2022-04-30-accounts - Winsford Youth And Community Forum Ltd

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WINSFORD YOUTH & COMMUNITY FORUM PRESENTS... Nixon Drive. Winsford. Cheshire. CW7 2HG. {t) 01606 593724 le) office@wycf.co.uk Facebook: @NewlmagesYouthandCommunityCentre

WYCF Annual Review 2021-2022

Content

1. Welcome Message from the Chair

2. Our Charity’s objectives

3. Our trustee members/their roles

4. Our funders and supporters for the year

5. Our volunteers and Staff team

6. Partnership working

7. Our Work: Programmes and Activities

8. Overview of the year

9. The year ahead

OUR CHAIR’S OPENING REPORT:

We are living in interesting times!! And what a year 2022 has been. I say this without listing the problems of the world, as you no doubt know what they are already!!

Important and severe as many of the world problems are, I do believe from my experiences with Winford Youth and Community Forum (WYCF) over the past 12 months, that there is also lots of good going on too and part of this locally is down to the customers, staf members, volunteers and funders who continue to invest their time, energy, and confidence into the WYCF centre and projects.

For this, you have both mine and the board of Trustees gratitude. We thank you all!!

Being new to the role of Chair and having read and re-read the Forums 5-year Business Plan. I can see we are firmly on track with many of the goals set.

The end of 2022 saw the Forum like many businesses start to recover from the Covid restrictions and lockdowns. It also began to both gain momentum, embrace change, and move into a much better position financially with a series of projects yet to be revealed, and which I hope we can report on in more detail in the future.

As always, the balance between generating income, the ongoing operational costs of keeping and improving the fabric and aesthetics of the centre remain at the forefront of decisions to be made. We as Trustees with the ongoing support of you all will rise to this challenge as did those who have come before us in the 50-year history of the Forum.

The Board of Trustees and I look forward to 2023.

Once again, we thank you all.

Colleen Ashley Chair (From Sept 2022)

ANNUAL REPORT 2021-2022

The Trustees of Winsford Youth & Community Forum (WYCF) are pleased to present our 40[th] Annual Report for the year of 2021-2022. This period coincided with the national “Roadmap out of Covid” plan introduced by the Government which was reflected in the gradual return of Organisations delivering activities from New Images, alongside some new enquiries coming through to use our building. We found that a high percentage of these new enquiries were based on activities and groups aimed specifically at baby and preschool age children.

Our targets for the year were based around re-establishing the centre as a focus point for the community, supporting outside organisations back into operational mode and increasing general usage and attendance via partnerships and other organisations in the local area.

We were mindful that many of our building related projects had been significantly delayed and it was therefore imperative that these works were carried out at the first opportunity – the works therefore began and were integrated in the return of services which resulted in a very busy first 6 months.

This report includes our charitable status, support and our work with partners, a general overview of our delivery and plans for the future.

CHARITABLE OBJECTIVES OF WYCF

Winsford Youth & Community Forum are working with and on behalf of children, young people and adults throughout Winsford and the supporting areas. We provide activities, projects, facilities and services for all, regardless of age, to assist them via community interaction, involvement and development by working in partnership with other organisations and agencies.
To promote and organise cooperation in the achievement of the above purposes and to that end, bring together in council representatives of the voluntary organisations and statutory authority within the area of benefit.

Winsford Youth & Community Forum is a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee. It was established in 1981 and incorporated in 1986 .

OUR TRUSTEES (Roles 2021-2022)

CHAIR: VICE CHAIR: COMPANY SECRETARY: TREASURER: Jan O’Driscoll Des Worthington Debbie Cragg Bob Barton

TRUSTEE: TRUSTEE: TRUSTEE: Coleen Ashley Tommy Blackmore Mike Kennedy

OUR SUPPORTERS AND FUNDERS OF THE YEAR

Without the support and financial donations received, we would not be able to ofer all the wonderful provision from our Centre here. We would therefore like to pass on our thanks and huge gratitude to the follow organisations and individuals for all their support during this period:

FCC Communities Foundation, Majory Boddy & Garfield Weston Trust - Continued with funding which related directly to building works at the New Images Centre.

The following Organisations have provided both, support and financial grants which have enabled us to provide provision for our young people over the year:

Edsential – Holiday provision (focused on healthy eating and centred around children’s wellbeing) – Summer 2021 and Easter 2022 provision.
Winsford Town Council – Friday night Junior Club, Summer 2021 and February Half term Playscheme 2022.
The Darnhall Trust – Junior Club and Summer provision.
Cheshire Community Foundation – Youth provision – Junior and Senior Clubs.
Cheshire Fire & Rescue Services – Support for our Summer provision.

The Welcome Network – Provided funding to supply food and supplies towards our Pumpkin Carving Event, Playschemes plus they financed new kitchen equipment for The Chatterbox Café.

Lane End – Renovation work provided as part of New Beginnings social value.

Weaver Vale Housing Trust – Funding received to put towards Chairs and paint for the upgrade to our training room at the Centre.

Active Cheshire (in partnership with Sport England ) – With this funding, Canoeing sessions were provided over the Summer Holidays for young people.

Motherwell – Furniture and décor supplied for our new “Quiet Room” plus Wallpaper for the Baby Bank storage room.

OUR SUPPORTERS AND FUNDERS OF THE YEAR CONTINUED…

Holdcroft Heating – Brand new Computer games for our Junior and Senior Club members to enjoy.

Start up Community Fund – Start up grant given to open a Baby and Toddler Playgroup “Little Monkey’s” which enabled us to purchase, toys, healthy snacks and refreshments for parents.

Winsford Community Grocery – Food donations towards Playschemes and Chatterbox Café.

– Innovas & Cheshire West Integrated Partnership Funding provided allowing us to ofer Courses to Parents and Young people dealing with Anxiety.

Storenergy – Funding received through their social value for our Saturday Night Project. Additional funding was provided for LED lighting and we were also nominated as their “Charity of the Year!”

Cheshire Community Foundation – Funding received for both; outside signage and towards our senior youth provision.

CWAC – Grants given which funded new fire doors within the Centre and towards a de-fibulater machine.

Sykes Cottages – Another generous donation towards our Saturday Night Project.

National Lottery Community Fund – Funding received for the 5 year post of the Executive Director position.

Princes Trust – Continued decorating and maintenance jobs at New Images Centre.

PCSO’s – For supporting us with applications for funding plus regular presence at Youth events.

Individual CWAC Councillors – Via funding through members budgets.

ASDA (Winsford) – Volunteer support at our Play Days as well as providing food supplies for these days.

OUR VOLUNTEERS AND STAFF TEAM

STAFF:

Thank you to all of our staf that consistently work above and beyond their paid hours and roles.

Happily, we can report that the majority of our staf were able to continue work through the restrictive periods of the pandemic, with a rota in operation to help that process. All staf were keen to get back to ofering provision to the community albeit with some changes in place.

Staf use of “Teams” and “Zoom” meetings continue and we expect this will become the new way of working for us and many other Organisations. Working from home also became an integral element for some of our staf during high use busy periods!

The Summer canoeing season re-started with a brand new instructor on board - Alan Armstrong. Alan was supported by another fully qualified retired volunteer, Peter. Both Alan and Peter were very much appreciated for all their eforts in what turned out to be an extremely busy Summer down at The Marina!

From March 2021, the Government “Kickstart” employment programme supported 2x six-month clerical placements within the office at New Images. Both young people proved to be very capable and provided valuable support for the admin/office team.

VOLUNTEERS:

The Tuesday evening “Action for Leisure” Group (Social group for adults with additional needs) continued to operate between some of the lockdowns with thanks going solely to the wonderful volunteers that run this group. Lynn, Ann, Paul and Cathy put so much time and hard work which allows this much needed group to continue.

Our Junior youth provision continues to be supported by volunteers, Brandon Bishop and Donna Simpson whose time is massively appreciated.

Father and Son duo, Chris and Adam Gibson are still supporting us with our I.T Systems and website - both ofer the majority of their time and expertise on a purely voluntary basis.

Our Community Chatterbox Café continues to flourish and gain new customers– this is all thanks to our fab regular volunteers; Edna, Ann, Anne, Alex and Donna. Kath also ofers many voluntary hours towards the

running of the Café and goes above and beyond to ofer this service to the older members of our community.

Sam Holden has continued to volunteer his time to help us out with our CCTV system and using his fantastic photography skills when needed.

John Watson assists us with other elements of our I.T system (Gaming consoles for our Youth provision) as well as taking care of our printing needs – Thank you John.

Finally, a massive Thank you to Kath and Irene for all the hard work and time they put in behind the scenes to deliver our very popular Bingo evenings here at New Images several times throughout the year.

We are very lucky to have such a varied group of volunteers that are happy to provide their time and skills – we really do appreciate their eforts and understand that they play a huge part in our aim to continue supporting our local community!

PARTNERSHIP WORKING

Our partnership work is vitally important – enabling us to further support the Community with events, activities and projects. Here is some of the partnership work that has taken place during this period:

We work with a range of organisations to enable a joined up approached that demonstrates a ‘one Winsford’ approach these include, Weaver Vale Housing Trust, Motherwell, GGO, Community Grocery, Changing Lives Together.

We collaborated with the police and fire services to target ASB during the Halloween/Bonfire period “Operation Treacle”. A number of preventative measures were undertaken to reduce this, our ofer was based around the school October half term, activities/events included a Play Day, 2x creative family learning events and ensuring the centre remained open for the young people during this time and youth groups continued as normal.

We continue to work with the PCSO’s in helping to reduce anti-social behaviour in the Winsford area and they have continued to support WYCF across a range of activities.

The Spotlight Project - This fantastic project aimed at young people was led by Cheshire Dance – ofering regular dance tuition sessions every Tuesday evening involving some of our Senior Club members. This culminated in a fantastic performance in the town centre as part of a mini festival.

We continue to work on a range of strategic steering group boards to enable us to keep up to date with funding and partner activity. We have worked closely with the Youth Strategic Board lead by Cheshire West and we continue our work to look at the youth provision delivered across the county as well as provision ofered in and around the Winsford area.

The Cine Window provided us with a space to promote the extensive youth work that WYCF has been involved in over the past 50+ year. This piece of work was delivered through the medium of film and will be a legacy to the amazing interventions provided from young people.

Our very own Bob Barton took part in a piece of work as part of the ‘The Magnificent Seven’. The project was named Winstopia and was delivered as part of the Winsford Creates Festival organised through Cheshire Dance. The purpose of the project was to discuss and capture the cultural life of Winsford across the generations.

We have been working closely with the Care Community Steering group (Dene Drive Practice) looking at how to shape the way in which Winsford delivers its services to residents as well as the key priority findings for health inequalities. WYCF are prioritising these areas and are delivering a range of courses for parents to support their children with mild to moderate anxiety.

OUR WORK: PROGRAMMES AND ACTIVITIES

DELIVERY:

Our direct delivery is: The Chatterbox Café (held twice weekly, Tuesday ad Thursday) Friday night Junior Club – funded by Winsford Town Council Saturday night Senior Club – funded primarily by the Police Playschemes and Play Days Community Family learning events (Various funders) Action for Leisure (Adult SEND group run by volunteers) Canoeing and Kayaking Sessions – Run from the Marina Prize Bingo – Approx held every 6 weeks

Some of these were afected more than others due to the covid tier control measures but where possible we continued to delivered as much as we could – We are pleased to say that all have survived the efects of the pandemic!

New Images (Building itself)

We had a summer and early autumn period of partial closures and working around the builders, who throughout this period, carried out the following works;

Installed a pitched roof above the office

Installed three new double internal fire doors leading to/from the main hall

Built a new corridor leading through to the rear of the centre - this was achieved by reducing the size of one of the side rooms.

Replaced the tarmac floor in the games/Pool room. - this required major excavation work, insulation and a new concrete floor. The dust created impacted most of the centre, regardless of precautions taken. Following these works, we decorated and refurbished some areas of the centre with help and assistance from the Princes Trust in the form of a Team project.

All of the above works were generously funded by FCC Communities Foundation.

During the year we also received a Fire Inspection Report which highlighted numerous actions that had to be undertaken. The main action was to upgrade 10 standard internal doors into fire-doors, along with replacing the external fire doors (still awaiting delivery of these doors).

In November we were very fortunate to have Lane End who wanted to ofer social value to the community. They kindly agreed to convert an existing large store area into a quiet space/Counselling Room here at the Centre. This was completed by January 2022 and has been in constant use ever since.

Storengy funded new L.E.D lighting along the main rear corridor plus costs to provide us with security cameras around the exterior of the building and within the main entrances – one of our volunteers, Sam Holden, installed all the cameras for us.

Summer Playschemes & Play Days

The Playschemes were not directly afected by the covid control measures, however, delivery from the New Images Centre was not entirely possible due to much needed building works taking place. W therefore operated the scheme out of The Grange C.P School for the first 2 weeks of Summer then transferred back to New Images for the final two weeks. We also ofered Wharton young people the same Playscheme experience which was delivered from Willow wood C.P School for the full 4 weeks!

Play days were fitted into the other existing school half term holidays whenever possible subject to funding received. Eleven of those Play days were delivered directly from New Images (one of which was during the Christmas School Break).

We hosted a “Bikeability” course in June where children were taught to ride their bikes. We were also excited to ofer “Extreme Wheels” sessions (4 in total) at The Marina Car park. Ramps and obstacles were set up and young people aged 10-16yrs were invited to scoot, skate and bike in a safe and fun way. Professional and experienced coaches taught the children some new tricks and gave them an opportunity to make new friends whilst building confidence on their wheeled equipment. These sessions were really well received and we look forward to ofering more during future school holidays (funding permitted).

Chatterbox Café

The Café was welcomed back from 18[th] May 2021 where our full team of enthusiastic volunteers continued to ofer wholesome, afordable home cooked food and conversation with our local regulars. Attendances soon picked up and there was a demand for additional sessions where possible. Based on this, further funding was successfully sourced and a decision was made to open a Sunday Lunch Club from October 2021 which would be held 1x Sunday a month (where possible).

The Brightlife group have returned and continue to run alongside the Café and enjoy the Tuesday sessions. Following covid however, we did see the loss of the country line dancing sessions which also linked to the Chatterbox café on a Tuesday morning – Jo’s sessions will be missed.

It was noticeable to us and other agencies that isolation/loneliness were now a significant concern and with this, we have seen an increase in people using the café as a supportive mechanism – with the majority of Café sessions being busy and thriving.

Our Christmas special event was held in the main hall with 60+ attending - live music delivered by Bandedge and food was provided and enjoyed by all. Following the positive feedback given for this event, we listened and have put in place plans to hold more special event dates in future – in the form of tea dances – these will feature the usual food and drinks plus entertainment!

Action for Leisure

The first session back for this group was cautiously delayed until September and again, was fully supported by the same team of volunteers. Attendances were low to begin with however this did improve going into the new year. There is a now a new group of care support workers assisting most of those who attend and the group is back up to high numbers and full capacity.

Bingo

The first session back following the pandemic was held on the 19[th] Sept 2021 – the New Images Centre was packed out! This again shows a clear need and demand for this activity as seen throughout the remainder of the year and continuing on into 2022.

Canoeing

Our daytime canoeing sessions were held throughout August, x3 days per week, with a new Instructor employed for this season. Each session proved to be very popular, with each being fully booked/at full capacity for the numbers we could allow, noticeably with as many girls as boys. When investigated the reason given was clear, all young people attending reported it was due to being given the freedom to do something and not be restricted within a house – this shows us a clear impact of Covid and the restrictions that were previously in place. Parents and Grandparents also confirmed and agreed with these comments, with many eager to participate in this activity.

Senior Youth Club

Our Saturday evening club recommenced from 14[th] Aug, running every Saturday other than when it fell on a Bank Holiday Weekend. Attendance was averaging around 18 young people per session.

Junior Club

A year of contrasts in terms of attendances at the Junior Club (again this is mostly down to the afects of the Pandemic!) Reason such as, opening with short notice, parents having ongoing covid concerns, restrictive use of activities/items all played a part in the lower number sessions. Numbers did however then jump to the other extreme where the demand far exceeded the staffing safety levels. When this occurred, we made the decision to suspend all new memberships to the Junior club from Summer 2021 until the Autumn term.

On our first night in April 2021 we had 3 attendees, in June we peaked at 124. Over the 40 nights that the Junior Club was running, we had 2909 attendees which consisted of 1764 boys and 1145 girls and research showed they were coming form every junior school in Winsford.

Until very recently, all Juniors were temperature checked on arrival and hands were sanitised upon entry to the building. Some of the staf were afected by covid, however, overall we were very fortunate and no serious disruption was caused to the running of the club – parental controls with those afected at schools certainly helped with this!

Winsford Town Council continues to fund the 5 paid staf members of the Junior Club and they are additionally supported by 2/3 adult volunteers. Sadly, we continue to struggle recruiting young people/teenagers to help, which was the norm many years ago. The present issue for our staf team is the challenging behaviour of the year 6 group which we believe is universal following the impact of covid, - we continue to monitor this via the educational sector. Our own strategy is to encourage and move this age group on to our Saturday night Senior Club a little earlier than normal which also allows us to invite new young members to join earlier.

Community Family Events

We supported the Police/Fire & Rescue prior to bonfire night all centred around safety awareness. Delivered from Wharton Community Centre, our staf and volunteers assisted with this well attended event where smoothies and pizza were provided alongside fun craft and creative activities.

Family Learning

As we move forward, we are looking at ways to diversify and deliver projects to the whole of the community. We delivered a Halloween Pumpkin making session which was deliver by two of WYCF staf. The session was a huge success and has been the catalyst of further funding and delivery of many family projects and events.

User groups for the year

The following individuals/groups have used the New Images Centre during this period (2021-2022):

Baby Ballet BoxingTots Brio Brightlife Cheshire Against Abuse Cheshire Dance Chehire Young Carers CWAC (Choices Group) Collins School of Dance Cuban Salsa with Diane CMD Tutoring Diddikicks Eden Therapy Services Irish Community Care Laughter Tots Little Monkey’s Playgroup Luka State MMA Tiagon

Messy Little Monkey’s MIND Motherwell Princess Trust Total People Winsford Academy School Winsford school of Drama Weaver Vale Housing Trust Workzone Zumba with Jo Zumba GOLD

Outside organisations came in to provide our staf and volunteers here training – sessions held were: First Aid, Fire Safety and Awareness and Mental health courses.

We were able to restart taking bookings for children’s parties and celebrations at the weekends with a total of 25 taking place during this period.

OVERVIEW OF YEAR:

This year has been a positive year where we have seen a huge increase in footfall for our core ofer of our youth provision and the ChatterBox Cafe. We have welcomed new partnerships into the centre which has enabled us to develop our collaborative work within the Winsford networks and add strength to the centre for future sustainability.

We have and will continue with a work programme to develop the fabrication and aesthetics of New Images and this work will continue as part of our future development targets.

The forum is well placed to continue to support the local community in a range of interventions and activities and we have continued to develop partnerships with other stakeholders and partners for the benefit of the Winsford Community.

With the continued growth of the centre through the direction of the Executive Director and the Trustee's we have addressed some of the needs for further administration hours to support these increases. As the forum continues to move forward in these tough economic times, we are thankful for the support of our staf, volunteers, service users and partners.

We have seen improvements in our presence on social media and have developed a new website that is both user-friendly and gives New Images a presence for all to access and gain this will continue.

Our grant/funding applications have grown and we have been successful in securing funding to grow our services for the benefit of the local community.

THE YEAR AHEAD:

Targets for (1/5/22-30/4/23)

Evaluate and review the New 5 year plan.

Undertake a thorough review of the last 5 years – to include all user groups, members and partners (to be done via an independent body).

Listen and learn from said review and incorporate those views and actions points into a new Plan B. Produce a new Plan B, with a new 5 year strategy.

Expected higher demand and use of internal areas at the Centre and Car park will mean incorporating these into the new plan.