## **on the Downswood Community Association** 

(Established in 1986 - Registered Charity No: 298218). 

This is the annual report for the Downswood community association, which is to be approved at the 2021 Annual General Meeting of the charity trustees to be held on Tuesday14th September and then sent to the charities commission along with a copy of the DCA annual audited accounts. 

The Downswood Community Association (the DCA), is operated and managed by a general committee of charity trustees who are governed by a constitution. The DCA general committee currently consists of eleven charity trustees, made up of Honorary Officers, Ordinary committee members and representative of DCA Sections, affiliated groups and statutory authorities. 

Charity trustees from the Downswood community association have exclusively & successfully managed the Downswood community centre since the opening in 1990 & although the Honorary officers deal with the day to day running of the centre along with the caretaker, cleaners & booking secretary, the DCA charity trustees are all ultimately responsible for managing the association and the centre & must ensure we have a safe, clean and efficient community centre which we appear to do very well considering we receive no regular grants or 

In the absence of a volunteer Honorary Treasurer the monthly accounting & book keeping is carried out by the honorary officers of the association, distributing a comprehensive income & expenditure spreadsheet & report on the accounts at every DCA general committee meeting. All major decisions concerning the DCA and the community centre are discussed at general committee meetings which are held five times a year with the DCA Honorary Officers managing the day to day running of the Downswood community centre. 

The DCA currently have three part time employees who work in association with the community centre, one caretaker who unlocks the community centre every morning, de-activates the intruder alarm and checks to ensure that the centre is ready for our hirers. Two part time cleaners who work alternate weeks, sometimes well after midnight, clean the whole centre, lock and activates the security alarms every evening. We also have a booking secretary who charges for her services. 

Sadly the community association have been unable to run any fundraising events here at the centre recently, not just because of COVID, it’s because we need more volunteers on our fundraising team 



2. 

John gave his time to be the DCA Vice Chairman, representative of the Downswood short mat bowls club & part of the DCA fundraising team, which like the few members we have on this team, worked very hard.at all our events & he will be sadly missed. 

There have also been a few changes of group representatives recently on the DCA general committee: 

## **Honorary officers:** 

Honorary Chairman – John Everett* Honorary Vice Chairman - VACANCY Honorary Secretary – Diane Thompson* Honorary Treasurer – VACANCY **Ordinary committee members:** 

Val. Cooper. **Centre user group representatives:** 

Ivan Russell - Downswood Short Mat Bowls  (DCA SECTION) Details to be confirmed. 

Bernard Dunn – DOARA - Active Retirement Association – (AFFILIATED GROUP). (Alt. Rep: Marion Harvey) 

Nicki Cooper - Willow Rise Pre-School - (AFFILIATED GROUP). (t **aken over from Judi Higgins** ) Daphne McHarry - Tipee & twinkletoes - (AFFILIATED GROUP). (Alt. Rep: None) 

Pete Fincham - Downswood Parish Council (STATUTORY AUTHORITY) ( **taken over from Martin Weeks** ) 

* Also responsible for the day to day management of the centre. 

We are now in desperate need of a Vice Chairman & Treasurer along with volunteers to help on the fundraising team & the centre management team 

## **Aims and objectives:** 

The aims and objectives of the Downswood community association have not changed since the DCA was established in 1986 and as stated in our constitution and we still manage and provide a fantastic community centre in the interests of social welfare for recreation and leisure time activities improving the conditions of life for the residents of Downswood. The centre also provides a wide variety of groups which are available to 



**3.** 

## **Achievements over the past twelve months:** 

The last year has been very unpredictable in relation to the COVID pandemic, unfortunately this means that we have lost many of our smaller regular groups including; Musical bugs, Susan’s sewing group, Rosaria’s keep fit, Yoga, Children’s signing group & Cate’s keep fit classes. We are still not sure if or when Willington Players plan to return for rehearsal’s because they have no shows until next year. This doesn’t sound much of an achievement, losing these groups, but we should maybe look ahead to some new groups which should be starting soon, including a baby’s keep fit group, a baby’s massage group, babies first aid & a monthly Kent hospice meeting. 

We still have one of the best community centres in the area & it is always safe, clean, efficient & ready for use by local residents and this shows by the many weekend (one off) bookings that we are now receiving. 

During the pandemic & on top of all the COVID grants, we were also lucky enough to secure a members grant from Gary Cooke at the KCC for a complete refurbishment of the kitchen, many thanks to Gary & for DB Project for their fantastic help planning & fitting the kitchen. 

## **The future:** 

The future is looking much better with the relaxation of Government COVID restrictions, but some people are still very nervous about socialising which is why the sanitisation stations which were installed in the foyer & hall are being left for visitors to use.There are notifications posted for everybody who enters the centre to read that the centre management are recommending that they should continue to wear face coverings & carry out social distancing until they themselves feel it is safe to get back to normal. 

With many of our regular groups returning, this means we should soon have the income necessary to operate normally & hopefully in the not too distant future, when we should be able to start organising some social/fundraising events for our residents 

We did manage one fundraising event last weekend by running a bar at the private ‘comedy drag night’, where we made £300. 

All the DCA charity trustees have responsibilities to either put themselves forward or to encourage members of their groups to help run the centre &/or help to raise funds for the DCA, it shouldn’t be left to a handful of people who are not connected in any way to any user group - this is unfair! 

Next year we _**will**_ again be charging groups to be affiliated to the DCA & _**we wil**_ l ensure these groups adhere to their terms & conditions by helping with fundraising, otherwise they jeopardise any future affiliation. ‘Helping’ in future will not include a donation of a raffle prize & that’s it - it will mean helping. 

If your group are unable to keep to the terms & conditions of affiliation, please do not apply for affiliation next January. 

Sorry to end the annual report on this sour note, but there are people who always help, who are not getting any younger & we simply need more volunteers! 



4. 

## **Report on the DCA annual audited accounts:** 

(01[st] June 2020 - 31[st] May 2021) 

Part of our role as charity trustees is to hold people (including staff, volunteers and fellow trustees) to account for how they carry out their role or use the charity’s resources. This can mean asking probing or challenging questions about information at trustee meetings, or being prepared to say ‘I do not understand what this means’. 

You should receive timely information in a format that you can understand and use, and if necessary ask for explanations, training or a different presentation. For example, all trustees, not just the treasurer or other honorary officers are responsible for the charity’s finances and should be able to understand, consider and comment on financial information. 

The DCA annual accounts have recently been audited by Terry Aylward and in the absence of a Honorary Treasurer, I shall read out a short report on these, which will accompany the annual report sent to the Charities Commission. 

## **Balance Sheet:** 

A balance sheet audit is an evaluation of the accuracy of information found in the association’s balance sheet. It involves a number of checks as auditors conduct this evaluation based on supporting documents. After a balance sheet audit, you can use the analyses to detect irregularities or weaknesses in our association’s accounting system. 

## **Income & expenditure:** 

you can see that the fee for affiliation to the DCA was waived for our regular groups this year, except for the Out of school Club which only started in September 2020. 

Bookings & fundraising were also much less than the previous year because of COVID, but we were lucky enough to secure £36,693 in grants throughout the pandemic, these were mainly Maidstone Borough Council business support grants & also from the National Lottery community fund & Kent community foundation emergency fund, of which we should be extremely grateful. 

On the expenditure side, cleaning costs, gardening, stationary, sundries, utilities, (gas, electric & water) & wages were down on the previous year. 

Unfortunately we did have some increases, these were repairs & renewals, where we took the opportunity during the pandemic, to carry out what was necessary. 

The centre Insurance has also increased along with the cost of licences. The reason the licences expenditure increased was because the COVID pandemic which delayed many of the invoices being sent out, so they were included onto this years accounts. 



5 

## **Variance analysis:** 

A variance is the difference between an actual amount and a budgeted, planned or past amount. Variance analysis is one step in the process of identifying and explaining the reasons for different outcomes. In the case of the DCA, this is a matter of how much more or less income or expenditure we have had from June 01[st] 2020 up until 31[st] May 2021. 

Therefore below the explanation of our exact income & expenditure it tells us that we actually made a profit this year of £8764, compared to last year, which was £566. 

Are there any questions concerning these accounts please? 

That concludes the 2021 annual report & a report on the DCA audited accounts. 

Can the DCA general committee now approve this annual report & a report on the DCA accounts & send it off to the Charity commission please? 

## **Thank you.** 



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