Long Ashton Community Association Annual Report April 2017 to March 2018

Trustees Report

The objective of the Charity is to manage and maintain the Community Centre and Recreation Grounds on behalf of the Parish Council for the benefit of the inhabitants of Long Ashton, operating under the terms of a 28 year lease from the Parish Council, dated December 1999. Its aims are to provide good quality facilities at an affordable cost to voluntary organisations serving the community as well as other groups and individuals. Trustees meet monthly at the Community Centre. Two Trustees resigned in December 2017 as their appointments reached termination or renewal. Thanks go to Pat Preston who served for four years. Judy Bridges had served as a Trustee for a few years before spending the last sixteen years as Chairman. Her expertise is greatly missed and the Trustees thank her for her dedication to the Association. Two new Trustees came forward but there is still one vacancy to complete our complement of nine.

The Trustees are grateful to the staff who in various ways support the Centre Manager in striving to maintain the high standards of the management of the complex. We were sorry when Ken Harris, one of the caretakers for very many years, resigned through ill health and subsequently passed away.

The facilities are used by a number of groups, classes and local businesses, including art classes, pre-school groups, exercise classes, local history, martial arts groups, local sports clubs and the Parish Council. In addition the facilities are booked on a regular basis for cultural celebrations, an annual Flower Show and LA Cinema. Peel Park is maintained by contractors and provides a well used space for recreation including, during winter, Junior Football teams.

Two visual additions to the exterior of the building occurred during the year. The Youth Club carried out a Graffiti Project on the west wall of the Club Room depicting some of the history of Long Ashton and a plaque has been sited to the left of the front door informing that the Village Hall is a War Memorial.

Looking forward, a group of Friends of LACA together with the Manager and Trustees is devising an exciting programme of events for July 2019 to celebrate 60 years since the hall was built.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

Trustee’s Report ............................ 1

Current User Groups ..................... 2

Manager’s Report .......................... 2

Treasurer’s Report ........................ 3

Grants received ............................. 3

LA Cafe .......................................... 4

Coming Soon ................................. 4

SURVEY RESULTS

LACA undertook its first ever survey

in the last year and here we have some

of the results fed back to us:

• Of those who responded, 66%

visit at least once a month and

43% visit once a week

• Over 93% of those who had

booked facilities believed that the

cost to book was either

reasonable or very reasonable

• Most people find out about what

is going on at the Centre via word

of mouth, signage and Facebook.

• Over 80% of respondents had

visited LA Café with over 75%

rating the café 7 out of 10 or

higher.

• Over 96% of respondents said

that the Centre generally

provided good value for money

Welcome to our first ever AGM newsletter report.

We hope you enjoy reading it and that you might be encouraged to attend

our AGM on Tuesday, 18th September at 7.30pm in the Jubilee Pavilion. If you

have any particular questions, do let us know in advance so that we can come

prepared to answer them.

MANAGER’S REPORT

Having now been in post for ten years

it is great to look back on the last year

and see that the Centre has not

become stagnant but continues to

move forward with new projects and

activities. There is often a full (and

sometimes overflowing!) car park of a

morning and evening and on some

days LA Café is packed out with cus-

tomers.

In the last year our events pro-

gramme has expanded, we have been

successful in three grant applications

and whilst we have lost some user

groups we have continued to attract

new ones. We try to maintain our

halls to a high standard and I am sup-

ported by an excellent staff team who

help me with this.

We are very grateful to Norman

Gover and the Little Tipple for

hosting a wine tasting event here in

October that raised over £1500 for

LACA. In addition, members of the

Badminton Club organised the 5th LA

Beer and Cider Festival raising a

record sum of over £1400. Our first

ever LA Fest (music festival) took

place in early December and we plan

on repeating this in November 2018.

Oooh Arrr Productions are now a

regular provider of affordable family

entertainment and have brought us

pantos, shows and a Disney disco.

And finally, we hosted our first ever

Bingo Night when thankfully the

heavy snow did not detract people

from turning up on the night.

Our current list of user groups is

alongside this report. As you can see,

the variety of groups is amazing and

four of them are new for this

September—Gravity Cheerleading,

Clubbercise, Bristol Karate Academy

and Rainbow May Dance. As ever,

for details of all of these please see

our website:

www.longashtoncommunitycentre.

org

Thanks to Alice, my superb assistant,

the website has been completely over-

hauled in the last year and is

definitely worth a visit if you haven’t

had a look at it before. There is a

wealth of well presented information

on all that goes on here. In addition,

you can now book and pay online for

most LACA events via the website.

CURRENT USER GROUPS

Art Club

Art Classes

Avon Guild of Spinners and Weavers

Beats Dance

Badminton Club

Boogie Bop

Bowling Club including Short Mat

Card Making

Clubbercise

Dance

Fit2Drop

FitSteps

Football Club

Gravity Cheerleading

Junior Football Club

Kung Fu

LA Cafe

LA Cinema

LAILA (Long Ashton Independent Ladies

Group)

LA Parent and Toddler Group

Legion Club

Local History

Little Kickers

Music with Mummy

Ninjutsu

Parish Council

Pilates

Probus

Rainbow May Dance

Rugby Tots

Samba Drumming

Singing Tree

Spanish Classes

Soccer Shooters

Taekwondo

TaiChi

Tennis Club

Tra La

Village Market

WI

Yoga

Youth Club

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TREASURER’S REPORT

Being one of the newer trustees, having been appointed as treasurer of LACA in March 2017, my time has been spent on looking at the historic accounts and working with the centre manager, other trustees and meeting with the Parish Council and some of the users , so that I could gain a clearer idea of historic, current and future issues that would impact the financial governance and viability of Long Ashton Community Centre.

Based on these various interactions, LACA have made some changes to how our income and costs are reported, particularly for grant funding and expenditure for the reserves we hold for longer term maintenance of the facilities (Tennis, Playground, Equipment Renewal and Planned Maintenance), and specific one-off grants. While this might impact historic comparison’s, we believe this is the right approach and will benefit LACA, funders and users alike to have a better understanding of the accounts produced for the Community Centre.

In addition to the accounts, reviewed below, several other key activities have been under-taken over the financial year April 2017 – March 2018.

1. Updated Capital and Maintenance Plan (2018 to 2026)

2. 3 Year Financial Plan

3. Review of other community centres following comments raised during the last AGM (summer 2017)

4. A look at external funding opportunities and the start of work on the Garfield Weston 60th Anniversary Fund application.

Accounts for Year Ending 31st March 2018

The accounts for the year show a profit of just over £18k (2017 profit of £2k). This has been driven by Events income after costs of £5k (2017 nil), LA Café income after costs £7k (2017 £3k) and Rents received £76k (2017 £71k).

While we have experienced some cost increases, notably the removal of 100% rates relief from North Somerset Council (£2k) and extending the hours of the Centre Manager’s Assistant, the main costs (excluding LA Cafe, Grant and Capital Expenditure) increased by just under £5k in the year to £101k. This is shown in the graphs below.

While the overall costs have increased the % split of expenditure is very similar for the last two financial years.

A detailed analysis of the accounts for the year ending 31st March 2018 can be found in the Annual report.

I would like to thank the Centre Manager for taking up a great deal of her time over the last year and acknowledge that the success of the Long Ashton Community Centre is down to the hard work of all the staff, volunteers, funders and users who provide a vibrant place for the community to come together.

GRANTS RECEIVED

The main grant LACA receives is from the Parish Council, which goes towards supporting our operational costs, maintenance of Peel Park and reserves to support longer term maintenance of the facilities. In total LACA received £37,494 from the Parish Council for the year ending 31st March 2018.

On top of this grant, LACA has been in receipt of three other grants for specific projects in the year ending 31st March 2018.

Through Quartet Community Foundation we received a grant of £4145 to carry out a feasibility study for a potential new garden, develop a garden plan for the area around the Club Room and start a pilot garden project. Jason Loh was employed to take this on and designed an extensive and varied garden for us. Alongside this a new gardening team planted up a stretch of ground between two pathways alongside the Club Room. This same team have continued to maintain this area throughout the year.

We are currently looking at the design of the Club Room and envisage any future alterations to this would also encompass some of the changes suggested by Jason to the outside area.

Low Carbon Gordano kindly gave us a grant of £3475 to change our lighting in the Village Hall, Club Room and Jubilee Pavilion to LEDs. These not only save us money by using less energy, but also require less maintenance. As a result, we are doing our bit to reduce carbon emissions (alongside our solar panels).

Finally, we received a grant from the Co-Op Community Fund for a new Spinner in the playground area.

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Caption describing picture or graphic

COMING SOON!

2018

Saturday, 29th September

LONG ASHTON BEER & CIDER FESTIVAL

Friday, 12th October

GREEK EVENING IN LA CAFE

Saturday, 3rd November

JACK AND THE BEAN-STALK

Saturday, 24th November

LA FEST (music festival)

2019

Saturday, 2nd February

QUIZ Night

Saturday, 30th March

LAugh COMEDY NIGHT

Sunday, 7th July

PIRATES OF PORTISHEAD

Sat 13th / Sun 14th July

60th ANNIVERSARY OF

THE VILLAGE HALL

CELEBRATIONS

LONG ASHTON

COMMUNITY

CENTRE—LOOKING

FORWARD

So far this year we have:

• Secured planning permission

to extend the Club Room

• Submitted a funding applica-

tion to support a £150K

extension to the Club Room

• Employed a Manager to

oversee LA Café

• Carried out initial work on

utilisation rates

• Taken on a 1 week placement

as part of Erasmus—an EU

funded scheme

In addition we plan to:

• Work on a business plan and

strategy

• Once this has been done

decide to change our status

to a CIO (Charitable

Incorporated Organisation)

LA CAFE

L A Café has continued to provide a well-supported, popular and much needed space within the village for people of all ages to meet and enjoy a drink, including a full range of coffee options, and a wide choice of home-made cakes, soups and light lunches.

Many people come to the café before/after attending classes in the Community Centre, others to meet friends and some specific groups meet within the café space [see box on right]. Two massage therapists work on Wednesday and Friday from the small room within the café. Some of the regular customers include the bakers from Step and Stone [a community interest company work-ing with young people with learning disabilities] who run their business from the village hall kitchen. We feel an important function of the Café is to provide somewhere where individuals can come, whether it be looking for company or just to find a different space and know they will be welcomed by staff and other customers alike.

There are obvious limitations to providing a café in a room that is a shared space with the need to set up and clear away all the equipment everyday but despite this the profits have continued to increase to a total of £7000 over the year. The café is managed in a voluntary capacity with a group of enthusiastic volunteers

supporting one paid member of staff each day. All profits go directly back into helping to run the Community Centre facilities for the benefit of all the residents of Long Ashton.

This year we have introduced a monthly Cream Tea, an adult only event which has proved very popular. Table tennis was introduced in Keeds Hall adjoining the Café on the Satur-day afternoon of the Village Market Day when the Café remains open until 4pm.

Discussions started at the beginning of 2018 with a view to employing a manager to develop the Café even further.

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Groups and activities that happen within LA Café

Monday

Knit and Natter

North Somerset Health Walks

Wednesday

LAMBS (Long Ashton Mother and

Baby Social)

Massage

Bridge

Friday

Friday Friendship Group

Massage