## **The Mothers’ Union**
## **Southwell & Nottingham Diocese**
**(Registered charity, number 249878)**
**Annual Report & Financial Statements for the year ended 31 December 2022**
**Page Contents** 2-6 Trustees’ annual report 7 Independent examiner’s report 8 Receipts & payments account 9 Statement of assets & liabilities 10-13 Notes to the accounts
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# **The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese Trustees’ annual report for the year ended 31 December 2022**
**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 J Hodson, Vice-President Newark & Nottingham A/D, from 1/1/2022 H Catchpole M Pates S Bancroft I Garratt E Toplis S Massey
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**
**AIM:** A worldwide society whose Aim is the advancement of the Christian religion in the sphere of marriage and family life.
## **FIVE OBJECTIVES**
- TO PROMOTE and support married life.
- TO ENCOURAGE parents to bring up their children in the faith and life of the Church.
- TO MAINTAIN a worldwide fellowship of Christians, united in prayer, worship and service.
- TO PROMOTE conditions in society favourable to stable family life and the protection of children.
- TO HELP those whose family life has met with adversity.
The membership of Mothers’ Union Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham is 477 plus 33 honorary life members for the year ended 31 December 2022 with 24 active branches.
## **Summary of the main achievements during the period:**
## **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, Transformation Now.
A team of volunteer’s co-ordinate hospital visits within the diocese. Services are held in local Care Homes.
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## **The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese**
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/
**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.
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.
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## **The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese**
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.
We are partners with a charity called Bags of Blessings who distribute donated gifts to deprived young people in the Nottingham area.
## **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.
## **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.
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## **The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese**
## **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 & 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 10 families which included 52 individuals for the
Spring Bank Holiday week at Mablethorpe. This included 10 caravans. 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 Police Aid Convoys. 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.
## **Policy on reserves:**
## **The charity’s policy on reserves**
The charity aims to keep at least enough in the unrestricted funds to cover 3 month’s 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:
30.10.2023
Signed _____________________________________________ Date __________ S Baird-Smith, Trustee
Signed _____________________________________________ Date __________ E Toplis, Trustee
30.10.2023
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## **Independent examiner’s report to the trustees of The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese for the year ended 31 December 2022**
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 2022.
## **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:
1. accounting records were not kept in respect of the charity as required by section 130 of the Act; or
2. 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 ______________________ 30.10.2023 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 2022**
|_2021_
Total
**Unrestricted**
Funds
**Funds**
£
**Note**
**£**
**Receipts**
13086
Subscriptions & donations
**2**
312
11240
Diocesan funds
8494
16566
Charitable funds
12
3170
Literature sales
3703
53
Deaneries & branches
**3**
-
12
Bank interest
299
633
Sundry receipts
**4**
117
44760
**Total receipts**
**12937**
**Payments**
15356
Charitable funds
318
669
Diocesan funds
569
12334
Management & administration
**5**
9722
1670
General expenses
**6**
1458
2105
Literature
3335
16
Link Up & marketing
1457
13846
Mary Sumner House
246
4235
Deaneries & branches
**3**
-
50231
**Total payments**
**17105**
(5471)
**Net receipts/(payments)**
(4168)
64329
Cash funds at start of this period
13918
-
Transfers between funds
**9**
2034
58858
**Cash funds at end of this period**
**11784**|**Restricted**
**Funds**
**£**
13054
6
17521
-
4748
-
-
**35329**
13923
-
-
-
-
-
11387
5999
**31309**
4020
44940
(2034)
**46926**|**_2022_**
**Total**
**Funds**
**£**
13366
8500
17533
3703
4748
299
117|
|---|---|---|
|||**48266**
14241
569
9722
1458
3335
1457
11633
5999|
|||**48414**
(148)
58858
-|
|||**58710**|
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## **The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese Statement of assets and liabilities at 31 December 2022**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
2021 2022
£ Cash assets Note £
20992 Nat West current account 21796
22760 CCLA deposit account 23059
15106 Cash & bank balances for deaneries & branches 13855
58858 58710
Other monetary assets
731 Stock (books & cards etc.) 579
999 Prepayments 7 720
1730 1299
Liabilities
Creditors:
(720) Independent examination (756)
-
(403) Management & admin
-
(5084) Advance receipts - 2021 subscriptions
(6207) (756)
**----- End of picture text -----**
These financial statements are accepted on behalf of the charity by:
Signed ___________________________________ E Toplis, Trustee
Dated ___________ 30.10.2023
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## **The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese Notes to the accounts for the year ended 31 December 2022**
## **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**
**£**
36377
(37628)
**(1251)**|**Transfers**
**to Centre**
**£**
31629
(31629)
**-**|**Net**
**£**
4748
(5999)|
|---|---|---|---|
||||**(1251)**|
## **4. Sundry receipts**
|**Sundry receipts**||
|---|---|
||**£**|
|Archdeaconry days receipts|117|
||**117**|
## **5. Management & administration**
|Accountant payments
Secretary payments
Jubilee House rent
Independent examination fee
PPS & Telephone
Printing & Stationary
Payroll charges
Trustees expenses - General
Trustees expenses - Travel
Member expenses - Travel
Visitors expenses - Travel|**£**
1500
5715
651
720
406
192
187
44
206
87
14|
|---|---|
||**9722**|
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## **The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese**
## **6. General expenses**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
£
General meeting expenses 30
Diocesan meeting payments 79
Archdeaconry days payments 40
Conference expenses 1065
Badge payments 148
Sundry payments 96
1458
**----- End of picture text -----**
## **7. Prepayments**
|**Prepayments**||
|---|---|
|AFIA caravan deposits|**£**
720|
||**720**|
## **8. Trustees’ and officials’ remuneration**
During the year trustees and officials received the following sums:
- J Hempstead, £1,500, as Diocesan Accountant;
- K McNish, £5,720 as Diocesan Secretary;
- G Noon, £1,500 for Treasurer’s services;
- 4 Trustees also received a total of £297 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:
MSH Fabric
Overseas
Literacy
B+IDF
MSH Subs
MSH appeal
Diocesan Projects
Big Summer Appeal
Discretionary fund
Other:
Deaneries & Branches|**Opening**
**balance**
**£**
150
3020
21565
-
196
-
2210
-
350
-
-
80
-
1951
-
312
15106
**44940**|**Receipts (Payments)**
**£**
**£**||**Transfers**
**£**|**Closing**
**balance**
**£**|
|||-
655
13637
3079
-
150
-
5
336
445
14
11838
25
-
397
-
4748|-
(1107)
(9738)
(3079)
-
-
-
(5)
(477)
(350)
(14)
(10540)
-
-
-
-
(5999)|-
(1000)
(1000)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
(34)
-|150
1568
24464
-
196
150
2210
-
209
95
-
1378
25
1951
397
278|
||||||13855|
|||**35329**|**(31309)**|**(2034)**|**46926**|
The transfers to the unrestricted fund from the Access & Contact Centre, AFIA and the discretionary fund are to reflect the costs of managing these areas of work.
## **Description of funds**
_Charitable funds are run by the Diocese:_ Action & Outreach – Funds to support the charity.
Access & contact centre - Supports the work of the contact centre. Where the separated parents meet with their children.
AFIA (Away from it all) – Supports families that are in need of a holiday and haven’t been on a holiday in 3 years.
Count your blessings – Each year members fundraise and share the funds between the chosen causes for the year.
Prison work – To support children in a crèche when spouse has visited a prison. Time Travelling – This project is led by Southwell Minster, to support children visiting and learning about the Minister.
Parent fund – Funds held are to run parenting courses.
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## **The Mothers’ Union Southwell & Nottingham Diocese**
_Deaneries and branches are funds held in the individual Deaneries and branches:_
Diocesan Projects – Funds available to be spent by the Diocese. Discretionary fund – Funds to support a member in need.
All the other subs and donation funds are to be passed onto the national headquarters of Mothers Union.
## _Other:_
Balances held by the Deaneries and branches.
## **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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