The Trustees of TS5C present their report and financial statements for the period ending March 31st 2017

Officers

Chairman   Alan Gloak MBE

Treasurer Mike Curtis

Secretary Philip Butcher

Trustees

Alan Gloak MBE

Mike Curtis

Sally Whittaker

Philip Butcher

Bridget Parker MBE

Venetia Caine

Colin Johnson

Day to Day Management

Alan Gloak MBE

Mike Curtis

Philip Butcher

Statement of Trustee’s Responsibilities

The trustees are responsible for the financial statement in accordance with accepted for law and regulations.

The trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records which disclose with a reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and for taking reasonable steps to prevent fraud and other irregularities

Objects of the charity 

1 The promotion of amateur sport within the county of Somerset for the public benefit in particular by providing and encouraging young people, including those with disabilities, who are resident in or training in the county 

2 The relief of sickness and preservation of good health among people resident in Somerset by promoting involvement in sport as a means to achieve a more active and healthy lifestyle. 

Structure of TS5C

Responsibility for the strategic management of the charity, policy making, and monitoring of its work is the responsibility of the trustees, all of whom are volunteers.

Financial Report

This has been formally audited and can be viewed as a separate page of this report.

Chairman’s Report

After the success of the 2012 London Games nobody envisaged the further success of Team GB at the Rio games. We decided to concentrate our efforts since 2012 on supporting young athletes who had a serious chance of joining Team England at the 2016 Rio Games and were very pleased to see Cameron Kurle as part of Team GB. However, there were other athletes who only missed out due to the strength of Team GB, so we have high hopes for them at the 2018 Commonwealth games. Our commitment to Wheelchair Basketball Plus clubs around the county is ongoing as continuing our support for young disabled athletes. We have sponsored for the years 2015, 2016 and 2017 the special Olympic swimming gala. We also encourage clubs and other groups to make applications to Somerset Community Foundation for grant funding from our Healthy Living Legacy fund.

Whilst only two named athletes, Ed Ling and Lucy Schuker, whom we had supported, were competitors in the London Games, at Rio we were able to add Cameron Kurle. We also cannot forget the other 120 plus young people who have benefited from grants which we have been able to give since our formation in 2007. (We became a charity in 2011).  These young people worked hard to achieve their results, and whilst not all of them are now full-time athletes the benefits they received and achieved will stay with them.

Our work carries on; we now have new young record breakers. Charlie Attwood, still breaking records in the swimming pool and chased by Brodie Williams and of course Cameron. Jacob Greenow is fast chasing them. Then there is Charlie Cook, Jessica Hudson, both under 15 but giving everyone in their class a run for their money. We must not forget the two Jamie’s, Harris sailing and Edwards now being tutored by David Weir no less as a wheelchair sprint racer and also now with international qualification. Please see our web site   www.TS5C.org  These other young people are only a small cross-section of those we are helping. The success of the London

Games and Rio has greatly increased the number of young athletes seeking our help. 

Wheelchair Basketball Plus project. Frome is up and running now. Meanwhile 10 chairs from Yeovil have gone to Glastonbury St. Dunstan’s school, also Strode College have started a club sharing Glastonbury’s chairs. This was never going to be an instant turn up and go scheme.  We did not wish to rush it - it is better that we take it slowly and make it last, than rush and it collapses.  We also want to be able to evaluate the effect that the project has on the young people and are looking to engage either a technical college or university to carry out the evaluation for us. The Yeovil club goes from strength to strength.

In 2015, we sponsored for the first time the swimming gala at Yeovil for The Somerset Special Olympics, and were happy to do so again in 2016. This is a connection we are very happy to continue. 

We have continued to support projects in the county via The Healthy Living Legacy Fund, which is administered on our behalf by Somerset Community Foundation. This has a current capital endowment fund of approximately £75,000. We have given grants to South Somerset Disability Forum, Minehead Cricket Club and Taunton Asthmatic Swimming Club, helped build a Trim Trail at Strode College Street and helped with a disadvantage families group. We have other projects now in the pipeline. This is an area which we are still developing and more work needs to be done to publicise its existence.

Also, in conjunction with SASP (Somerset Activity and Sports Partnership) we again are supporting the Young Sports Achiever of the Year award. Our winners for 2016 were Jamie Edwards and Cameron Kurle. The prize night for 2017 will take place on June 16th at the Taunton Rugby Club.

Our board of 7 Trustees, one of whom - Bridget Parker -  is an Olympic Gold Medal holder, meet formally twice a year to consider applications for grant funding.  We have a system that two trustees may make grants, subject to funds being available, to applications in the interim. We are also helped by external advisors such as Jen Slade and Alex from SASP.  When required, other experts in their field are approached for help and advice.

In the past year, we have given grants of over £13,360.00, but we need to double our income if we wish to continue to support the young athletes who are already in training and those who are knocking at our door seeking help.

We hear much about Government initiatives, but none seem to filter down to charities such as ours, and, as I have said on more than one occasion, help seems to be concentrated around the golden triangle of London and the South East of England.  Somerset only has one 50m pool and that is at Millfield, a private educational establishment who are unstinting in their help to all Somerset students in and out of the pool. The same can be said for many schools in the private sector in Somerset.  We need the help of our supporters even more now than in the past. Our fund-raising must and will continue.

We have continued to make grants from the legacy fund we set up in 2007. This Healthy Living fund is open to any organisation in Somerset. The fund will support a broad range of activities that promote healthy lifestyles through amateur sport, physical exercise and improved diets.

We wish to be involved with projects that improve the health of children and young families, and particularly in reducing levels of child obesity, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy and anti-social behaviour. Our work in this will be reviewed on an annual basis.  Grants will not be made to support individuals. This fund was set up at the direct request of the Minister for Sport in 2007 and we are, to our knowledge, the only dedicated Healthy Living Legacy fund in the SW and possibly in the UK, apart from a few local councils.   

No report can be worth anything without a very big Thank You to our supporters and donors and trustees. Team Somerset, now TS5C, would not have been able to achieve anything without their help.

But where do we go from here?  This is the report of the chairman and I have already intimated earlier that we are receiving requests for help to enable our young athletes to compete in the Commonwealth games in 2018.  Many of our young rising stars will start to peak for 2020 in Tokyo and beyond. I hope that what we started in 2007 will be there to help in 2020 and even after that. It will if we are able to continue to raise funds.

In previous reports I said “The cost of training, specialist equipment and attending competitions are daunting for any family, yet essential if a young person is to achieve their full potential in their chosen sport. TS5C grants make an important contribution in meeting these costs. We hope that many young people we support now will inspire future generations, at a time when there is widespread concern around obesity in children and adults, anti-social behaviour and increasingly stressful lifestyles, community based sport and healthy living initiatives have an important, long term role to improve the quality of life for many ordinary people “. TS5C will I hope be there.