2025-07-31-accounts

DIRLETON PLAYGROUP

Annual Report and Accounts for the Year Ended 31% July 2025

Dirleton Playgroup Annual Report and Accounts for the Year Ended 31° July 2025

Trustees’ Report

Trustees and Administration Details

Dirleton Playgroup was constituted as an unincorporated association and recognised as a charity in Scotland (No. SCQ06061) on the 31% March 1977. On the 2"4 February 2016 the charity changed to a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) and is governed by its constitution.

The Playgroup is made up of its members from whom the members of the board of trustees are recruited and elections are held at a General Meeting. The trustees have the power to appoint members to fill vacancies to serve until the following Annual General Meeting.

The current trustees are as follows:

Jaimee Forsyth (appointed June 2025) Mhairi Galbraith Robinson (appointed August 2024) Emma Govan Rebecca Young (appointed August 2025)

Also serving in the year:

Julia Walker (appointed August 2024, resigned June 2025) Catherine Mundell (resigned June 2025) Beverley White (resigned July 2024)

The principal office address of the charity is Dirleton Kirk Hall, Manse Road, Dirleton, East Lothian EH39 5EL.

The Objects of the Charity and Activities in the Year

The purpose of the charity is to advance the education and social development of pre-school children with the emphasis on the play experience, so that they become successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors, and take a constructive place in the community and also to develop and enhance the education of their parents, carers and other appropriate persons.

Children learn through play......and play is what we do at Dirleton Playgroup. However, in order for all the wonderful play and learning to take place the children need to feel safe, secure and happy. We place a huge emphasis on children's personal, emotional and social development and that begins with settling in new children (and parents). It then continues right through a child's time with us helping children to learn those difficult concepts of sharing, being kind, and considering other people’s feelings.

We are incredibly lucky to have so many different environments available to us — our indoor playroom, our garden area, local walks and, of course, our woodland play area. The children are therefore able to enjoy a variety of experiences and learning from the age of 2-5 years, sometimes spending the whole session participating in various activities in the woods.

During the year, we provided a range of activities such as sand & water play, arts & crafts, home corner, construction, play dough, puzzles and a number of tabletop activities encouraging the use of fine motor skills, hand-eye co-ordination and problem solving. We also encouraged physical development using gross motor skills on a range of resources such as climbing frame, slide, balance beams and large building blocks.

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Dirleton Playgroup Annual Report and Accounts for the Year Ended 31° July 2025

Trustees’ Report (continued)

We have continued our usual operational model with 3 staff members and this year we used Lothian Childcare Solutions to provide agency support due to staff sickness absence but this has had an impact on our operational costs. We had around §3 children on the roll and were full most days. 20 children will move on to primary school this year many of whom had been at Dirleton Playgroup since they were 2 years old.

We are grateful to have consistency within the committee this year with the Treasurer and Secretary remaining in post, and parents joining the fundraising team.

Our fundraising ambition for the year was again £10,000 and this was achieved by a mixture of grant funding and fundraising activities. Whilst we would anticipate repeating these activities next year, the committee anticipates looking at the longer term viability of our funding model.

Fees were increased to £13 per session for 2024/25 and £20 for the longer Monday session. This has gone some way to offset the increase in staffing costs. Due to the rate of inflation, the subsequent impact on the cost of living and the increase in the minimum wage, the committee raised fees from August 2025 to £14 per session and £21 for the longer Monday session.

Rent remained at £10 per hour, this is a reduced rate offered by the Kirk to support the playgroup. Typically the charge would be £15 per hour and we are only charged for the time the children are in.

The committee is committed working towards a more sustainable funding model that reduces reliance on fundraising and grants.

Grants

We were delighted and very grateful to have been supported again by North Berwick Trust who provided £3,000 for organisational costs — this goes someway to replace funds spent on agency costs to cover staff absence.

We are very grateful to Forth Estuary Engineering Ltd. Who kindly “Sponsored a week of Playgroup” donating £1,000 to assist with running costs.

Local taxi firm AJ Private Hire committed to making a regular donation of £25 per month towards running costs. This ongoing support is incredibly helpful and has gone directly to support families struggling to pay fees.

Playgroup continues to receive payments under the Scottish Government Milk and Healthy Snack Scheme totalling — £849.34.

Sadly we did not receive the ELC Playgroup Grant from East Lothian Council, for the second year in a row as all council budgets are tight.

Fundraising

We continued to raise funds via easyfundraising.co.uk and Stikins Labels.

We organised a summer bake sale which raised £715.25 and many of our families helped by baking and attending on the day.

We hosted a Christmas movie “Mog’s Christmas” for local children and their families, raising £676.27, kindly sponsored by Bass Rock Mortgages Ltd, who donated £150 to cover costs.

Two parents ran the Archerfield 10k and they chose to seek sponsorship for Playgroup via Justgiving.co.uk, raising an impressive £455.14.

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Dirleton Playgroup Annual Report and Accounts for the Year Ended 31% July 2025

Trustees’ Report (continued)

The children completed the “Smarties Tube" challenge raising £596.10

Funds raised at the Dirleton Fete & Games in June (£316.68) were paid in November 2024.

Our most successful fundraising event was our Christmas Raffle which raised £3,475.81. The raffle was kindly sponsored by Bostock Bakery who donated £150 to cover costs.

Including all grants, donations and fundraising, we raised a total of £11,527.

The Playgroup finished the year with £6,940 in cash reserves and £1,233 of fees still outstanding. The trustees have set a reserves level of approximately three months’ running costs (£11,500) as a contingency for unplanned expenditure or fluctuations in attendance. The reserves at the end of the year fell short of this amount and the trustees are working on ways to achieve this.

Approved by the Trustees on ...... 9th Apt 2026....... and signed on their behalf by:

E Govan Trustee

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Dirleton Playgroup Annual Report and Accounts for the Year Ended 31% July 2025

Independent Examiner’s Report to the Trustees of Dirleton Playgroup

| report on the accounts of the charity for the year ended 31 July 2025, as set out on pages 5 and 6.

Respective responsibilities of trustees and examiner

The charity's trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the terms of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006.

The trustees consider that the audit requirement of Regulation 10(1) (d) of the Accounts Regulations does not apply. It is my responsibility to examine the accounts as required under section 44(1) (c) of the Act and to state whether particular matters have come to my attention.

Basis of independent examiner’s statement

My examination is carried out in accordance with Regulation 11 of the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeks explanations from the trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit, and consequently | do not express an audit opinion on the view given by the accounts.

Independent examiner’s statement

in the course of my examination, no matter has come to my attention

1. which gives me reasonable cause to believe that in any material respect the requirements:

2. to keep accounting records in accordance with Section 44(1) (a) of the 2005 Act and Regulation 4 of the 2006 Accounts Regulations, and

3. to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and comply with Regulation 9 of the 2006 Accounts Regulations have not been met, or

4. to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

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Signed Grane Gl
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Date ...../,A/... xe,
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Suzanne Graham Hollis Accounting Ltd 3 Melville Crescent Edinburgh EH3 7HW

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Dirleton Playgroup Receipts and Payments Account for the Year Ended 31st July 2025

	Unrestricted	Restricted	Total	Total
	funds	funds	2024/25	2023/24
	£	£	£	£
Receipts
Fees	31,623	-	31,623	30,917
Donations	325	-	325	700
Grants	4,000	849	4,849	5,457
Fundraising	6,353	-	6,353	7,744
Total receipts	42,301	849	43,150	44,818
Payments
Payments for fundraising activities:
Fundraising events	262	-	262	615
Payments for charitable activities:
Staff costs	37,686	660	38,346	34,023
Rent	5,190	-	5,190	5,230
Office costs	351	-	351	320
Insurance and registration	429	-	429	1,109
Equipment and playgroup supplies	907	588	1,495	1,376
Governance costs:
Accountancy and Independent
Examination	650	-	650	650
Purchase of assets:
Furniture	-	238	238	-
Total payments	45,475	1,486	46,961	43,323
Transfers	-	-	-	-
Surplus/(deficit) foryear	(3,174)	(637)	(3,811)	1,495
Cash funds brought forward	9,496	1,255	10,751	9,256
Cashfundscarriedforward	6,322	618	6,940	10,751

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Dirleton Playgroup Receipts and Payments Account for the Year Ended 31st July 2025

Bank and cash on hand
		2024/25	2023/24
		£	£
Opening balances		10,751	9,256
Surplus / (deficit) foryear		(3,811)	1,495
Closing balances		6,940	10,751
Restricted funds
		At 1.8.24	Receipts	Payments	Balance
East Lothian Council	(a)	1,017	849	(1,248)	618
Gaddabout	(b)	238	-	(238)	-
		1,255	849	(1,486)	618

(a) Funding for the provision of milk and healthy snacks

(b) Grant for a new sofa and rug. Funds spent in the year

Assets

The Playgroup had equipment valued at the year end at approximately £928 (2024: £880) and were owed £1,233 in outstanding fees (2024: £964).

Liabilities

At the year end the Playgroup had outstanding staff costs of £211 (2024: £69) and accrued accountancy costs of £780 (2024: £650).

Trustee expenses

The members of the Board of Trustees did not receive any remuneration or expense reimbursements in either year.

Approved by the trustees on Ae2026 aaa and signed on their behalf by:

Trustee E Govan

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