Docusign Envelope ID: 1DE7B2BC-282D-42D2-94C2-FF29EFC08FCE
VIBE Trustees Report
for the year ended 31 March 2024
Structure, Governance and Management
The Trust (the charity) is an unincorporated trust, constituted under a deed of trust, and is registered as a charity with HRMC and with Charity Commission for NI. The charity plans to continue to raise funds through its routine and special collections from within its congregation, all of which to serve the charity’s objectives in the furtherance of the Christian belief.
The trustees have been appointed for an indefinite period.
The trustees meet regularly to discuss the broad strategy of the charity to include areas of activity for the charity, assessment of reserves and risk management.
Trustees
The Trustees who served during the year were as follows:
Mr Darryl Robert Bain Mr Joseph Robert Bain Mr Steven Hawthorne Mr Ian Liggett (appointed 4/9/23)
Risk Management
The trustees actively review any major risks, which the charity faces on a regular basis and believe that maintaining reserves at current levels, combined with an annual review of the controls over key financial systems, will provide sufficient resources for the incoming year. The trustees have also examined other operational and business risks faced by the Charity and confirm that they have established systems to mitigate the most significant risks.
Objectives and Activities
The Trustees have regard to the Northern Ireland Charity Commission's Public benefit requirements statutory guidance state the objects and principal activities of the charity are:
Weekly meetings to encourage members and non-members in their walk with God and to welcome others to have faith in Jesus; weekly bible study to help understand God better and apply his principles to our lives, monthly worship and prayer times to engage with God and increase our relationship with him; weekly sports, drama and dance nights within our local community; regular outreach to local community to share the love of Jesus; Christmas Red bag outreach to provide food aid to the local community; yearly outreach overseas for approximately 2 weeks to provide physical, emotional and spiritual aid wherever we go.
We believe that we bring a positive influence to every part of our community helping them to not only find faith in God but develop as people. So that they can be all that they can be and realise their potential.
The main activities undertaken to further these aims are detailed in the "Achievements and performance" section of this report.
Achievements & Performance
- Weekly Activities
We continued to run a hybrid of both in person and online which we has been working well since our first online services began in 2021. Regardless of medium, each time we meet we always share from the Bible and encourage each other in our Christian faith as we follow Jesus.
Vibe continues to provide church online every Sunday. Which means members can watch at anytime during the week on Facebook or YouTube. It has been a great success. With well in excess of over 1,000 hours watched and many messages and emails from people seeking prayer/help. In addition to our weekly services we also hold midweek services, which consist of life groups who meet twice monthly, along with our worship and prayer night twice monthly. There is a real excitement as we continue to meet and see each other! We study the bible together, pray and worship Jesus.
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Docusign Envelope ID: 1DE7B2BC-282D-42D2-94C2-FF29EFC08FCE
VIBE
Trustees Report
for the year ended 31 March 2024
Currently we have 12 life groups that meet in different locations at various times throughout the week. Our Life Groups are an opportunity for a small group of 10/12 people to meet together in a home to pray, study the bible and build relationships with each other
Christmas is a very special time for us, here at Vibe! It was so good to host our annual Christmas dinner again inside our very own Vibe building – we brought in outside caterers to prepare and serve the food. It was delicious! We had close to 150 people join us including kids. We celebrated, played games, and sang Christmas carols together. It was a great family night and brought us together.
Our annual NYE worship night. We love to praise God at the end of another year, because He is always faithful. We counted down the new year with powerful stories of breakthrough and transformation, songs and some celebrations as the clock stuck 12! We all left very excited for the new year that had just arrived.
In January we started the new year, getting our focus and vision right by having a corporate fast. We had various forms of fasting but the main goal is to fix our eyes and attention on God. We formed a Whatsapp Group chat which was a tool for support and communication, we also ran a group bible study via the Holy Bible App.
In February, we were privileged to once again host a volunteer meal to acknowledge all of our incredible volunteers. Just like last years, this was free of charge for the volunteers, its our way of saying ‘thank-you’. We got delicious food in a local hotel, played games and had our Vibe awards, which is a fun and unique way to celebrate the volunteers.
Our Newcomers brunch continues to be a huge success. We realised with many new faces joining our church along with having 2 different services times. It was not always easy for new people to meet other new people, our leaders, and pastors. So, we designated 3 dates in the year where we meet for brunch – pancakes with all the extras plus tea/coffee and get to know each other. We always share a little of the history and vision of Vibe. We also call people to be a connected part of what we’ve doing i.e. joining a life group, team etc.
Our Community Hub continues to grow, and we were delighted to be able to help 100s of families in need though this initiative. Ian our community Pastor is always busy keeping links with the community whilst providing that 1- to-1 support to people in need. This is part of our Vibe Care initiative which is part of the Community Hub. Ian regularly helps to furnish houses and provide much need clothes/food to people when required. Our weekly events in the community hub includes toddlers/babies club on Tuesdays, free community lunch on Wednesdays, after school club on Thursdays and many other activities.
Our BriteBox project has now been running a year. This is a weekly food box containing all the ingredients and recipe to create a meal for a family of 5. BriteBox is child friendly, so it encourages the family to prepare the meal together and brings unity into the home. For this project we work alongside local schools to determine which families are most in need. We are currently connected with 4 local schools. It has been a huge success, with funders keen to get onboard and increase the reach. Currently we are contacting more schools in anticipation.
Victory house has continued to be a blessing in the local area. We regularly have 7 guests including 2 vibe interns. The heart of this house continues for it to be utilised as a part of our ongoing charity and church work. A safe place to host bible studies, prayer meetings, life groups and accommodate interns and missionaries for short stays. We have created ongoing links with Ambassadors in Sport and have had 3 of their interns stay in Victory house.
Our Kids Pastor, Caroline came from America in March 2022, to serve in Armagh. She has been incredible, and we continue to see our kid's ministry grow. Vibe Kids consists of Vibe Mini (1-2 yrs old), Vibe Tots (3-4 yrs old) and Vibe Kids (P2-P7). This year we have expanded Vibe Kids offering, we now offer a full program for all ages at both our services.
Four times a year, we have our Kids Takeover during our 10am Sunday Service. This is a time when our kids serve and take part in our main church service from set up, welcoming, announcements, worship, media, etc. Our aim is to do this a 3/4 times a year when a fifth Sunday occurs.
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VIBE
Trustees Report
for the year ended 31 March 2024
(cont.d)
We also continued to run Vibe Men, our mens ministry. The men meet monthly and this is now a well established program, with the groups regularly seeing 30+ in attendance. They have a time of food and fellowship, followed by a short message from the Bible.
Our ever popular ladies ministry, VibeGirl, has been restructured this year to now offer monthly meet ups, previously it had been quarterly. These events have been amazing for our ladies for fellowship, with worship, testimonies and a preach. There have also been a few more relaxed, informal events such as a Christmas wreath workshop and Galentine's brunch with cupcake decorating.
From September 2022 when we decided to gather our church together and become a ‘House of Prayer’. The plan was for people to sign up for a time slot and to then pray during their allotted time slot. With the aim that this would cover all that we do in prayer, 6 days a week, 3 times a day. Every day specific prayer points were emailed out so that we could have unity in prayer. We have experienced enormous blessing and favour, which we know is because of prayer.
In September we held a non-stop 24/7 worship event in Vibe, where we had a desire to build an altar of praise and worship to God. This was a special week, when we had guest singers and musicians come along and join us.
Vibe Camp happened in September, for 24 hours we went as a church family to Newcastle, Co Down to build closer relationships with each other and ultimately with God. We had worship, teaching, seminars, group activities and a full kids program. 100 people came to camp. This was a first for Vibe.
We finished the year strong with a well overdue baptism night with 10 more people publicly declaring their faith in Jesus.
- Summer Outreach:
Iheart this summer continues to be incredible! For the first time ever, we had our in-house kids club happening twice in one day, a morning session and an afternoon session! We had 200 kids each day come to our building to hear the message, ‘Keeper of the Kingdom – standing strong in today’s battle for truth.’ We went to 8 estates with pop-up kids clubs, sports and helping people with odd jobs around their homes. As usual our volunteer team was exceptional, adapting and managing all the necessary rules and regulations. We had 65 incredible volunteers in total. We also blessed over 250 local business with free morning coffee treats including cupcakes, cookies and lots of love! For the first time ever we ran a 3 day football camp during iHeart week, we had 70 kids come along each day. At the end of camp every kid received a medal, and we gave out trophies! On Thursday evening the youth team hosted a huge youth event, inviting all the youth of Armagh to attend. We had 90 youth attend, they had lots of fun but most importantly got to hear about Jesus. We hope next year we can go bigger and better again!
Our foreign missions included Latvia for 7 days in June and Cleveland for 9 days in August. These trips were an incredible time for the Kingdom of God. We got to connect with many different organisations and saw many people come to faith in Jesus. Our team loved it and came back on fire for God.
- Other Outreach (Local)
Kids club and youth club on Friday nights continue to be an incredible success. Every Friday night we teach kids the bible, sing new songs, play games, and help kids make great friends! We have 50 kids weekly and are continuing to grow. Youth club happens right after with lots of local teens coming to play pool and PlayStation. We then had the wonderful opportunity to take youth to the next level as we partnered with Young Life International. This allowed us to have a youth worker 2 days a week and begin a youth specific programme every Friday night. We are super excited to see what happens next and excited to see many more youth come to vibe every Friday night! Young life officially began in April 2023.
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Docusign Envelope ID: 1DE7B2BC-282D-42D2-94C2-FF29EFC08FCE
VIBE
Trustees Report
for the year ended 31 March 2024
We kicked off the Easter Weekend with an Easter Egg hunt on the Mall, this is a free event for the community. The event involves a treasure trail around the Mall, in search of letters that will form a meaningful phrase, on the message of Easter. When a child completes the phrase, then their prize is an Easter egg.
Jesus Revolution came in June 2023 to Armagh as part of their Every Nation Tour and partnered with us to host a huge youth event in Armagh City Hotel. They brought a strong team of 60 from all over the world. The night was an incredible success, with young people hearing about Jesus for the first time. The Jesus Revolution team went into a local High School to do a young event during lunch break, and the team saw 50 youth run to the front in response to the Gospel.
During the summer months it was particularly wet weather, so we decided to host Fun Fridays, to offer an alternative to parents during the school holidays. Each fun zone session included bouncy castle, face painting, balloon modelling and music. We had 4 sessions running each Friday.
We ran an Alpha program in September, which ran every Thursday evening for 11 weeks. This was incredible transformation in people who attended as there was an open environment created for everyone to chat and ask questions surrounding faith.
Alternative Halloween – once again this year we reached out to two local estates with our alternative light parties. We choose two of our summer estates, and we brought a bouncy castle, glow sticks, faces paints, food, games, and lots of fun for the night. These nights provided an alternative to the darkness involved around Halloween. Our goal was to bring God’s light and love to the fore. We saw over 100 kids who enjoyed our Alternative Halloween. We also decided this year that we would offer an in-house alternative to Halloween, so in October 2023 we held our first Light Party for the whole family to attend. We had 350 people come along, for pumpkin decorating, games, dance party, face painting and apple dunking.
In November we had a night of worship and music from Swaziland as the Hope & Glory Choir came to sing for us. Also in November, as we turned our minds to Christmas, we again ran our Christmas craft fair and afternoon tea. The goal again this years was to create a community event that would bring people together. We served afternoon tea downstairs with all proceeds going to our Christmas toy and hamper appeal. Upstairs we had 20 crafters from all over country Armagh showing off some incredible items and products. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it and the response was do it again next year!
In December we ran a Christmas Twilight Market. The goal was to create a community event that would bring people together. We had food trucks and an indoor area for people to eat. In Vibe we had 25 local crafters from all over country Armagh showing off some incredible items and products. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it and the response was do it again next year!
In December we held a Christmas Experience which included Santa’s Grotto and a Nativity Scene, with Mary & Joseph plus all the animals. This was a great day with lots of different people coming into Vibe
- Training
Our training events continued on ZOOM with our team. We had some very special times with friends and guests from around the world teaching us.
In February we held our annual leadership conference in Audacious church, Manchester. We learned a lot of practical steps on how to lead and manage our church better. Along with a fresh vision for the future and biblical training to allow us to all grow further in God. There where leaders there from all over Europe. - New Building
Planning permission came through in October 2023! This was a time of thanksgiving and praise in Vibe.
We are still progressing well with our building project. We also continue to raise money for project possible through donations and our buy a seat scheme. In all that we did this year we believe the best is yet to come!
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Docusign Envelope ID: 1DE7B2BC-282D-42D2-94C2-FF29EFC08FCE
VIBE Trustees Report
for the year ended 31 March 2024
Financial Review
The Financial Statements are presented in the standard format required by the Charities SORP (FRS 102) 2015 and in accordance with The Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2015. The Statement of Financial Activities on page 7 shows the gross income from all sources.
VIBE is reliant upon income collected through its weekly collections and special collections, combined with the receipt of donations and the subsequent Gift Aid claims, and investment income to cover the running costs of the charity and to further its objectives.
In the year under review the unrestricted income received from donations amounted to £168,724 (2023; £166,769 ), this amount was further enhanced by the subsequent receipt of Gift Aid amounting to £31,664 (2023; £30,426 ). In addition to this Vibe also received restricted income by way of donations towards various projects totalling £70,326 (2023; £38,657); within this figure a staggering £36,784 was raised for our building fund (2023; £32,762 ).
Expenses associated with charitable activity work amounted to £ 103,841 Unrestricted (2023: £ 56,766 ) during the year, with a further amount of £ 115,059 (2023; £ 91,037 ) being spent on running and administration expenses. In addition, the charity continued to develop and extend the facilities at Little Barrack Street. In the year under review the charity expended £ 74,084 (2023; £9,626) on fixed asset additions.
Investment Policy
Apart from retaining a prudent amount in reserves each year most of the charity’s funds are spent in the short term.
Reserves Policy
The trustees aim to maintain sufficient reserves to enable the trust to continue its humanitarian aid and Christian outreach at its current level, and if possible, to increase it.
Trustee responsibilities in relation to the accounts
The charity trustees are responsible for preparing a trustees' annual report and financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).
The law applicable to charities in Northern Ireland requires the charity trustees to prepare financial statements for each year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of the incoming resources and application of resources, of the charity for that period. In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are required to:
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select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently.
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observe the methods and principles in the applicable Charities SORP.
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make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent.
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state whether applicable accounting standards have been followed, subject to any material departures that must be disclosed and explained in the financial statements.
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prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in business.
The trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and to enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with The Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2015, and the provisions of the Trust deed. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.
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VIBE Trustees Report Year ended 31[st] March 2024
(Cont.d)
The trustees are responsible for the maintenance and integrity of the charity and financial information included on the charity's website in accordance with legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements.
This report was approved by the Trustees and signed on its behalf, on 21[st] March 2025, by:
| Mr Darryl Bain Trustee |
Mr Robert Bain Trustee |
|
|---|---|---|
| Mr Steven Hawthorne Trustee |
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