2024-2025 Accounts Borders Water Rescue Team REPORT & FINANCIAL STATEMENTS For Year Ended 28th February 2025 Scottlsh Incorporat•d Charity No SC043718 Border Water Rescue Team AGM Meeting AGM meeting minutes 2nd February 2025 Time.. 2pm Location= Kelso Royal British Legion, Roxburgh Street, Kelso Present: Apologies: Declaration of interest.. None Agenda Items Review of actions from previous meeting NIA Approve minutes of previous AGM meeting, 4th February 2024. No questions or amendments. Minutes a roved b , seconded b Trustees Report {Year 2023124)- AGM, 2nd February 2025 Welcome to the 2025 AGM for the Borders Water Rescue Team. We are completing our 12th year as a registered charf(y and 27 years as a team. The team have continued lo be active in it's charity objectives in educating and keeping people safe in and around water. We have also continued our 6 aims which were set by the trustees 2018. Recruitment of new members. The team is always open lo new members but as the team was al fvll strength last year, no acb've recNitmenl drive was made. Due lo natural movement and ill health. the trustees wll support the management team lo bring in new members in the coming year. Promotion of the team & Maximise partnership. Trustees have promoted the team during the year. Netsvork events with the MOD, PAWS and Rotary were attended to strengthen our connections. Continued strong links wth local emergency services keeps our le am in high regard. Membership of the SMR (Scottish Mountain Rescue) i% still ongoing. Events. Events support continues to keep the team busy throughout the summer. The events trustee has continued lo work with colleagues like Swim Safety, Still Going StronglGo Swim and Ride Out Commrttees. Their continued requests confirm that we are the preferred safety organisation to cover their water events. We look fopNard to continuing these connections in the coming years. Fundraising is our lrfeline. Trustee and team members have been very active in the year in fundraising aclwities. The Ber4Mck Swm took place for the first time, which was a big success and in conjunction with Galashiels Rotary, allowed the new sledge to be purchased. The team were in attendance at Kelso Farmers Market & Border Union Show, wlh a successful raffle. Santa's Sleigh finished off the year. Search and rescue is our core. Call outs are what we do bul we all hope there are few situations where our help is require. Thankfully call out were not in abundance during the year but this ean change instantly due to nabjral and manmade forces, so the team must be ready to react to any and all situations. This is the reason the team exists. Whether we are searching for missing people or reseuing flood vielims, the trustees will continue to provide equipment and training to our members for all eventualities. Once again, we would like lo say thank you to each and every volunteer who makes it possible for the team lo be held in such high regard with other voluntary teams and emergency services we work with. We all bring something drfferent to the team and our strengths all lie in different places, this is why in the trustee's eyes we think we function so well. Thank you one and all from your trustees. Heather Winlerbottom 2nd Febwary 2025 BWRT Treasurer Report 202314 AGM Finance Report ICoveriThJ year 1st March 2023 to 29th February 2024} The Receipts & Pa￿nents account shows a net profft for the year to 28th February 2024 of £11,6771£6,695. 28th February 20231. Income: Only one grant was received in the year. £1,500 was rec￿Ved from Charity Begin5 at Home lo cover training activities. Sponsorship:_ £300 {£300 202213} Major donations in the year.- £750 Mainhouse Charitable Trust, £5.000 Mrs S Bowring, £3,000 Berwickshire Charity Truck Run, £5.612 Bernqck Open Water Swim, £1,700 from Tough Mudder, £3.300 from Total Warrior. £4,082 Raffle, £3,090 Border Ride-outs, £1,100 Sunlaws Development and Santa's Sleigh 2023 £3.317. The buslees wsh to thank all the members who gave their time to eam these amazing amounts of money for the team. Expenses: The expenses in the year were greater than 2022123. There were caprtal equipment purchases in the year which included, inflatable rescue tube. mega sled, new suits & equipmenL Vehicle running costs are inline with prior year. 2k on team unifomilclothing. Sundries and fundraising expenses increased due to the fundraising actIv￿eS undertake in the year. Bank Balances:_ The statement of balances shows a total balance at 28th February 2024 of £81,578 in comparison to £68,909 the previous year. This is split be￿een restricted funds of £20,8631£10,000 retain for expenses, restricted grantsldonalions £10,863) leave5 unrestricted funds of £60,724. Accounts to Feb 2024 were audited by an independent qualified party, approved by Trustees and signed on the 2Tr November 1924 and the return was sthmitted to OSCR (Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator). Accounts circulated to members vhi the team private page on 19th January 2025. Treasurer Team Leader5 Report - 202314 Wdl that'5 been another quick year, I feel we are quite settled in our leadership group!! This year has been a quiet on for eallouuts, only x2 and x2 standbys. l the border teams are quiet apart from Tweed with Glenlress. Training We welcomed our 6 new trainees in and you are all progressing well and will be qualffied yellow helmets in a couple of months. We have some re eerts for our SRT'S later in the year which I'm looking into our options and will tslk to them about this. Training on the whole is always well attended. Thank you to for keeping training on point and we now have our first female instructor Thanks also must go t who likes to keep pushing the team hard for fitness and every Sunday makes us accountable for our weeks effort. The team are looking in to getting our own drone, this hqll require pilots, if this is something of interest to you please let me know. Fundraising This has been a massive year for fijndraising, thank you everyone for your help. Levs do it all over again next year!1 I was approached by SMR lo put in an application to join and be partially funded by SMR bul our application was unsuccessful . We shall try againll Lasuy thank you to for all the behind the scenes work they do. a thankless task bul very much requiredl it doesn't go unnoticed. AOB Ve last thin you have had a rough year but staying in the fight has got you through LL DONEIII IL W Team Leader BWRT Constitutional matters arising New and reelection of Tnjstees. No new Trustees have come forward and all trustees are willing to stand for another 12 months The team voted unanimously lo re-elect all the present trustees. AOB . has been working on leam fitness for many months. He has put fonvard proposal for a more fomial fitness initiative and the costs involved. This proposal is to be taken to the trustees at the next trustees meetin AGM Business Meeting closed at 2.30 pm TEAM REPORTS Social Media Report- February 2025 It has been another settled year for the social media team with a steady stream of posts during this lime. This year has seen another successful media strategy for the Santa Sleigh and his new sidekick, the Grinch, with the use of reels helping to increase the team's Facebook reach. Looking at the FB estimated vEwing figures from Jan 24 to Jan 25, we have continued to increased our numbers with a typical post reaching bebNeen 5000- 12000 people. With the top 5 perfO￿lr￿j posts of the year all in excess of that range and were Santa sleigh related posts. These event posts have also helped increased our FB followers and interactions by local community groups particularly from the more outlying villagesltowns such as Denholm, Morebattle and Gala. The most viewed post was the announcement of our Santa Sleigh schedule which was viewed over 76,000, reaching over 27,000 accounts. This post greatly contributed towards the increase in new followers. Our Grinch arrest reel was our 5th most viewed post with almost 20,000 views, wlh an accumulated watch time of 2days ,13h. However the most interesting infomiation is that about 800k of the views of this post where by non followers. T our sts are seen b 700kn of our own followers and 3090 non followers. Therefore increasing the number of reels wll definitely be an aim for this year. In conclusion, the social media team has a steady set of plafforms which we can continue to move forward with however it's important to still look at new ways to develop the teams online profile over the next year. I wsh lo thank all those in the team who contributed this year to help get us this far. Sent from my iPad Website need5 updating. Agreed that the media team wqll prepared and ready in approximately 6 month5. If it's decided that the website, going fonvard, needs lo be redesigned, there is still sk in restricted funds for the purpose. asked to provide costings to be brought to the Trustees also later in the yeai. This may need to include outsourced costs for the de5vJn. The media team are looking for a 41h member. If any member is interested, please eonlact for further information. Training Officers Report- February 2025 Much has been achieved during my first year as your training officer. Given that there was no proper report for last year's AGM, I have gone back to November of the previous year for completeness. In November 2023. both ￿ completed their SFR SBA for recertification completed his SRT qualification and all completed their SRT SBA for recertification. Just after the last AGM in March 2024￿ completed their SRT SBA for recertffication. In June of last year, 8 of us went up to Pinkston to complete the Rescue from Vehicle in Water IRVWI course with Howie Crook- It is our intention to go back to Pinkslon again this summer vthen local river levels are too low for sensible trainiThJ. Having successfully completed my insljuctors refresher course in July, down in Carlisle, l am able to teach the RVW course wthin the team. Looking forward, there are 7 team members embarking on their SFR training next month including is also joining us! Both lan and Andy are in need of SRT SBAS for recertification and those SRTS that missed the RVW course should gel the opportunity lo catch up this summer. Also. has agreed lo work towards her instructor qualification. which will be on-going during the coming year. needs a special mention al this point for his enthusiaskn'c encouragement of team fitness - the team is in much better shape as a consequence. Lasdy. and perhaps most importantly, thank you to all of you for continuing to make training a safe and engaging activity which we can all enjoy, whilst still being mindful of the reason why we do it! Next Training - night exercise 1st March 2025 First aid Report February 2025 It's been a very quiet year in one way and very successful in another. Firstly as of July last year the team had every team member qualffied to do First aid our newer members all assed there course , so well done to all. It was a quiet year regarding first aid events as we had a few cancellations (mainly being the 4 obstacle events that were cancelled by floors castle) We had Roxburghe rocks in august bringing in £550 Followed by chain bridge to Berwick swim in September (no monitory value for first aid as combined with safety cover) Edinburgh riding of the marches in September that was meant to bring in £1000 but because they got into financial problems, the 3 combined medical teams got a reduced amount and we got £320. That’s £870 in total this year instead of the £3750 that we were expecting to bring in for first aid events. So even though financial last year was very disappointing it also provided us with a lot of positives; 1- The whole water team are all qualified to operate doing first aid to a high standard. 2- During 3 events this year the team was called upon to provide emergency assistance to 2 very seriously injured or ill casualties. As normal the team members involved in each incident rose to the occasion as expected. The first was a cardiac arrest at Tough Mudder Scotland and our team were straight onto the chest giving 8 minutes of CPR till medical team arrived with AED, a very positive outcome and one very lucky person we were on hand. Secondly we stopped along A68 near St Boswell to a cyclist that came off there bike, with possession head and spinal injuries, as we were on our way to Peebles for an Event, a team member stayed with the casualty along with bystanders to make sure casualties was in the best hands when handed over to Ambulance (Casualty had broken bones in his neck) 3- Then during the Edinburgh riding of the marches in September, we had 3 casualties that we took to Hospital for treatment. 1st casualty had a broken lower leg in 3 places. 2nd casualty had soft tissue injury, nothing broken. 3rd casualty had a small fracture to the coccyx (lower back/spine) So we had a very successful year with what we treated and how we operated as a team when doing this. It is very satisfying as a trainer when we help someone and do it well and it makes it all worth while. Well done everyone for your efficiency and professionalism. We have just ordered 2 new defibs which we will receive soon and also 2 x first aid bags with other vital fracture/ spinal equipment are ready and waiting on approval. So in the bigger picture, what looked like a disappointing year ended up a very successful year. One very happy medical officer. DTL & Medical Officer ## **Events Co-ordinator report 2025** It has been a very busy year for events once again and I’d like to start by thanking each and every one of you for volunteering your time and energy to make it a very successful year. In particular I’d like to thank Graham for taking on the coordination of all 13 Santa Sleigh Events as well as the Go Swim provision. Fantastic effort and sorry I couldn’t be much help! In total we covered 34 events,. 13 Santas, 5 involving young people. 4 river crossings, 4 Go Swm events, 2 major sporting events, 2 First Aid provisions, 3 money collections and the epic River Tweed SF)onsored Swim. There were a couple of frustrating cancellations. Melrose Ride out was cancelled due to river levels and Inflatsble Insanity at Roxburgh Castle was ncelled hvice due lo the inflatables being stuck in transit. Even so we would have had them covered if they d gone ahead so thank you for volunteering and I hope you enjoyed your weekends offl We have built really strong alliance5 the organisers and we expect many of these events to be repealed in the coming year. I'm Still waiting on confirmation for most but as an indication Total Warrior asked if we'd put il in the diary for 2025 about 3 weeks after the 2024 run. However some events have dropped off the calendar 50 there is always room for new opportunities to arise. I know ha5 pLans to build on the Wihd S￿immIng sponsored events but more of that when we have details. Please let us know if you spot any new opportunities lo provide water safety eover, to spread the word about water safety or lo raise funds for the team. The more money we raise, the more money we can spend on equipment, kit and training and the stronger the team will grow. I have already started creating some events for 2025. Please keep an eye out for new listings and please take the time to indicate whether you are available or not as s¢x)n as F)ossible. l also appreciate a 'maybe' response if you're not sure. At least then I know you've seen it and are notjust ignoring mel Thank you once again for yc4Jr support for all the events and let's do it again next year. - Events Co-ordinator AOB- Team The team is looking to purchase our own drone and licenses. Granufvndraising funding is being sourced at present. If any one is interesting in leaming and getting licensed in drone flying. please discuss with will need lo renew his license in May 2025. 10 Bob is to announce that￿ are r￿W members of the Coast Guard. ￿ is now a member of Berwick RNLI. Congratulations to ev one. Meeting closed at 3.31 pm 2nd February 2025 Signed: Date: Bordevs Water Rescue Team Recelpts & Payments Account For Accountlng Year Endlng February 2025 2024 Rocoipts Grants Received Emergency Services Reimbursement of Costs Fundraising Donations + £2 Rounding Sponsorship HMRC VAT 1,500 9.239 26.790 240 4.421 8,274 27,029 300 Bank Interest Gross Unallo¢at8d 1,075 41,765 37.948 Payment8 Pa men r Charitable Activ Equipment Capital Equipment Repairs & call-out fees 9,186 1,679 10,865 2,317 693 16,895 1,600 2.339 469 370 Insuran Clothing Ttxining Expenses Travel Expenses Professional Sund[￿s incl Fundraising expenses Vehicle Running Costs Unallocated 3,225 57 1,717 3,156 2,009 2,119 22,030 26,269 Shortfall I Surplu8 for Perlod 19,735 11,679 Unre8tr1cted General Fund Balance at financial year end Restrlcted Fund Balance al financial year end Surplus for Peri¢xI e6,177 54.045 15,408 19,735 15.863 11,679 Balance at financial year end 101,320 81.587 Bordèrs Water Rescue Team Statement of BalanGèJ at financial year end 2025 2024 12,373 4,715 88,937 76,862 Royal Bank of Scotland Current Acc￿nI Royal Bank of Scotland Deposit ACc￿nI Paypal Acc￿nt Cash In Hand Unpresenled Items 10 10 101,320 81,587 Unrestricted Fund {Note 1 b) 85 912 65 722 These accounts have b￿n approved by th8 Management Committee on...... and signed on thar behalf by.. Borders Water Rescué Tèam Independent Examinors Report to the Committee I report on the accounts of the charity for the year ended 2811 February 2025 Respective Respon?ibility of Management Committee & Examiner T*￿ charity managemenl committee are responsible for the presentation of the accounts in accordance with Ihe terrns of the Ch&ities and Trustee Investment (Scodand) Act 2005 and the Charities Awounts Regulations 2006 (as amended). The Gharty trustees consider the audit requirement of Regulation 1011) (a) to Ic) of the Accounts Regulation d￿S not apply. 11 Is my responsibility lo examine the arLounts as required under section 44(1) Ic) of the Act and to stsle whether parbcular matters have come to my attention. 8asis of Independent Examiners SLqtsrnent My eKaminalion is carried out in accordan￿ wrth regulation 11 of the Charities Accounts (Scolland) regulations 2006 (as amended). An examination includes a review of the account records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts present with those records. It also includes consideration of unusual itsms or disclosures in the account and seèks explanations from the Tnjstees conceming any such matters. prc£edures undertaken do not provide all the evidence which would be required in an audit and consequently I do not express an audit opinion on the view given in the accounts. Ind•pondont Examiners Statomont In the course of my examination, no matter has c¢Jme to my attention 1 which gives me reasonable cause to telieve that in any material respeGt the requirements To keep aGGounting records in accordanTr with section 44 (1) of the 2005 Act & Regulalion 4 of the 2006 AcC￿nting RegulatK)ns, aThJ To prepare accounts ￿lch record Ihe accounting records and comply wrth Regulation 9 of the 2006 Accounts Regulations have not been met or 2 to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. 2024-2025 Accounts Borders Water Rescue Team Notes on Accounts for Period 28th February 2025 1 Accounting PoliGies A Basis of Accounting These accounts have been prepared in accordance with the terms of the Charities and Twstee Investment (Scotland) Act 2002 and the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006. The preparation of the account on a cash basis continues to be applied in the current year. B Funds Unrestricted General Fund The general fund comprises these funds which the Trustees are free to use in a¢¢ordan¢e with the ¢harities obje¢tives. 2 Trustees Remuneration & Expenses Trustees are not remunerated and no Trustee received remuneration of Trustee expenses during the period. No contracts for services have been entered into with any of the Trustees.