Seymourhill & Conway Residents Association Trustees Report 2023-2024 ## Legal & Administrative Details Charity Name : Seymourhill & Conway Residents Association Charity Address : 7-9 Elm Corner, BT17 9PZ Registered Charity Number : 103759 Name of Trustees: Mr Stephen Taylor, Mr Gary Stewart, Miss Natalie Graham, Mrs Cathy Stewart, Mr William Smith, Miss Jayne Huddleston, Miss Nicola Forsythe, Mr Graeme Moore. ## Structure, Governance & Management The charity was registered with the Charity Commission NI in 2016. Committee members of Seymourhill & Conway Residents Association are residents of the local community are elected annually at the AGM which takes place annually. The committee consists of Chairperson, Vice Chairperson, Treasurer, Secretary and committee members. ## Public benefit The trustees have given consideration and will adhere to the Charity Commission for Northern Irelands guidance on public benefit. ## Aims & Objectives Seymourhill & Conway Residents Association was set up to improve the lives of those living in the Seymourhill estate. We run various activities and events, provide signposting services and lobby for improvements with various agencies including NIHE, PCSP, PSNI, EA, Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council, Transport NI ect. We have two housing executive community lets one of which we use as a community office, and the other which we use for daily surgeries citizens advice ect. ## Achievements and performance Over the past year we have been working hard in trying to secure a new community hub for our community, we have completed a feasibility study showing the needs for this much required facility and have also completed the strategic planning for this. We have also been gifted the land from Connswater Holmes, our recently built MUGA pitch is going from strength to strength and is highly used for cross community football tournaments in which kids from all age ranges enjoy the benefits of it, we also promote health and wellbeing programmes for our older users and have seen a high rise in men’s walking football. Our walking club has also seen a rise in our members and we have been on many walking trips over the past year going to different forest parks across Northern Ireland. At present we have around 80 members raging from all ages from young children to adults, we also have local walks every week, through this group we have been able to secure new volunteers who have offered their services to the group. We also recently opened our shedders club and new polytunnel this has been a huge success with both men & women including our youth as well. We have over 50 members who attend on a daily and weekly basis undertaking gardening, cooking and healthy eating programs, we also distribute all our freshly grown produce to our community. Our offices are open 4 days a week, we have citizens advice, local weekly advice surgeries, and housing clinics. We also run our out of hours social media page in which residents can contact us for emergency advice. We also have our successful Women’s group, Men’s shed and youth club all these groups are well attended and run all year round. At our recent Christmas Festival we seen around 400 residents attend, all the children got free selection boxes and our elderly residents who are on their own will receive a free Christmas dinner which will be delivered to them on Christmas day. We also have our summer festival which brought out many families enjoying the day and we seen over 500 residents attend this. As we go into the new year, we go into it with hope and determination, we will continue to work alongside all agencies to improve the well-being of our community and offer them the much needed resources and help they need so that we can all look for a brighter and happier future for all our community in Seymourhill. We will also continue to lobby for our much-needed Community Centre which will be a fantastic asset for our community we hope to also complete our business plan for this around June 2025. ## Financial Review The trustees have comprehensive financial procedures in place for the income and expenditure of Seymourhill & Conway Residents Association. The main items of expenditure were due to programming costs for our community projects and events as well as overheads for the community facilities. The main sources of income were generated through grants received from Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council, NIHE, PSNI. We as trustees of Seymourhill & Conway Residents Association would like to thank all our volunteers and funders who have helped us throughout this year, and we look forward to working with you all again in 2025.