1. Trustee Board Annual Report
Section A
Reference and administration details
| Charity Name | The Group's governing documents are those of The Scout Association. They consist of a Royal Charter, which in turn gives authority to the Bye Laws of the Association and The Policy, Organisation and Rules of The Scout Association. |
|---|---|
| Registered Charity Number | 273205 |
| Charity’s principal address | Scout Hall Millennium Hall 2-10 Ontario Way Liphook GU30 7LD |
Description of the charity’s trusts
| Description of the charity’s trusts | ||
|---|---|---|
| Trustee Name | Office (if any) | Dates acted if not for whole year |
| Stuart Clark | Chair | |
| Sarah-Jane Anslow | Treasurer | |
| Bryan Jackson | Group Lead Volunteer | |
| Alison Jackson | ||
| Kevin Stephenson | ||
| Caroline Stephenson | ||
| Victoria Pires | ||
| Neil Caie | ||
| Paul Bateman | From June 2024 |
Section B
Structure, governance and management
Description of the charity’s trusts
| Type of Governing document | The Group's governing documents are those of The Scout Association. They consist of a Royal Charter, which in turn gives authority to the Bye Laws of the Association and The Policy, Organisation and Rules of The Scout Association. |
|---|---|
| How the charity is constituted | The Group is a trust established under its rules which are common to all Scouts. |
| Trustee selection method | The Trustees are appointed in accordance with the Policy, Organisation and Rules of The Scout Association. |
| Trustee Governance | The Group is managed by the Group Trustee Board, the members of which are the ‘Charity Trustees’ of the Scout Group which is an educational charity. As charity trustees they are responsible for complying with legislation applicable to charities. This includes the registration, keeping proper accounts and making returns to the Charity Commission as appropriate. |
| Policies and procedures adopted | The Trustee Board consists of the Chair, Treasurer and 6 Trustees (including 1 Ex Officio Trustees, and 5 appointed Trustees) and meets every 4 months. Members of the Trustee Board complete Being a Scouts Trustee learning within the first 6 months of joining the Board. This Group Trustee Board exists to make sure the charity is well-managed, risks are assessed and mitigated, buildings and equipment are in good working order, and everyone follows legal requirements and the organisation's policies and rules. Their support helps other volunteers run highquality and safe programmes that gives young people skills for life. |
| Risk and Internal Control | The Group Trustee Board has identified the major risks to which they believe the Group is exposed, these have been reviewed and systems have been established to mitigate against them. The main areas of concern that have been identified are: The Group has sufficient buildings and contents insurance in place to mitigate against permanent loss. Injury to leaders, helpers, supporters and members. The Group through the capitation fees contributes to the Scout Associations national accident insurance policy. Risk Assessments are undertaken before all activities. Reduced income from fund raising. The Group is primarily reliant upon income from subscriptions and fundraising. The group does hold a reserve to ensure the continuity of activities should there be a major reduction in income. The Board could raise the value of subscriptions to increase the income to the group on an ongoing basis, either temporarily or permanently. Reduction or loss of leaders. The group is totally reliant upon volunteers to run and administer the activities of the group. If there was a reduction in the number of leaders to an unacceptable level in a particular section or the group then there would have to be a contraction, consolidation or closure of a section. In the worst- case scenario, the complete closure of the Group. Reduction or loss of members. The Group provides activities for all young people aged 6 to 18. If there was a reduction in membership in a particular section or the group as whole then there would have to be a contraction, consolidation or closure of a section. In the worst-case scenario, the complete closure of the Group. The group has in place systems of internal controls that are designed to provide reasonable assurance against material mismanagement or loss, these include 2 signatories for all payments and comprehensive insurance policies to ensure that insurable risks are covered |
| Section C | Objectives and activities | |
|---|---|---|
| Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document |
The Purpose of Scouting Scouting exists to actively engage and support young people in their personal development, empowering them to make a positive contribution to society. The Values of Scouting-As Scouts we are guided by these values: Integrity- We act with integrity; we are honest, trustworthy and loyal. Respect- We have self-respect and respect for others. Care- We support others and take care of the world in which we live. Belief- We explore our faiths, beliefs and attitudes. Co-operation- We make a positive difference; we cooperate with others and make friends. The Scout Method Scouting takes place when young people, in partnership with adults, work together based on the values of Scouting and: - enjoy what they are doing and have fun - take part in activities indoors and outdoors - learn by doing - share in spiritual reflection - take responsibility and make choices - undertake new and challenging activities -make and live by their Promise. |
|
| Summary of the main activities in relation to these objects |
- Punchbowl Walk – Autumn 2023 – challenging night hike involving navigation, map and compass work. - Winter Camp – November 2023 – proposed campsite had become inaccessible, so decision was made to relocate to Scout Hall. The highlight was a ‘MasterChef’ challenge to plan a menu on a £3 budget – resulting in a 5-course banquet. A great example of resilience to adapt to new circumstances and embrace the new plan. - Rope Bridge over River Wey – Spring 2024 – construction of rope bridges over the river in Radford Park using pioneering techniques with poles and rope. - Beaver Camp – early opportunity for young members to camp, have fun together and experience varied activities outdoor. - In summary many of our activities aim to help our members develop as individuals and to work as a team. |
|
| Public benefit statement | The Group meets the Charity Commission's public benefit criteria under both the advancement of education and the advancement of citizenship or community development headings. |
| Section D | Achievements and Performance | |
|---|---|---|
| Summary of the main achievements of the charity during this year |
- Community Support through participation in Carnival Event and Kings Celebration on the Millennium Green. - Support for the International Jamboree through donations to members and leaders who participated in the Jamboree in South Korea - Continuing development of young people with Explorers working with younger sections to provide leadership support and offering non-members opportunity to volunteer in Scouts as part of their Duke of Edinburgh awards. |
Section E Financial Review
| Reserve Policy | The Group's policy on reserves is to hold sufficient resources to continue the charitable activities of the group should income and fundraising activities fall short. The Group Trustee Board is continuing to evaluate its financial position and will define a reserves policy to determine a target sum that the group should hold a sum in relation to its running costs. The Group held reserves of approximately £30,000 at year end. This is above the level required for operating expenses. However, this can be explained by the ongoing need to secure a long-term financial future especially as lease discussions for our hall are still in progress. In addition, the reserve fund provides some funding towards an (eventual) replacement minibus. |
|---|---|
| Investment Policy | The Group has therefore adopted a low-risk strategy to the investment of its funds. All funds are held in cash using a mainstream bank and the reserves are held in an interest bearing 90-day notice account. |
| Section F | Declaration |
|---|---|
| The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees: Signature(s) Full Name(s) Stuart Edward Clark Position(s) Chair Date 10 June 2024 |
2. Group Treasurer Annual Report
The table below shows the 2023-24 accounts compared to the 2022-23 accounts. The period that the accounts cover is 1[st] April 2023 to 31[st] March 2024.
Income in 2023-24 was £40k compared to the prior year of £38k, the main reason that we were able to have this increase was due to a donation left to the group in a will. The group was able to engage in more fundraising activities through local events, by running BBQ’s, netting the group an additional £1k on the previous year. We are also benefitting from a new savings account, which has given the group almost £1k through the investment of the ‘rainy day’ fund.
Costs for the group were pretty much as expected in a normal year Liphook Scouts. Exceptions to worth noting are that the section payments have been increased, giving leaders more money per head, to spend on their groups activities and having to request less from parents for larger activities.
During the year, we also had expenditure increases for the District Levvy and Scout Hall rent, due to rising costs all round.
The group has also invested again in improvements and equipment for the rifle and archery groups, which offer more opportunities for the children to get involved in.
We did also make a major investment in a new container for the canoe and kayaking equipment. The previous storage facility was no longer available to us and a new one was found, which involved the purchase of the container to keep the equipment safe.
This meant that expenditure was a little higher than the prior year, and we actually used up some of the group reserves, as we had to spend almost £4k more than the income. This has meant that the balance of the group’s reserves has gone from £46k last year to £43k this year.
| Accounts 2023-24 | |||
| Balance at 01/04/2022 |
Balance at 01/04/2023 |
||
| Current Account | 38,045.72 | 23,556.00 | |
| STIS | 10,000.00 | 10,000.00 | |
| Go Cardless | - | 12,866.72 | |
| Bank balance at start ofyear | 48,045.72 | 46,422.72 | |
| Income | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | |
| Membership subscription | 20,636.09 | 18,551.41 | |
| Fundraising | 1,052.55 | 3,345.31 | |
| Donations & Grants | 2,628.01 | 6,295.00 | |
| Giftaid | - | - | No giftaid in this year |
| Scout Camp | 2,998.60 | 8,990.00 | |
| Cub Camp | 4,486.70 | 1,235.00 | |
| Group Camp | 2,035.00 | - | |
| Scout Shop | 3,243.91 | 840.35 | |
| Rifle | 1,362.24 | 51.70 | |
| Archery | 10.00 | 60.00 | |
| Interest | - | 628.60 | |
| TOTAL INCOME | 38,453.10 | 39,997.37 | |
| Expenditure | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | |
| Donations | 1,500.00 | 50.00 | International Jamboree |
| Levvy's&Fees | 8,461.75 | 9,360.00 | New district fees |
| Fundraising Costs | - | 1,115.04 | |
| Badges/Uniform/Scout Shop | 1,672.98 | 3,024.83 | |
| Section Payments&Activities | 1,716.71 | 4,496.42 | Increased sectionpayments |
| Scout Camp | - | 4,777.31 | |
| Cub Camp | 420.00 | 2,282.05 | |
| GroupCamp | 3,198.77 | - | Costs ofgroupcamp |
| Rifle | 302.83 | 619.50 | Cost for rifle range improvements |
| Training | - | 215.00 | |
| HQ Charges | 6,750.00 | 7,500.00 | |
| Materials&Equipment | 3,327.89 | 5,338.79 | Includes new containers |
| Insurance | 52.00 | 52.00 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minibus | 2,027.52 | 2,582.98 | Insurance/MOT/service/tyres |
| Hall sundries | - | 207.79 | |
| Admin & Secretarial | 785.18 | 387.00 | Web domain/OSM |
| Archery | 466.93 | 802.89 | |
| Misc | 33.54 | 845.00 | Beaver camp deposit |
| TOTAL EXPENDITURE | 30,716.10 | 43,656.60 | |
| Balance of Income over Expenditure |
7,737.00 | - 3,659.23 |
|
| Current Account | 23,556.00 | 12,355.20 | |
| STIS | 10,000.00 | 30,418.29 | |
| Go Cardless | 12,866.72 | - | |
| Balance at end of year | 46,422.72 | 42,773.49 |
| Protected Fund Balances | Bfwd | Cfwd |
|---|---|---|
| Scout Camp | 2,998.60 | 7,211.29 |
| Cub Camp | 4,066.70 | 3,019.65 |
| Rifle Club | 1,059.41 | 491.61 |
| 8,124.71 | 10,722.55 |
3. Group Lead Volunteer’s Annual Report
Scouting in Liphook continues to thrive, and we are maintaining our numbers, with three Beaver Colonies, three Cub Packs, two Scout Troops and an Explorer Scout unit. Having said that since the pandemic the Beaver number are slowing increasing, but the previous low numbers in Beavers has now moved onto the Cub section and their numbers are low. The Scouts are maintaining their numbers, but the Explorer section 14- 18 age range have the largest number that we had for many a year which is good to see, especially for this age range which must mean that we are doing something right to maintain their intreat.
We have a good leadership team who are doing an excellent job running all the sections, but we do require more adults to come forward as leaders particularly in the Cub section and Explorer section where we have lost a couple of leaders who have moved away and just to maintain strong teams. We always welcome additional adult support, be it be coming a leader, helping with activities, general help or helping behind the scenes.
At the current time The Scout Association is in the middle of transformation, introducing a new digital technology which hopefully will simplify and help leaders so that they can concentrate of running their sections. As well as renaming the various roles, so for example instead of Scout Leader, they will now be called Lead Volunteer Scouts.
In the last year all the sections has held various camps, Beavers camping at Garners field in Tilford, Cubs a camp at the Hampshire Scout site in the New Forest and the Scouts and Explorers camping in Wareham. All with a wide variety of activities, climbing, abseiling, archery, backwoods skills air rifle shooting to name just a few.
Before pandemic we had strong archery and air rifle clubs with member taking part in county and national competitions. We have been trying to re-establish them though it seems hard to get the members interested in them again. Also, on some of the camps and other activities outside normal meetings the number of members taking part is down all most by 50% from pre-pandemic times. This is a great shame as the members are missing out on activities and the leaders give up a lot of their time and trouble to arrange these activities but get limited interest. Is this down to members just not being interested, or do they have many of interest and activities on outside Scouting. Whichever it is we do need the support and encouragement of parents to get the members to take part.
As normal we supported other events in the Village, from the Village picnic, Remembrance Day and Liphook Carnival. Thanks to Karen and all the team of leaders and parents that helped with painting and building the float.
Scout Christmas post was again arranged by Mark Boosey and his team did an excellent job of sorting and the members delivering the cards.
One of our Explorer scouts, Madeleine Edginton, was a member of a Hampshire contingent to the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea attended by 50,000 Scouts from around the world, which as you possible saw all the news, did not go as planned. However, it was still an experience of a lifetime and she was joined by four of our leaders who also attended as part of the IST, International Support Team involved in running the event.
In the current year we are going to get the Archery and Air Rifle clubs up and running again and it will be good to see our members taking part in the various local and National competitions as we did before Covid.
My thanks go to all the Leaders, Section helpers and supporters, Trustee Board Members and all the other backroom supporters for the time and effort that they put into supporting our Scouting in Liphook and we look forward to yet another exciting year ahead.
Bryan Jackson Group Scout Leader
| Accounts 2023-24 | Accounts 2023-24 | Accounts 2023-24 | Accounts 2023-24 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Balance at 01/04/2022 |
Balance at 01/04/2023 |
||
| Current Account | 38,045. 72 |
23,556.0 0 |
|
| STIS | 10,000. 00 |
10,000.0 0 |
|
| Go Cardless | - | 12,866.7 2 |
|
| Bank balance at start ofyear | 48,045.72 | 46,422.72 | |
| Income | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | |
| Membershipsubscripton | 20,636.09 | 18,551.41 | |
| Fundraising | 1,052.55 | 3,345.31 | |
| Donatons & Grants | 2,628.01 | 6,295.00 | |
| Gifaid | - | - | Nogifaid in thisyear |
| Scout Camp | 2,998.60 | 8,990.00 | |
| Cub Camp | 4,486.70 | 1,235.00 | |
| GroupCamp | 2,035.00 | - | |
| Scout Shop | 3,243.91 | 840.35 | |
| Rife | 1,362.24 | 51.70 | |
| Archery | 10.00 | 60.00 | |
| Interest | - | 628.60 | |
| TOTAL INCOME | 38,453.10 | 39,997.37 | |
| Expenditure | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | |
| Donatons | 1,500. 00 |
50. 00 |
Internatonal Jamboree |
| Levvy's & Fees | 8,461.75 | 9,360.00 | New district fees |
| FundraisingCosts | - | 1,115.04 | |
| Badges/Uniform/Scout Shop | 1,672.98 | 3,024.83 | |
| Secton Payments & Actvites |
1,716.71 | 4,496.42 | Increased sectonpayments |
| Scout Camp |
| - | 4,777.31 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Cub Camp | 420.00 | 2,282.05 | |
| GroupCamp | 3,198.77 | - | Costs ofgroupcamp |
| Rife | 302.83 | 619.50 | Cost for rife range improvements |
| Training | - | 215.00 | |
| HQCharges | 6,750.00 | 7,500.00 | |
| Materials & Equipment | 3,327.89 | 5,338.79 | Includes new containers |
| Insurance | 52.00 | 52.00 | |
| Minibus | 2,027.52 | 2,582.98 | Insurance/MOT/service/tyres |
| Hall sundries | - | 207.79 | |
| Admin & Secretarial | 785.18 | 387.00 | Web domain/OSM |
| Archery | 466.93 | 802.89 | |
| Misc | 33.54 | 845.00 | Beaver campdeposit |
| TOTAL EXPENDITURE | 30,716.10 | 43,656.60 | |
| Balance of Income over Expenditure |
7,737.00 | - 3,659.23 |
|
| Current Account | 23,556.00 | 12,355.20 | |
| STIS | 10,000. 00 |
30,418.2 9 |
|
| Go Cardless | 12,866. 72 |
- | |
| Balance at end of year | 46,422.72 | 42,773.49 |
| Protected Fund Balances | Bfwd | Cfwd |
|---|---|---|
| Scout Camp | 2,998.60 | 7,211.29 |
| Cub Camp | 4,066.70 | 3,019.65 |
| Rife Club | 1,059.41 | 491.61 |
| 8,124.71 | 10,722.55 |
Treasurer’s Report
The table above shows the 2023-24 accounts compared to the 2022-23 accounts. The period that the accounts cover is 1[st] April 2023 to 31[st] March 2024.
Income in 2023-24 was £40k compared to the prior year of £38k, the main reason that we were able to have this increase was due to a donation left to the group in a will. The group was able to engage in more fundraising activities through local events, by running BBQ’s, netting the group an additional £1k on the previous year. We are also benefitting from a new savings account, which has given the group almost £1k through the investment of the ‘rainy day’ fund.
Costs for the group were pretty much as expected in a normal year Liphook Scouts. Exceptions to worth noting are that the section payments have been increased, giving leaders more money per head, to spend on their groups activities and having to request less from parents for larger activities.
During the year, we also had expenditure increases for the District Levvy and Scout Hall rent, due to rising costs all round.
The group has also invested again in improvements and equipment for the rifle and archery groups, which offer more opportunities for the children to get involved in.
We did also make a major investment in a new container for the canoe and kayaking equipment. The previous storage facility was no longer available to us and a new one was found, which involved the purchase of the container to keep the equipment safe.
This meant that expenditure was a little higher than the prior year, and we actually used up some of the group reserves, as we had to spend almost £4k more than the income. This has meant that the balance of the group’s reserves has gone from £46k last year to £43k this year.
External examiner / auditor report has not yet been finalized. Our organisation is following up on this and we will lodge a formal version as soon as possible