## **Trustees’ Annual Report for the period** 

## **04 Feb 2025 To 30 March 2026** 

**Journey LGBT+ Asylum Group** 

Address; c/o The Old Post Office, 1533 Pershore Road, Birmingham, B30 2JH 

## **Charity registration number: 1212001** 

## **Trustees:** 

Alexandra Taylor Sheila Rushforth Helen Hibberd 

## **Independent Examiner:** Gerald Gurriet 

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## **Trustees Report** 

## **Objectives and Activities** 

## **Objectives as set out in the constitution:** 

The objects of the CIO are: 

1. To relieve the needs of LGBT+ asylum seekers and those granted refugee status and their dependants in the West Midlands in particular, but not exclusively, by: 

   - i) creating safe and welcoming spaces for connection and community, 

   - ii) providing befriending, mentoring and one-to-one support, 

   - iii) coordinating group activities and improving access to community activities to facilitate integration, 

   - iv) providing support, information and signposting through the asylum process and beyond. 

2. To advance for the public benefit the education of the public in general about the issues relating to LGBT+ asylum seekers and refugees. 

## **Trustees’ responsibilities in relation to the financial statements:** 

The charity trustees are responsible for preparing an annual report and financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice). The law applicable to charities in England and Wales requires the charity trustees to prepare financial statements for each year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs and of the incoming resources and application of resources of the charity for that period. The trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and to enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Charities Act 1993, the charity (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 and the provisions of the trust deed. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities. 

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## **Aims and objectives:** 

## OUR MISSION 

Empowering people who identify as LGBT+ through the asylum process and beyond. 

## OUR VISION 

To create a safe space for LGBT+ asylum seekers and refugees in the West Midlands, helping them find community, healing and support, throughout their asylum journey. 

## OUR AIMS 

- To create safe and welcoming spaces for connections and community among LGBT+ asylum seekers. 

- To enhance confidence, resilience, and self-acceptance among members. 

- To provide information and signposting through the asylum process and beyond. 

- To promote greater inclusion across the West Midlands and collaborating with other groups to support LGBT+ asylum seekers. 

## OUR VALUES 

- Security: We prioritise creating a safe and liberating environment where everyone can be themselves without fear. 

- Acceptance: We embrace all individuals with compassion, openness, and a non-judgemental attitude, ensuring everyone feels valued. 

- Recognition: We acknowledge each person’s dignity and experiences, ensuring they feel seen, validated, and respected. 

- Empowerment: We encourage and support individuals to take agency over their lives, fostering self-respect and partnership. 

- Belonging: We cultivate a sense of family and trust, building deep connections and friendships within our community. 

- Positivity: We inspire hope, optimism, and courage, promoting a positive outlook and resilience in our members. 

## **Summary of the main achievements during the period:** 

During the course of the financial year (Feb 25 - March 26), the Journey Group supported nearly 300 members. 

We offered 14 monthly in-person member meetings, with an average of 47 members attending each meeting. These meetings provide valuable meeting space for LGBT+ asylum seekers who are often isolated from other services and communities. Meeting topics range from fun activities, such as a Hip Hop 

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workshop with Birmingham Hippodrome, to more serious topics, such as LGBT+ identities and Home Office interviews. 

We also ran a wide range of other wellbeing activities including a bluebell walk in May and a picnic in August. We supported members to attend music performances, theatre shows, creative workshops, social events, museum exhibitions, dance classes, festivals, cricket sessions, film screenings, gardening activities, swimming sessions and cultural celebrations. We collaborated with Kings Heath Action for Refugees on ‘Finding Pride’ - a series of creative workshops which culminated in an exhibition at a local art gallery, and with Autin Dance Theatre on ‘Light Up Fest’ – a series of lantern-making workshops culminating in a lantern parade in a local park. A large cohort of 50 Journey members marched together in the Birmingham Pride parade, and some also marched at the smaller community event Queens Heath Pride. We partnered with the Bike Project, leading to 8 members receiving free bicycles - invaluable for exercise and combatting isolation. 

We offered 13 monthly Zoom sessions, which provide a safe space for members to talk and make connections without having to travel. Meeting topics included aspects of UK culture, such as cultural traditions and how to write to your MP, as well as more serious topics such as working with lawyers and preparing for immigration detention. Our WhatsApp community continues to be a place where members can connect to others for advice, information and solidarity at any time of the day or night. 

In 2025 we became one of the referral agencies to the BCU Law Clinic Asylum Project. This has enabled the group to refer members for a free legal advice session, which has been invaluable, given the limited access to legal aid lawyers. 

Our Buddy scheme went from strength to strength. Buddies are established Journey members who play a valuable role in running and facilitating our monthly in person and online meetings, acting as ambassadors for the group, providing translation support for members, for example at the BCU Law Clinic Asylum Project, and in providing peer to peer support to new members.Throughout this year we had 16 Buddies who successfully completed Buddy training and went on to support the Journey Group. We see the Buddy scheme as a pathway for encouraging and supporting members to be involved in leadership positions in the organisation. Buddies now sit on the group’s steering committee to feed in members’ views and participate in decisions on the group’s focus and activities. We are planning in the next year to train some of the established Buddies to undertake one-to-one casework support. 

We raised the profile of the charity, through continued development of our website and active participation in the Birmingham LGBT Community Forum. One volunteer was featured on their company’s website talking about their work with 

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the Journey Group; another ran a half marathon in aid of the Journey Group, and a local DJ also ran a livestream event to fundraise for us. Our members’ comments formed the basis of an article in ‘Context’, a family therapy magazine; Journey Group Buddies spoke at an event celebrating 10 years of Birmingham as a City of Sanctuary; and Buddies and trustees attended the Right to Remain Annual Gathering and the Birmingham City of Sanctuary AGM. A trustee represented our members in focus groups on the provision of urgent care services and academic research with marginalised communities. The Journey Group also supported our members by taking part in national campaigns against racism, asylum camps, for-profit asylum hotels and the proposed 20-year wait for settlement, and joined with other organisations that support migrants to meet with newly elected independent MP Ayoub Khan. 

We also supported Rainbow Connections, an LGBT+ social group, with bus passes, enabling our members to attend monthly meetups and connect with the wider Birmingham LGBT+ community. 

We secured a Sanctuary Grant from Birmingham City Council’s Migration Team in October 2025. We have used this grant as a platform for promoting our work, networking and engaging with other groups to raise awareness of the specific needs of LGBT+ asylum seekers. It also enabled us to hire our first paid member of staff, who joined the team in January 2026. They work part-time to induct new members, provide casework support to members, supervise the team of volunteers providing one-to-one support, and help with fundraising applications. 

## **Structure, governance and management:** 

The charity is operated under the rules of its constitution adopted on 24th January 2025. 

## **Financial review:** 

Journey LGBT+ Asylum Group has a generous pool of local and regional charitable trusts and funders, and good support from individual, and community funders. Journey LGBT+ Asylum Group raised **£12248** from charitable trusts and foundations, **£6836** from community donations, **£2062** was raised by supported running fundraising events, a corporate donor donated **£192** and we were awarded a grant of £14840 from Birmingham City Council’s Sanctuary Grant award, of which **£7420** was paid during this financial year. At the end of the financial year, we had total funds of **£21318** ( **£12825** unrestricted, **£8548** restricted). Out of these unrestricted funds **£8000** was designated to reserves 

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(accounting for three months of operating costs) and **£4825** was designated to core running costs. 

## **Reserves policy:** 

Our reserves policy states that we should hold three months operating costs. 

## **Declarations:** 

The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above. 

Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees: 

|Signatures|||
|---|---|---|
|Full name|<br>Helen Hibberd|Alexandra Taylor|
|Position|<br>Trustee - Treasurer|Trustee|
|Date|13/08/26|13/08/26|



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| CHARITY COMMISSION
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## **Receipts and payments account** 

## **For the year ended 31 March 2026** 

## **Section A Receipts and payments** 

|**Section A Receipts andpayments**|**Section A Receipts andpayments**|**Section A Receipts andpayments**|**Section A Receipts andpayments**|**Section A Receipts andpayments**|**Section A Receipts andpayments**|**Section A Receipts andpayments**|**Section A Receipts andpayments**|**Section A Receipts andpayments**|**Section A Receipts andpayments**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**Unrestricted**<br>**funds £**||**Restricted**<br>**funds£**||**Endowment**<br>**funds £**||**Total funds £**||**Last year £**|
|**A1 Receipts**||||||||||
|Grant income|**-**||**19668**||**-**||**19668**|||
|CommunityDonations|**6836**||**-**||**-**||**6836**|||
|FundraisingEvents|**2062**||**-**||**-**||**2062**|||
|Corporate Donations|**192**||**-**||**-**||**192**|||
|Misc (repayment for bus<br>tickets etc)|**61**||**79**||**-**||**140**|||
||**0**||**-**||**-**||**0**|||
||**0**||**-**||**-**||**0**|||
||**0**||**-**||**-**||**0**|||
|**_Sub total(Gross_**<br>**_income for AR)_**|<br>**9150**||**19747**||**-**||**28897**|||
|||||||||||
|**A2 Asset and**<br>**investment sales, (see**<br>**table).**||||||||||
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|||
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|||
|**_Sub total_**|**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|||
|||||||||||
|**_Total receipts_**|**9150**||**19747**||**-**||**28897**|||
|||||||||||
|**A3 Payments**||||||||||
|Staff salaries (inc. payroll)|**0**||**3313**||**-**||**3313**|||
|Staff expenses|**263**||**263**||**-**||**526**|||
|Monthly Members Meeting<br>Costs|**0**||**3831**||**-**||**3831**|||
|Buddy Scheme|**182**||**100**||**-**||**282**|||
|1-2-1 Support Scheme|**230**||**0**||**-**||**230**|||
|Wellbeing Activities|**0**||**2506**||**-**||**2506**|||
|Volunteer programme|**0**||**460**||**-**||**460**|||
|AGM|**723**||**723**||**-**||**1446**|||
|Organisational Development<br>Costs|**741**||**545**||**-**||**1287**|||
|Overheads|**542**||**0**||**-**||**542**|||
|PRIDE Event|**0**||**798**||**-**||**798**|||
|**_Sub total_**|**2681**||**12539**||**-**||**15220**|||
|||||||||||
|**A4 Asset and**<br>**investmentpurchases,**||||||||||



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|||**-**||**-**|||**-**||**-**|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||**-**||**-**|||**-**||**-**|||
|**_Sub total_**||**-**||**-**|||**-**||**-**|||
|||||||||||||
|**_Total payments_**||**2681**||**12539**||**-**|||**15220**|||
|||||||||||||
|**_Net of_**<br>**_receipts/(payments)_**||**6469**||**7207**||**-**|||**13677**|||
|**A5 Transfers between**<br>**funds**||**-**||**-**||**-**|||**-**|||
|**A6 Cash funds last**<br>**year end***||**6,356**||**1341**||**-**|||**7696**|||
|**_Cash funds this year_**<br>**_end_**||**12,825**||**8,548**||**-**|||**21,373**|||
|||||||||||||
|||||||||||||
|**Section B Statement of**<br>**assets and liabilities at**<br>**the end of the period**|<br>|||||||||||
|**Categories**||**Details**||||**Unrestricted**<br>**funds £**|||**Restricted**<br>**funds £**||**Endowment**<br>**funds £**|
|**B1 Cash funds**||Petty cash||||**55**|||**-**||**-**|
|||Bank account (cash)||||**12,770**|||**8,548**||**-**|
|||||||**-**|||**-**||**-**|
|||**_Total cash funds_**||||**12,825**|||**8,548**||**-**|



_***NB: as this is our first year as a CIO our accounts run for more than 12 months. From our registration date 04.02.25-30.03.26.**_ 

_**Prior to becoming a CIO we were a Company Limited by Guarantee registered with Companies House (Journey Asylum Seekers Limited No: 10322044). The Company was dissolved on 04.11.25 and remaining funds were transferred to the new legal entity as a CIO - see Cash funds last year end.**_ 

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## **Analysis of income 04.02.25-30.03.26:** 

|**Secured Income 2025/26**||||
|---|---|---|---|
|Income Source|Restricted|Unrestricted|Grand Total|
|**_Statutory_**||||
|Bham City Council|7420||7420|
|**_Charitable Trust_**||||
|Birmingham Pride Community<br>Foundation|3248||3248|
|Comic Relief Grassroots Giving|2000||2000|
|Heart of England - Friends of South<br>Birmingham Institute|2000||2000|
|MSN Fund|5000||5000|
|**_Community Donations_**||||
|Community Donations||6836|6795|
|Fundraising events||2062|2062|
|Corporate Donations|0|192|192|
|**_Other/Misc_**||||
|Small donations/transactions|79|61|140|
|**Total secured income**|**19747**|**9150**|**28897**|



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