Beeston and District Civic Society Annual Report August 2024 to September2025
We are a committee of 12 volunteers now but the range of how work has increased proportionately. We have gained new skills and experiences and links to many other groups to help them get funding and establish themselves within the community of Beeston. We are grateful to all the committee members and especially Tamar Feast who once again continued to offer us her excellent graphic design skills and IT experience.
We welcome alliances and we engaged with and supported other local community groups and organisations such as Beeston Green Umbrella, the local Hong Kong immigrant community, Beeston Repair Café, Chilwell Grove Avenue Allotments and Incredible Edible.
In the main we have continued to develop a productive working relationship with our elected Councillors and Council Officers, meet regularly and trust that we will be consulted on matters of community interest. During the year we supported them in moving the Water Head Sculpture and ensured it was cleaned up and the area around it planted out.
Planning and Heritage
We continue to monitor (with much help from some experts) the Planning Applications submitted to Broxtowe Borough Council. We successfully objected to the plans for apartments on Riverside Road but, upon appeal by the developer, were unsuccessful in stopping the proposals for new student accommodation on Station Road.
We are working with Toby Ebbs, Broxtowe Conservation officer to draw up a list of local assets which should be on a Local Heritage List to protect them from demolition or unsympathetic alterations.
Walks and Talks
We continued a varied programme of winter talks and summer walks. Alongside the main speakers at talks we have spotlighted local organisations and businesses that make our community. We hosted a series of Walks and Talks in support of a national programme of events for Heritage Open Days.
We are immensely grateful to all our walk leaders and to the members and non-members who attended - the numbers attending and donations from these events have increased greatly over the last few years.
Projects we have managed
We have driven projects which interactively engage the local community so increasing community cohesion and sense of well-being. This increased the numbers of local people engaged in our activities
This year Light Night in January was almost completely managed by BCS with funding from the centrally government’s funded SPF (levelling up). This was a success, despite a very cold night, helped by volunteers who provided over 1000 hours of work to us, in addition the communications reach on the project was to over 500, 0000 people. Next year we intend to measure volunteering time and communications reach across all our work because these are important performance indicators for us and some funded projects attach a value of £11.44 per hour on volunteering.
During the year our Lady Plaques project, funded by members, continued by recognising the contribution made to society by people with a close association with Beeston.
Beeston is famous for its Street Art and our chair, Jeanie Barton, has linked organisations to artists, led guided tours and given talks to a variety of organisations across Beeston and its surrounding area.
With the help of volunteer, Robert Howard, a Beeston Town map taking visitors through the historic, heritage, attractions and transport offerings of Beeston was produced and distributed to local students and organisations.
The Future
We have nearly £14,000 in our accounts but of that £4,300 is either committed to projects in 2025/26 or held on behalf of other local community groups. So we have a healthy usable balance of nearly £9000 going forward and we intend to keep membership costs at 2024/5 levels.
Our community projects have balanced income and cost but Light Night this year was big and risky in that we could not be sure of covering our costs. It is unlikely that we will manage such a large project again in the next few years.
Our membership number has remained steady over the last few years, around 170 members, with a few leaving and a few new people joining. Our committee numbers increased in 2024/5 but as things stand will reduce slightly in 2025/6. Hence, we will be exploring other ways of working together across our programme of work. We welcome new committee members, people who would like to help on an ad hoc basis and more members; please encourage your friends to join us. We even welcome more ideas and suggestions if we have the resources.
To offer your time as a committee member
| Beeston & District Civic Society | Beeston & District Civic Society | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income & expenditure Account | For the year to 31 August 2025 | For the year to 31 August 2025 | |||
| 2024-25 | 2023-24 | ||||
| Income | Member subscriptions | 5648.13 | 2589.31 | ||
| Donations | 647.74 | 149.10 | |||
| Walks and Talks | 891.68 | 0.00 | |||
| Lady Plaques | 299.52 | 0.00 | |||
| Trees | 49.10 | 667.66 | |||
| Light Night | 17800.99 | 0.00 | |||
| Grants/Other Income | 0.00 | 3966.24 | |||
| 0.00 | 0.00 | ||||
| Total | 25337.16 | 7372.31 | |||
| Expenditure | Committee work & administration | 1696.67 | 397.89 | ||
| Subscriptions and grants to other bodies | 100.00 | 2638.56 | |||
| Light Night | 15399.42 | 249.05 | |||
| Water Head | 310.87 | 0.00 | |||
| Heritage Open Day | 24.00 | 119.60 | |||
| Lady Plaques | 545.40 | 499.83 | |||
| Town Maps | 293.24 | 0.00 | |||
| Partner Projects - Library of Things | 1357.09 | 4041.23 | |||
| Design Awards | 420.93 | 208.13 | |||
| Total | 20147.62 | 8154.29 | |||
| Surplus/Defecit for the year | 5189.54 | -781.98 | |||
| Balance sheet as at 31 August 2025 | |||||
| Paypal | 663.48 | 1843.86 | |||
| Bank -Co-op Savings | 4307.45 | 0.00 | |||
| Bank -Co-op Current | 8772.68 | 6881.86 | |||
| Float for Events | 15.00 | 17.00 | |||
| Petty Cash | 62.00 | -83.45 | |||
| 13820.61 | 8659.27 | ||||
| Opening accumulated funds | 8631.07 | 9441.25 | |||
| Surplus/defecit for the year | 5189.54 | -781.98 | |||
| Closing accumulated funds | 13820.61 | 8659.27 | |||
| Report of the examiner to the members of the Beeston & District Civic Society. | |||||
| I have examined the accounts and records and confirm these accounts for the year ended | I have examined the accounts and records and confirm these accounts for the year ended | I have examined the accounts and records and confirm these accounts for the year ended | |||
| 31st August 2025 have been drawn up in accordance therewith. |
Signed Date 15/09/2025