TRUSTEE REPORT
l April 2022 - 31 March 2023
THE
RURAL
IEllTfiE
ANNUAL REPORT
## Section A Reference and administration
**Charity name: The Rural Centre Company Limited by Guarantee: Company Registration: NI045661 Charity Number: NIC105690 Address: The Old Primary School, 4 Augher Road, Clogher BT76 0AD**
**Trustees Mr William Harrison Boyd, Chairperson Mr Gerald Hackett, Secretary Mrs Alverta Steen**
**Manager Mrs Heather McLaughlin**
## Section B Structure, governance and management
Governing Document: Memorandum of Association Recruiting and Appointing New Members: The method of selection for all new members is through appointment by existing Board members.
Bank: Ulster Bank, Main Street, Clogher Accountant: SP Mc Caffrey & Co Ltd, 50 Campsie Road, Omagh
Area of Benefit: Northern Ireland, UK
## **Section C Objectives and activities**
The advancement of education; the advancement of citizenship or community development and the promotion of religious or racial harmony or equality and diversity among the inhabitants of Northern Ireland to promote peace building and respect for cultural diversity by connecting people to collaborate and build relationships cross community, cross border and between other regions of Europe and internationally through:
(i) Thematic study visits to share expertise and knowledge; to share different ways of doing things that can be adapted and transferred to improve practice in this region. (ii) Educational study visits to explore shared history, and promote good relations and peace building by encouraging mutual understanding between communities around the different perceptions and interpretations that exist.
(iii) Projects with partners from other regions to collaborate and share expertise and skills to improve formal and non formal education, training and youth work.
(iv) Cultural awareness training to provide the skills and expertise to communicate effectively across cultures and promote peace building, respect for religious equality and diversity
(v) Information on EU funding programmes, partnerships, projects, exchanges, placements and participation in events to develop links across Europe to share expertise.
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ANNUAL REPORT
## Section D Activities and perfromance
Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public including support, EU information, cultural awareness training, exploring shared history, educational and thematic study visits, Erasmus+ European Projects with partners from other regions.
All training and educational materials, videos and modules produced by EU projects are available free to any user.
Meetings continued online during this period because of restrictions in travelling due to Covid. A number of hybrid meetings took place when some partners were allowed to travel with other partners joining the two day meetings online. Unfortunately Heather McLaughlin broke her next in August 2022 and was not able to attend some project meetings until December 2022 but continued to take part in meetings on line and manage all the projects to deliver all outputs.
- **Mid Ulster District Council and Donegal County Council: Ancient Clans of**
- **Ireland – Our Shared Heritage** This project facilitates links between Mid Ulster District Council, Donegal County Council and local groups through visits to sites with shared heritage of the O’Neills, other ancient Clans and the Plantation of Ulster. 10 Groups each area reaching 100+ people
Activities April 2022 – March 2023
- **Ancient Clans website** : Management of Ancient clans of Ulster and Plantation uploading information, videos, photographs, maps etc on heritage sites ready to
- http://ancientclans.org 11k views April 2022– March 2023
- April 2022 – May 2022 Editing film The Battle of Benburb 1646 Film with reenactors at Benburb Castle. Planning script, shots, editing and voiceover.
- September 2022 Donega Castlel: Official launch of the Ancient Clans website and The Battle of Benburb Film.
- 23 June 2022 The Battle of Benburb film
launced in Benburb. - 11 September 2022 launch of The Battle of Benburb film in Donegal Castle
Ancient Clan website
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ANNUAL REPORT Launch of The Battle of Benburb 1646 Film in Benburb June 2022 and Donegal Castle Sept 2022
- **BeFlex** funded for 2yrs from 01-10-2020 to 30-09-2022 Coordinated by The Rural Centre.
- Partners from: Portugal, Romania, Spain (2), Slovakia Developing training to support employers and employees
- develop cognitive flexibility to adapt to a rapidly changing work environment. Modules, case studies and resources.
- Activities April 2022 – March 2023
- May 2022 first face to face meeting in Esphino, Portugal. The modules were finalised and the next stage was to develop the tools.
- 15 June 2022 BEFLEX: Hosted project partners in Belfast. Carried out research with focus groups of employers and employees to identify key areas for training modules.
- July 2022 – Sept 2022 Podcast to share the results from focus groups across our
- 6 partner regions. Modules 1: Resistance to Change 2: Motivation3: Time Management
- 4: Adaptation 5: Coaching 6: Emotional Management Planning podcast to be produced by experts in each partner region.
Meeting in May 2022 in Portugal and June in Belfast 2022
Podcast to share the results from focus groups to identify key skills required.
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ANNUAL REPORT
## • **SoEngage/ SoEngage Plus**
funded for 2yrs from 01-10-2020 to 30-09-2022.
- Coordinated by The Rural Centre
Partners from Germany, Ireland, Poland, Romania, Spain and UK. Developing online training on how to produce podcasts and digital videos so farmers can promote their social farm services to generate economic and social benefits.
Activities April 2022 – March 2023
- 26 & 27 May 2022 in Bad Wörishofen, hosted by our German partner, Johannes Dreer finalising the module translation in all partner languages. Two training videos provide training on how to create a video using a mobile phone and how to edit the video using a mobile phone app so farmers can easily produce videos to promote their farm services.
- June – August 2022 Developing written handbook for training, video training, translating handbook and videos. Training videos and handbook, scripts in all partner languages.
**----- Start of picture text -----**
6 Expert podcast on social farming in each region.
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- 6 Summary podcasts 30 Video cast studies - 29 September 2022 The final meeting of our
project in Timișoara, Romania. I attended online as I had a broken neck.
Video training on creating a video using a mobile phone and how to edit is using mobile phone app. Podcasts
Final meeting of our project in Timișoara, Romania 29 September 2022
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- **Tourism LED** funded for 2yrs from 05-10-2020 to 04-10-2022. Cordinated by Stiftelsen Minerva, Sweden. Partners from UK, Sweden, Poland, Malta and Turkey. Activities April 2022 – March 2023
- 12 April 2022 meeting with project partners from UK, Sweden, Malta and Turkey with our host Linking Foundation in Krakow, Poland. To finalise the modules, and to record voice over for promotional video
- 28 July 2022 face face meetings in Falun, Sweden hosted by Stiftelsen Minerva to finalise training modules and agree the case studies to promote heritage tourism.
- Sept 2022 hosted project colleagues from Poland, Sweden, Turkey, Malta and Ukraine met to agree the final case studies and tools to add to our training modules.
- October – December 2023 Modules, case studies, tools finalised and translated to all partner languages and uploaded to Platform.
- 16 March 2023 Final meeting in Krakow, Poland. Produced a series of short introductory videos with voiceovers in our partner languages of Swedish,
English, Turkish and Polish. Modules: Development a business plan, Integrating cultures, Language skills, Marketing, Online
marketing, Setting up a website.
Meeting in Sweden July 2022
September 2022 hosted meeting
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- **Women Inspired: Supporting Entrepreneurship (WISE)** Funded for 2yrs from 01.05.2021 to 30.04.2023. Project Number: 2020-1-PL01-KA226-VET-095420. Coordinated by Linking Foundation, Poland Partners from Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Northern Ireland (UK) Activities April 2022 – March 2023
- April 2022 Partners from Poland, Spain, Romania and Slovenia met in Belfast to review the training modules on digital marketing and e-commerce to support women entrepreneurs promote their SME business.
- Modules: How to start a digital business; Introduction to digital marketing; Inbound marketing; Content and email marketing; Social Media; SEO; Lead Generation; Conversational, Performance and Video marketing and e-commerce.
- - May 2022 partner meeting in Granada, Spain. Agreeing the 15 digital tools, services, and frameworks to present on the platform
- June – September 2022 writing, editing online training, case studies, tools
- 5 October 2022 Partners took part in training to test the online training course, case studies and tools developed to support women entrepreneurs develop their e-commerce and digital skills.
- November – December 2022 Training materials revised and translated to all partner languages.
- 26 January 2023 Enniskillen meeting of Network for Enterprising Women to present the training materials produced by the WISE project on e-commerce and
- online marketing women entrepreneurs shared their experiences of digital marketing. - 13 March Final meeting Krakwow, Poland to finalise materials to upload to the learning and plan final report. - 9 online modules, 18 case studies, 33 Digital tools, 5 Entrepreneur videos
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ANNUAL REPORT
WISE partners meeting in Belfast April 2022 and Granada May 2022
- **Life Beyond Project**
Funded 01/05/2021 – 30/04/2022
The aim the Life Beyond project is to raise awareness of the cultural and historical value of burial grounds. Cemeteries and other burial grounds, and their artefacts are the material anchors to our past to create lasting identities. Project partners from: UK, Malta, Turkey, Portugal, Italy
- Participants from Northern Ireland, Ukraine, Turkey, Italy and Portugal visited important
- cultural and burial sites in Malta and shared examples from their own
regions during two visits: 17-22 October 2022 In Malta 24-29 October 2022 in Malta 31 October 2022 November to Northern Ireland.
- **Art Project**
One week programme bring youth from all partner countries together to look at how creative actions – photography, music, drama etc can be used to integrate youth.
Partners: Poland, Malta, Turkey, Ireland and Greece
- Training of the project took place in Preveza Greece between 26th to 30th June 2022 with the participation of 25 youths, and 7 youth workers. The training focused on Digital photography, Digital Media, Digital storyboards, Storytelling resources, Creation of storytelling and Sound bites. 2 participants from N Ireland took part in the training. https://annadubik3.wixsite.com/artfinclusion/training
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- **Support and Representation Activities**
- Serving on various Boards and providing support to local groups such as webs design, funding applications, meeting space etc.
- COSTA Board member attending meetings.
- Network for Enterprising Women member
- MUD Community representative - member
- The Rural Centre sits as community representative on the Sliabh Beagh Partnership with Monaghan, Mid Ulster, and Fermanagh Omagh Councils to develop a tourism Masterplan for the area attending meetings.
- Clogher village development plan meetings.
- Support to a range of groups including Clogher village renewal, Aughnacloy, Aughintaine, Clogher and Traugh, Living history Project CullyhannaAncient Clan O'Neill, Broughderg Area Development Association, Caledon Regeneration Project, Clans of Ulster, Desertcreat Church of Ireland, Killeshial and Clonanesse, Stewartstown and District Local History Society.
- CWSAN Network study visit to Porto, Portugal providing contact for visit to experience some of the Community led projects in the region.
- **Mid Ulster District Council Heritage Strategy**
- Engagement with community, culture, heritage and other relevant stakeholders to carry out research to define what is heritage, who is responsible for heritage assets and the heritage needs of the area to develop a five year heritage strategy for Mid Ulster District Council to foster greater community participation and visitor engagement, to enhance awareness of heritage assets to promote the built, natural and cultural heritage owned, managed and supported by Mid Ulster District Council.
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ANNUAL REPORT
## **Section E Financial review**
## **Review of the Business**
The Rural centre is non-profit making with the net incoming resources of £45,062 for the year. There was no capital expenditure during the year.
The management continues to be engaged in ongoing efficiency savings and is aware of the sustainable use of resources.
## **Reserves Policy**
The trustees of The Rural Centre have set up a reserves policy which requires that reserves be maintained, in unrestricted bank accounts, at a level which ensures that The Rural Centres core activities, could continue during a period of unforeseen difficulty. The trustees consider that this figure should be £5,000 and will endeavour to reach this figure in the next few years. The Company Review Policy is reviewed every year.
## **Section D Declaration**
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above. Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees
Signature(s) Full name(s) Mr Gerard Hackett Position Secretary
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