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2025-03-31-accounts

CHAIN AGM 15[th] October 2025 7.00pm The Hungerford Hub & Library, Hungerford

Type of meeting: ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Agenda topics
Apologies for Absence
Minutes of Previous AGM Chairman
Matters Arising from the Minutes
Treasurer's Report Mr G Ham
Election of Chairman
Election of Treasurer
Election of Secretary
Election of Committee Members
Reports
1. Office Mrs E Pike
2. Handy Bus Transport Mr K Mayes
3. CHAIN Mail Mr K Knight
4. Distribution/Links Mrs K Bossom
5. Chairman Vehicle Mr N Marney
Chairman’s Review Mr K Knight
Any Other Business All

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MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF CHAIN HELD ON MONDAY 10 September 2024 AT 7.00PM IN THE HUB AT THE HUNGERFORD HUB AND LIBRARY, HUNGERFORD

Keith welcomed everybody to AGM

Present: 19 people attended

Apologies for Absence: Neale and Mary Marney

Minutes of Previous AGM : The previous minutes were reviewed and agreed. Proposed Christine Thorne Seconded Kathy Bossom.

Matters Arising : There were no matters arising.

Treasurer’s Report : Finances are in good shape. The deposit for the new bus has been paid and should be arriving in the New Year. We hope to replace the Chairman during the next year.

It was also noted that we have an ongoing problem with the floor in the office. This has been inspected and meeting with the Landlord took place. It was agreed that Chain had laid the floor about 20 years ago and we would now replace it at our cost. It was noted that the rent had not been increased for several years.

Ann Dunn queried re Hydro pool visits it was confirmed that we had been subsiding this for sometime and there were no plans to recommence.

The accounts were produced and agreed.

Election of Chairman : Keith Knight was re-elected Chair. Proposed by George Ham and seconded by Sandra Brooks

Election of Treasurer : George Ham was re-elected as Treasurer. Proposed: Sandra Brooks seconded by Keith Knight Election of Secretary : Sandra Brooks was re- elected as Secretary Proposed: Keith Knight and seconded by Ted Angell Election of Committee Members : Ted Angell confirmed he was stepping down and Keith Mayes would take over. Keith welcome Keith to the committee. The remainder of committee was re-elected as:

Kathy Bossom, Deanne Cripps Elizabeth Pike and Neale Marney. All confirmed they were happy to stand.

Office: Liz confirmed that Chain has 776 clients. We have some new office reserves but they only want to be reserves.

The floor in the office is now hopefully being resolved and quotes were being obtained Keith thanked Liz

Handy bus: Slow increase in numbers. Hydro pool charges had gone from £30.00 per session to £100 obviously not sustainable.

KVG had been using the bus before Covid 1 ½ days per week which had dropped to ½ day. They now wish to increase their use and have given a £5,000 donation towards cost of new bus

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The College at Froxfield, Brendoncare and Christians against Poverty also now using the bus on a regular basis

We had received a donation of £20,000 from WBC, £4,000 WB Lottery, £1,000 from Roman Catholic Church, Keith Mayes also raising £2,500 marathon and with his Bike ride and marathon.

Many thanks to all.

Keith then presented Ted with a thank you gift for his contributions over the year which were much appreciated.

CHAIN Mail: We have increased distribution to 3,400. Mike Rawlings has been a great help taking on another round as is Catherine Wooliston who has taken on all the rural rounds

Kathy now feels that she can carry on and Keith thanked Kathy for all her hard work over the years.

Chairman Vehicle: Neale was looking after the Chairman all was up to date and mechanically sound.

Chairman’s Review : Keith read his report and thanked the Trustees and volunteers.

Office running very well 4 days per week and everything else in order. We would like to set up a WhatsApp group to help with contacting drivers etc.

Any Other Business: Nigel Pasby presented Keith with a cheque for £243.00 which the Kennet Accordions had raised at one of their concerts. He also queries with Keith why could he not send out an acknowledgement when he receives articles currently Keith has a policy if I have not responded within 2 days sent it again. Keith agreed to look at maybe revising this.

Finally, it was suggested that we maybe ask school children to design the new logo for the bus.

There being no other business meeting closed at 8pm.

Date of Next AGM : To be agreed.

Meeting closed 20.05

Sandra Brooks – (former) Secretary

2024/5 Treasurers Report

We have had a surprisingly good year financially, with our cash in hand rising by just under £38500 compared to last year. However, we had paid a £25,000 deposit for the new bus which still shows as asset on the accounts. It is not strictly for this report but at the end of September 2025 having completed the purchase of the new bus our cash in hand stands at £167,000 a truly wonderful effort by all. We must particularly thank Keith Mayes for his fundraising efforts. This year passenger contributions just cover the full costs of running the Handybus but the Chairman continues to need our financial support, the car transport

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continues to provide a healthy a surplus of around £2,000. Our expenditure inevitably has increased although not as much as inflation.

We did have an unexpected item of expenditure in this financial year, our office floor which Chain installed many years ago is rotten and needed some work. A new concrete floor has been installed and that along with some increase in the regular fees shows up in the increased office expenses.

At year end, we had about £110,000 in the nominal vehicle replacement fund . with some money on a short-term account to pay for the new bus. However, we have funded the new vehicle without using this cash. So we are in a good position to replace the chairman next year.

So overall we have ended financial year 2024/5 with £180,000 in the bank, our current accounts show we are still in “profit” (excluding new bus costs) after 6 months of 2025.

George Ham

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CHAIN Office Report for 2025 AGM

Late last year the office floor finally collapsed leaving us homeless, but luckily the office next door was empty. So, after some quick negotiating between Keith Knight and Gilly Burroughs we had a temporary home. The new office came with a kitchen area and toilet, and more importantly a ground floor cupboard large enough to store the wheelchairs. Luxury. A very long phone cable stretching between the old and new office meant we could take/make phone calls on our existing number, and some kind volunteers moved the contents of the old office up the stairs into the new one. We went from working in the old office on Tuesday to the new office on Thursday without a break in our service! Meanwhile a new floor was built into the old office, a new carpet laid, and the walls painted. A new heater was installed along with a timer. Bliss! Gone were the mid-winter days of sitting in our coats until 10.00 Thank you to everyone who helped make an almost seamless move out and then back into our office, and to the office workers who did an amazing job adapting to all the changes. This year we welcomed two new drivers and two new office volunteers. We also have two volunteers who are returning to the office. So, we are looking forward to re-opening the office on Wednesdays within the next month or two. Over the last financial year, the CHAIN office has completed 875 bookings to take clients to medical appointments, so a very big “Thank You” to all the drivers and office staff who have been extremely busy all year. Liz

Elizabeth Pike

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Handybus Report for AGM 2025

The last year has been a busy and successful period for the CHAIN Handybus and its wonderful team of volunteer drivers and passenger assistants. Our scheduled services have included the popular Market run, the Tesco afternoon run, the group runs to Newbury, travel for All Aboard and Church Lunches, trips for Brendoncare and NoTrees care-homes, and outings for the Froxfield College, Crown Mews and other groups. The bus is also used one day a week by the Kintbury Volunteer Group. Travel is often local, although the bus sometimes goes further afield e.g. Swindon, Reading, Basingstoke and it got as far as Portsmouth on one of the group trips. We welcomed Mark Garnham, to our team of trained drivers, and thanked Wayne Hall for his service as he stepped down from our ranks. Chrissy Marsh and Anna Dunn have been brilliant additions to our team, and without them we would not have had enough passenger assistants (PA) to cover our services. The Handybus team still remains short of drivers and PAs, and an appeal for new volunteers has begun; anyone interested should make contact via the email below. To an outside view, the most notable Handybus event would have been our trusty old red Mercedes, being replaced by a shiny

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new silver Peugeot; albeit more than a year later than planned! The new bus started service in September and having overcome a few tricky practical issues, and revised essential procedural documents, we are now fully operational. The new bus seats 9 passengers, 2 less than the old bus, but importantly, can (after CHAIN training) be driven on a car licence. Stowage of folding wheelchairs, walkers and shopping is easier in the new bus, and we can reconfigure it to carry a single wheelchair-bound passenger (who cannot transfer to a seat) and 7 other passengers. The bus has received very positive feedback from passengers and our team members. The purchase cost of the new bus, including some essential extra expenditure will not be far off £60,000. I am pleased to report that CHAIN obtained money from grants (50%), donations (10%), the sale of the old bus (25%) and the fundraising efforts of its volunteers (15%), to cover the purchase without depleting CHAIN reserves. In the past year alone, CHAIN volunteers, raised £4,462 towards the new bus (Catherine Wooliston Birthday Fundraiser = £1244, Keith Mayes Swimming Challenges = £3,218). The following fundraising link will remain open until the end of the year, with further donations encouraged and now going towards the replacement cost of the Chairman vehicle.

https://www.justgiving.com/page/keith-mayes-swim-challenge We have covered the capital cost to purchase the bus, but to be sustainable, the bus must of course cover its operational costs. Fares have been fixed for some years, during which time, almost every operational cost has increased. Obviously we would like to avoid, or at least minimise, fare increases, so we will review the finances during the coming year and see what cost savings are possible. One way to better cover our operational overhead costs, is to maximise bus usage, so we are very keen to hear from groups that may wish to add trips to our schedule. The schedule is normally between 9AM-5PM weekdays, however we have supported a few evening and weekend trips, when the organisers have offered particularly generous donations to CHAIN. We are still open to these out-of-schedule requests, but on a limited basis, as it requires volunteer drivers to sacrifice precious personal and family time. Although accidents and medical incidents on the bus are thankfully rare, it is important that our team have some training to help deal with them. Most recently this consisted of a very useful first aid training course for drivers and passenger assistants. This is especially relevant as we have invested in a defibrillator, which is now carried on the bus. Last, but not least a few statistics from our bus records. In the last FY (to end of March 2025) we logged: 3695 passenger miles 1218 passenger journeys £3,857 income from passengers 20 average number of services/month Mileage and services were down on the previous year due to the reluctant withdrawal of the weekly Hydropool service, which had become uneconomic due to price increases related to rising energy costs. Our current schedules have added two more, regular monthly services; the Church Lunches and NoTrees care home trips, and we are of course keen to receive new service requests.

Keith Mayes CHAIN Handybus Coordinator and Trustee keith.mayes@crisptele.com

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CHAIN MAIL DISTRIBUTION 2025

Not much to report this year as, on the whole, most areas are working well. We have been having a few problems with the printers, but, unfortunately, they are the cheapest we can find by a long way, so we’ll have to keep going with them for now.

I have one spare round due to the deliverer moving away, but it’s one of the more awkward rounds, and despite an appeal in the last ChainMail, is still empty. It is the whole of the A338 from Eddington Hill to the M4 (apart from Hungerford Newtown), so lots of odd properties down long driveways. We will cover it ourselves this time, and will be putting another appeal in the next edition.

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As previously mentioned, we are still planning to retire from distributing the magazine eventually, but have been unable to find a volunteer to take it on. We can keep going for a few years, but will need to pass the baton over eventually. It doesn’t take long (around one day in total four times a year), but it’s quite manual with a lot of heavy lifting, ideally combined with some computer skills.

Kathy Bossom

Chairman Vehicle Report

The Chairman vehicle is now 10 years old , it continues to perform well but has not been used as much over the past 3 years. With the lockdown now over it is hoped that it will start to be used much more. The van was last serviced in January 25 . Report by Keith Knight

Chairman’s Review

As always I would like to thank the Trustees and Volunteers who give up their time to help others. It has been another good year for Chain and everyone associated with CHAIN all of whom have done a fanttasic job.

This is now my fifth AGM as chairman, having taken over the from Janette Kersey in October 2020. Since January 2022 I have also taken on the role as CHAIN editor from David Piper who retired from our organisation after more than 14 years as editor. I have now produced the past 15 quarterly editions (since March 22) and now finally starting to feel comfortable in this role. Our distribution is currently nearly 3,400 copies delivered by our magnificent volunteers to all parts of Hungerford. Our advertising revenue has remained steady from local business which enables CHAIN to produce the magazine at breakeven cost.

We have finally replaced our 9 year old Mercedes Minibus with a new lighter weight version. The new silver minibus was delivered in August 25 and went into service at the start of September We have a fresh new livery applied highlighting the updated CHAIN logo The new bus enables CHAIN to.use drivers who hold a car licence to drive increasing our driver pool. We will now look to replace our Chairman vehicle which will be 11 years old next year.

Post Covid our services have returned to normal, although we have had to suspended our Hydro pool run due to lack of support and an increasing cost meaning CHAIN was having to subsidies this service. We now offer extra runs on market days.. Our office is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Fridays 9am to 11am although we are still not encouraging visitors to the office.. Financially CHAIN remains in a very healthy financial position.

I thank you ALL our customers and volunteers of CHAIN.

Keith Knight

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CHAIN Trustee List 14[th] October 2024

Name
Position		 Name
Position		 Phone Name
Position
Phone		 Name
Position
Phone		 Name
Position
Phone
Mr K Knight Chair 644671 MR N Marney Chairman
vehicle
& First Aid
Courses		 mob 07712
767547
Mr G Ham Treasurer 684121
Mrs K Bossom Chain Mail
Distributor		 684011
Mrs D Angell Secretary
Mrs L Pike Trustee//
Acting Office
Manager		 644610
Mr K Mayes Handybus Mrs D Cripps Trustee

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CHAIN (HUNGERFORD VOLUNTEER FORCE) STATEMENT OF COMPREHENSVE INCOME FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

Notes
Incoming Resources
Grants Received
3
Donations
4
Handy Bus Surplus/ Deficit
5
Chairmans Vehicle Deficit
6
Transport Surplus/Deficit
7
Chain Mail Deficit
8
Interest Received
Interest on Bond
Total incoming resources
RESOURCES USED
Office expenses
Telephone
Insurance
Charges
Hydropool hire
Depreciation of vehicles
1
Total resources used
Net Incoming before transfer
Transfer between funds
Net movement of funds
Total funds brought forward
Total funds carried forward		 2024
General Fund
Fry
Bequest
Total
£
£
£
£
32,780
0
32,780
19,928
9,953
0
9,953
4,557
17
0
17
(353)
(859)
0
(859)
(1,318)
1,723
0
1,723
2,200
(1,754)
0
(1,754)
(1,413)
154
90
244
229
5,063
0
5,063
5,578
47,077
90
47,167
29,408
5,576
0
5,576
2,718
779
0
779
745
0
0
0
399
0
0
0
0
2,400
0
2,400
2,030
0
0
0
8,904
8,755
0
8,755
14,796
38,322
90
38,412
14,612
0
0
0
0
38,322
90
38,412
14,612
161,047
6,377
167,424
152,812
199,369
6,467
205,836
167,424
2025

CHAIN (HUNGERFORD VOLUNTEER FORCE) BALANCE SHEET AT 31 MARCH 2025

Notes
Fixed Assets
Tangible Assets
1
Current Assets
Cash at bank and in hand
2
Handybus deposit
Current Liabilities
Net current assets less current liabilities
Total Assets less Current Liabilities
Represented by
General Fund
Fry Bequest
..............................................
Chairman
...............................................
Secretary		 £
£
£
£
0
0
180,836
167,424
25,000
0
205,836
167,424
0
0
205,836
167,424
205,836
167,424
199,369
161,047
6,467
6,377
205,836
167,424
2025
2024

CHAIN (HUNGERFORD VOLUNTEER FORCE) NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

1 Fixed Assets

Cost
At 1 April 2024
Additions
At 31 March 2025
Depreciation
At 1 April 2024
Provision for the year
At 31 March 2025
Net Book Value
At 31 March 2025
At 31 March 2024
2 Cash at Bank and in Hand
NatWest Current Account
NatWest Business Reserve 79218326
United Trust Bank 1 year Bond
United Trust Bank easy acess
NatWest Business Reserve Fry Bequest
Petty Cash		 Chairman's
Vehicle
Handybus
Total
18,125
70,000
88,125
0
0
0
18,125
70,000
88,125
18,125
70,000
88,125
0
0
0
18,125
70,000
88,125
0
0
0
0
0
0
2025
2024
£
£
52,576
44,471
11,092
10,938
75,679
105,616
35,000
0
6,467
6,377
22
22
180,836
167,424

CHAIN (HUNGERFORD VOLUNTEER FORCE) NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2025

2025 2024
£ £ £ £
3 Grants Received
Hungerford Town Council/Greenham Common Trust 4,212 6,844
West Berkshire Council/Volunteer Centre 8,043 12,526
DFT Operators Grant 525 558
West Berkshire Council re Handybus 20,000 0
32,780 19,928
4 Donations
KINTBURY Volunteer Group
Sundry donations		 5,000
4,953		 0
4557
9,953 4,557
5 Handy Bus summary
Receipts
Less
Fuel
Expenses
Insurance		 1,415
2,261
1,415		 5,108 1,745
2,071
1,776		 5,239
5,091 5,592
Surplus/Deficit for the year 17 (353)
6 Chairmans Vehicle Summary
Receipts
Less
Fuel
Expenses
Vehicle Insurance		 555
423
1,415		 1,534 812
1,184
1,296		 1,974
2,393 3,292
Deficit for the year (859) (1,318)
7 Transport summary
Receipts
Less Drivers costs		 9,894
8,171		 9,656
7,456
Surplus for the year 1,723 2,200
8 Chain Mail summary
Advertising income
Less Printing & distribution		 1,825
3,579		 1,816
3,229
Deficit for the year (1,754) (1,413)

INDEPENDENT EXAMINERS REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF CHAIN (HUNGERFORD VOLUNTEER FORCE) For the year ended 31 March 2025

Respective responsibilities of trustees and examiner

The charity's trustees consider that an audit is not required for this period (under section144(2) of the Charities Act 2011 (the 2011 Act) and that an independent examination is needed.

It is my responsibility to:

examine the accounts under section 145 of the 2011 Act.

to follow the procedures laid down in the General Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the 2011 Act; and

to state whether particular matters have come to my attention

Basis of independent examiner's statement

My examination was carried out in accordance with the General Directions given by the Charity Commission. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts and seeking explanations from you as trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a true and fair view and the report is limited to those matters set out in the statement below

Independent examiner's statement

In the course of my examination, no matter has come to my attention:

accounts are prepared which agree with the accounting records and comply with the accounting requirements of the Act; or

Peter Davies Accountant

Sunrise Chapel Lane Hermitage Thatcham Berkshire RG18 9RL