Cassington Village Hall AGM 25 February 2025
Chair’s Review of the Year - John Hemingway
“Not just a building, but building a community”.
2024 was another full and busy year for the village hall. As part of welcoming all our customers from within the village and outside we were delighted to end the year by hosting the wonderful panto Dr Who, which also raised £4,000 for the playground appeal. Many thanks and congratulations to all the cast and crew and especially to Mandy and Rich Constance for making this happen.
We owe massive thanks to all our customers, both one-off and regular users, and to those who attend the events we organise. Our own cinema nights continue to be well supported, and during the year we also ran another joint Harvest event with St Peter’s church, and our second successful Christmas event for village children. We aim to make this an annual free event. We’re constantly on the lookout for live entertainment performers and other new events that we can organise for the village, so if you have any suggestions please let us know. The hall also now has its own free-standing display panels for anyone who might like to organise an exhibition.
During the year we focused on reviewing and updating all our risk assessments and policies on key requirements to keep in line with best practice; on Fire Safety, Health & Safety, Safeguarding, and Emergency Procedures. But the big news of the year was that in the spring we finally got the installation of the solar panels off the ground, on the roof. It took a few months to get the system fully operational, with 23 panels and 3 batteries for power storage (an investment of £23,612), and it should meet most of our electricity needs throughout each year going forwards. We also set up an agreement with an electricity supplier to be able to sell any surplus energy back to the national grid. Three trustees agreed to download the Solar Edge app so that we can monitor the system in real time. We also replaced all the lights in the hall with energy efficient LED ones. Many thanks to our local firm Matt Terry and his Lumos team for such a great job.
In the run up to the installation we undertook fundraising to try and raise £10,000 to boost our own funds to pay for the scheme. It worked, and our annual finances once again showed good resuts, with many thanks to our dedicated treasurer Lorna Mills for all her hard work. Our total income for 2024 was £31,297, a record for recent years and much higher than last year (at £21,216) because of our fundraising which beat our target. Our total donations (including Bike Night) brought in £6,979, and we successfully won a grant for £4,722 from the Platinum Jubilee Village Hall Improvement Grant Fund. Many sincere thanks to the Fund as well as to all our very generous donors.
It came as a surprise at the start of the year when we lost one of our significant regular customers from the NHS, who needed to move their training sessions to a venue that could offer several individual rooms rather than one large space. But by the end of the year we managed to make up for the loss, and our income from bookings by hall users was much the same as previous years at £14,643 (last year £15,256 and £14,678 the year before), with gross revenue from our own events also much the same at £3,253 (last year £3,217 and £3,721 the year before).
We also earned interest on our investments and claimed Gift Aid on donations received in the previous year, which brought in another £1,700 (same as the year before at £1,700). There are still more donations coming though in the current year, many thanks to those in the village who kindly set up twelve monthly standing orders, and also we have not yet claimed the Gift Aid due on most of the donations received in 2024. So there’s more good news to come.
Excluding the investment we made in the solar panels, we spent some £25,714 running the hall on things like repairs, maintenance, rates, heat & light, bins, and more, and that figure also includes the costs of running our own events. After allowing for depreciation of £5,650 our total costs came in at £31,363 (last year £20,544) which left us with a very small net deficit of just £66.
We have an amazing team who make it all happen and owe each of them huge thanks. Early in the year Pam Coates stood down as Booking Secretary but continued as our cleaner, and Seren Lemaire rose to the challenge to fill the gap for a few months as Booking Secretary until she left for university in the autumn. It was great that Emily Lemaire then agreed to take over the role from her daughter.
We also thank a new trustee who joined us at the start of the year, Helen Barr, and all the other hard working trustees who volunteer their time to serve: Hannah Farncombe (Safeguarding), Adie Gregory (Events), Carolyn Hinton (Secretary), Lorna Mills (Treasurer), Bridget Sherlock (Sports and Social), Stewart Thompson (Parish Council) and Sheila Nelson who is a regular volunteer at committee meetings. We also thank village volunteer Dan Bakewell for his frequent support in sorting out small maintenance problems that crop up each year. We always welcome new volunteers to join our team, so if you’re interested please do get in touch.
The village hall is a registered charity and relies totally on generating its own income to keep the place going. If you value the hall at the heart of our community, small regular donations are a great way to support a great asset that’s effectively owned by the village for the benefit of the village.
Profit & Loss Cassington Village hall Accounting Year 2024124 Debit Credit Turnover 31,297 Income from Hall Users 14,643 Income from Events 3,253 Interest 1,439 Gift Aid 261 Income from Donations 6,979 Income from Grants 4,722 less Cost of Sales 1,307 Purchases for Evenls 1,307 Gross Profit 29.990 less Administration Expenses 20,424 Rates 360 Bins 1,070 Repairs 10,044 Cleaning and Cleaning Equip 3,496 PowerlLight & Heat 3,360 Investment Gainl Loss -505 Web Hosling 67 Computer Soflware 200 Internet & Telephone 375 Licenses and Permits 180 Charilable Donations 33 Subscriplions 50 BanklFinance Charges 71 Insurance 1,622 less Staff Costs 3,983 Booking Clerk 3,983 1r2
less Depreciation 5.650 Depreciation Charge 5,650 Operating Profit 66 less Drawings £0 less Profit & Loss journal entries £0 Retsined Profit this period: 66 Retained Profit brought forward: £97,052 Distributsble Resee8 l Retsined Profit carried forward: £96.985
Independent examiner's report on the accounts
Report to the trustees Charity Name Cassington Village Hall On accounts for the year December 2024 Charity no 304279 ended (if any) Set out on pages 1-3 (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 December 2024 . Responsibilities and As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the basis of report accounts in accordance with the requirements of 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 I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examiner's statement come to my attention in connection with the which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:
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the accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Charities Act; or
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the accounts did not accord with the accounting records; or
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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.
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Date: 05/05/25
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Signed: Name: Jolyon Harris FCA Relevant professional ICAEW qualification(s) or body (if any):
1
Oct 2018
IER
Address: 10 Kineton Rd Oxford OX1 4PG
Section B Disclosure
Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight material matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).
Give here brief details of any items that the None examiner wishes to disclose .
2
Oct 2018
IER