 6J78 £ W$2 RÈSWÈ JlldiD4Rq54 3,153 £ W52 ToGeneThl ReThe 4.165 .3>.K& NFFI DadAdth Trua5uf
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