1 Lewisham Toy Library Annual Report 2022
Trustees’ Annual Report for the period 01/04/2021-31/03/2022
2 Lewisham Toy Library Annual Report 2022
Charity Name: Lewisham Toy Library Charity Registration Number: 271496
Contents
1. Objectives & Aims
2. Achievements & Performance
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a. Chair’s Report
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b. Toy Librarian Report
3. Financial Review:
- a. Treasurer’s Report
4. Structure, Governance & Management
5. Reference and Administrative Details
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a. Charity details
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b. Trustee details
6. Declarations
Appendix: AGM minutes 2021
3 Lewisham Toy Library Annual Report 2022
Objectives & Activities
Our Aims
Our aim, as set out in our charitable objects, is to support and provide for the play and education of children within the London Borough of Lewisham by providing stimulating toys and play equipment. We cater for children from 0 up to around the age of 8. Our range of toys is vast and our toys represent the diverse community we operate in. We have toys for visually impaired children, children on the autistic spectrum and other special needs.
Our Objectives
Our objectives are set to reflect the aims of the toy library and to build on and develop the work we have done in previous years.
In setting our objectives and planning our activities our trustees have given careful consideration to the Charity Commission’s public benefit guidance. Our objectives for this period were:
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Recovering the toy library service post Covid (to include return to normal business hours and increasing capacity for members to visit and use the library)
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Commence recruitment to fill a 12-month pilot for an additional librarian
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Reconnecting with our member base and local community through public events and increased use of social media to communicate with our users.
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Acknowledging and celebrating our 50[th] birthday
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Cost and further scoping work regarding movement of the Toy Library to larger premises within Lewisham Shopping Centre.
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Achievements and
Performance
Chair’s Report
I will start with saying a big Happy Birthday to the Toy Library as we celebrate 50 years of the service in Lewisham.
We have been very thankful that as we have entered our 50[th] year of operation that we have had no further national lockdowns to contend with and have largely been able to operate without any significant restrictions.
Our focus this year has been on recovering, recruiting (more on that later) and reconnecting with our members and the community
Trustees & Volunteers
We have been very lucky to welcome Jill to our trustee board since last year’s AGM and are looking forward to voting in Lizzie at the forthcoming AGM to join us also.
This year we have said goodbye to trustees Cate and Gita.
Cate and Gita were both voted in as trustees in the 2020 AGM and we thank them for their time with us. In particular for all of Cate’s hard work on our business plan and for assisting myself with renewing our lease in the past 12 months.
Our librarian report will talk about our volunteers in more detail however it is important to note that volunteers are vital to the running of the Toy Library and assist our librarians in the day to day running of the shop, our volunteer numbers have not recovered from lockdown so we continue to be always on the lookout for anyone interested in joining as a volunteer.
For anyone interested in knowing more about volunteering or becoming a trustee of the toy library please do get in touch and we would be very happy to welcome you to the team.
Librarian(s)
Magdalena remains the cornerstone of the Toy Library and continues to do an outstanding job as our Toy Librarian. Without her dedication we would not be able to run the service that we do.
We must also acknowledge the various changes and challenges she has had to take on board in her role over the past few years. In particular, the immense pressure she has been under having to operate most of the time in isolation as we have returned to normal opening hours without our previous levels of volunteers.
We made it a focus to look at a trial recruitment of an additional Librarian this year to both ease the pressure on Magdalena and to see whether with another member of the team we could explore how to reach more members through community links and longer term through outreach projects.
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As a result, we are delighted to welcome Jemma into our Librarian team. Jemma comes from an early childhood background and brings with her a range of skills in play and early years development and will be an excellent addition to the team.
We have initially secured Jemma for a 12-month period and will be reviewing the role and how we might fund this longer term over that period.
IT & Marketing
You have hopefully noticed by now that we have launched our new logo and website. This was launched on the weekend of the 16[th] of July when we also took the Toy Library on a trip to Lewisham People’s Day (our first outreach activity in over 3 years).
We are thrilled with the logo and rebrand which was created for us by Helen Holden, we feel it has really captured the essence of the library and is a step in the right direction as we try to grow our service to suit our growing membership base.
I would also like to take the opportunity to say a big thank you to Sara from our trustee board who has been both coordinating the rebranding and implementation of the new logo along with redesigning our website which is also looking fantastic and much more user friendly.
Premises
Our hope was to move to another unit within Lewisham Shopping Centre this year as we are outgrowing our current space.
This has unfortunately not been possible although it remains in the pipeline and we still have this for a goal for the future.
With Jemma joining our team, we will be looking at what else we can be doing in the current premises or potentially in the community. Our stall and toy sale at Lewisham People’s Day were a success and we are keen to bring back both the toy sales and explore more ideas about how we can connect with our local community.
Future Projects.
For the year ahead we are focussing on:
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Making use of our additional librarian role – we would ideally like to be able to keep 2 librarians in post so we need to look at how we fund this longer term and how we can develop and grow as a service with 2 librarians at the helm.
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Continuing to work towards a move to new premises. This is still in our sight however there is some work to be done on how we do this and how we fund it.
We reach this AGM feeling more hopeful about the future and remain committed to running the service as best as we can for our members, our community and our team.
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Librarian’s Report
Members
The 2021/2022 financial year started off strong and carried on with an average of approximately 40 new members every month.
We saw a big increase in new subscribers in Autumn 2021 as well as very steady numbers of membership renewals.
We currently have 611 active subscribers and over 1200 contacts.
We decided to keep the appointment system in place even though all of the other COVID measures have been removed.
This was dictated primarily by lack of volunteers.
Volunteers
We were very fortunate to have Martin returning to the library to do his Wednesday shift and covering for the librarian during their annual leave.
We’ve noticed an increase in the number of members using their corporate volunteering days,
to come and help run the library – thank you!
This Autumn will be saying goodbye to our wonderful volunteer Ashleigh, who started
volunteering with us at the age of 14 as a Duke Of Edinburgh student and decided to carry on with us for 4 years after completing her work experience.
We wish Ashleigh all the best for the future and we will never be able to thank her enough for all the years of volunteering.
Stock
We are currently nearing the 4000 toys mark and keeping a close eye on our stock levels as we are starting to struggle with space.
We’ve been very lucky to have a huge amount of donations that allow us to refresh our stock regularly and remove tired looking items.
These are now being offered to our members free of charge in “old stock clearance box” to reduce further waste.
The library also received a selection of soft play items that are now available as a party hire and
proving itself very popular amongst younger members.
Overview
This has been a very busy year for the library, and it made us realise how heavily we rely on volunteers.
There have been a few unscheduled closures due to COVID and annual leave but it had not impacted our services and our members proved themselves to be very understanding of the
7 Lewisham Toy Library Annual Report 2022
circumstances.
I am pleased to see that the library is, once again, becoming a social hub for local parents and a buzzing, happy place we knew from before the pandemic. We are very grateful to all of our volunteers and members for continued support and trust.
8 Lewisham Toy Library Annual Report 2022
Financial Review
Treasurer’s Report
This financial year the Lewisham Toy Library has continued to feel the effects of the COVID-19 virus, albeit less so than the last year. We have started to see the return of prior members whose subscriptions had lapsed the previous year, as well as new members joining us for the first time which is a wonderful return. We have seen a drop in income from the previous year as we only received a small covid grant in this period, compared to substantial grants from Lewisham Council last year.
Income
In the year to 31 March 2021, most of the Toy Library’s income was from COVID- 19 related grants and the library was closed for a significant portion of the year resulting in dramatically reduced membership income. In this financial year (2022), the library has slowly been returning to full capacity. As such, membership income has increased to £19,014, from £5,731 last year. This is also an increase on the year to 31 March 2020 which was the last period largely
untouched by the pandemic. This reflects the support of our members and the work of our Toy Librarian in making the library a welcoming and safe place as we moved into the “new normal”. In addition, we saw a return of the Party Hire, Toy sales and Shopmobility income streams as we were able to offer these services again to the public. Toy sales represents an ad hoc income from sales of surplus toys in the library as and when they need to be cleared, rather than any specific events as have been held in past years.
Costs
Costs have been fairly consistent from last year, which is not unsurprising as a good deal of our costs our largely fixed rather than dependent on number of operations with a couple of exceptions:
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Electricity was lower in the last year due to being closed for part of the year
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Business rates were initially much higher than planned due to communication from the Borough being sent to the Library when we were closed in the Pandemic. This resulted in being billed in error which was £7000 more than the previous year. This was resolved and a rebate of £2,250 was received resulting in the final amount for the year coming in at £4,177.
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Advertising costs had been incurred as a one-off expense in the year to 31 March 2021 for the carefully planned rebrand activity. There was no additional expense incurred in this financial year.
Our largest expense is our staff costs as always, which represents the salary of our Toy Librarian. This has remained consistent as hours have not changed in the period.
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Reserves
Reserves are healthy at the end of the year at just over £74, 000. This is more than sufficient to cover 3 months running costs as per our reserves policy. As such, next year we will look to use part of these funds to cover the trial of the additional librarian on a fixed term basis. Such a position will be unsustainable by current income levels, so the post would have to generate enough additional funds for the library to become viable in the longer term. There is also the potential to use some of the reserves for the logistical costs that would be incurred if we were to move the Library to a bigger premises.
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Structure, Governance &
Management
The Trustees of the Toy Library are responsible for the overall management and control of the charity and meet monthly to guide, plan and review the work of the charity.
The Toy Library is an unincorporated association and all trustees and staff adhere to the governing documents (Constitution and Code of Governance) to ensure that the charity is delivering its objectives and is managed effectively.
The Chair of the board of trustees is responsible for the personnel management of employed library staff and the employed librarians are responsible for the management and guidance for the Toy Library’s volunteers.
The Treasurer is responsible for overseeing the financial management of the LIbrary and to assist with this, the charity employees a bookkeeper to prepare accounts and reports for monthly review by the Treasurer and Trustee committee
Trustee selection
The board of Trustees seek to ensure that there is a good breadth and depth of skills and experience on the board to effectively carry out its duties. When recruiting new trustees we look for individuals who:
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Align to the aims of the Toy Library and have an interest in the work we do.
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Represent our local community and member base
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Bring skills or experience which will enhance the board of trustees and ultimately benefit the library and its members.
We advertise for trustees locally in the Toy Library, in local forums (e.g. Lewisham Local) and via our social media channels. Potential Trustees are invited to meet with the current board at a monthly Trustee meeting and from there are officially voted to the board by our library members at the next AGM.
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All trustees give of their time freely and no remuneration or expenses were paid in the year. No Trustee or person connected with a Trustee received any benefit in relation to the Toy LIbrary and their work as a member of the board.
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Reference and
Administrative Details Charity Details
Lewisham Toy Library REgistered Charity Number: 271496 Address: Unit 46 Molesworth Street, London SE13 7EP
Trustee Details
The following Trustees acted for the charity within the financial year covered by this report.
| Trustee Name | Position held on board |
Date appointed | Date of resignation |
Appointed by |
| Justine Vella | Chair | July 2019 | N/a | AGM member vote 2019 |
| Elisabeth Poirel | Secretary | January 2014 | N/a | AGM member vote 2014 |
| Emma Pello | Treasurer | September 2021 |
N/a | Board of trustees 2021 |
| Jennifer Luk | Trustee | October 2019 | N/a | AGM member vote 2019 |
| Sara Hill | Trustee | November 2020 |
N/a | Board of Trustees 2020 |
| Jill Hamilton | Trustee | February 2022 | N/a | Board of Trustees 2021 |
| Elizabeth Stevenson |
Trustee | September 2022 |
N/a | AGM member vote 2022 |
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| Catherine Webster |
Trustee | November 2020 |
July 2022 | AGM member vote 2020 |
| Gita Chakravorty |
Trustee | November 2020 |
July 2022 | AGM member vote 2020 |
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Declarations
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.
Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees:
signature: Justine Vella
Full name: Justine Vella Position: Chair of the board of trustees Date: 15/1/2023
signature: Jill Hamilton Full name: Jill Hamilton Position: Trustee Date: 17/01/23
signature: Elisabeth Poirel
Full name: Elisabeth Poirel Position: Secretary Date: 16/01/23
signature: Elizabeth Stevenson
Full name: Elizabeth Stevenson Position: Trustee Date: 16/01/2023
signature: Emma Pello
Full name: Emma Pello Position: Treasurer Date: 17/01/23
signature: Jennifer Luk
Full name: Jennifer Luk Position: Trustee Date: 16/01/23
signature: Sara Hill
Full name: Sara Hill
Position: Trustee Date: 17/01/23
Independent examiner's report
To the trustees of
Lewisham Toy Library
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of Lewisham Toy Library for the year ended 31 March 2022.
Responsibilities and basis of the report
As the charity trustees of Lewisham Toy Library 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 material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination that give me cause to believe that in any material respect:
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accounting records were not kept in respect of the charity as required by section 130 of the Act; or
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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.
Caroline Sharp
Date: 18 January 2023
FCA, DChA 55 Canberra Road LONDON SE7 8PF
Lewisham Toy Library
for the year ending 31 March 2022
15
| Lewisham Toy Library | No 271496 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Receipts andpayments accounts | CC16a | ||
| 01-Apr-21 For the year from |
31-Mar-22 To |
| A1 Receipts | Unrestricted funds to the nearest £ |
Unrestricted funds to the nearest £ |
Restricted funds to the nearest £ |
Endowment funds to the nearest £ |
Endowment funds to the nearest £ |
Total funds to the nearest £ |
Total funds to the nearest £ |
Last year to the nearest £ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| London Borough Lewisham - Retail Covidgrant | 14,390 | - | - | 14,390 | 41,186 | |||
| Coronavirus Job Retension Scheme | - | - | - | - | 7,980 | |||
| Donations andgifts | 1,961 | - | - | 1,961 | 1,973 | |||
| ToyLibrarymembershipsubs and fines | 19,014 | - | - | 19,014 | 5,731 | |||
| Toysales | 1,563 | - | - | 1,563 | - | |||
| Partyhire | 421 | - | - | 421 | - | |||
| Lewisham Lottery | 84 | 84 | - | |||||
| Shopmobility | 175 | - | - | 175 | - | |||
| Bank interest |
118 |
- | - | 118 | - | |||
| Sub total(Gross income for AR) | 37,726 | - | - | 37,726 | 56,870 | |||
| Total receipts A3 Payments |
||||||||
| - | - | 56,870 | ||||||
Staff costs |
15,356 | - | - | 15,356 | 15,339 | |||
| Staff expenses | 100 | - | - | 100 | 100 | |||
| Volunteer expenses | 120 | - | - | 120 | 150 | |||
| Business rates | 4,177 | - | - | 4,177 | (442) | |||
| Insurance | 1,142 | - | - | 1,142 | 1,066 | |||
| Electricity | 798 | - | - | 798 | 338 | |||
| Cleaning | 48 | - | - | 48 | 764 | |||
| Libraryexpenses | 618 | - | - | 618 | 265 | |||
| Toys | 168 | - | - | 168 | 91 | |||
| Telecom Expense | 600 | - | - | 600 | 685 | |||
| Computer and IT | 706 | - | - | 706 | 269 | |||
| Bookkeepingand accountancy | 600 | - | - | 600 | 650 | |||
| Subscriptions | 137 | - | - | 137 | 152 | |||
| Bank fees | 409 | - | - | 409 | 195 | |||
| Advertising, marketing, direct mail andpublicity | - | - | - | - | 2,425 | |||
| **Sub total ** | 24,979 | - | - | 24,979 | 22,047 | |||
| Total payments Net of receipts/(payments) A5 Transfers between funds A6 Cash funds last year end Cash funds this year end |
||||||||
| - | - | 22,047 | ||||||
| 12,747 | - | - | 12,747 | 34,823 | ||||
| - 61,395 |
- | - | - | - | ||||
| - | - | 61,395 | 26,572 | |||||
| 74,142 | - | - | 74,142 | 61,395 |
Lewisham Toy Library
31 March 2022
16
Categories
B1 Cash funds
B5 Liabilities
Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees
| Lewisham Toy Library | Lewisham Toy Library | Lewisham Toy Library | No 271496 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Receipts andpayments accounts | |||
| For the year from |
01-Apr-21 | To | 31-Mar-22 |
CC16a
| ts and liabilities at the end of the | ts and liabilities at the end of the | period | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unrestricted funds to nearest £ 68,205 5,138 534 265 74,142 CAF Bank PayPal Petty Cash Shawbrook Deposit Details Total cash funds |
Restricted funds to nearest £ - - - - - |
Endowment funds to nearest £ |
|
| CAF Bank | 68,205 | - | - |
| Shawbrook Deposit | 5,138 | - | - |
| PayPal | 534 | - | - |
| Petty Cash | 265 | - | - |
| Total cash funds | 74,142 |
- | - |
| Fund to which liability relates Amount due (optional) Unrestricted 166 Unrestricted 495 Print Name JUSTINE VELLA Signature Justine Vella Trade creditors Accrued electricity costs Details |
Fund to which liability relates Amount due (optional) Unrestricted 166 Unrestricted 495 Print Name JUSTINE VELLA Signature Justine Vella Trade creditors Accrued electricity costs Details |
When due (optional) |
|---|---|---|
| Date of approval |
||
| Justine Vella | JUSTINE VELLA | 15-Jan-23 |
Lewisham Toy Library
31 March 2022
17
Lewisham Shopping Centre
librarian@lewishamtoylibrary.org.uk
@LewToyLibrary