Annual Report GWA AGM 2025
In the past year, the Gala Water Archive has developed since its formal constitution as a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation. The archive has created and opened the Heritage Centre in Stow Town Hall which is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday staffed mainly by a team of volunteers. The grand opening was well supported by the community and Pe officially opened the Centre in October 2024. Visitors number, although small at first, have grown steadily and on most days interested locals and visitors have come to view the article and artefacts on display. In addition, we have had three school visits, two from Stow Primary and one from Tweedbank primary. Our Community Archivist has also spent two days in outreach work with Stow Primary and three days outreach work with St Peter’s Primary, Galashiels.
Our café sessions remain as popular as ever, with an average in seventeen people attending on a monthly basis. These sessions have now moved in to the Town Hall rather than in the local Cloudhouse café. This has allowed the participants to seen the displays in the heritage centre and allowed the Community Archivist to more easily distribute more items for discussion.
The archive is continually planning for the future and the Trustees, led by Jessica Troughton in her role as Treasurer, have completed a Heritage Lottery bid for three years of funding for a project to renew the interpretation boards at the four oldest built heritage sites round the village and host creative historical workshops and booklets about the same.
We received a mini-grant from the Community Council and this has enable us to hire an IT consultant, Pe , to buy and install new IT equipment and revamp our website.
We would like to thank the members of the board for all the hard work they do, the volunteers who give up their time to keep the archive going but as always, the people of the Gala Water Valley for their support and of course their donations. Without those donations there would be no archive. We are conscious of the responsibility to store and display these donations to the best of our ability and will continue to do so for many years to come.
GWA AGM 2025, Chair’s Report, SCO52917
Gala Water Archive
Accounts for 2024 - 2025
The following information is a summary of the financial records for GWA for the year 06/04/24 to 05/04/25
BALANCE 06/04/24 £11,010.00
INCOME
EXPENDITURE
| Grants Friends Best Friends Merchandise Donations Café Donations Subtotal: |
£19,090.19 CA Salary £14,127.75 290.00 Hall Hire 718.80 625.00 I.T. 670.63 253.20 Stationery & Cleaning 357.34 130.75 Heritage Centre Display 535.92 294.12 Café Sessions 258.23 £20,683.26 £16,668.67 |
|---|---|
Total: Income: £31,693.26
Expenditure: £16,668.67
BALANCE at 06/04/25 £15,024.59
Reserved Funds:
| CA Salary: 7months & £1207.75: | £8,452.00 |
|---|---|
| Hall Hire, 6 months @ £108.30: | 649.80 |
| IT: laptop & support: | 84.35 |
| Heritage Centre: display & merchandise: | 805.11 |
| Walk leafets: 2 new walks and path upkeep: | 2,504.18 |
| Alistair Riddell Fund: Interpretation Boards: | ___878.03 |
| Total Reserved: | £13,373.47 |
| Unreserved Funds: | £1,651.12 |
GWA ANNUAL ACCOUNTS 06/04/24 to 05/04/25 —- DETAILS
INCOME
| Grants: Foundation Scotland - CASalary |
£14,490.00 |
|---|---|
| FS - ITequipment: Computer, TV& stand, media player, frames. | 754.98 |
| PofSCommunityCouncil- ProceedsfromJ book |
1,341.03 |
| PofS CommunityCouncil - Proceeds fromWalk leaflets | 2,504.18 |
| Friends: 49 old Friends, 9new Friends |
290.00 |
| 10 Best Friends - 5x £60 = £300. &5xSO = £55 per month |
625.00 |
| Merchandise: Books, Prints &Walk leaflets |
253.20 |
| Donations: from Archive, Heritage Centre, HC Opening |
130.75 |
| from Café Sessions | 294.12 |
| £20,683,26 | |
| EXPENDITURE | |
| Community Archivist Salary: 7months@ £1,155.75, 5 months@ £1,207.50 | £14,127.75 |
| Hall Hire:AGM £69 &7 months@ £108.30 forRooms 2&3, Heritage Centre | 718.80 |
| ITequipment: Computer, TV& stand, media player, frames, extension lead | 670.63 |
| Stationery: Ink, paper, card, cleaning materials, Christmas cards |
357.34 |
| Heritage Centre Display: picture rails, hooks, hanging kits, ephemera, | |
| card reader, openingwine, JBbooktoken |
539.92 |
| Café Sessions: 7 in Café, 3 in Townhall (café session donations £294.12) | 258.23 |
| £16,668,67 |
Balance: £15,024.59 in Bank: £14,751.77
Pettycash: £272.82
Financial Report 2024 – 2025
AGM 30th June 2025
Gala Water Archive has had a challenging year financially as we worked towards the creation of the Heritage Centre which has now been open for 8 months.
Our financial year begins on the 6th of April. The balance on 6th April 2024 was £11,010.00 which rose to £15,024.59 by April 2025. This denotes a profit of £4,014.59 which was an excellent starting point for managing our resources for this year. We were fortunate to receive a grant from the Parish of Stow community benefit fund (the windfarm) of £14,490.00 to pay our Consultant Archivist, as well as
£754.98 for equipment and IT costs. The Community Council also transferred to us the proceeds from
book about the Gala Water Valley and the proceeds from the walk leaflets, both of which will be used to fund future promotions and merchandise. Other income has been £915.00 from our 70 wonderful Friends; £625 of this came from our 10 Best Friends who generously donate every month rather than once a year. We also received donations from events and visitors to the archive and from our café session group.
Outgoings have been for the Consultant Archivist, hall hire, events such as the opening of the heritage centre, IT equipment and stationery and the café sessions for the year which cost us just £35.89 when donations were taken into account. We see these sessions as a vital and enjoyable part of our outreach work; the number attending has risen from an average of 15 each month to an average of 20. We now meet in the townhall every month which means our outgoings are considerably lower. We now have reserved funds of £1,300 for a year’s hire of the rooms and £1,340 for display cabinets and ephemera, all for the heritage centre. We are in the process of applying for a grant from the Heritage Lottery for maintaining the archive and heritage centre including a 3 year project to renew the information boards at our built heritage sites, as well as retaining the valuable services of our Consultant Archivist, .
I would like to thank all our Trustees for their support and advice particularly during the grant application process which has been challenging to say the least. We will now have to wait to see if the Heritage Lottery shares our belief that the Gala Water Valley has such an amazing history and cultural significance, with so much built heritage in existence which we need to share with locals and visitors alike.