The Mothers’ Union
Southwell & Nottingham Diocese
(Registered charity, number 249878)
Annual Report & Financial Statements
for the year ended 31 December 2021
Page Contents 2-6 Trustees’ annual report 7 Independent examiner’s report 8 Receipts & payments account 9 Statement of assets & liabilities 10-12 Notes to the accounts
The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese Trustees’ annual report for the year ended 31 December 2021
Full name The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese
Registered charity number 249878
Principal address
Jubilee House, Westgate, Southwell, Nottinghamshire, NG25 0JH
Trustees
S Baird-Smith, Diocesan President, from 1/1/2022
P Brewin, Diocesan President, until 31/12/2021 (no longer a trustee)
- J Hodson , Vice-President Newark & Nottingham A/D, from 1/1/2022
D Mellors, Vice-President Newark A/D, until 31/12/2021 (no longer a trustee)
- H Catchpole, Vice-President Nottingham A/D, until 31/12/2021
V Mellors, until 31/12/2021 (no longer a trustee)
S Bancroft M Pates E Toplis I Garratt S Massey S Brotherhood, deceased Feb 2021
The Board of Trustees meets three times a year. The Members of the Board of Trustees are: The Diocesan President, the two Archdeaconry Vice-Presidents, the Unit Co-ordinators, and the Deanery Leaders.
Independent examiner
John O’Brien, employee of Community Accounting Plus, Units 1 & 2, North West, 41 Talbot Street, Nottingham, NG1 5GL
Governance and management
The charity is operated under the rules of the Royal Charter of the Mothers Union charity number 240531, dated 15 June 1926 and last amended 4 July 2006. Overall management of the charity is the responsibility of the trustees who are elected and co-opted under the terms of the constitution. Deanery Leaders are elected by branch leaders, Diocesan President and Unit Co-ordinators by members of Diocesan Council, and each Vice President by Members of Council in their Archdeaconry. Day to day project activity is managed and carried out by volunteers.
Public benefit statement
The Trustees confirm that they have complied with the duty in section 17 of the Charities Act 2006 to have due regard to the Charity Commission's general guidance on public benefit, 'Charities and Public Benefit'.
State of the Diocese
The membership of Mothers’ Union Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham is 525 plus 33 honorary life members for the year ended 31 December 2021 with 27 active branches.
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The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese
Objectives and Activities
The Mothers’ Union is a worldwide society whose aim is the advancement of the Christian religion in the sphere of marriage and family life. There are 5 objectives:
1) TO PROMOTE and support married life
Several members are involved in Marriage Preparation and Marriage Enrichment courses in co-operation with their incumbents. Members meet regularly in branches, deaneries and archdeaconries. Meetings provide for social and pastoral needs of members, often including lunch or afternoon tea. Speakers are invited to speak on a range of subjects of general interest and to raise awareness of issues and
current and future projects. Diocesan Speakers' topics include this year’s theme, Rebuilding Hope and Confidence.
A team of volunteer’s co-ordinate hospital visits within the diocese. Services are held in local Care Homes.
The Mothers' Union diocesan website (set up in 2011) has kept members informed of local MU issues and has links to the Diocesan website. It also has links to the central Mothers' Union website. This enables members to access worldwide news and information about the organisation.
All members receive a triannual newsletter 'Link up' to keep members informed of Mothers' Union projects and news from around the Diocese. We also have a Linkup web page with all our latest news, events and uploaded reports and articles https://mulinkupsouthwellandnottingham.wordpress.com/
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The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese
2) To ENCOURAGE parents to bring up their children in the faith and life of the Church
Our trained Parenting facilitators continue to offer to facilitate parenting groups. Shorter half day workshops have also been well received.
Many members are involved in Messy Church, Sunday Schools and Toddler groups in their parish churches. Volunteers at Time Travelling! (a Diocesan project for school-age children run in the Cathedral and in several parish churches) include a significant number of MU members.
The Hand in Hand resource has continued to be promoted throughout the diocese. It is an ongoing resource to help parents share their faith in the home. Labelled for Life is a resource designed to give parents, carers and teachers the confidence to handle the commercial and sexualised influences that children might face.
Members receive the MSH Connected Magazine twice a year.
Incumbents have been signposted to MU resources for Mothering Sunday & Father’s Day.
3) TO MAINTAIN a worldwide fellowship of Christians, united in prayer, worship and service
The Indoor Members Prayer Circle keeps in regular contact with elderly members who are no longer able to attend meetings.
Many fund-raising events have taken place to support the Relief Fund, Literacy Projects and CCMP (Church and Community Mobilisation Process). 'Make a Mother's Day' campaign sells ethical gifts for Mothering Sunday.
We have 5 allocated overseas link Dioceses and we are building up these relationships to support their members in prayer and fellowship. We also maintain links with the Diocese of Matana in Burundi and Natal in South Africa.
MU Publications have been sold throughout the diocese to support our projects and also provide resources for use in branch meetings as well as greeting cards and gifts.
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The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese
4) To PROMOTE conditions in society favourable to stable family life and the protection of children
The diocese has embraced the national Bye, Buy Childhood campaign which seeks to protect children from excessive and inappropriate marketing. MU believes children should be valued as children and not targeted as adult consumers. The campaign challenges consumerism, seeks to empower parents in making positive choices in how they handle their finances and to challenge retailers, advertisers and the Government.
The Mothers’ Union is working in partnership and promoting a new website Parentport which gives parents and carers information on what they can do if they have seen or heard something in the media that is inappropriate for their children. The campaign 16 days of Activism against Gender based violence was once again well supported.
5) TO HELP those whose family life has met with adversity
We provide caravan holidays for families who have difficulty in coping and cannot afford a holiday. The ‘Away from it All’ holidays are proving extremely beneficial to families and individuals who have not had any kind of break in the last three years, often due to difficult circumstances beyond their control. This year our AFIA team
arranged for 29 families which included 122 individuals for the Spring Bank Holiday at Mablethorpe. This included 27 caravans (15 from 2020 and 12 from 2021) and 3 dinner, bed and breakfast holidays for older ladies who had never had a holiday. We were able to give the families who had caravan holidays a £50 co-op voucher for their holiday plus a £50 Christmas Hamper. This generated some very warm expressions of appreciation.
We run a Contact Centre in Retford where children can meet their non-custodial parent in a safe environment.
We support National Police Aid Charity. We provide toiletries for homeless people and women's refuges. Many members use their knitting skills to make premature baby clothes, trauma teddies and vests for African babies. We continue to make 'Prayer Shawls' to be given to those who are sick to bring assurance of Prayer and God's comfort.
COVID-19
As the restrictions were lifting, more meetings were able to take place towards the end of 2021.
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The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese
The charity’s policy on reserves
The charity aims to keep at least enough in the unrestricted funds to cover 3 months’ ordinary expenditure.
The main risk to the charity would be a severe drop in membership and/ or fundraising. We try to manage our costs effectively and encourage new members to join e.g. the increase in deanery and diocesan member numbers.
Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees:
Signed ______ Date _ S Baird-Smith, Trustee
Signed ______ Date _ E Toplis, Trustee
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Independent examiner’s report to the trustees of The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese for the year ended 31 December 2021
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese (the charity) for the year ended 31 December 2021.
Responsibilities and basis of report
As the trustees of the charity you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’). I report in respect of my examination of the charity’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.
Independent examiner’s statement
I have completed my examination. I confirm that no matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:
-
accounting records were not kept in respect of the charity as required by section 130 of the Act; or
-
the accounts do not accord with those records.
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
Signed ____ Date _______ John O’Brien MSc, FCCA, FCIE Employee of Community Accounting Plus
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The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese Receipts & payments account for the year ended 31 December 2021
| 2020 Total Unrestricted Funds Funds £ Note £ Receipts 15528 Subscriptions & donations 2 - 10431 Diocesan funds 11114 18386 Charitable funds - 3177 Literature sales 3170 3874 Deaneries & branches 3 - 96 Bank interest 12 754 Sundry receipts 4 633 52246 Total receipts 14929 Payments 13540 Charitable funds - 622 Diocesan funds 669 12534 Management & administration 5 12334 108 General expenses 6 1670 2088 Literature 2105 - Link Up & marketing 16 15361 Mary Sumner House - 6569 Deaneries & branches 3 - 50822 Total payments 16794 1424 Net receipts/(payments) (1865) 62905 Cash funds at start of this period 13783 - Transfers between funds 9 2000 64329 Cash funds at end of this period 13918 |
2021 Restricted Total Funds Funds £ £ 13086 13086 126 11240 16566 16566 - 3170 53 53 - 12 - 633 29831 44760 15356 15356 - 669 - 12334 - 1670 - 2105 - 16 13846 13846 4235 4235 33437 50231 (3606) (5471) 50546 64329 (2000) - 44940 58858 |
|---|---|
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The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese Statement of assets and liabilities at 31 December 2021
| 2020 | 2021 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| £ | Cash assets | Note | £ |
| 22293 | Nat West current account | 20992 | |
| 22748 | CBF deposit account | 22760 | |
| 19288 | Cash & bank balances for deaneries & branches | 15106 | |
| 64329 | 58858 | ||
| Other monetary assets | |||
| 863 | Stock (books & cards) | 731 | |
| 8530 | Prepayments | 7 | 999 |
| 9393 | 1730 | ||
| Liabilities | |||
| Creditors: | |||
| (912) | Independent examination | (720) | |
| - | Management & admin | (403) | |
| (7746) | Advance receipts - 2021 subscriptions | (5084) | |
| (8658) | (6207) |
These financial statements are accepted on behalf of the charity by:
Signed _____ Dated _____ E Toplis, Trustee
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The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese Notes to the accounts for the year ended 31 December 2021
1. Receipts & payments accounts
Receipts and payments accounts contain a summary of money received and money spent during the period and a list of assets and liabilities at the end of the period. Usually, cash received and cash spent will include transactions through bank accounts and cash in hand.
2. Subscriptions & donations
These comprise numerous donations and subscriptions from members, collected centrally or through the branches and deaneries.
3. Deaneries & branches
| Receipts Payments |
Gross £ 35606 (39788) (4182) |
Transfers to Centre £ 35553 (35553) - |
Net £ 53 (4235) |
|---|---|---|---|
| (4182) |
4. Sundry receipts
----- Start of picture text -----
£
Archdeaconry days 132
Diocesan members admin 81
Collections 320
Sundry receipts 100
633
----- End of picture text -----
5. Management & administration
| Management & administration | |
|---|---|
| Accountant payments Secretary payments Treasurer payments Jubilee House rent Gifts to Leaders Insurance Independent examination fee Stationery & telephone Payroll charges Trustees expenses & travel |
£ 1500 5715 1500 651 298 438 912 837 205 278 |
| 12334 |
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The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese
6. General expenses
----- Start of picture text -----
£
General meeting expenses 180
Archdeaconry days 600
Conference expenses 680
Donations payments 110
Sundry payments 100
1670
----- End of picture text -----
7. Prepayments
| Prepayments | |
|---|---|
| Insurance AFIA caravan deposits |
£ 399 600 |
| 999 |
8. Trustees’ and officials’ remuneration
During the year trustees and officials received the following sums:
-
J Hempstead, £1,500, as Diocesan Accountant;
-
K McNish, £5,715 as Diocesan Secretary;
-
G Noon, £1,500 for Treasurer’s services;
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4 Trustees also received a total of £278 for travel and other expenses.
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The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese
9. Funds analysis
| Funds analysis | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Restricted funds Charitable funds: Action and Outreach Access & Contact Centre AFIA Count Your Blessings Prison Work Time Travelling Parenting fund Subs & donations: Worldwide MSH Fabric Overseas Literacy B+IDF MSH Subs Diocesan Projects Big Summer Appeal Discretionary fund Other: Deaneries & Branches |
Opening balance £ 150 4768 20667 - 196 - 2210 - - 180 - - 920 1901 - 266 19288 50546 |
Receipts (Payments) £ £ |
Transfers £ |
Closing balance £ |
|
| - 50 12831 3425 - 200 - 360 56 813 295 4 11500 50 148 46 53 |
- (798) (10933) (3425) - (200) - (360) (56) (643) (295) (4) (12340) - (148) - (4235) |
- (1000) (1000) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
150 3020 21565 - 196 - 2210 - - 350 - - 80 1951 - 312 15106 |
||
| 29831 | (33437) | (2000) | 44940 |
The transfers to the unrestricted fund from the Access and Contact Centre and the AFIA funds are to reflect the costs of managing these areas of work.
10. Glossary of terms
Restricted funds: These are funds given to the charity, subject to specific restrictions set by the donor, but still within the general objects of the charity.
Prepayments: These are services that the charity has paid for in advance, but not used during the accounting period.
Creditors: These are amounts owed by the charity, but not paid during the accounting period.
Advance receipts: These are amounts received by the charity in the accounting period, for use in a future period.
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