2024-03-31-annual-report

Richmount Rural Community Association Report of the Trustees For Year Ending 31 March 2024 Registered Charity Number Accepted as a Charity by HM Revenue & Customs NIC 105192 Richmount Rural Community Association 2 Dernlettiff RfrA41 . PoTtadow• , Co ATMW. HT62 4JQl Td: 0793118663 EnRil: [e-mail] m1￿￿1¢hm0￿ll￿￿a1¢OllhnUlliryassot.e￿eS$¢k.co.￿L. ThQu•n¥Award PROUDLY SUPPORTING OUR COMMUNITY

Richmount Rural Community Association Contents Page Page Trustees and other information 2 Public Benefit & Impact 3

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Richmount Rural Community Association Trustees and other Information for the Year Ended 31 March 2024

Trustees:

Joe Garvey – Chairperson John Wilson MBE – Vice-Chair Pauline Rooney – Treasurer Mark Hall Geraldine Garvey Victor Hanthorn Letty Houston Shirin Hasanova Helen Gillespie Mairead Morgan

Contact Details:

Richmount Rural Community Association 2 Derrylettiff Road, Portadown. BT62 1QU Telephone: [phone]. Mobile [phone] Website: www.richmountrual community [e-mail] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/359392197497621 Email: [e-mail]

Bankers:

AIB 18-20 Scotch St, Dungannon. BT70 1JJ

Charity Number:

NIC 105192

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Richmount Rural Community Association

Report of the Trustees Public Benefit & Impact For Year Ending 31 March 2024

1. Introduction

The annual accounts & Independent Examiner’s report have been prepared as individual reports and are included in the annual return submission. This report will focus on our public benefit and impact.

2. Organisational objectives

To promote the benefit of the residents of the Richmount area without distinction of political opinion, religious belief, disability, gender, race, age, sexual orientation, those with a marital status and family status or other opinion, by engaging in and organising community activities and projects with the object of improving the quality of life of the said residents.

3. Public Benefit We provide services for the residents of the Richmount area and beyond. These are provided in a nonprofit situation. Our public benefit is for all in our community, is beneficial and can be clearly demonstrated by the numbers attending our facility and availing of our services. We obtain feedback on our services through social media, our community magazine and at our meetings with our users. We provide services for our older people to combat loneliness and social isolation and to promote active aging. We provide health and wellbeing programmes for the older people in our community which increases their general wellbeing.

We promote by positive action projects which engender good community relations in our community. We develop and deliver programmes which help improve the health and wellbeing of our community. We develop projects to enhance the environment in the area.

We are active promoters of the arts, and this reflected in our programmes.

We also promote the investigation of our heritage and develop programmes to report on same.

Our Public Benefit will be reported under headings of:

Older People Developing good relations . Ethnic Minorities Heritage Promotion of Health & Wellbeing

Environment Social Enterprise

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1.0 Older People

We continue with our Richmount Elders activity where we have an average of 45 older people coming to our community centre for activities and a traditional 2 course lunch every Thursday. We were fortunate to be granted £257,000 from the Lottery Community Fund for our older people’s project. This funding is to be spread over 5 years. The title of the project is: Age is no barrier to having fun together. Towards the end of the financial year, we obtained funding from the Halifax Foundation Northern Ireland for a dedicated transport system to bring older people to the community centre on Thursdays. This was provided in a partnership arrangement with DART Community Transport. Many of these people live in isolated rural locations and do not have access to other forms of transport.

2.0 Developing Good Relations

We continued with our good relations projects.

3.0 Ethnic Minorities

We have a substantial Bulgarian population (200) in the area. Most have no extended family and there can be degrees of social isolation particularly amongst young mothers. They use the community centre for their own cultural activities and there are cross community activities.

4.0 Heritage

We continued to make good progress on the heritage project and managed to get more people involved in becoming aware of their local heritage. A book on the project is being written.

5.0 Promotion of Health & Wellbeing

In addition to our ongoing health promotion for our older people we became acutely aware that many of our community on lower incomes were experiencing food poverty. We started a community shop where we distributed surplus food from several local supermarkets. This ended during the year as we found that we were not attracting people in food poverty. We diverted our attention to having more information sessions on healthy lifestyles and how to eat economically.

6.0 Environment

We continued to maintain our gardens and encourage the propagation of pollinator plants to assist our local environment.

7.0 Social Enterprise

During the year we started to develop a social enterprise based on the concept of turning waste food into healthy viable food. This is still at the development stage. Apart from the positive environmental aspects we see this as a potential replacement for the Lottery funding for our older people’s project when it runs out in 4 years’ time.

Conclusion & Impact

It is estimated that some 1500 people benefited directly or indirectly from the activities of Richmount Rural Community Association.

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On behalf of the Committee:

Joe Garvey

Chairperson

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