Trustee Annual Report and Accounts
FRIENDS OF STONEHOUSE PARK For the year ended 31 March 2025
Prepared by AHB Finance & Consultancy Ltd
Contents
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3 Trustees Annual Report
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5 Income and Expenditure
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6 Balance Sheet
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Trustee Annual Report and Accounts FRIENDS OF STONEHOUSE PARK 14 Jun 2025
Trustees Annual Report
FRIENDS OF STONEHOUSE PARK
For the year ended 31 March 2025
FOSP purposes are the provision of recreational facilities and the organisation of recreational activities within Alexander Hamilton Memorial Park. Additionally we seek to advance citizenship or community development by hosting and encouraging community participation at events within the park.
Since our last AGM on the 23rd June 2024 we have continued to host events within the park. Utilising the refurbished bandstand we hosted 3 storytime and craft events for the younger members of the community within the summer school holidays, we then hosted ‘a picnic in the park’ with live music from the Lanarkshire Songwriters in August.
Unfortunately our live music event Bandstand Beatz had to be cancelled due to inclement weather, we had 6 bands scheduled to play on the day however safety of the performers and public had to come into play with water and electricity never mixing well!
We took delivery of a shipping container in late August and in September volunteer hours were utilised to paint the exterior shell of the container and line the inside to ensure it was a dry and safe space to house all of our event equipment.
Our next event was Halloween, for the daytime event we hosted a children’s party in the local church hall, again the inclement weather made the bandstand unsafe to use. This was a great success and an idea we can see being utilised more when we have the indoor pavilion space, we will be able to host multiple events in the run up to Halloween and rely less on the
weather being kind. The evening event had a start point of St Ninians Church hall. We had one longer story on route, before the frightfest in the woodlands, we hosted over 750 attendees, surpassing last year's numbers and making it our biggest event so far.
We then went on to host the Elf event on the first Sunday in December. We were blessed with a dry and bright day and over 250 children attended with their parents to hunt down our elves in the woods, meet Santa and roast marshmallows by the fire. This event is really growing to become a staple in the events calendar.
2024 came to a close for our volunteers with the usual Santa sleigh ride on Christmas Eve. We made the decision to go out a little later this year, to try to account for the mid week celebration and parents likely to be working until later in the day. The rain stayed off for the majority of the event but the biting icy wind managed to freeze our elves to icicles, the willing volunteer in the snowman costume really is the warmest person on the night! As expected, seeing the smiling faces of the local children was, as always, a delight, and made our frozen waving hands worth the effort. We found that we had big groups of people anticipating our arrival at different areas within the village, owing to our use of social media, so this may become more of a feature going forwards.
Moving from 2024 to 2025 we again hosted eight Little Saplings and Mighty Oaks Outdoor play sessions, given the success of hosting the sessions jointly to allow more children to attend, as their parents remain with them, we continued in this fashion. The success of the hot rolls and sausage or
bacon has continued, to keep everyone that bit warmer and able to stay and play for longer.
We then had a late Easter in the middle of April with record numbers of children in attendance, over 300, and their families booked to find the Easter Eggs, solve the letter puzzle and meet the Easter Bunny for a prize egg. The event was blessed with dry weather and the event was a great success. We introduced a face painter as well as the bouncy castle this year and it was fantastic to see the children stay and play longer, to be able to have such entertainment without cost to families, is a grateful bonus when a local business offered to sponsor the event and pay for the activities.
May has been our busiest month on record. Owing to the usually better weather we hosted Bandstand Beatz early with 9 singers and bands playing to over 500 people in the park on a lovely sunny day. We were supported in this event by Avondale Radio, and for both charities the event was a huge success. We were then honoured to be asked to be part of the inaugural Stonehouse Arts Trail. We hosted two children focussed art events on the bandstand with a variety of activities available. This event was quieter than we had hoped but definitely an event we can build on. We were then knee deep in plastic ducks, preparing for the annual duck race, as part of the annual gala week celebrations. This year we managed to sell 54 business & community ducks purchased and over £1400 ducks sold for the public race. Making the event a huge success in terms of fundraising to allow the group to maintain our ethos of all events being free to attend to the public so that no families are put off attending due to cost.
As if May wasn’t already filled with activity we then decided to enter a ‘float’ to the Gala day processions, last year was due to be our only entry, as we had anticipated being further forward with the plans to renovate the pavilion, and perhaps having the space open on gala day. However as plans have taken longer we were able to enter another ‘float’ to celebrate Alexander
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Trustee Annual Report and Accounts FRIENDS OF STONEHOUSE PARK 14 Jun 2025
Trustees Annual Report
Hamilton Memorial Park’s centenary. 5 willing volunteers dressed up in 1925 flapper style costumes, sang and waved to the residents of the village as we danced the ‘charleston’ through the village.
Additionally with support from South Lanarkshire Council we have refurbished the water fountain within the park, this will be rededicated later in the year at our centenary celebration event in August. The fountain looks wonderful and ties in nicely with the refurbished bandstand, restoring the park's splendor of years gone by.
This year has not been without its challenges, we continue to try to have the woodland path networks upgraded which is a very slow process in terms of funding provision and process. We have continued to have support from the council’s Community Payback Teams who have been able to maintain the woodlands and do some repair works to the paths, whilst we wait on the larger scale improvements.
We continue to have reduced support from the library service, due to council funding cuts, however we anticipate that our own volunteers will have time over the school summer break to plan some story and craft sessions again.
As with last year's report, the Pavilion refurbishment continues to take a lot of energy this year. SInce our last report we have successfully gained around £300k in funding from our local wind farms, via SLC, SSE and the community council. Our architect's plans have passed the planning permission stage and we are awaiting our building warrant approval. This means that we have addressed the conditions of our lease, which has been signed with the handover of the building scheduled for Friday the 13th June 2025. The refurbishment plans will then be realised. We continue to plan to refurbish the space into a community hub and meeting space, this will allow us to streamline all events, reduce preparation and set up times for the volunteers and allow us to plan and host more events in the coming years.
We have had another busy 2024/25 reporting year, thanks to the diligence, determination and hard work of our team. As mentioned our park is 100 years old in 2025, we are most definitely on the cusp of something really special. The renovation of the pavilion and increased use of the bandstand and park itself is pivotal within this. Our ideas for its development and future use continue to be boundless; we know exciting times are ahead.
On Behalf of the Trustee Board
nature: ~~a~~ Email: Secretary Se
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Trustee Annual Report and Accounts FRIENDS OF STONEHOUSE PARK 14 Jun 2025
Income and Expenditure
FRIENDS OF STONEHOUSE PARK
For the year ended 31 March 2025
| Income and Expenditure FRIENDS OF STONEHOUSE PARK For the year ended 31 March 2025 |
a me |
s |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 2024 | |
| Income | ||
| Sales | 1,798 | 3,202 |
| Donations | 1,900 | 1,488 |
| Grants | 3,330 | - |
| Other Revenue | 2,473 | 2,443 |
| Total Income | 9,501 | 7,133 |
| Direct Expenses | ||
| Food & Drink For Events | 910 | 2,037 |
| Direct Expenses | 959 | 1,993 |
| Direct Expense - Eqiupment | 3,345 | 2,593 |
| Total Direct Expenses | 5,213 | 6,623 |
| Net Income | 4,289 | 510 |
| Administrative Costs | ||
| Advertising & Marketing | 135 | 255 |
| General Expenses | 1,085 | - |
| Insurance | 992 | 1,041 |
| IT Software and Consumables | 50 | 50 |
| Legal Expenses | 4,987 | 1,560 |
| Motor Vehicle Expenses | 16 | 46 |
| Postage, Freight & Courier | - | 10 |
| Printing & Stationery | 41 | 204 |
| Repairs & Maintenance | 662 | - |
| Staff Training | - | 372 |
| Total Administrative Costs | 7,969 | 3,538 |
| Surplus/(Deficit) for the Year | (3,680) | (3,028) |
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Trustee Annual Report and Accounts FRIENDS OF STONEHOUSE PARK 14 Jun 2025
ots. eS ~[Ow]
FRIENDS OF STONEHOUSE PARK
As at 31 March 2025
| As at 31 March 2025 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 31 MAR 2025 | 31 MAR 2024 | |
| Current Assets | ||
| Cash at bank and in hand | ||
| Friends of Stonehouse Park | 9,484 | 13,164 |
| Total Cash atbank and in hand | 9,484 | 13,164 |
| Total Current Assets | 9,484 | 13,164 |
| NetCurrentAssets (Liabilities) | 9,484 | 13,164 |
| Total Assets less Current Liabilities | 9,484 | 13,164 |
| Net Assets | 9,484 | 13,164 |
| Retained Funds | ||
| Current Year Earnings | (3,680) | (3,028) |
| Retained Funds B/F | 13,164 | 16,192 |
| TotalRetainedFunds | 9,484 | 13,164 |
Approved on behalf of the Trustee Board
Signature:
Trustee Annual Report and Accounts
FRIENDS OF STONEHOUSE PARK 14 Jun 2025
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FRIENDS OF STONEHOUSE PARK-Truste e Annual_Report_and Accounts (2)