Scouts 9th Andover (Town) Scout Group AGM REPORT ST YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2021
GSL report
At the time of writing my GSL report last year I had hoped it would be the end of online scouting and back to normality. Of course, we all know how that turned out! As you read through the reports from the section leaders I’m sure you will be as amazed as I am at how much each of the sections have achieved. Beavers seem to have had a very food orientated year, Cubs have completed a whole hosts of badges and Scouts have quizzed for England via Kahoot!.
Almost all of the Leaders have been working or volunteering throughout the pandemic and so I must take the time to highlight their efforts this last year. Our Leaders devote a lot of their time into creating programmes in a normal world, let alone in a pandemic when we have to reimagine all of our activities to work over Zoom. As ever, I hope you will join me in thanking all of our Leaders, parent helpers and Executive Committee for the hours they have dedicated over the last year to allow 9[th] Andover to continue to run. I would particularly like to mention Julie Peacock, a Leader with Scouts. She has decided to retire from Scouting after 6 years to allow her to spend more time with her husband. Thankfully she has agreed to stay in touch and help us out with hikes and camps. Charlotte Knight is also leaving us at the end of this term after moving to Salisbury. Charlotte has only been with us a short while but the Scouts have loved having her around. Thank you both. Not only have we welcomed new Beavers, Cubs and Scouts to the Group, we’ve also welcomed Jonny into the Scout Leadership team and Chloe into the Cub Leadership team. I’m pleased to say that as a Group we have managed to get through Covid relatively well without our number dropping too much. Thank you all for your support.
Anna Bazzoni
GSL
9[th] Andover (Town) Scout Group
Beaver Annual Report 20/21
So, it’s that time again and another year has passed. Despite the strange circumstances we’ve found ourselves living in, Beavers have continued and grown with the Scouting values shining through.
We have continued with our weekly Zoom meetings and although this is not for all Beavers, about half of those on our books have regularly joined in. Over the year, our numbers have grown and we have quite a few on our waiting list to join us when face to face meetings recommence.
Beavers finished the end of last summer term completing their Air Activities Level 1 badge and working towards the My Outdoors Challenge badge by making bug hotels, looking at things living in our gardens, making bird feeders and doing some first aid.
The Autumn term started with plenty of games, scavenger hunts and activities including learning how to tie knots (not easy to demonstrate on Zoom!). The experiment badge was interesting as Beavers made silly putty and soaked eggs in vinegar to see the shell disappear. We did an evening on Italy with Beavers completing a ‘leaning tower of pizza’ challenge by stacking hula hoops, made pizzas and doing some food art – the banana and strawberry cars were brilliant. Next Beavers worked on their Navigator 1 badge and learnt how to read a map, completed an activity following a route around a map of Andover and used grid references – they all did well and we didn’t lose any of them! Over half term, Beavers completed their Explore badge and for some, this also earnt them a hikes badge. After half term, Beavers earnt their Global Issues badge by making water filters, finding out about Fair Trade products and looking at endangered animals around the world. Next, we started our Safety badge where Beavers learned about water safety, stranger danger, road and rail safety. One of the Beaver dads who works for the British Transport Police, kindly talked to the Beavers about his job and how to stay safe. Our Christmas party ended the term with us making snow globes, reindeer biscuits and melting snowmen. We had a very competitive scavenger hunt with parents vs Beavers as they searched the house for Christmas items!
During the term, Beavers also had a virtual sleepover. They made campfires and set up their own beds, we had supper and made smores as well as completing a pioneering challenge. Beavers also made their own play dough and objects to represent camping – there were fires, tents, sleeping bags and various other bits.
The New Year started with the completion of the Safety badge by looking at fire safety. We held a challenge evening based on the Crystal Maze next where Beavers made their own marble maze, completed balancing challenges and worked out letters from clues to complete word puzzles. An evening all about Australia helped us towards our International badge. Beavers made lamington cake, found out facts about Australia, made rain sticks, learnt a song (interesting hearing it over Zoom!) and identified other flags around the world. The best game came from our young leader, Liv, who challenged Beavers to bite a digestive biscuit into the shape of Australia!
To mark Founders Day, Beavers looked at the history of Scouting and we also had an evening on Wales to celebrate St David’s Day – Beavers made Welsh cakes and dragons as well as learning the history of St David. An evening on Wind in the Willows saw Beavers learning about the life cycle of frogs and toads as well as making hedgehogs and rats. Next followed our Space badge – for this Beavers learnt about our solar system and what they could see in the night sky. They designed their own constellation and found out about a
space mission or astronaut. In addition, during the term, they also made origami fish, armpit fudge and chocolate nests.
Over Easter, Beavers went on a walk around Andover and followed clues to find historical bits about the town centre.
The summer term started with us learning about St George. We made food flags and completed challenges. Beavers also worked on their Health and Fitness badges by learning about healthy foods and how our pulse changes with exercise. We made fruit kebabs, not many pictures though as most were eaten fairly soon after being created! Beavers also designed a poster to promote healthy eating. This blended into the Cook badge where we looked at kitchen safety and cleanliness as well as making more food. An evening about pirates followed making pirate hats and going on a treasure hunt. As a team, Beavers created their own story about a pirate adventure. We have just completed an evening all about Japan where Beavers found out about something to do with Japan and some brilliant pictures were produced. They learnt how to say hello and goodbye in Japanese as well as making banana sushi and a kirigami dove.
Some District events have been held this year including a talk from someone who works at the Army Air Museum and a Christingle service.
As Beavers is now celebrating its 35[th] Birthday, there are a number of challenges we have already started and will continue throughout the year to help us celebrate. We are also making plans to get back to face to face Scouting, something we’ve all been keen to do for over a year!
In closing, once again my thanks go to everyone who has helped to make Beavers so successful over the year. Parents have been instrumental in making Beaver meetings possible this year – many have earnt honorary Beaver badges for all their support, I do wonder if they have just as much fun as the Beavers on occasion!! The leader team – Amy, Richard and Liv as well as support from the other leaders and Group Exec are all to be thanked. Without this team effort, we couldn’t do what we do.
Shona Wilkins Beaver Leader
Cub Annual Report 20/21
Despite the challenging year we’ve all had, our cub pack has continued to remain strong with 30 cubs on register and request for spaces really picking up pace these last few weeks, unfortunately due to restrictions on numbers meeting we have had to cap the pack at 30 for the time being.
It’s unbelievable that we have spent all of the last year delivering an online programme via zoom, a situation that none of the leaders have ever considered happening. We regularly had 15 to 20 cubs joining online sessions. We learnt the IT together and what would work online, with the cubs bearing with us when things did not always work out as hoped. Our thanks go out to the parents that attended the sessions alongside their cub each week and came through when we made request of them.
We are blessed in our group with dedicated leaders and the cubs leaders are no exception. Zoe is a fully trained member of the team now and this term Chloe has decided to make the move to being a leader now she is 18 years old. Sue (Bagheera) took a break earlier this year to recover after an operation but is back with us now.
During our zoom sessions we have continued to completed badges such as international, world faith, scientist, and our world badges. Four of our cubs even managed to complete their silver chief scout award.
The cubs favourite badge was the chef badge, they loved the cooking sessions, and we took full advantage of the fact we did not have to clear up after 30 cubs with lots of cooking sessions, we made pizza, cinnamon rolls, pasta, fruit kebabs, bread and Swedish Kanelbullar. Scavenger hunts were another firm favourite, we ran multiple quizzes, bingo sessions, attempted various croft projects for Christmas and Easter. We joined in with the great British bird count, making bird feeders and counting the birds in our gardens.
Had interactive sessions with a forensic expert, a tour around Croydon fire station and the curator from the Air Museum in Wallop.
Although we could not do any camping as a pack, lots of the cubs camped in their back gardens and shared pictures of their adventures.
On the 6th May we return to face-to-face sessions based at Mead hedges Park, initially in 2 groups and then from 9th June we have all been back in one group.
Not all our local scout groups have survived this period and we have welcomed new cubs into the pack from groups that are no longer able to run, and I hope they have felt right at home.
Please make use of our Facebook page ‘9th Andover Town Cub Pack’ for weekly pictures and updates on what we are up to.
Warmest Regards Briony –Sherekhan
Scout Annual Report 20/21
How to start this year’s Scout Section report ? What a year for everyone. Having said that, I am delighted to say that at the time of writing the Troop stands at 37 Scouts, which is surprisingly more than we entered the lockdown with. In this report I can’t write about all the camping, hiking, outdoor activities and District events we took part in – because there weren’t any.
What I can write about, was what we did do, on Zoom, we played loads of silly games, Who wants to be a Millionaire Catchphrase, Battleships, Dingbats, Family Fortunes (yes they had never heard of most of them,) and of course the Scouts favourite, battling it out on Kahoot!! Cooking at home, we made Pizzas, a Moroccan Feast, Smoothies, Cheese stars and toasted marshmallows. The best bit about this – I had NO clearing up to do,
In October we did manage to have a few outdoor sessions where we played games, an urban street challenge and one Saturday actually managed a proper hike.
Back in lockdown again, the pumpkin carving was AMAZING and there were some brilliant attempts. We took part in an online Drumming workshop with Rhythmstick.co.uk and made a fantastic pop recording.
We still worked on our badges, learning about the Foodbank, Map Reading, made rollercoasters, visited Stonehenge – Virtually! Took part in an Escape room and made a well-being box. We carried on learning about important topics, like Disability, Gender Equality, and Sustainability, protecting the environment and supported Comic Relief.
We even managed a virtual sleepover, making dens at home, cooking breakfast and had a virtual Fairtrade cooking competition.
In the last couple of weeks we have started to gradually meet up for some outside meetings, playing team games, challenges, lighting fires and making water filters.
We have welcomed a new leader to Scouts – Jonny – who you will see about.
I want to end with saying a MASSIVE THANK-YOU to all the parents and the other leaders who have supported us and the children with the activities on zoom, and all the emails you have had to read from me. I am in awe of how you all managed to get through home schooling and all the other challenges of family life.
I really hope that in the next few months, we can get back to some more fun and activities, and that Scouting shows how important it is to get outside, learn new skills and interact with friends. Next year I hope to write about all the fantastic things we have been up to.
Lisa & Team
Financial Statement for the Year Ending 31 March 2021
9th Andover (Town) Scout Group Charity Number 302197
The accounts for the year to 31 March 2021 are shown below.
In normal life, the bulk of funding received by the group comes from the subscriptions received from every Beaver, Cub and Scout supplemented by income from the hiring of St Ann’s Hall to a number of local community groups. Rental income ceased immediately on the announcement of the first lockdown in March 2020 and, during the early days of the pandemic, we left it to parents to decide whether their personal circumstances allowed them to continue paying subscriptions whilst scouting moved to online sessions. We are very grateful to families who were able to maintain their subscriptions and extremely glad that the vast majority of members maintained their scouting experience via the online sessions.
The group have been lucky to receive covid grants from central government via TVBC due to being the leaseholder of St Ann’s Hall and subject to business rates. These grants have been used to supplement income due to lost subscriptions and hall income as well funding covid preparation work; the grants will continue to be ring-fenced to covid related expenditure until life has returned to normal. There is no requirement for any surplus funds to be repaid to TVBC.
As mentioned, the group holds the long leasehold for St Ann’s Hall from TVBC; as well as building insurance and utilities, we are also responsible for all ongoing and statutory maintenance, including maintaining the garden and cleaning of the hall. These maintenance costs continued during the period that the hall was unused.
During the year, a claim was made for gift aid for subscriptions received during the 2019/20 year. Gift aid enables us to reclaim 25p in every £1 received in memberships subscriptions from HMRC for everyone for whom we hold a valid gift aid form. We are grateful to all parents who have provided a gift aid form. If any parents are taxpayers but have not yet provided a gift aid form, then please do get in touch as this is a valuable source of easy income for the group.
The group does have a healthy cash reserve balance built up over many years. This means that we are able to keep subscriptions for all our members as low as possible and will stand us in good stead to meet our ongoing costs. In addition to the restricted reserves for covid-related expenditure as mentioned above, we also hold a restricted reserve for large building maintenance items.
The Group is a registered charity and is required to lodge an annual return with the Charity Commission. The accounts are also subject to an annual independent review.
Please do contact me by email should you have any queries on the group finances.
Kirsten Hill ACMA CGMA Group Treasurer treasurer@9thandoverscouts.org.uk
9thArthwer T(vn Su¥A Gr(4P QArfty A1• 302197 FIN11 Statement frff the yearertdr¢ 31 M•Yth 2021 2019120 Merntrship [natIcls UnifLwm ImeSt Gfart 5.171_75 8.646.10 3.02 172.17 31.33 30.C 34.58 19,9J7.43 4.288.LXI 4,507.ts) 1.845.50 2,61.59 Camp Artlwbes Gift 1.196.75 7.627.05 Mernbership Vnif(fft badees 46.18 301_76 3,669.56 187_20 312.CA) 1.673.97 2.225.50 312.ts) 45.14 4.607.89 H)11 Oeanl Hall Rent & Ottr Hall C(Su3b1es all Maintefiae CcM¢J eparal Garden MalntenarL¢ EwiFnent 1rtsWarQ sumables Postage Camp AGM Actywbes Sundry New 1,491.23 467.28 i.050.1 152.04 443.80 21.59 56.94 134.40 710.CII 748.51 431.84 472.86 7.32 S.$41.66 329.34 2.258.36 94.47 6.732.73 826_35 136_99 17.043.19 52.571.37 Balar farward Bank Traler TLal 64.727.70 69.614.56 52.571.37 6èC Current 68C 18.375.72 15.121_31 36.117_53 186.72 15.114.45 4.316.44 I).j cUent Vlrgln Nata10 I Natjfmwlde 2 T(al 14.853.76 SIS71.37 69,614.56 Restrl¢W Resev¥•s Bala bfwd 01 A"12020 Receld Used 8alarKe cfwd 31 prth 2011 lrtnnc 276 CtyTkl Gr•rfs 18276x12 I9,7.43 110,161.551 28mi. I9.7.43 110.161.551 9.745A8 14176
9th Andover Town Scout Group
Charity Number 302197 Financial Statement for the year ending 31 March 2021
| 2020/21 | 2019/20 | |
|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | |
| Income | ||
| Membership | 5,171.75 | 8,646.10 |
| Donations | 0.00 | 390.02 |
| Uniform | 30.00 | 172.17 |
| Interest | 34.58 | 31.33 |
| Grant | 19,907.43 | 0.00 |
| Hall | 0.00 | 4,288.00 |
| Hall Key | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Camp | 0.00 | 4,507.00 |
| Activities | 0.00 | 1,845.50 |
| Fundraising | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Gift Aid | 1,196.75 | 2,690.59 |
| Sponsorship | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Total | 26,340.51 | 22,570.71 |
| Expenditure | ||
| Scout Levy | 0.00 | 7,627.05 |
| Membership | 46.18 | 0.00 |
| Uniform and badges | 301.76 | 908.40 |
| Hall Utilities | 3,669.56 | 1,673.97 |
| Hall Cleaning | 187.20 | 2,225.50 |
| Hall Rent & Other | 312.00 | 312.00 |
| Hall Consumables | 0.00 | 45.14 |
| Hall Maintenance | 1,491.23 | 4,607.89 |
| Covid Preparation | 467.28 | 0.00 |
| Garden Maintenance | 1,050.00 | 710.00 |
| Equipment | 152.04 | 748.51 |
| Insurance | 443.80 | 431.84 |
| Consumables | 21.59 | 472.86 |
| Postage | 56.94 | 7.32 |
| Training | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Camp | 134.40 | 5,541.66 |
| AGM | 0.00 | 329.34 |
| Activities | 826.35 | 2,258.36 |
| Sundry | 136.99 | 94.47 |
| New Kitchen | 0.00 | 6,732.73 |
| Banking Charges | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Banking adjustments | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Total | 9,297.32 | 34,727.04 |
| Surplus / (deficit) for the current year | 17,043.19 | (12,156.33) |
| Balance brought forward | 52,571.37 | 64,727.70 |
| Bank Transfer | 0.00 | |
| Total | 69,614.56 | 52,571.37 |
| Represented by | ||
| HSBC Current | 18,375.72 | 18,186.72 |
| HSBC Deposit | 15,121.31 | 15,114.45 |
| Lloyds Current | 36,117.53 | 4,316.44 |
| Virgin | 0.00 | 100.00 |
| Nationwide 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Nationwide 2 | 0.00 | 14,853.76 |
| Total | 69,614.56 | 52,571.37 |
| Diff | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 2020/21 | 2019/20 | |
| Restricted Reserves | £ | £ |
| Balance bfwd | 18,276.02 | 25,000.00 |
| Received | 19,907.43 | |
| Used | (10,161.55) | (6,732.73) |
| Balance cfwd | 28,021.90 | 18,267.27 |
Independent examiner's report on the accounts
Section A Independent Examiner’s Report
Report to the trustees/ Charity Name members of 9[th] Andover (Town) Scout Group On accounts for the year 31[st] March 2021 Charity no 302197 ended (if any) Set out on pages
(remember to include the page numbers of additional sheets)
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 31[st] March 2021.
Responsibilities and As the charity trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the basis of report accounts in accordance with 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 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:
-
the accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act; or
-
the accounts did not accord with the accounting records; or
-
• the accounts did not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content of accounts set out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a ‘true and fair’ view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination.
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: [Adrian Wise ] Name: Adrian Wise Relevant professional qualification(s) or body (if any): Address: awise0761@gmail.com
Date: 01/08/21
1
October 2018
IER