## **The Octagon Community Centre Malvern** ## **Trustees’ Annual Report** # **Year Ending 31[st] March 2025** ## **Registered Charity Number** 1197948 ## **Address** The Octagon Community Centre Brook Farm Drive Malvern WR14 3SQ **Trustees** Derham Cook Chair of Trustees Shaun McCarthy Treasurer Reverend James Williams Safeguarding Lead Michael Dawson From October 2024 Julie MacLusky From October 2024 Susan Gormley From October 2024 Julia Needham From November 2024 The Trustees confirm that they carried out their duties in accordance with the Constitution of the Charity, adopted on 16[th] February 2022. The Trustees were assisted in the running of the Charity by: Lisa Fellows Booking Secretary Gary Flynn Sarah McCarten-Williams Project Manager (Lottery Funded, Self-Employed post) ## **Object of the Charity** To promote the benefit of the inhabitants of the Poolbrook and surrounding areas of the town of Malvern, without distinction of sex, race, political, religious or other opinions by associating with the local authorities, voluntary organisations and inhabitants in a common effort to further health, to advance education and to provide facilities in the interests of social welfare for recreation and leisure-time occupation with the object of improving the conditions of life for the said inhabitants. ## **Background** The Charity was formed in February 2022 in order to take over the work of the Brook Farm Community Association (registered charity number 1005869), a non-incorporated association. As described in last year’s report, the Charity Commission had approved the transfer of the BFCA’s assets to the new charity and this was completed in November 2024. Subsequently, the removal of the BFCA from the Charity Commission Register went ahead in March 2025. ## **Chair of Trustees Report – Derham Cook** The Trustees and Management Committee have worked very hard to ensure the smooth running of the Octagon. I am very grateful also for the contribution of all the Volunteers, without who we would not be able to deliver our services. 1 Our Community Pantry continues to be a great asset for the local community and recently we started a new initiative, the Malvern Community Kitchen. The aim of the MKC is to provide a high quality, freshly cooked meal for families with children one evening a week. Our financial state is still good and we are grateful for the various monies received in the form of grants and donations. We hope that we are now near the end of waiting for our new lease to be issued by our Landlord. This will ensure that we can continue to serve the community as well as possible long into the future. **Treasurer’s Report - Shaun McCarthy** (Reference: The Octagon Community Centre Accounts Report & Balance Sheet as at 31 March 2025 attached to this report **)** ## **Income** As at 15 November 2024, the monetary assets of the BFCA stood at £31,076.94. This money was transferred to The Octagon Community Centre Malvern (TOCCM) and allocated as follows: |General Purposes Fund|£10,654.24| |---|---| |Community Pantry|£9,856.31| |Development|£54.66| |Community Hub|£9,693.84| |Youth|£339.67| |Thursday Project|£478.22| Other income to the Charity was as follows: We received £1,225 in donations and grants into the General Purposes Fund. Contributors included: MHDC (Warm Space Fund and Ward Budget) and Platform Housing. Miscellaneous income of £775.97, which included bank interest, was also received. Total income to Fund at year end **£12,655.21** The Community Pantry Fund received £3,500 from Malvern Hills District Council (MHDC), using money from the Government’s Household Support Fund. A further £2,191 was received in donations from those using the Pantry. Total income to Fund at year end **£15,547.31** Donations totalling £1,450 were received from local councillors’ Ward Budgets for the Development Fund. Total income to Fund at year end **£1,504.66** The income from Centre Bookings was **£2,123.75** . **(** Note however that this figure is for Centre bookings after 15 November 2024. Prior to this date income was paid to the BFCA a/c) The Community Hub Fund received £13,199 **.** 00 from the National Lottery, which was partial payment of the funding we were awarded in 2022. An additional £5,000.00 was transferred from BFCA prior to its closure to cover employment costs. Total income to Fund at year end **£27,892.84** In November 2024 we started the Malvern Community Kitchen. We were grateful to receive a grant of £10,000 from MHDC to get the project off the ground. Donations of £2,409 were received from individuals and £0.75 in bank interest. Total income in to Fund at year end **£12,409.75** 2 Income to Youth Fund **£339.67** Income to Thursday Project **£478.22** ## **Total Income for the year was the £72,951.41** ## **Expenditure** Note that prior to 15[th] November 2024, the majority of the costs associated with the running of the Community Centre and employment costs were paid by the Brook Farm Community Association. A total of **£6,174.29** was paid out of GPF, covering such things as: Heat, Light and Water £1,755.93; Repairs & Maintenance £690.90; Cleaning £1,055.92; Insurance £994.39; Broadband/phone £384.03; Miscellaneous Expenses £1,293.12 (this includes Professional Fees, Bank Charges and costs associated with the Malvern Community Kitchen) The Community Pantry Fund paid out **£3,972.29,** the majority of which went on our weekly food deliveries from Fareshare. A total of **£12,045.46** was spent from the Community Hub Fund (National Lottery Funding). Of this, £8,295.75 was employment costs; £3,049.20 new professional dishwasher; £465.31 weekly activities; £139.20 training costs; £96 monitoring software. The sum of **£11.09** was paid out of the Development Fund. Malvern Community Kitchen Fund spent a total of **£2,321.72** . Of this, £896.97 was on equipment and maintenance; £643.20 employment costs; £601.05 food supplies; £180.00 miscellaneous expenses. ## **Total expenditure for the year was £24,524.85** |**Monetary Assets**||**Liabilities**|| |---|---|---|---| |Cash at Bank|£49,868.26|Gas|£152.29| |Petty Cash|£37.38|Electricity|£300.13| |||Employee’s Pension|£24.27| |**Other Assets**|||| |Hall bookings invoiced|£645.00||| |but not paid|||| |Fixtures & Fittings|£13,955.29||| ## **Reserves Policy** At their meeting on 11[th] March 2025, the Trustees decided on the need to develop a new Reserves Policy. At their meeting on 6[th] May 2025, it was agreed that £4,000 should be transferred from the General Purposes Fund into a high interest savings account. The Treasurer had advised that in the event of the Charity’s income from hirings continuing to fall off, this amount should ensure being able to continue to cover the day-to-day operating costs of the Community Centre for a period of 6 months. This policy will be reviewed at the last Trustees’ meeting of the current financial year. 3 ## **Development Report – Sarah McCarten-Williams** **The Hub Project - Lottery Funded** In the year 2021-2022 our previous charity, Brook Farm Community Association, received a grant of £146,760 over 5 years for the Hub Project. We have transferred this project to the Octagon Community Centre Malvern and will continue this project to its conclusion. We have recruited a new Community Centre Coordinator, who started in September 24. As discussed in our last report, we undertook an interim Community Consultation. In summary, the main themes identified were: - _Food Pantry;_ - _Community Fun Days, and;_ - _Arts/Creative Project._ This year we have extended our Community Pantry hours and we now open on Thursday evening with the aim of serving members of our community who work and can’t make our morning session. While Community Fun days are too much work for our small team, we have been doing some work on community evenings, like a quiz or board games evening. We have had a community craft project this year and had a youth arts project with our youth club. **Youth Club** We are delighted that our youth club has continued in term time throughout this year with the support of Malvern Cube Projects. They provide the staff and we provide the venue. **Community Pantry** This is our surplus food project. Our main food supply comes from Fareshare in Birmingham, who deliver 480kg of food to us each week. We ask for a £3 donation towards our costs for this project. People receive a choice of 5 items plus a bag of fruit and vegetables; this is subject to availability. We use this supply of food as the basis for all of our cooking projects, meaning the amount of food we have to buy is very low. It also encourages people to get creative in the kitchen and make the most of what’s available. This year we saw 222 different households use the pantry, with a total of 2194 accesses. The project runs alongside our Thursday Project and Friday Café, as well as now on a Thursday evening. **Thursday Project** Is our after-school, café-style session for families with primary school aged children. In this session we offer an activity such as crafts or games, a light meal, and parents can access our Community Pantry. This year we have seen 37 different households attending with an average of ten families per week. This session continues to be supported by Chase Team Churches and Malvern NILS (No Interest Loans Scheme). **Friday Café** Launched January 2022 we have continued to run our Friday Café project. It was established in response to suggestions from members of the community. As well as people having a chance to have a cuppa while they are waiting for their turn on the Pantry we have partners from a number of organisations attending, including Citizens Advice, Platform Housing Group, Emerging Futures, Age UK, and local Councillors. It has developed into quite a hub and we are really proud of if. **Christmas Hampers** The hard work of Malvern Rotary Club meant we were able to offer Christmas Hampers this year. We were able to give these to many of our own clients, as well as offer them to local churches, Citizens Advice Bureau, Action for Children, Platform Housing, and a local day centre. 4 **Volunteers** play a vital role in the work of the Octagon. To date, we’ve had 28 individuals formally registered with us — each one contributing significantly across all of our current projects. They are an essential part of what we offer, supporting our work in meaningful ways. Where appropriate, our volunteers undergo training and DBS checks to ensure they are well-prepared and meet all necessary safeguarding standards. ## **Malvern Community Kitchen – Julia Needham** Aiming specifically to tackle local child food poverty, Malvern Community Kitchen is a project aiming to provide a substantial, freshly cooked, nutritionally balanced hot meal for families with at least 1 child under 18 living in WR14 and in need of a helping hand. We intend to operate on the basis of referrals from local stakeholders such as headteachers, GPs, the local social prescribing teams and Malvern Hills Foodbank, and have a profile on the recently launched Joy platform in order to assist our referral partners with this process. Once a family is referred to our service, they will be invited to join us every week for at least 6 months. We aim to respect the dignity of our clients in everything we do, and our intention is to make the experience of joining us at the Community Kitchen as much like ‘going out for dinner with your family’ as possible. To that end, we operate on a table service basis. Initially based at The Octagon Centre on Sunday evenings, we hope to open on at least one other evening during the coming year, and hope this will be at St Mary’s Pickersleigh. We are very grateful for the grant funding recently received from MHDC, which has enabled us to get this project off the ground, alongside a one-off charitable donation of £500 from local estate agents Denny & Salmond. Longer term, we aim to secure our finding base by encouraging as many local individuals and successful businesses as possible to support us by making a small monthly donation of just a few pounds. We have made a good start with this and are grateful to all those individuals who are making small monthly donations. We would like to express our particular thanks to Cox of Malvern, who have committed to fund us long-term with a monthly standing order of £50pcm. At the time of this report we had only just opened our doors to our first clients: we look forward to providing more detailed operational progress report in the coming year. 5 IiUS.75 L65424 *UW424 M*GPFIfttr2rn1 £ns. £L5QI.UI T4J2 USJ4731 £IPA92 eomrnunltyHk MiknThCommurAtyXftG £iW75 £27m2I4 Ill•)B.75 £72JJi £1.YO4.￿ £JS>.6T 1&517.Jl .25 79aS Inv4r* Mllnl Ii,iY7. £aJ￿. 11972. •n .$21.72 4,524.15 7•.15 UJ73 >jr￿ bftlromkntflninc*liryW i1￿1•.[• 10.r .ys5.1s IlJ7S E14177.94 ElQml E14rAra PfftC4¥h ThE OCTAGON COMMUNrrY CENTRE MALVERN Balan￿ 8hxtu at 31 M•rch 2015 Op•nlng 8*lan¢M l•tApH 2124 Cash at Bank £L44LAJ £37.38 É1.479. 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