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2021-03-31-accounts

West Stow Anglo-Saxon Trust Annual Report April 2020 - March 2021

Despite the challenges of COVID-19 and the loss in visitor numbers the West Stow Anglo Saxon Trust and the West Suffolk staff that support its endeavours have remained resolute in maintaining and promoting the Anglo-Saxon village during this difficult year.

Within this twelve-month period the Trustees met formally on three occasions: the first being on the 14[th] September 2020, 25[th] January 2021 and the 29[th] March 2021. Owing to the Covid-19 pandemic all three meetings were held remotely via Microsoft Teams. During the last year the constitution of the trust has remained the same as has the board of trustees.

The Covid 19 Pandemic had a significant effect on the reconstructed AngloSaxon village and museum site in so far as it was forced to closed for three significant periods during the financial year. These periods being:

From: To:
26thMarch 2020 14thAugust 2020
14thOctober 2020 2ndDecember 2020
6th January 2021 17thMay 2021

During these closed periods the majority of the Council’s work force deployed at West Stow were either redeployed to other essential covid response duties elsewhere in the Council or furloughed.

During the closed period a small team of staff were retained to provide a security presence at the Anglo-Saxon village and the surrounding West Stow Country Park. Those retained staff were also able to progress a number of site improvements utilising an Arts Council grant fund which the local authority was fortunate enough to obtain. These improvements, which aided the reopening of the museum in a more covid secure manner included:

In addition, online education material was produced by staff using some of the items included above to not only help children, parents and teachers in lockdown but further promote the site. This is explained later in this report.

The table below shows the visitor numbers for the financial year 2020-2021 and for comparison the preceding four years.

2020-21 2019-20 2018-19 2017-18 2016-17
Group visits 456 14,369 15,304 16,222 16,885
General Admissions 11,158 21,648 20,986 22,607 26,063
Total visitors to
Village (Pay Zone)		 11,614 36,017 36,290 38,829 42,948
Visitor Centres
(Non-Pay Zone)		 26,681 83,145 90,787 93,374 89,739

Group visitor numbers and the number of people entering the site for free activities (termed the Non-Pay Zone) were negatively impacted throughout the years because of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Other initiatives

Work has continued in the village to ensure the integrity and authenticity of the site. The Trustees have been supportive of the Brecks Fen Edge & Rivers National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) scheme which will, amongst various other projects, see the creation of a reconstructed Iron Age Roundhouse within the grounds of the museum site. This new addition will enhance the visitor experience and provide some historical context surrounding the advancements made between the Iron age and Anglo-Saxon period. This project was due to start in March 2020 but has been delayed by the Coronavirus pandemic. The plan is for this work to start in the summer of 2022.

The Trustees have also been supportive of one of the other Brecks Fen Edge & Rivers NLHF projects entitled ‘Clearing the View’. This project, which was progressed in early 2021, has helped put the reconstructed Anglo-Saxon village into context with its surrounding landscape by clearing vegetation to create a vista between the village and the River Lark. The proximity of the river corridor is one of the key reasons why the early Anglo-Saxon settlers would have chosen that location to develop their settlement.

Marketing Activities

What’s On West Suffolk

In 2015, the team launched the ‘What’s on West Suffolk’ brand. Whilst this doesn’t replace the existing identity for West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village, The Apex, Moyses Hall Museum and parks, it does allow cross-marketing across the full leisure portfolio. This means that at any given point, West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village now has potential exposure to almost 100,000 people via digital marketing (email and social media) or print. Naturally, this increase in reach has benefited the full portfolio.

By producing the What’s on West Suffolk magazine alongside digital marketing activity and PR, the leisure marketing team have effectively created their own routes to market and therefore do not need to rely on advertising in other expensive local publications and newspapers to market its events. West Stow Anglo Saxon Village is now featured in a new magazine ‘What’s on West Suffolk’ (WOWS) produced by the Leisure and Cultural Services marketing team. 10,000 A4, 24-page full colour magazines are printed three times per year and are distributed throughout West Suffolk.

In addition, West Stow is part of online marketing campaigns including Facebook advertising as well as sharing of posts into local online groups as well as being amplified by West Suffolk Council and partners.

Website Research

The West Stow website has seen a significant rise in traffic over the past financial year. Between April 1[st] 2020 and 31[st] March 2021, the West Stow website received 62,850 visits, compared to 55,881 in the previous financial year. This is an increase of 12.47%. Likewise, during the same period the number of page views increased significantly to 507,636 compared to 271,011 in the previous financial year; an increase of 87%. The above figures highlight that not only has the number of visitors to the West Stow website increased, but the number of pages they are viewing during their visit has increased too.

Website traffic increases during spring and summer and peaks in June and July.

How People Arrive at Our Website

Organic search produced 70.9% of acquisition, direct search produced 17.9%, referrals produced 7.8% and social media gave us 3.3% of our traffic in 2021.

Website visitor demographics

25% of our audience are between 25-34 followed by 20% that are between 3544 and 16% between 45-54. This demonstrates we are appealing to young families. We also have a high number of over 65s, the grandparent category. The gender split is 59% female to 40% male, this is higher than some of our other websites.

Locations

The majority of viewers who access the West Stow Anglo Saxon Village website are, in order of quantity, from the following towns/cities: London, Cambridge, Norwich, Bury St Edmunds, Ipswich, Peterborough, Colchester, Birmingham, and Haverhill.

Content

The most viewed pages in 2020/2021 were the ‘Homepage, ‘What's on’, ‘Your visit’, ‘About’, Admission prices and Covid-19 information pages.

Devices

The most popular means of accessing our website is via a mobile phone (62%), then desktop at (30%) followed by tablet at (8%). We have therefore ensured that our websites are easy to view on mobile phones.

Social Media

Facebook has 4,840 likes, up from 3730 likes in 2019. The number of followers has increased to 5147 from 3951 followers.

Our followers are online mostly between 6-9pm. The best time to post to reach the maximum amount of people is 8pm.

Our top Social Media post types are:

  1. Video

  2. Photo

  3. Link

  4. Status

  5. Shared video

Our social media audience are located in:

  1. Bury St Edmunds

  2. Ipswich

  3. Cambridge

  4. Norwich

  5. Ely

  6. London

  7. Thetford

  8. Sudbury

  9. Newmarket 10. Stowmarket

How People Arrive at our social media

Facebook gave us 90% of our social media acquisition this year. Instagram was 6%, YouTube 2% and Twitter 2%.

Social media content during the pandemic

During the pandemic, the education and heritage officers at West Stow created educational content and videos to support parents home schooling their children

and for teachers looking for online content. These regular social media posts were a huge hit and regularly achieved a reach of over 40,000 people and received over 1,700 interactions.

FINAL A(COUNTS 2020 21 Jrm 2019r￿20 10201202L dlbE5 9LO 4È.)DS ILE JJ.63J TDtal R•LTlIts IIO,?L2 37 19 JIF Trar L676 &910

WEST STOW ANGLO-SAXON VILLAGE TRUST FINAL ACCOUNTS 2020/2021

NOTES

RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNT

Interest on investment was earned at an average rate of 0.334% in 2020/2021.

Awarded to West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village for being open during the period 2 December to 25 December 2020, when business was severely impacted by the tier 2 restrictions on socialising.

From 2003/2004 St Edmundsbury Borough Council has agreed to pay the Trust a proportion of the image rights received from the site and a proportion of the income from the Easter Event, provided that these exceed the budgeted levels. The Easter event ceased from 2010/11 and there is no income from image rights from 2011/12.

See note 8 below.

6 Archaeological Consultant Suffolk County Council Archaeology Service now employs the Archaeological Consultant (w.e.f. 1st April 2005).

This sum is equal to the income received from visitor charges and school parties (notes 4 and 5). It arises because of the management agreement with the Borough Council which is in a form acceptable to the Charity Commissioners.

9 Net receipts/(payments) After reviewing its financial position, the Trust agreed in June 1998 that future budgets be prepared on a break even basis (excluding any match funding payments).

STATEMENT OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES

This account is set up to provide the possibility of match funding other outside grants when this is a condition of grant aid. It was set up by a generous grant from Suffolk County Council's locality budget arrangements.

Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Report to the trustees/
members of
On accounts for the year
ended
Set out on pages		 West Stow Anglo Saxon Village Trust West Stow Anglo Saxon Village Trust West Stow Anglo Saxon Village Trust
31stMarch 2021 Charity no
(if any)		 272897
3,4, 5 & 6

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 31 / 03 / 2021 . Responsibilities and As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the basis of report accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”). I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’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 I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examiner's statement come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

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: Name: Lorna Heather Jenkins Relevant professional MAAT qualification(s) or body (if any):

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Date: 23/11/21
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Oct 2018

1

IER

Address: West Suffolk House

Western Way Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, IP33 3YU

Section B Disclosure

Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight material matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).

Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .

There are no matters of concern.

Oct 2018

2

IER

- WEST STOW ANGLO SAXON VILLAGE TRUST FINAL ACCOUNTS 2020/21

Actual
Total
Funds
2019/2020
£		 RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS
ACCOUNT		 Note Actual
Unrestricted
Funds
2020/2021
£		 Actual
Restricted
Funds
2020/2021
£		 Actual
Total
Funds
2020/2021
£
54
0
0
910
48,305
62,407











Receipts
Interest
Central Government Business Grant
Royalties
Donations
Visitor Charges
School Parties
Total Receipts
Payments
Archaeological Consultant
Other Expenses (Insurance -
Premises)
Service Charge
Total Payments
Net Receipts/(Payments)
Cash funds last year end
Cash funds this year end		 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9		 9
5,000
0
165
33,632
1,723		 6
16
5,000
0
165
33,632
1,723
111,676 40,530 6
40,536
0
910
110,712		 0
1,864
35,356

0
1,864
35,356
111,622 37,219 0
37,219
54
3,549		 3,311
1,676		 6
1,927
3,317
3,603
3,603 4,987 1,933
6,920

Oct 2018

3

IER

- WEST STOW ANGLO SAXON VILLAGE TRUST FINAL ACCOUNTS 2020/2021

Actual
Total
Funds
2019/2020
£		 STATEMENT OF ASSETS
AND LIABILITIES AS AT
31ST MARCH 2021		 Note Actual
Unrestricted
Funds
2020/2021
£		 Actual
Restricted
Funds
2020/2021
£		 Actual
Total
Funds
2020/2021
£
1,676
1,927		 Cash Funds
Accumulated fund
Match funding account
Total Cash Funds		 10
11		 4,987
1,933
4,987
1,933
3,603 4,987 1,933
6,920

Oct 2018

4

IER

- WEST STOW ANGLO SAXON VILLAGE TRUST FINAL ACCOUNTS 2020/2021

NOTES

RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNT

1 Interest Interest on investment was earned at an average rate of
0.334% in 2020/2021.
2 Central Government Business Awarded to West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village for being
Grant open during the period 2 December to 25 December
2020, when business was severely impacted by the tier 2
restrictions on socialising.
3 Royalites From 2003/2004 St Edmundsbury Borough Council has
agreed to pay the Trust a proportion of the image rights
received from the site and a proportion of the income
from the Easter Event, provided that these exceed the
budgeted levels. The Easter event ceased from 2010/11
and there is no income from image rights from 2011/12.
4 Visitor Charges See note 8 below.
5 School Parties
6 Archaeological Consultant Suffolk County Council Archaeology Service now employs
the Archaeological Consultant (w.e.f. 1st April 2005).
7 Other Expenses This expenditure relates to the cost of the insurance
premium payable on the houses.
8 Service Charge This sum is equal to the income received from visitor
charges and school parties (notes 4 and 5). It arises
because of the management agreement with the
Borough Council which is in a form acceptable to the
Charity Commissioners.
9 Net receipts/(payments) After reviewing its financial position, the Trust agreed in
June 1998 that future budgets be prepared on a break
even basis (excluding any match funding payments).

STATEMENT OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES

10 Accumulated fund The low level of balances reflects past decisions to draw on reserves to fund deficits.

Oct 2018

IER

5

Match funding account

11

This account is set up to provide the possibility of match funding other outside grants when this is a condition of grant aid. It was set up by a generous grant from Suffolk County Council's locality budget arrangements.

Oct 2018

6

IER