OpenCharities

This text was generated using OCR and may contain errors. Check the original PDF to see the document submitted to the regulator.

2022-12-31-accounts

ANNUAL REVIEW

AND

ACCOUNTS

for the period

1[st] January – 31[st] December 2022

Registered Charity No. 305007

CLAYGATE VILLAGE HALL ASSOCIATION

Registered Charity Number 305007

TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REVIEW & ACCOUNTS FOR 2022

The Board of Trustees presents its Annual Review and Accounts for the year ending 31st December 2022.

1. GOVERNING DOCUMENT

A Declaration of Trust dated 20[th] July 1959 and incorporated into the Charity Commissioners’ Scheme dated the 21[st] February 1997 and amended on 27 May 2010 and again on 12 October 2021. This is a Scheme of Arrangement approved by the Charities Commission.

2. REGISTERED ADDRESS

Claygate Village Hall Church Road Claygate, Surrey KT10 0JP

3. CHARITABLE OBJECT

The main object of the Claygate Village Hall Association charity is the provision and maintenance of a Village Hall for the use of the inhabitants of the Parish of Claygate and the neighbouring area.

4. TRUSTEES

The Charity is an unincorporated association, governed by a Scheme of Arrangement approved by the Charities Commissioners and managed by a Board of Trustees who are all unpaid volunteers. They are elected as follows:

Community Trustees

7 Community Trustees and up to a further 3 co-opted Community Trustees.

These are elected at the AGM by any inhabitants of the Parish of Claygate and the neighbouring area who are at least 18 years of age who attend the meeting.

The Community Trustees at the 31[st] December 2022 were as follows with one position being vacant:

  1. Brian Howells

  2. John Bamford (Vice Chair)

  3. Clive Thompson

  4. Sally Williams (Chair)

  5. George Marcall

  6. Rosy Treasure (Secretary)

Representative Trustees

Representative Trustees are appointed by affiliated organisations who use the hall.

Page 2 of 12

The Representative Trustees at the 31[st] December 2022 were:

  1. Steve Fleming

  2. Susanne Tunnicliff

  3. Juliet Bagnall

  4. Susan Obhrai

Claygate Gardening Society Claygate Flower & Village Show Society Claygate Dramatic Society Claygate Village WI

The first Trustees’ meeting of the year was held using Zoom on Tuesday 29th March as members had Covid. A special meeting of Trustees was held on Tuesday 10[th] May immediately before the AGM which was the first held face to face for some time. This meeting addressed 3 specific issues. Other Trustees meetings were held on Tuesday 1[st] November and Monday 5[th] December , the latter being a special meeting called to address concerns about energy price increases.

The day to day running of the Village Hall and the associated administration is in the hands of the Hall Manager, the Treasurer and the Lettings Manager and overseen by 3 Trustees as Chair, Vice-Chair & Secretary. During 2022 this Management Committee met on 7 occasions: 27[th] January, 10[th] March, 22[nd] April, 27[th] June, 22[nd] September, 21[st] October & 22[nd] November . All but the first were held in person.

5. MANAGEMENT COSTS

The Village Hall Association has no staff costs but offers a payment to its officers for services rendered. At a special meeting of Trustees in May 2022 it was agreed that the remuneration offered to officers should be increased from September 2022 and reviewed annually thereafter. Thus, officers’ payments at the end of the year were as follows:

£4,632 £4,632 £2,532

6. AGENTS & ADVISERS

Bank Independent Examiner

CAF Bank Barry Fitzpatrick 25 Kings Hill Avenue 13 Holmwood Kings Hill Oaken Drive West Malling Claygate Kent KT10 0DL ME19 4JQ

7. CHAIR’S REVIEW (Sally Williams)

2022 proved to be a busy year with the hall fully open again and everything getting back to normal after the pandemic disruption.

The Association’s Officers worked hard to run the hall efficiently. The overriding problem faced during the year was the cost of gas and electricity. We had fixed term contracts for both and had to look for a new contract for electricity before the end of the year. This severely affected the budgeting.

Two Trustees (Clive Thompson and Steve Fleming) and the Hall Manager (Tony Woolhead) looked at the cost of heating the hall and came up with a Heating Project in 3 stages. The first was insulation and a plan was made to insulate the main hall and start on the small hall. In fact, the insulation of the main hall was carried out in February 2023. The second phase

Page 3 of 12

is to consider solar panels and the third is how best to heat the hall from the energy then available. The last two phases are now on hold pending information how much the insulation will reduce our use of energy and what grants can be applied for to meet all or some of the further cost.

This project was necessary because of the likely lifespan of our two boilers and one needing repair. They are over 25 years old. The urgency was exacerbated by the energy crisis. The fitting of Nest thermostats that include timers has helped. The second Nest was not fitted until 2023. They are controlled on mobile phones held by Tony and Katie and are proving very successful to reducing energy usage.

We held an emergency Trustees’ Meeting in December 2022 to look at the costs involved in the Heating Project and the budget, and we approved the capital cost of the new insulation. We also considered a new Reserves Policy to rationalise our spending on capital projects. A comprehensive Asset Management Plan that will support the new Reserves Policy was provided in 2023. This will assist us in future planning and in apply for grants for major projects. Our Vice Chairman, John Bamford, assisted with the development of our new Reserves Policy.

The major part of the work on the Heating Project and Asset Management Plan has been done by Clive, Steve and Tony and I thank them for their hard work.

In other areas we have also been busy. The Treasurer (Michael Elliott) has kept a watch on energy costs with Tony assisting and Michael has produced running budget information.

Tony has managed the building with all its maintenance and larger project needs, ably and efficiently as always. In particular the CCTV system has been replaced and registered as required.

Katie Ernest (our Lettings manager) started to populate and use the new Hallmaster diary system and spent time on rationalising the hiring policy and pricing in addition to all her usual time spent on the lettings management. Her work has been invaluable once again.

Rosy ably kept all the necessary committee paperwork up to date and also worked on a survey of hall users to see where we can improve and offer more facilities. She negotiated and helped to plan a new website for the hall and continued to work on document retention and storage. Rosy’s attention to detail is excellent.

As always there was a great deal of work done in the Management Committee on all these matters and with Trustees from time to time, as mentioned above, taking part in the work. I also want to mention George Marcall who reviewed the Wish List for us and Juliet Bagnall who re-joined the Board representing Claygate Dramatic Society during the year in place of Belita Charrington, who we thank for her service. I also thank the Trustees not mentioned by name for their work in reading papers and contributing to the discussions and Board decision making. It has been a year with a very good team effort all round.

8. HALL MANAGER’S REVIEW (Tony Woolhead)

This year was dominated by the Energy Crisis and its implications for the Village Hall.

The Hall being built in the late 1950’s was not in any way energy efficient (there was no insulation for example). When energy was relatively cheap this was something that could be “lived with” but when the cost tripled it became untenable.

Therefore, my focus was on how to make the Hall as energy-efficient as possible and to help me in this task I recruited Steve Fleming and Clive Thompson.

Several options were investigated and applications for grants made (most unsuccessfully) and finally towards the end of the year we settled on installing insulation in the Main Hall

Page 4 of 12

along with an upgrade of the control systems to Nest functionality for the two Main Hall gas boilers.

These two pieces of work have since been completed and we are now monitoring the results. Other work completed was as follows:

The rear courtyard garden area really suffered during the drought and we have lost several larger plants (an automated watering system will be required at some point)

Alan, from Elmbridge Welding came and repaired broken chairs (this is now becoming an annual requirement).

All annual Hall maintenance was completed for 2022

In 2023 several areas of the both the Main & Small halls are scheduled to be repainted as little or none was done in 2022 as a cost-saving exercise.

9. LETTING MANAGER’S REVIEW (Katie Ernest)

2022 marked a return to normality after the COVID pandemic with all COVID restrictions finally removed on April 1[st] . The early part of the year was overshadowed by the rise of the omicron variant at the end of 2021 and a consequent caution with bookings with the expectation of a further lockdown. In early 2022 it was confirmed that two further hirers in the small hall on weekday evenings who had not re-started after the COVID lockdown had permanently ceased, however by Easter, bookings were running at a rate comparable to the pre-COVID level, and many regular annual bookings re-started again in the course of the year. Unfortunately, Claygate Dramatic Society had to cancel their Autumn show, but covered the cost of their regular rehearsals with alternative bookings mitigating the loss during the show week, and a Muslim Association started hiring the Main and Small Hall for a Sunday morning twice a month. The Tuesday morning slot which was left vacant when Playmates ceased, was not re-let in the year, and the Flower and Village Show Society took on the storage area vacated by Playmates.

During 2022 the 2023 bookings diary was set up in Hallmaster as a first step to implementation of this cloud-based computer package recommended by Surrey Community Action for managing bookings and invoicing in Village Halls.

A new format price list was devised and implemented in September 2022, alongside a price increase, partly in order to facilitate Hallmaster implementation. A weekend rate was introduced alongside a standard weekday rate with the affiliation discount being incorporated into affiliate rates.

10. FINANCIAL REVIEW (Michael Elliott)

Annual Accounts

I commend the Cash Accounts for your approval, these have been examined by Barry Fitzpatrick & he has agreed that after acceptance by the Trustees, he will sign them & I will submit them to the Charity Commission. The headline profit of £9,623 was assisted by the

Page 5 of 12

receipt of £3,606 in grants. These were a specific grant of £939 to purchase a new computer for our CCTV system & £2,667 general grants to cover the remainder of Covid restart expenditure. Project expenditure was nil. There was a double hit from PRS for the music licence to counter the nil in 2021.

Reserves Policy

Our stated reserves policy of 1.5 years turnover previously indicated a reserve figure of around £90,000. This has been reviewed in 2023.

Banking

Our main account remained with the CAF Bank, with reserves split between Virgin Money & Skipton Building Society. The interest rate received has improved with Skipton now paying 2.72%. Virgin Money has failed to increase its interest rate significantly & I have now recommended to the Management Committee that we actively seek a replacement. We continue to use Cashplus prepaid debit cards for itemised casual expenditure, the increase in nominal balance from £400 to £750 enabling smoother management.

Lettings Income

Net income from lettings was £57,775. We agreed a new pricing matrix and a significant increase of around 7% from September 2022.

Expenditure

Maintenance was kept within budget and covered the usual tasks. We contracted for main hall roof insulation to be carried out in 2023.

Performing Rights Society, had some billing difficulties with the introduction of new business processes and computer systems resulting in late or inaccurate billing. No acceptable invoice was received in 2021 & it took until 30[th] March 2022 to resolve the issue for 2021. The regular invoice for 2022 onwards was discharged in November leading to a double charge.

Most other categories indicate reasonable caution in usage with the exception of the water cost which has been subject to extreme variation with Direct Debits being changed from £5 to £215.89. We ended 2022 with a vast credit balance & it took months to resolve. Castle Water did not accept readings from the Hall Manager and cleared down our complaints regarding the size of the direct debit without taking any action. We had to threaten them with involving the Ombudsman.

With regard to Utilities, we benefitted from a fixed price energy contract throughout 2022, it expired at the year-end for electricity and in mid-March 2023 for gas. At the end of November we decided to agree a new electricity contract at 62.61 pence/kwh, as ongoing out-of-contract usage was not realistic.

Looking forward to 2023

While this is a report on 2022 I believe a few words are necessary looking forward.

  1. We should remain alert that two of our regular hirers represent 37.5% of annual income and that party & casual bookings remain firm.

  2. Our electric energy costs are likely to exceed our budgeted figure of £9,900 so we will continue to examine our usage with a view to economies.

  3. We signed a new gas contract at 7.033 pence/kwh with effect from mid-March and the first invoice is encouraging. Despite this, the increased total energy cost incurred by the Hall is likely to eliminate any annual surplus that we have become accustomed to.

Page 6 of 12

In summary

We have a fully refurbished Hall that should attract a good share of bookings from local societies & organisations. The management team in place are responsive to issues and provide good service.

11. RISK MANAGEMENT

The Management Committee and the Board of Trustees regularly review any major risks affecting the Charity. This includes, for example, the loss of any regular hirers.

Alternative lettings initiatives are vigorously pursued to reduce such losses. Our Reserves can, if necessary, cushion the effect of losing major hirers.

12. CONCLUSION

2022 has continued to see a return to a more normal environment for bookings. The biggest challenge was assessing the best way of dealing with the energy crisis. We were protected by fixed price contracts for both Electricity and Gas in 2022 but conscious that rates would increase substantially in 2023 as these contracts expired. At the same time, we were aware that existing boilers will need to be replaced in the not-too-distant future. A Heating and Energy Strategy Programme was developed during the year as mentioned in both the Chair’s Review and the Hall Manager’s Review. Energy costs remain a major challenge for 2023.

The Management Committee and Trustees continue to work well together as evidenced by the joint effort on the Heating and Energy Strategy Programme and plans and procedures are regularly reviewed in order to prepare for the future.

Key tasks for the year ahead are

Page 7 of 12

CLAYGATE VILLAGE HALL ASSOCIATION STATEMENT OF TRUSTEES' RESPONSIBILITIES

Charity law requires the Trustees to prepare Financial Statements for each financial year, which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the Charity and of its financial activities for that year, and adequately distinguish any material special trust or other restricted fund of the Charity. In preparing those Financial Statements the Trustees are required to:

The Trustees are responsible for keeping proper Accounting records which disclose, with reasonable accuracy at any time, the financial position of the Charity, and enable them to ensure that the Financial Statements comply with applicable Accounting Standards and Statements of Recommended Practice and the Regulations made under Part 8 Charities Act 2011. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the Charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

The Charities (Accounts & Reports) Regulations 2008 requires charity trustees to confirm that they ‘have regard’ to the Commissions public benefit guidance when exercising any powers or duties to which the guidance is relevant.

Trustees can show that

This is demonstrated by the work of the Trustees and the Management committee as set out in the respective minutes of the meetings of those bodies, and in the Scheme of Arrangement approved by the Charity Commissioners which governs the business of the charity and with which the Trustees and the Management committee comply”.

By order of the Board of Trustees.

STATEMENT OF COMPLIANCE

In addition, the Charity Governance Code for smaller charities, of which CVHA is one, which was published at https://www.charitygovernancecode.org/en/pdf in 2017 was examined by the Management Committee and recommendations discussed with Trustees at their meeting on 29[th] March 2018. All actions agreed as a result have been taken and, where necessary, documented in the Association’s Hall Management Plan and policies. Plans to review this using the Diagnostic Tool were delayed in 2022 but will be re-scheduled for 2023.

Page 8 of 12

endix A- Recei ts&Pa ments CllnRITr COMMISSION F(lQ Af¥ll Vl.4i£? Cla'iiJ•t4bWlla • H•ll A#dcltion Rocai ts and ments accounts 31..12f40 CC16a L1JUI,'21i Section A Receipts and payments UTrrog1rt¢ts Ftesiiiclpd fund& Tvijl IwnL ￿)r￿st Al R9¢01 1 a.7TS ,77J gl 16.9UJ RJ Ayp 9¥B 8.ia 4.Cfj7 313 L1'.1)Js Lcrmw. 6MYfi A4 A8Qt Invoslmtnt Svb totsl Il•1 ￿rIe01p￿1(PayMonCsj AS Tranbffir8 funda AÉ ¢Mh Iiinds laElwr •nd 14. 114,52 114.SJ4 CCKXR1 *mirl% I￿) Page 9 of 12

- Appendix B Statement of Assets & Liabilities

Page 10 of 12

- Appendix C Independent Examiners Report

Page 11 of 12

Page 12of12