2023-03-01-accounts

FFA Annual Report April 2023

Summary Report (for volunteers/donors/Quartet/partners)

arriving at school without breakfast and with empty lunch boxes.

Annual report: Chair’s impact statement

Since becoming a registered charity on 15[th] March 2022, Family Food Action have had an extremely productive year. This is thanks to our committed volunteers, donors, and sponsors as well as the hard work of the community partner organisations through which we channel family support.

But the issues that gave rise to FFA have not gone away, this year the cost-of living crisis has pushed 4 million children in the UK into food poverty[1] (doubled from last year) and 1:4 UK households with children into food insecurity[2] . Low-income families often support themselves through numerous unpredictable zero hours contracts, face multiple disadvantage and have seen basic benefits fall to £140 pcm short of the minimum cost of living[3] . In Bristol’s most deprived communities, the impact has been profound and has put huge demand on foodbanks and community organisations supporting them, local primary schools report children

1 - - https://www.foodfoundation.org.uk/initiatives/food insecurity tracking#tabs/Round-11-

2 https://www.foodfoundation.org.uk/initiatives/food-insecurity-tracking#tabs/Round-11-

Escalating demand and charity registration has required FFA to adopt more robust working practices and the impact of the current economic climate on our target communities presents additional challenges, but we are pleased that we remain successful at focussing attention and action at tackling food poverty in Bristol and engaging and linking our diverse communities.

We now work with 5 community organisations, e.g., children’s centres who provide food in the context of wider support, in deprived areas such as St Paul’s, Southmead, Lockleaze, Easton and Eastville. They do this through a variety of activities e.g., providing meals cooked on site or running food clubs where families access food for home cooking. FFA provides supplementary food through 2 means: 1) via donated goods from street collections and other sources, 2) by buying bulk fresh fruit, veg, dairy, egg and meat using donated funds.

3 Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Trussell Trust data as reported in The Guardian newspaper Sunday 26[th] Feb 2023 (see online at:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/feb/26/uk-benefits-fall-short-of-minimumliving-cost-by-140-a-month-charities-say

Registered Charity Number 1198241

Local Impact of FFA: our recent community partner survey shows how demand and the impact of FFA has grown; for example, in the last year we have:

• taken on a fifth partner - Southmead children’s centre – helping them expand provision by 100%

• supplemented the meals of about 1500 local Bristol children and their parents

• helped our 5 partners support 50% more hungry children/parents (since July 2022)

This has been achieved in an environment where other foodbanks have seen reductions in donations and have struggled to meet rapidly increasing demand

This annual report summarises what we’ve achieved over the last year, highlights escalating need and thanks all our stakeholders for their ongoing support

Kate Beckett FFA Chair

• contributed to a total of about 155,000 meals annually

• increased the value of donated foods from street donations and other sources to about £1500 per week

• doubled our weekly financial donations (since July 2022)

• received several significant one-off donations - these will enable us to maintain support for existing partners and widen our reach to other families through grants for new initiatives e.g., school breakfast clubs

• contributed to the feeling of community and provided opportunities for engagement and activity for donor communities and volunteers

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Annual report

Partners

• We have continued to supply our 4 original partners, May Park Primary School, Felix Road and the Vench Adventure Playground & Community centre and St Paul’s Children’s Centre with a range of food and toiletries in accordance with their requests

• We have adopted Southmead Children’s Centre as an additional partner

• Our Partner Liaison group maintain an ongoing conversation with their partners to inform our supply of donations to each of them

Donors

• Our original model of collecting food and toiletries donations though street hubs has continued, and we have added a few more collection hubs over the year. The model is very responsive, and we issue special request lists weekly to help our partners plan e.g., cooking activities for children or special menus, which encourages greater levels of support each week.

• We have also received food donations from other organisations e.g., Tyntesfield, Golden Hill Community Garden, Little Stoke Allotment Society, Blaise Plant Nursery, Ardagh gardening club and now also receive

donations from Clifton Down Sainsburys, who have adopted FFA as their charity community partner, from Morrisons, Pieminister, the Bishopston and Ashley Down Labour Party, the Bristol Brunel Lions Club and the 1[st] Bishopston scouts and 63[rd] Bristol cubs groups

• Many people and organisations support FFA through regular and one-off financial donations, which enable us to purchase items in bulk at competitive rates

• As a charity, we are now able to claim Gift Aid which has increased our funds

Bulk supplies

• This year we have changed our supplier for bulk fruit and vegetables to Dole PLC (formerly Total Produce), who deliver direct to partners; this has reduced the load for sorting and delivery volunteers

• We have added Pak Butchers, a halal meat supplier, to support one of our partners

• We have continued sourcing eggs from the Good Egg Company

Operations

• Over a year ago, we moved our sorting operation to the garage at the Ardagh; the Ardagh Community Trust gives us free use of their space and we work closely together to achieve our respective aims

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• We have seen an increase in the number of volunteers, who help with setting up the room, sorting the donations, and delivering them to partners each week. We now have around 80 active members

• We also have a group of volunteers who collect donations from Sainsbury’s Clifton Down and deliver them to the Ardagh

• Dairy products are collected from local Tesco Golden Hill (to ensure that food handling requirements for refrigerated goods are followed) brought to the Ardagh and sorted and taken to our partners

• We carry out regular surveys of needs and requirements of our partners and of the volume and value of food donations to ena ble better understanding of our operations and impact

• Each week, the sorting hub is set up, including being cleaned, donations brought to our hub are sorted and allocated and our delivery drivers take the donations to our 5 partners

• Our premises and sorting processes have been inspected and approved by Bristol City Council Food Standards Agency and gained a Food Safety rating of 5*

• We have drawn up a Health & Safety policy and checklist and provide manual handling training for volunteers

• We have also drawn up a Safeguarding Policy, and are setting up training for volunteer team leaders, have carried out DBS checks and adopted criminal record checks

Management

• The management of FFA is carried out by a team of 14 volunteers, 7 of whom are the charity trustees. The group meets monthly to agree actions, allocate funds and plan for future activities and projects. The team operates within groups focussing on Communications, Partner liaison, Finances and People and Places, which report back to the Management Group and take forward actions

• In August 2022, FFA successfully applied for and received a grant from Quartet Foundation to cover setting up costs for the new charity including manual handling and safeguarding training, public liability insurance cover and office and cleaning equipment costs

Other events/ activities

• Last September, we held a successful Open Day at the Ardagh, where our partners were invited to talk to visitors to raise awareness of the needs of their communities. Politicians, partners, donors and supporters, representatives from food organisations

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and the wider public were invited to find out more about the FFA. Funds were raised through a raffle and a cake stall and additional volunteers were signed up. We propose to organise another Open Day this year

• We offer monthly drop-in sessions so that people wanting to find out more about the organisation or how they can be involved can talk to members of the management group. We also hold volunteer meetings every 2 months, either face-to-face or virtual

• We have set up a stall in Sainsbury’s Clifton Down to talk to their customers about FFA in order to widen awareness and increase donations of money, food, and toiletries. Sainsbury’s also host a second-hand book stall with the donations going to FFA

• Members of the management team attended and contributed their experience to events in the Community Food Justice week and Feeding Bristol Food Equality Strategy and continue to network with other associated organisations

• Volunteers have collected funds through the Chesterfield Road Carol concert; the Chandos Road Festival; the Effingham Road Street party; Theresa Avenue carol singing; a Bristol Community Choir concert and a Kettlebell instruction session from Peter Webb and we have been chosen as the linked charity

for the Westbury-on-Trym Village Show 2023 in September

• We circulate a monthly newsletter with information about FFA and about food poverty topics. This supports our campaigning aim and helps to preserve and expand interest and donations

• After submitting a successful proposal, we have begun work with UWE film studies students to develop three short films for social media aiming to raise awareness of food poverty and FFA

• We share information about FFA and other Bristol food organisations, requests for volunteer input, and information about food poverty through our website and WhatsApp groups and through our Facebook and Instagram social media sites. Max Burke of Kiski Studio has developed a new FFA logo and posters to help promote our work

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Future plans and developments

• Sustainability: as our impact grows so does the number of people and organisations who depend on us. So, we have undertaken longer term financial planning to enable us to maintain our support and reduce our/their vulnerability to the current financial situation.

● Spring 2023 small grants offer: As a result of our successful funding operation, we are inviting applications for small grants to enable other community organisations to further our charitable objectives by developing new initiatives that have a demonstrable impact on families experiencing food poverty and are both sustainable and cost effective. We hope to see some creative ideas that will extend the impact to new communities or individuals whose needs are currently unmet.

• Propagating FFAs model: We currently lack capacity and space to add more new partners, however we are willing to provide training to help others set up a similar model for collection and distribution of donations.

• Infrastructure funding: To ensure that FFA can continue our work, in the future we are proposing to regard all financial donations as ‘unrestricted’ so they can support FFA’s infrastructure too (without which we couldn’t run and have the impact we do). This is the

norm among charities and reflects our increasing size and impact. We will always strive to keep our running costs as low as possible and be accountable to both a donors and statutory bodies for reporting infrastructure expenditure and ensuring that our funds are used optimally to meet our charitable aims.

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Financial report March 2022 – February 2023 inclusive

The accounts have been prepared on a receipts and payments basis. All amounts are presented to the nearest pound

Notes on income

• FFA received a total of £52,570 in direct financial donations (via bank transfers, standing orders and £209 in cash). Of this, regular donations totalled £30,108

• Fundraising (FFA Events) refers to gross receipts from the Open Day on September 13th

• Fundraising (online) is money raised via JustGiving. This includes donations from the Chesterfield Road fundraiser

• Fundraising (other) is money collected at various street parties, fairs and carol singing events

• Gift Aid has been collected on eligible donations (those made since FFA became a registered charity) received before 31st January 2023. In February 2023, 74% of donations by value were Gift Aided

• We received a grant of £2808 from the Quartet Foundation. These funds are regarded as restricted to spending on infrastructure and overheads as per the grant application. £1586 (56%) has been spent this financial year

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Notes on Expenditure

• £37,351 has been spent on bulk purchases of fruit and vegetables; dairy produce; eggs and meat for our partners. This total also includes a weekly meal grant to Felix Rd Adventure Playground and £130 of seasonal items purchased from unrestricted funds

• Volunteer costs include strategy meeting costs, manual handling training and DBS checks for core volunteers

• Food hygiene represents costs of cleaning materials for the sorting hub

• Publicity: leaflets and posters, open-day items, collection tin stickers for Sainsburys

• Premises costs: donations to the Ardagh Community Trust to assist in path and roof refurbishment

• Admin and Office: Annual Zoom subscription and Voscur membership fee

• Insurance: Public Liability

• Website: registration of familyfoodaction.org.uk domain for 3 years

• Bank Charges: The FFA CAF bank account costs £5/month (reduced from £8/month)

• Equipment costs: Trolleys for the sorting hub; padlocks for trolleys and fruit and veg drop-boxes; display boards

• Other/Refunded expenditure. Miscellaneous other items and refunds for faulty items or overpayments

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Overhead costs

• FFA’s total spending on all items not classified as bulk food comes to 4.8% of income .

----- Start of picture text -----
FFA percentage of income spent on
bulk food and overhead costs
4.80%
95.20%
Overhead costs Bulk food
----- End of picture text -----

Food and Toiletries donations

increase in the volume and value of our street collections. Audits of donations have been made twice this year.

Donations of goods in kind are estimated to be worth approximately £63,000 over the year March 2022 to February 2023

For more information please see:

FFA website: FamilyFoodAction.org.uk Email: [e-mail] Facebook: FFA Bristol

Instagram : familyfoodaction

• We collected and distributed food for 51 weeks of the year. This involved street collections and one-off donations from special events e.g., the Scouts, Bristol Brunel Lions. Sainsburys adopted FFA as their charity partner in September 2022. The collections at Sainsbury’s significantly increased the volume and value of the donations by roughly £300 a week. Our open day, September 2022, also saw an increase in the number of streets collecting and hence an

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CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES F•mity F¢)od Actlon 1198241 Receipts and payments accounts CC16a Forth• porfod fmm To 014AarQ2 28•otp23 Section A Receipts and payments Unrn$tri¢terl lunds Restricted funds Endowm8rit fund8 Total funds Last ¥0ar to thD rnar•it£ to nD•rMt£ to nw•Bt £ A1 Roe•l t8 49.801 535 Fundra$i Fundrsi Fundras - FFA EYlts 535 - other evwls 1,469 9U 2,808 373 Grants Olher Incorr t fU￿S from activiti85 ineo 2.8OB IVJD 1Q3 3.189 $4,774 3.292 Sub total(Gross income forAR) 6.780 71.555 A2 Asset and In¥•stm•nt sal•s. I Sub total Totalrnceipts 6,780 64.775 71,555 A3 P m•ftls B1￿k lood V&unleer cosls we 271 271 Premisey costs Admn & Oflrt8 Insul￿ce Web51te Bank tha Equip￿￿￿ ¢osi3 Oihèr bxp8nditu Refun￿ ExP￿￿rtUre 3YJ 210 213 213 gtkt 50 Sub total 3>,$47 A4 Ass•t and In¥o$tm•nt pvrch8s••, Is•• tabl•l Totalpayments 1,121 39,547 10.668 Net of r9Cglpts/(paymonts) AgTTan&fBTS b•twwn funds A6 Cash funds last y•ar •nd Cash fund* thi¥ y••r•rtd 5,659 25.228 30,886 5.659 25.228 30,886 CCXX R1 8cmunls ISSI 2023￿54￿9

Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period Unrostri¢t8d funds to n•ar•At £ Re5trbct•d funds Endowment funds bj n￿rNI £ Cat•gorl•B B1 Cash fund• Bank IWant• of finaTKia yr 5,859 2S,228 Total cash funds 5,659 25.228 xxMrfs11 UnrnstrfGt•d funds to n•w•t £ R•8trfct•d fund• Endowmonl funds to nMreBt £ D8lails torMr•¥t £ B2 txhgr mon•tsry assots k+tlL4ch 4••Qt bel OJr•rrt v¥1 Details B3 Investment a•sot8 Qrr4nt vol IwiJrnl B4 Assets rètalnottfor tho charity's use Twrttys, iabkn trfjards P£stnctwJ Details Lknpad 8upthr InvOiC85 I14￿16ty r•lat•• Psinclod BS Uablllllgs 2,511 Swaned by on• orts4D tN5tees on b8haK of al thè tmsteas SF3nattJre Date otapproval f. uji Zé)7eFK CCXX R2 ac£ounts ISSI 202>054)9

Independent wmlTrer'$ report to the trustees of Famlly Food Actl(m I report to the trustees on my examlnation of the accounts of Famlly Food Action {Regi5tered Charity 1198421, the"Charity"I for the year ended 28 February 2023. ResP(X151bllltles and ba515 of report As the charity trustees of the Charity you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Art 20111'the Act'l. l ￿port in respert of my examination of the Charl￿$ accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Art and in carrying out my examination I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commi55ion under sertion 1451511bl of the Act. Independent examlnerfs statement I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have tome to my attention in connectlon with the examination giving me ￿use to belleve that in any material respect: l. accounting records were not kept In respect of the Charity as required by sectlon 130 of the Act," or 2. the accounts do not accord with those records. I have no concerns and have come acr055 no other matters in connectlon with the examination to whlch attention should be drawn in thls report in order to enable a PToper understanding of the accounts to be reached. Signed: Name: Ken Grlffin Address: 12 Downs Cote Park, Bristol 8S9 3JT Date: 30 May 2023