Bury Broncos 2015/16Annual Reporting

Bury Broncos

Annual Reports2015/16

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Bury Broncos 2015/16Annual Reporting

Chair’s Report

All in all, I think it’s fair to say Bury Broncos can celebrate the end of a successful twelve months of rugby league since the last AGM.

We had the adult first and second teams facing testing seasons after both were promoted and both finished comfortably in mid-table – with the Bury Market sponsored first team giving Orrell St James a huge scare in the playoff semi-final (again!) whilst the second team were only 80 minutes away from a cup final. Both teams have kicked off this season with good performances, and although only the first team have picked up wins so far that is sure to soon change. On top of that our third team won the entry division league – an incredibly achievement in their first year, and retaining the title the second team won the year before.

A lot to be proud of as a team and individual achievements too – Blake Roberts went on tour with the North West Lionhearts as well as picking up awards for most points and most goals in division two last year. Andy Willis picked up a trophy for most goals in division four. And closer to home we were able to present the first Chris Seymour Memorial Clubperson of the Year award to Sean Trudgian – a lovely opportunity to reward a fine young man for his efforts in memory of a great man who gave a lot to the founding of the junior section of our club.

The junior section is incredibly important for us all, and we were extremely pleased to be able to strengthen further our links with the Red Devils Foundation in looking to build a greater foundation for the future. The presence of Salford players at the club on various occasions was a real lift, the Gus Risman award for sportsmanship given to the under 8s shows they’re being coached in the right ethos and the assistance given to our under 12s was fantastic in getting them back on their feet and they’ve started this season well. Everyone at the club appreciates the effort of those involved in those teams – Chris and Vicki Lewis, Andrew Walton, Steve O’Hagan, Paul Roche and numerous others. It’s especially great to see those involved in our adult teams showing such interest and support for these sides. There aren’t too many clubs that see young men like those putting so much in… and from knowing them I expect they appreciate not being singled out by name!

Unfortunately it hasn’t all been good news and despite incredible efforts from volunteers – notably Paul & Lesley Kynaston and Phil & Louise Quinn we’ve lost both our under 10s and under 18s sides for this season. This is a real shame, but we’ve not lost that expanding our offer for juniors and youth teams is incredibly important for the club and our aim to offer the opportunity to play rugby league for anyone in the borough that wants to try the sport. We’re working on plans to increase our presence in schools and increase our awareness, and we are buoyed by our under 7s who take part in their first joint training session tomorrow, and I’d like to thank Danny Kelly and Paul Kynaston (again) for all their help with that age group to date.

We will work as hard as we can to build interest enough to have more junior and youth teams join our ranks, and hopefully see those lost age groups return.

One of the biggest long term pieces secured over the past twelve months is the signing of a 10 year lease on the pavilion at Philips High School. Along with the support of a successful Crowdfunder project and assistance from Ideal Debt Solutions we’ve been able to make great strides in turning that into a sustainable clubhouse that is fit for purpose for our junior sides. There is still plenty to do over the next ten years, but this is a wonderful start and I call on people involved with the club to support our Engage with Your Club day – here we hope to repaint the building in club colours and make it really feel like a Broncos home. We ask that members please help where they can over the next few weeks and we will be finishing this work on July 2nd and we’ll make sure there’s enough food for all who can attend prior to our first team’s cup quarter final with Leigh Miners Rangers.

On improvements, we have a significant amount of monies ring-fenced in the club bank account to put toward improvements of our pitch thanks to Briggs & Stratton. Now the weather has turned more for the better we are hoping to be able to agree with the school when this investment can occur and find an alternate home pitch for our teams over that period. Again, the hope is that we can deliver a playing area which is more suitable to our needs as we continue and grow as a club.

This does not take away from the need for fundraising to be front of mind – investment on both the pitch and pavilion is not covered entirely by sponsorship and the paying of signing on fees, support of nights like these and other things such as the club lottery and buying of leisurewear all helps us to get bills paid, keep things running and continue to invest for the future. We’re also now in a position to be able to receive gift aid on donations to the club through the CASC tax scheme, so encourage those who would rather pay by direct debit to let us know so we can facilitate that and bring maximum value for all our members for the long term.

Talking of long term – this next 12 months sees the 120th anniversary of rugby league being played in Bury, and we’re looking to build a couple of events in and around this. Many of you will have already seen our commemorative kit which is being sold in a limited run for those interested in a bit of heritage, and others will have seen commemorative pennants which are being handed out when we play Wigan based clubs as it was Wigan who narrowly beat Radcliffe in the Challenge Cup of that 1896/97 season. Unfortunately Wigan Warriors have so far been lukewarm in supporting anything themselves, but we will drive forward some good occasions to mark this anniversary.

Lastly, I’d just quickly like to extend a huge thanks to the club’s volunteers for all their tireless work over the last twelve months. Notably it was an especially great season for Club Secretary Jean, who won Clubwoman of the Year 2015 and was a runner up in the Ladies of the League competition, and Dave Kelly who won Coach of the Year 2015. It was also a huge honour to be there to receive the Steve Prescott award for community engagement at the North West Rugby League awards dinner. All three of these awards show this to be a club that is still moving forward with great strides on the back of the work of some fantastic people, and this manifests in the great atmosphere that remains at this club.

Long may that continue!

Ryan Lewis,

Club Chair 2015/16

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Bury Broncos 2015/16Annual Reporting

Bury Broncos

Financial Report 2015/16

1 Executive Summary

1.1.0Members are advised that the financial year end has been amended to 31stMarch. The period covered within this report is from 1st February 2015 to 31st March 2016 (period of 14 months). The change of year end is to assist future accounts especially when taking into consideration the proposed application in respect of CASC (Community Amateur Sports Club).

1.1.12015/16 saw the club continue to have a strong stable junior section with a vast variety of age groups. Also a stronger and more established group of seniors, which enabled us to field 3 teams on one momentous day, one of the many reasons for obtaining the ‘Sir Steve Prescott’ award.

1.1.2As we have continued to grow as a club, this has been by far our biggest spending year, with still more expenditure to come. We have invested in new kits for 3 teams along with equipment, also designed our new Black and Gold kit which is to celebrate 120 years of Rugby League in the area.

1.1.3We started 2015/16 (using Feb 2015 – March 2016) with an in-bank balance of £9,365. We are ending the period with abalance of £10202. However, there are significant bills to be paid and some monies are ring fenced for specific items. Two important costs to be paid early in the 2016/17 financial year are the final stage of the Pavilion building costs at £1,900 and insurance fees at roughly £800 (awaiting final figure from RFL)

Balance (£) / Note:
Balance carried forward: / 9,365 / Cash in bank at end of January 2015
Total Income / 15,325 / Banked income over year
Total Outgoings via bank / -14,408 / Expenditure by cheques (Including all cheques
dated March 2016)
Balance / 10,202 / Operational balance

Known expenses April 2016 approximately £2700 thus reducing operational balance to £7502.Much of this money is ring-fenced for specific projects i.e. pitch improvements.

1.1.4In summary therefore, the growth of our ‘in-bank’ balances masks the actual need to grow our income more. As a club, we want to grow, so we need to keep raising funds. This year we have had quite a lot of help from Grants (Listed Below) which helped support projects such as renovating the Pavilion to potential pitch improvement.

1.1.5Therefore, the same messages as in previous years remains – please help source any sponsors, contribute to any fund-raising, and make sure you pay your membership fees/subs on time if a player, your contributions are very important to the club’s future.

2 Background

2.1Introduction

2.1.1This financial report was produced by James Tuckerman and includes some background on the clubs year on year financial trends, an explanation of the clubs financial operation, a position on key projects, and then the expenditure/income/balance position.

2.2Year on Year trends

2.2.1The financial position on a year on year basis has never seen huge growth. We are a club using our income to fund our expansion rather than banking reserves.

2.2.2The club has successfully grown finances on a year by year basis other than in 2011/12 into 2012/13 which was when we first launched junior sides. This reiterates the point that to grow we need cash to invest.

2.3Financial Operation

2.3.1The club bank account is with Lloyds Bank and is a specific ‘Treasurers Account’. Unfortunately, due to new committee members joining at the last AGM and the need to amend the mandate we have had a mass of problems accessing the clubs bank account this year. Hence, a significant proportion of transactions have been made by club officials on behalf of the club, with a need for them to be refunded at a later date. After nearly 12 months of problems it now appears that the banking arrangements are close to being sorted. Without the support of individuals effectively loaning the club money for several months the club could not have operated. It is hoped that this situation will not occur again. On a brighter note the club have benefitted from the compensation payments made to the club by the bank for the inconvenience caused.

2.3.2Income works in a similar way. Very few payments are made direct to the club bank-account and most payments to the club are in cash. This in part can be useful, as the cash holding allows immediate bills to be met. For example, match-day fees can directly pay for the referee that day. Residual cash is then deposited into the bank by club officials alongside funding from events, collection of fees/subs raffles etc. Individual teams (including juniors as well as adults) operate in a similar way often funding their own immediate costs (i.e. food costs) through their cash collection and then passing monies to a committee member for banking. However, steps have been introduced by committee members over the last 12 months to try and tighten the process with cash transactions in order that records of all such dealings can be recorded.

2.3.3As a small club, having flexibility is important, but as we grow we need to increase our discipline in how we record our finances, especially in light of the CASC application.

2.3.4We are currently going through the application stage of being registered as a Community Amateur Sports Club (CASC) which would allow us to claim ‘gift-aid’ on donations. Whilst we are still quite small compared to other clubs, ‘gift aid’ would be the main benefit for us to do this. This could be from either cash donations or online via ‘JustGiving’. The benefit would be for every £1 donated the Government give and extra 28 Pence. (It all adds up).

2.4Update on Grant Projects

Funding

2.4.1As stated earlier in the report this has been our biggest year with achieving successful grant applications. All the grants we have received in the 2015/16 year have all been designed for a particular cause, to help the club move forward in specific areas.

2.4.2With the expansion of Junior sides in 2015 Comic Relief provided a Grant which resulted in our fielding an u13s team this year. This required monitoring return paperwork and was submitted earlier this year demonstrating the success of the project. The information was accepted by Comic Relief and the project formally closed successfully without the Club suffering any claw-back.

2.4.3We were allocated monies from Satellite Clubs following a successful application, with the purpose of introducing new participants to the sport of rugby league. Although successful we are still awaiting the grant to be paid into the clubs bank account. This is something I will be chasing up so that we can take the work forward.

2.4.4Also to help the junior section we looked at bids to help the launch of the new U7s. Rugby League Cares kindly agreed to provide some funding. To date we have received £250 of this grant money and hope to secure a similar sum in the near future.

2.4.5Unfortunately, our bid for funding towards equipment/furnishings for the pavilion was unsuccessful. It is hoped that members will assist in raising funds.

Upgrading Facilities

2.4.6As stated at the previous AGM our biggest project for the 15/16 year was always going to be the development of the Pavilion. The purpose was to create a home for the Bury Broncos (subject to a new lease). When the new lease was approved we started to put money received from specific grants and fundraising to good use by starting Phase 1 ‘internal wall removal/kitchen added’. We were originally quoted £7,600 for this work, due to a couple of extras and more durable flooring, total cost amounted up to £9,500. This does not include the decorating as this has been undertaken by very generous members and volunteers, along with some kindly donated fixtures and fittings.Phase 2 ‘roof repairs’ has yet to get underway as we are still weighing up options and the best time for this to be started. This is still way under one of our original quotes of £21,000. All this required considerable fund-raising, Bury Council provided a £1,000 grant and £4,600 was raised through a Crowd-funding campaign.Phase 1 is now well underway with just the cosmetics to finalise and it is hoped that members will assist over the coming months.

2.4.7We also have plans to improve the pitch situation. In order to raise funds, we entered a ‘Pitch to Win’ competition, fortunately (we won) but also unfortunately (we had the worst pitch). We were shortlisted amongst three other teams, of which we came first, and were awarded £3,000 plus £500 also was promised towards pitch improvements in recognition of our secretary’s voluntary work for the club. The debate is still ongoing as to when the improvements will take place, either during closed season or near the end of season when we will be required to find alternative pitches to play on.

Potential Growth Projects

2.4.8This year we have investigated the possibility of running a ladies team, by supporting the campaign I Will If You Will (IWIYW). The idea of the campaign is to encourage female participation in exercise and furthering this into taking up a sport and joining a club.Two representatives from our club took part. We shall take this further by requesting funding in order to provide kits, equipment and promotional advertising

2.4.9We are also looking at the potential of setting up a Masters team for those over 35 and looking to wind down from the physicality of the sport, as well as investing in the future of the club by introducing an Under 15s.These are both on the agenda and we will be working closely together for the best possible outcome for the club.

2.4.10The cost of setting up new teams and developing the club does involve costs that many do not appreciate. As a club we rely on volunteers giving their time and efforts on a regular basis, it is therefore only right that we ensure that the cost of any training sessions they attend are paid for by the club. The cost of coaching courses, first aid etc are among the costs we as a club need to cover. We sometimes obtain grants towards these costs but provision needs to be made from our regular activities in order to assist.