## **ANNUAL REPORT** # **April 2025- March 2026** Monday 15 June 2026 ## **1[ST] LIPHOOK SCOUT GROUP** Group Lead Volunteers Neil Caie, Mark Boosey, Oscar Peterson Address 1[st] Liphook Scout Group HQ Millennium Centre 2 Ontario Way Liphook Hants GU30 7LD **CHARITY NUMBER 273205** Website www.liphookscouts.org.uk Emails info@liphookscouts.org.uk / contactus@liphookscouts.org.uk Membership membership@liphookscouts.org.uk Finance Chair treasurer@liphookscouts.org.uk chair@liphookscouts.org.uk **GROUP STRUCTURE** ## **President** Mary West ## **Vice Presidents** Mike King and Albert Crook ## **Honorary Scouters** Bill Jackson, Mike King, and Mary West ## **Group Lead Volunteers** Neil Caie, Mark Boosey, Oscar Peterson ## **Trustee Board Members 2025-2026** Stuart Clark, Bryan Jackson, Alison Jackson, Vic Pires, Neil Caie, Paul Bateman, David Hains Sarah-Jane Anslow, Caroline Stephenson and Andrew Baynes resigned during the year. **Section Leaders** Chris Stephenson, Neil Caie, Oscar Peterson, Alison Jackson, Karen Lloyd, Neil Boxall, Helen Coyte, Jenni Weston and Mark Stocker. ## **CONTENTS** 1st Liphook Scout Group .............................................................................. 1 Group Structure ............................................................................................ 2 Group Lead Volunteer's Report .................................................................... 3 Group Chair Report ....................................................................................... 4 Treasurer Report incl. Accounts ................................................................... 5 **GROUP LEAD VOLUNTEER’S (GLV’S) REPORT** This Group Lead Volunteer report could perhaps be summarised via the word ‘changes’. A fair bit has altered in Liphook Scouts since the last AGM. Firstly, we – Neil Caie, Mark Boosey, Oscar Peterson – are the new GLV team. Hello! It’s needed three of us to take on what Bryan Jackson had been doing solo, to give you a sense of just how much Bryan did! We’re very grateful Bryan is still around and supporting us; he has so much knowledge and expertise; whether it be working out what light fitting is needed to which buttons to press to make the membership database do what it’s supposed to, Bryan always has the answer. David Hains is our new treasurer. We’d like to thank him for all he’s done since taking on the role. He’s been leading us brilliantly on topics like budgeting and making sure we’re in the best financial health we can be. He has been very prompt in dealing with all the various payments that need to be made. Thank you David! One change it’s going to take us a while to get over: this AGM sees our Trustee Board Chairman, Stuart Clark, stepping down. To be honest, we weren’t quite aware of just how much work the chairman role involved until we started doing GLV things and thus witnessed Stuart diligently making sure everything from our insurance documents to our data protection policy were in order. We do understand his desire to have a break from the paperwork now and we’d like to thank him very much for all he’s done for the group, especially for patiently sitting for half of this year on the phone to NatWest! Continuing with the theme of change: we will soon be launching Squirrels in Liphook, the section aimed at 4 to 6 year-olds. Run by Tara Lawrence with Anthony Edmonds and Emma Roberts, we’ll be officially launching Acorn Drey in September, however in the meantime we’re running some trial evenings. We’re excited to be growing the group with this section. 2026 also sees three of Liphook’s legendary leaders stepping back a bit. We’re not waving goodbye to any of them fully, but they’re set to take things a little easier now. We’d like to give a massive, massive thank you to Dick Ayres, Kevin Carrig and Caroline Stephenson for all they’ve done for Liphook Scouts across their many years of service! Whilst this has been a time of change, several things have stayed the same. Vic Pires remains our Membership Secretary and continues to do a brilliant job of liaising with parents and marshalling our databases. We’re now trialling on-boarding young people as soon as they apply, rather than making them wait until the next term. Thank you to Vic for overseeing this! Also, a thank you to Alison Jackson, who continues to run our Scout Shop and makes sure we have what we need for our investitures. Alison will soon have a bunch of red Squirrels uniforms in stock! The main thing that hasn’t changed is that Liphook remains a brilliant Scout group where young people can have fun and adventures, learn and grow. All the sections have delivered some excellent evenings this year – from parachutes to marble runs, camps to donuttin - and many more adventures are planned for this summer and the autumn. Thank you to all the leaders (there’s 57 at the moment!) who give up their time and expertise to help make this happen and make the group what it is. Neil Caie, Mark Boosey, Oscar Peterson **CHAIR REPORT** The Group has had a year of change. We have introduced two new Group Lead Volunteers (GLV) (Neil and Mark) and added a third with Oscar now a GLV too! We have also been lucky enough that Bryan Jackson has still been present and active helping the GLVs bed into their new roles. This reinforces one of the Group’s key strengths in having a good cohort of experienced leaders, a growing number of young leaders and the many volunteers that help across the sections. We have also experienced three of our long serving leaders who are stepping down from active involvement. Caroline Stephenson, Dick Eyre and Kevin Carrig have given sterling commitment to the advancement of young people in our area for many years. We give them enormous thanks and wish them many happy years ahead. The Trustee Board has been active and experienced changing attendees. David Hains joined as the new Treasurer and has made a real impact with his efficiency and timeliness in managing our Finances. The Trustee Board has been very aware of the events around sad death in Wales of a young member from the Stockport Scout Group. We have spent time understanding the impact on the Scout organisation as a whole and what it means in terms of our responsibilities on safeguarding and risk assessments. We are grateful for the time and commitment that all leaders, volunteers and Trustee members willingly give to support this Group. Unfortunately, this is also the moment where I am stepping away from my role of Chair of Trustees, it has been a pleasure working alongside a great team of people. The group needs to find a replacement soon, ideally from our network of parents. A significant moment during this year has been a marked reduction in the number of young members in the Group, probably outweighing any loss during covid times. This has had an impact on our general finances and created some challenges that we are working through. We are still financially robust, but we do need to continue to be aware of expenditure. A massive mitigation to this has been the introduction of a Squirrels section, which will commence fully in September this year. This has been strongly supported by the GLVs and with good advocacy from Tara Lawrence who was running a Squirrels section in Bordon. We are currently looking at around 15 very young members joining our group in September! We continue to be active in the local area supporting initiatives such as the recent Parish Picnic. This is always a good opportunity for the parents of our members to provide additional help. Any support from the parents is very much appreciated. We want to encourage more opportunities for parents to be involved in any capacity and for their children to engage in the various activities we have to offer outside of the normal section nights. ## **TREASURER REPORT** In the financial year 2025-26 the Group made a small deficit of £877 (2024: £3,508 deficit) primarily due to the reduction in members. The group took steps to control spending in the light of this reduction. After central levies and hall rent the largest expenditure by the group are the cub and scout camps. The scout camp ran at a small deficit, in part again to the reduction in numbers in the older age groups, the shortfall being covered by the scout camp protected balance. Higher camp site fees for the 2025 and 2026 cub camps are also being taken from the cub camp protected reserve. A grant was received from Bramshott and Liphook Parish Council for the refurbishment of the kitchens, the cost for which was spent in the prior year. **ACCOUNTS** |**Balance Sheet**
**Opening Balance**
NatWest Bank Current Account
NatWest Bank Savings Account
Prepayments (Note 1)
Net current assets
Net income
Net assets at year end
**Closing Balance**
NatWest Bank Current Account
NatWest Bank Savings Account
Prepayments|**2024/25**
**2025/26**
12,355
7,009
30,418
31,601
9,350
10,004| |---|---| ||**52,123**
**48,614**
(3,509)
(877)
**48,614**
**47,737**
7,009
15,135
31,601
32,602
10,004
0| ||**48,614**
**47,737**| ## **Income and Expenditure** |**Income**
Membership Subscriptions
Fundraising
Donations & Grants
Kitchen Refurbishment Grant
Gift Aid
Uniform/Scout Shop/Badges
Section Payments & Activities
Scout Camps
Cub Camps
Rifle Club
Archery
Interest
**TOTAL INCOME**
**Expenditure**
Levies & Fees
Fundraising
Uniform/Scout Shop/Badges
Section Payments & Activities
Scout Camps
Cub Camps
Training
Hall Charges
Materials & Equipment
Kitchen Refurbishment
Patrol boxes
Insurance
Minibus
Hall sundries
Admin & Secretarial
Rifle
Archery
Misc.
**TOTAL EXPENDITURE**
**Balance of Income over Expenditure**|**Budget 2025-26**
**Actual**
**Income**
**Variance to**
**budget**
22,425
17,404
(5,021)
2,000
1,162
(838)
2,600
1,110
(1,490)
3,400
3,400
0
1,900
2,261
361
1,800
2,018
218
-
567
567
4,125
4,021
(104)
1,960
3,350
1,390
200
0
(200)
100
0
(100)
1,000
1,001
1| |---|---| ||**41,510**
**36,294**
**(5,216)**
**Budget 2025-26**
**Actual**
**Expenditure**
(10,000)
(10,004)
(4)
(600)
(507)
93
(2,000)
(2,790)
(790)
(3,450)
(3,975)
(525)
(4,000)
(4,318)
(318)
(1,800)
(2,637)
(837)
(500)
0
500
(11,000)
(8,250)
2,750
(3,100)
(302)
2,798
(300)
(339)
(39)
(100)
(83)
17
(1,000)
(52)
948
(2,500)
(2,432)
68
(200)
(196)
4
(200)
(1,186)
(986)
(300)
0
300
(200)
(100)
100
(200)
0
200| ||**(41,450)**
**(37,171)**
**4,279**| ||**60**
**(877)**
**(937)**| ## **Reserves** |**eserves**||| |---|---|---| ||**2024/25**|**2025/26**| |**General Reserve**||| |Opening Balance|41,400.94|24,867.07| |Closing Balance|24,867.07|23,603.94| |**Scout Camp Designated Fund**||| |Opening Balance|7,211.29|5,791.68| |Prior year expenditure over income|(1,419.61)|| |2025 scout camp expenditure over income||(597.46)| |Closing Balance|5,791.68|5,194.22| |**Cub Camp Designated Fund**||| |Opening Balance|3,019.65|2,263.93| |Prior year expenditure over income|(755.72)|| |Expenditure on camp site fees||(1,016.81)| |Closing Balance|2,263.93|1,247.12| |**Rifle Club Designated Fund**||| |Opening Balance|491.61|691.61| |Closing Balance|691.61|691.61| |**Minibus Replacement Designated Fund**||| |Opening Balance|0.00|15,000.00| |Closing Balance|15,000.00|15,000.00| |**Paddle Boarding Designated Fund**||| |Opening Balance||0.00| |Closing Balance||2,000.00| ## **Note to the Accounts** ## 1) Basis of Preparation and Policies The accounts are prepared on a receipts and payments basis, with the exception of the levy payable to the scout association which was considered as a prepayment in the prior year. (The levy amounts to nearly a quarter of the annual expenditure and attracts a discount if paid early). The Balance Sheet comparative for 2024/25 has been restated to show the prepayment as an asset, and therefore provide a true representation of the movement of net assets year on year. 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. Designated Funds are held for specific purposes: - At some time in the future the scout minibus will require replacement and therefore the trustees review and allocate funds to the Minibus Replacement Designated Fund based on projected future expenditure. - Scout and cub camps expenditure can vary significantly from year to year depending on location, and therefore a specific reserve is held to accommodate unexpectedly high expenditure over income from one year to the next. The scout camp designated fund also includes funds for attendance at international or national non group camps which generally cost more than locally run camps. - Rifle Club Designated Fund is held for the replacement of equipment. - Paddle boarding Designated Fund results from a donation to provide paddle boarding equipment and relevant training for our leaders so that they can instruct our young people. - `o` General reserve is held to cover unexpected running costs, or shortfall in income. The trustees aim to maintain a reserve of between 6 and 9 months expenditure. The Group's Income and Expenditure is relatively small and as a consequence does not have sufficient funds to invest in longer-term investments. The Group has therefore adopted a lowrisk strategy to the investment of its funds. All funds are held in cash using only mainstream banks or building societies or The Scout Association's Short Term Investment Service. ## 2) Income breakdown |ncome breakdown||| |---|---|---| ||£|| |Donations, Grants and Events||4,510| |Charitable Activities||30,783| |Other trading activities||-| |Investments||1,001| |||----------------| |**Total Income**||**36,294**| Group income includes £1,490 received for cub and scout camps which will occur in the next financial year (2026-27). ## 3) Expenditure No trustee received payment for carrying out the charity’s activities. ## 4) Employees and Volunteers The charity has no employees. The charity relies upon approximately 60 volunteers to run its scouting activities. ## Independent examiners report to the Trustees of First Liphook Scout Group (Charity number 273205) I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Charity”) for the year ended 31 March 2026. ## **Responsibilities and basis of report** As the charity 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 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 which gives me cause to believe that, in any material respect: - accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or - the accounts do not accord with the accounting records I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached Signed: _Martin Brown FCA for Lynchmere Consulting {2022) Ltd_ Date ………10 June 2026………………………. Registered in England and Wales No. 13856660 • Registered Office: 45 Warwick Gardens, Thames Ditton KT7 0RB Director: Martin Brown FCA