Hospital Radio Colchester (Charity Registration No. 1053331)
Trustees' Annual Report for the year ended 31st December 2005
March 2006
Forward
This report has been compiled in accordance with the provisions of Section 23 of the Charities Act 1992 and the Statement of Recommended Practice (Accounting by Charities) October 2000.
This report has been prepared on behalf of the Management Committee (The Trustees) by the Hon Secretary and Treasurer. The report has been agreed by the Management Committee (The Trustees) for submission to, and adoption by, the Annual General Meeting of members on Tuesday 21st March 2006.
Legal & Administrative Information
1. The name and address of the Charity is Hospital Radio Colchester, Hospital Radio Studios, Wilson Marriage Centre, Barrack Street, Colchester, Essex. C01 2LR.
2. The governing instrument of the Charity is its Constitution, as amended at the AGM on 29th May 1998. The Management Committee are the Managing Trustees.
3. The names of the Managing Trustees who served during 2005 are as follows.
Mrs Christine Bennett (Chair)
Mr Mark Roberts (Vice Chair)
Mr Kevin Biggs (Treasurer)
Mr Andy Patrick (Secretary)
Mr David Morgan (Fund Raising Officer)
Mr William Street (OPC) - until 29th March 2005
Mr Andrew Thompson (Publicity Officer)
Mr Trevor Richards (Membership Secretary)
Mr Brian Dawson (Chief Hospital Visitor) - until 29th March 2005
Mrs Penney McAvoy (Chief Hospital Visitor) - from Sept 2005
New trustees are elected annually by the general membership for a term of 1 year.
The Charity operates 2 bank accounts. Current account at Barclays Bank, High Street, Colchester and a CAFCASH charity account with the Charity Aids Foundation, West Malling, Kent.
The Independent examiner of the Charities accounts for the 2005 financial year is Mr Peter Patrick.
Narrative Information
4. Objects
In accordance with the Objects of the Charity specified in the Constitution, Hospital Radio Colchester provides a local radio service for patients in the Colchester General and Essex County Hospitals.
5. Policy
Hospital Radio Colchester has continued its policy of operating and managing the radio service and the facilities at the Studios, within its financial resources.
6. Organisation
Hospital Radio Colchester is organised as follows.
i) The AGM elects 4 Officers (Chairman, Vice Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer) and 6 other members to fulfil specific roles (Overall Programme Coordinator, Chief Engineer, Membership Secretary, Chief Hospital Visitor, Publicity Officer and Fund Raising Chairman). The Officers and the other members make up the Management Committee, which administers the management of the service.
ii) Team Leaders are appointed by the Management Committee to organise teams of presenters on weekly broadcast teams.
iii) The Management Committee appoints Sub-Committees/Working Parties, as appropriate.
7. Membership
Hospital Radio Colchester is staffed entirely by volunteers who present programmes, visit the hospitals and take part in fund raising activities.
Review of Activities - 2005
8. General Review
The trustees are pleased to report as follows.
a. Programmes
Hospital Radio Colchester continued to broadcast a 24-hour schedule during the year. Our core programmes are still produced “live” on weekday evenings between 6pm and 10pm and on Sunday mornings. With the addition of live football commentary these live programmes account for approx. 27hrs per week. Our automation service takes care of the rest of the time with a mixture of pre-recorded programmes, produced both in-house and external, and we have seen an increase of locally produced programmes in the schedule.
As part of the automated schedule we introduced the “Request Rewind” programme which repeats the previous days request show at noon the following day, this has proved to be very popular.
The request programme remains Hospital Radio Colchester’s flagship programme and during the year we have continued our focus to ensure we cover all wards at least once per week. This has resulted in an increase in the number of requests collected and as a result a likewise increase in the popularity of our service.
We have continued our focus on creating and maintaining a consistent and appropriate programme schedule across the week and publicising the upcoming programmes during our automated output.
b. Membership:
Membership of the service during 2005 increased slightly with an average of approx. 48 members involved with programming, fundraising and hospital visiting. Focus has also been placed on recruiting additional commentators for Layer Road.
A new membership process was implemented early in 2005. The new process aims to speed up the overall process and reduce the number of people who join, only to leave again shortly after. This new process has proved to be very successful with a very low turnover rate of new members. We do however have an increasing situation that we have more volunteers waiting to join than we have been able to place onto teams. During 2006 we will look to change this and work with Team Leaders to find vacancies within their teams to accept new members.
c. Fundraising:
Fund raising activities during 2005 continued to raise the majority of Hospital Radio Colchester’s annual running costs. Our biggest event, the annual Fun Day held on 30th May on Castle Park was severely affected by very poor weather which resulted in reduced attendance. In addition increased costs for the event meant we saw a reduced profit for the event which raised just under £1800 compared to over £4000 the previous year. Despite the weather more than 3000 people attended the event and enjoyed live music, arena events, charity stalls and children’s fun fair.
Other successful fund raising activities during the year included Catering for the Firework Display in Castle Park on 5th November, raising just over £800, and the HRC Roadshow unit, which raised over £1200. During the year major repairs were made to the Roadshow unit and it remains a consistent source of income. The 2005 Smile! Magazine produced a donation of £2900.
d. Patientline:
Early in 2005 the final 2 wards at the Colchester General Hospital were fitted with new Patientline terminals ensuring that every suitable bed now has an individual bedside entertainment unit so that patients can listen to radio and TV in high quality via headphones rather than by using the old air tube system. They also have the benefit of a personal telephone.
HRC’s programmes are broadcast to the hospitals via a high quality radio link between our studio’s at the Wilson Marriage Centre and both the Colchester General and Essex County Hospital sites. This link replaces the old BT land lines which were terminated during the early part of 2005.
For most of the year Hospital Radio Colchester programmes were broadcast on channel 6 of the Patientline system, however during November this was changed to channel 45 and then to Channel 1 which meant that HRC became the “default” radio channel.
We continue to receive and publish periodic listening figures from Patientline detailing the number of people tuning in. As a result of the extra emphasis on request programmes & other programmes we have seen a continued improvement in our listening figures throughout the year with HRC becoming the 2nd most listened to radio station.
We always suspected that the figures recorded for the most popular station (Radio 1) were slightly misleading due to the “default channel” effect, with the change in channel line up at the end of the year HRC became the most listened to radio service with an average of 200 hours per day compared to 115hrs the previous year. This figure is likely to increase over the next year and improves even further when we broadcast live programmes from the wards / hospital. It reduces when we are not able to visit the wards.
Patientline themselves have had some internal issues during 2005 which saw them the subject of an OFCOM investigation into the costs of phone services, despite thus our relationship with Patientline staff based at the General Hospital has continued to be good despite and we hold regular formal and informal meetings with the Manager and members of the team.
e. Hospital Trust / CGH Accommodation:
Relationships with the Management at the Essex Rivers Healthcare Trust continued to prosper during 2005 with regular review meetings. Sadly our main contact at the Trust, Elizabeth Stalley passed away during the year. Elizabeth was a great supporter of our service and her staff have continued to champion our cause and as a result HRC continues to have a very high profile within the Trust.
The Essex Rivers NHS Trust PFI project to centralise all acute services onto one site (Colchester General) continued to make significant progress during the year with the selected contractor AMEC setting up offices on-site to define the final design of the new hospital and all the services to be included, including HRC.
Building work was expected to have started during 2005 with a staged implementation starting in 2007, however due to external influences building work has not yet started and it is unclear when building work will start. HRC continues to work with the Trust to secure our accommodation in the scheme.
The Management Committee believe that being located on the main hospital site will bring significant benefits to the service and are committed to making it happen as soon as possible. The amount set aside towards relocation costs has been increased to £15000.
f. Public Relations:
During 2005 we have aimed to improve both our internal and external communications and publicity. A new Smile! Magazine was produced for patients, updated flash screens were added to the Patientline system, new posters in the hospital and an internal “e-newsletter” was started with 2 issues being published. In addition regular “management updates” were introduced along with best practice sheets aimed at providing guidance to members.
HRC’s web site (www.hrcolchester.co.uk) has been updated and continues to be a popular way for people to get in touch, both to volunteer and to request for a record to be played for a friend or relative whilst in hospital. We have received requests from as far away as America and Australia.
g. Organisation Structure:
Due to unforeseen circumstances the work to revise the roles & responsibilities and structure of the charity did not progress as planned during the year. We remain committed to this project to ensure that the organisation remains effective.
Work has already resumed to complete this work and we anticipate recommendations in the first half of 2006.
g. Obituaries:
Sadly 2005 saw the loss of 2 great stalwarts of the service. In January our Chief Engineer Ray Jennings passed away following a long illness. Ray had been a leading member of the service for more than 30 years during which time he had built 2 new studios, organised the annual Fun/Gala Day and taken on the role of Membership Secretary. In December 2005 our Vice President Reg Casbolt passed away. Reg was a founder member of the service and held several posts, including Secretary and Vice Chairman. Both Ray and Reg contributed significantly to HRC over the years and will be missed.
9. Financial Review
The audited statement of accounts and the auditor’s formal report for the year ending 31st December 2005 is attached at the end of this report. Salient features of the accounts are as follows.
9.1 General Appraisal
Cash balances held by Hospital Radio Colchester increased to £29,910.29 at the end of 2005. This was due to a surplus of £4562.81 on Income over Expenditure for the year.
The purchase of a new PC, radio microphone and various items to improve transmissions from layer road, contributed to an increase in equipment assets of £1,224.17, which together with equipment depreciation costs for 2005 of £2,689.09 saw the considered value of our equipment assets fall by £1,464.92 to £8,067.27. The overall effect of the cash surplus and the decrease in equipment assets is an increase of £3,097.89 in our net worth.
Net Assets of Hospital Radio Colchester (monetary and equipment) is £37,977.56.
9.2 Income
Donations during 2005 were £3,398.00, a useful increase on the £2,545.00 generated in 2004. A contribution of £2,888 was received from the Smile Magazine, up from £1,650 in 2004. The other major donations received in 2005 were £350 from the Colchester Fire Swim and £100 received from a listener/patient at CGH.
Fund-raising. Net Income from internal fund-raising activities during 2005 raised a total of £3,803.62 compared to £5,947.27 the previous year. Our main event, the HRC Fun Day on May 30th, raised £1,775.58, a significant decrease from £4,006.19 in 2004. Poor weather on the day caused takings to be low in all areas with gate receipts down to £1,543.80, from £3,015.00 in 2004, even though the price of admission for adults was raised by 50p to £1.50. The cost of event insurance for the day at £650 being another factor that raised expenditure and reduced profit. Bonfire night catering on November 5th raised £813.04, a decrease on the £928.31 raised in 2004. Income from Roadshows was £1,215.22, an increase on the £1,034.22 accounted for in 2004.
Bank Interest in 2005 of £750.07 showed an increase on the figure of £633.61 from the previous year and reflects the fact that bank interest rates stayed fairly consistent throughout the year and that the amount held on deposit increased by just over £10,000.00.
In the first quarter of 2005, a refund of £1,930.85 was received from BT as a result of the cancellation of the landlines used to transmit programmes to the hospitals. Membership fees in 2005 showed a welcome increase to £618 up from £468 in 2004. Sundry Income raised total income for 2005 to £12,799.18 compared to £11,516.42 in 2004.
9.3 Expenditure
Total expenditure for 2005 was £8,236.37, a decrease of £3,814.68 on the total spent in 2004 of £12,051.05. This included BT line rental of £493.50 (£1,704.92), accommodation costs of £1,591.45 (£1,410.76) and total fund-raising expenses of £2,290.64 (£1,892.99).
Studio maintenance costs for 2005 decreased to £526.50 from £948.31 in 2004. This included the cost of recovery and repairs to the Roadshow caravan of £217.38 and the hire of a crane to install a new ariel for £129.25.
The cost of the studio phone increased to £518.53 in 2005 from £247.31 in 2004. This increase is largely due to the installation and rental costs of an additional line. The figure shown includes the cost of the freephone service, which amounted to £18.74 (£17.36).
A total of £1,239.17 was spent on studio and general studio items and equipment, compared to £5,004.73 in 2004. The majority of this amount was spent on the purchase of a new PC for a cost of £398.33, a new radio microphone for £348.62 and various items to upgrade the equipment used at Layer Road for a cost of £231.04. As previously stated this meant that £1,224.17 was added to the value of equipment assets.
Insurance costs for 2005, excluding the premium paid for event insurance for the Fun Day which as previously mentioned is shown as a Fun Day cost, increased to £409.50 from £167 in 2004. The cost for 2005 is for a 12 month period where as the premium for 2004 was for a six month period only.
Licence fees of £630.81 were paid in 2005, up from £377.50 in 2004, this includes the cost of a TV licence at £121, a licence fee paid to IRN of £117.50, £172 paid to JFMG for a Radio Link licence and the sum of £220.31 paid to PPL for the use of sound recordings.
Other expenditure in 2005 includes £250.63 for the setup and subscription of the Plusnet internet service, £32.75 spent on new CD’s, and £159.11 (£134.45) on administration.
9.4 Reserve Funds
HRC operates a contingency fund currently set at £7,000, to cover core expenses for 1 year. In addition there is currently also a reserve fund of £15,000 in respect of the move to the hospital.
10. Prospects for 2006
The Trustees feel that after another successful year Hospital Radio Colchester remains in a very strong financial position for the year 2006 and beyond. However we cannot be complacent and need to ensure we have the right structure and policies in place in order to continue to provide a beneficial service for patients.
During 2006 we will continue to focus on making sure we operate consistently and in accordance with the policies which have been agreed and implemented over the past couple of years. We need to ensure that we provide a unique service to our listeners, one that they want to listen to and take part in. To this end extending patient request shows and patient-interactive programmes will remain a primary objective of the service. In addition we will continually monitor the results of both patient surveys and listening statistics from Patientline to ensure we are providing a “complete” service to our listeners.
To support the growth in patient focused programmes continued focus will be put into recruiting and placing new members onto the service with hospital visiting being a core responsibility of all new members. Our members are our most important asset and we will continue to route out the various skills that already exist within our membership and put them to good use in supporting the running of the organisation.
Another key area of continued focus for 2006 will be the planning for our move to the General Hospital. With the formal launch of the project we will progress with the specific design and layout of the new studios, equipment requirements and moving costs etc. Although we are unlikely to move before 2008 it is imperative that we plan the move well and ensure we have adequate funds available.
We will continue to work closely with the hospital authorities to ensure that Hospital Radio Colchester is recognised as an integral part of the hospitals services.
11. Approval by Management Committee
This report was submitted to and approved by the Management Committee (the Trustees) on Friday 17th March 2006 for submission to the Annual General Meeting of Hospital Radio Colchester on Tuesday 21st March 2006.
Signed on behalf of the Management Committee:
C. Bennett (Chairman)
M. Roberts (Vice Chairman / Station Manager)
Trustees' Annual Report for the year ended 31st December 2005
March 2006
Forward
This report has been compiled in accordance with the provisions of Section 23 of the Charities Act 1992 and the Statement of Recommended Practice (Accounting by Charities) October 2000.
This report has been prepared on behalf of the Management Committee (The Trustees) by the Hon Secretary and Treasurer. The report has been agreed by the Management Committee (The Trustees) for submission to, and adoption by, the Annual General Meeting of members on Tuesday 21st March 2006.
Legal & Administrative Information
1. The name and address of the Charity is Hospital Radio Colchester, Hospital Radio Studios, Wilson Marriage Centre, Barrack Street, Colchester, Essex. C01 2LR.
2. The governing instrument of the Charity is its Constitution, as amended at the AGM on 29th May 1998. The Management Committee are the Managing Trustees.
3. The names of the Managing Trustees who served during 2005 are as follows.
Mrs Christine Bennett (Chair)
Mr Mark Roberts (Vice Chair)
Mr Kevin Biggs (Treasurer)
Mr Andy Patrick (Secretary)
Mr David Morgan (Fund Raising Officer)
Mr William Street (OPC) - until 29th March 2005
Mr Andrew Thompson (Publicity Officer)
Mr Trevor Richards (Membership Secretary)
Mr Brian Dawson (Chief Hospital Visitor) - until 29th March 2005
Mrs Penney McAvoy (Chief Hospital Visitor) - from Sept 2005
New trustees are elected annually by the general membership for a term of 1 year.
The Charity operates 2 bank accounts. Current account at Barclays Bank, High Street, Colchester and a CAFCASH charity account with the Charity Aids Foundation, West Malling, Kent.
The Independent examiner of the Charities accounts for the 2005 financial year is Mr Peter Patrick.
Narrative Information
4. Objects
In accordance with the Objects of the Charity specified in the Constitution, Hospital Radio Colchester provides a local radio service for patients in the Colchester General and Essex County Hospitals.
5. Policy
Hospital Radio Colchester has continued its policy of operating and managing the radio service and the facilities at the Studios, within its financial resources.
6. Organisation
Hospital Radio Colchester is organised as follows.
i) The AGM elects 4 Officers (Chairman, Vice Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer) and 6 other members to fulfil specific roles (Overall Programme Coordinator, Chief Engineer, Membership Secretary, Chief Hospital Visitor, Publicity Officer and Fund Raising Chairman). The Officers and the other members make up the Management Committee, which administers the management of the service.
ii) Team Leaders are appointed by the Management Committee to organise teams of presenters on weekly broadcast teams.
iii) The Management Committee appoints Sub-Committees/Working Parties, as appropriate.
7. Membership
Hospital Radio Colchester is staffed entirely by volunteers who present programmes, visit the hospitals and take part in fund raising activities.
Review of Activities - 2005
8. General Review
The trustees are pleased to report as follows.
a. Programmes
Hospital Radio Colchester continued to broadcast a 24-hour schedule during the year. Our core programmes are still produced “live” on weekday evenings between 6pm and 10pm and on Sunday mornings. With the addition of live football commentary these live programmes account for approx. 27hrs per week. Our automation service takes care of the rest of the time with a mixture of pre-recorded programmes, produced both in-house and external, and we have seen an increase of locally produced programmes in the schedule.
As part of the automated schedule we introduced the “Request Rewind” programme which repeats the previous days request show at noon the following day, this has proved to be very popular.
The request programme remains Hospital Radio Colchester’s flagship programme and during the year we have continued our focus to ensure we cover all wards at least once per week. This has resulted in an increase in the number of requests collected and as a result a likewise increase in the popularity of our service.
We have continued our focus on creating and maintaining a consistent and appropriate programme schedule across the week and publicising the upcoming programmes during our automated output.
b. Membership:
Membership of the service during 2005 increased slightly with an average of approx. 48 members involved with programming, fundraising and hospital visiting. Focus has also been placed on recruiting additional commentators for Layer Road.
A new membership process was implemented early in 2005. The new process aims to speed up the overall process and reduce the number of people who join, only to leave again shortly after. This new process has proved to be very successful with a very low turnover rate of new members. We do however have an increasing situation that we have more volunteers waiting to join than we have been able to place onto teams. During 2006 we will look to change this and work with Team Leaders to find vacancies within their teams to accept new members.
c. Fundraising:
Fund raising activities during 2005 continued to raise the majority of Hospital Radio Colchester’s annual running costs. Our biggest event, the annual Fun Day held on 30th May on Castle Park was severely affected by very poor weather which resulted in reduced attendance. In addition increased costs for the event meant we saw a reduced profit for the event which raised just under £1800 compared to over £4000 the previous year. Despite the weather more than 3000 people attended the event and enjoyed live music, arena events, charity stalls and children’s fun fair.
Other successful fund raising activities during the year included Catering for the Firework Display in Castle Park on 5th November, raising just over £800, and the HRC Roadshow unit, which raised over £1200. During the year major repairs were made to the Roadshow unit and it remains a consistent source of income. The 2005 Smile! Magazine produced a donation of £2900.
d. Patientline:
Early in 2005 the final 2 wards at the Colchester General Hospital were fitted with new Patientline terminals ensuring that every suitable bed now has an individual bedside entertainment unit so that patients can listen to radio and TV in high quality via headphones rather than by using the old air tube system. They also have the benefit of a personal telephone.
HRC’s programmes are broadcast to the hospitals via a high quality radio link between our studio’s at the Wilson Marriage Centre and both the Colchester General and Essex County Hospital sites. This link replaces the old BT land lines which were terminated during the early part of 2005.
For most of the year Hospital Radio Colchester programmes were broadcast on channel 6 of the Patientline system, however during November this was changed to channel 45 and then to Channel 1 which meant that HRC became the “default” radio channel.
We continue to receive and publish periodic listening figures from Patientline detailing the number of people tuning in. As a result of the extra emphasis on request programmes & other programmes we have seen a continued improvement in our listening figures throughout the year with HRC becoming the 2nd most listened to radio station.
We always suspected that the figures recorded for the most popular station (Radio 1) were slightly misleading due to the “default channel” effect, with the change in channel line up at the end of the year HRC became the most listened to radio service with an average of 200 hours per day compared to 115hrs the previous year. This figure is likely to increase over the next year and improves even further when we broadcast live programmes from the wards / hospital. It reduces when we are not able to visit the wards.
Patientline themselves have had some internal issues during 2005 which saw them the subject of an OFCOM investigation into the costs of phone services, despite thus our relationship with Patientline staff based at the General Hospital has continued to be good despite and we hold regular formal and informal meetings with the Manager and members of the team.
e. Hospital Trust / CGH Accommodation:
Relationships with the Management at the Essex Rivers Healthcare Trust continued to prosper during 2005 with regular review meetings. Sadly our main contact at the Trust, Elizabeth Stalley passed away during the year. Elizabeth was a great supporter of our service and her staff have continued to champion our cause and as a result HRC continues to have a very high profile within the Trust.
The Essex Rivers NHS Trust PFI project to centralise all acute services onto one site (Colchester General) continued to make significant progress during the year with the selected contractor AMEC setting up offices on-site to define the final design of the new hospital and all the services to be included, including HRC.
Building work was expected to have started during 2005 with a staged implementation starting in 2007, however due to external influences building work has not yet started and it is unclear when building work will start. HRC continues to work with the Trust to secure our accommodation in the scheme.
The Management Committee believe that being located on the main hospital site will bring significant benefits to the service and are committed to making it happen as soon as possible. The amount set aside towards relocation costs has been increased to £15000.
f. Public Relations:
During 2005 we have aimed to improve both our internal and external communications and publicity. A new Smile! Magazine was produced for patients, updated flash screens were added to the Patientline system, new posters in the hospital and an internal “e-newsletter” was started with 2 issues being published. In addition regular “management updates” were introduced along with best practice sheets aimed at providing guidance to members.
HRC’s web site (www.hrcolchester.co.uk) has been updated and continues to be a popular way for people to get in touch, both to volunteer and to request for a record to be played for a friend or relative whilst in hospital. We have received requests from as far away as America and Australia.
g. Organisation Structure:
Due to unforeseen circumstances the work to revise the roles & responsibilities and structure of the charity did not progress as planned during the year. We remain committed to this project to ensure that the organisation remains effective.
Work has already resumed to complete this work and we anticipate recommendations in the first half of 2006.
g. Obituaries:
Sadly 2005 saw the loss of 2 great stalwarts of the service. In January our Chief Engineer Ray Jennings passed away following a long illness. Ray had been a leading member of the service for more than 30 years during which time he had built 2 new studios, organised the annual Fun/Gala Day and taken on the role of Membership Secretary. In December 2005 our Vice President Reg Casbolt passed away. Reg was a founder member of the service and held several posts, including Secretary and Vice Chairman. Both Ray and Reg contributed significantly to HRC over the years and will be missed.
9. Financial Review
The audited statement of accounts and the auditor’s formal report for the year ending 31st December 2005 is attached at the end of this report. Salient features of the accounts are as follows.
9.1 General Appraisal
Cash balances held by Hospital Radio Colchester increased to £29,910.29 at the end of 2005. This was due to a surplus of £4562.81 on Income over Expenditure for the year.
The purchase of a new PC, radio microphone and various items to improve transmissions from layer road, contributed to an increase in equipment assets of £1,224.17, which together with equipment depreciation costs for 2005 of £2,689.09 saw the considered value of our equipment assets fall by £1,464.92 to £8,067.27. The overall effect of the cash surplus and the decrease in equipment assets is an increase of £3,097.89 in our net worth.
Net Assets of Hospital Radio Colchester (monetary and equipment) is £37,977.56.
9.2 Income
Donations during 2005 were £3,398.00, a useful increase on the £2,545.00 generated in 2004. A contribution of £2,888 was received from the Smile Magazine, up from £1,650 in 2004. The other major donations received in 2005 were £350 from the Colchester Fire Swim and £100 received from a listener/patient at CGH.
Fund-raising. Net Income from internal fund-raising activities during 2005 raised a total of £3,803.62 compared to £5,947.27 the previous year. Our main event, the HRC Fun Day on May 30th, raised £1,775.58, a significant decrease from £4,006.19 in 2004. Poor weather on the day caused takings to be low in all areas with gate receipts down to £1,543.80, from £3,015.00 in 2004, even though the price of admission for adults was raised by 50p to £1.50. The cost of event insurance for the day at £650 being another factor that raised expenditure and reduced profit. Bonfire night catering on November 5th raised £813.04, a decrease on the £928.31 raised in 2004. Income from Roadshows was £1,215.22, an increase on the £1,034.22 accounted for in 2004.
Bank Interest in 2005 of £750.07 showed an increase on the figure of £633.61 from the previous year and reflects the fact that bank interest rates stayed fairly consistent throughout the year and that the amount held on deposit increased by just over £10,000.00.
In the first quarter of 2005, a refund of £1,930.85 was received from BT as a result of the cancellation of the landlines used to transmit programmes to the hospitals. Membership fees in 2005 showed a welcome increase to £618 up from £468 in 2004. Sundry Income raised total income for 2005 to £12,799.18 compared to £11,516.42 in 2004.
9.3 Expenditure
Total expenditure for 2005 was £8,236.37, a decrease of £3,814.68 on the total spent in 2004 of £12,051.05. This included BT line rental of £493.50 (£1,704.92), accommodation costs of £1,591.45 (£1,410.76) and total fund-raising expenses of £2,290.64 (£1,892.99).
Studio maintenance costs for 2005 decreased to £526.50 from £948.31 in 2004. This included the cost of recovery and repairs to the Roadshow caravan of £217.38 and the hire of a crane to install a new ariel for £129.25.
The cost of the studio phone increased to £518.53 in 2005 from £247.31 in 2004. This increase is largely due to the installation and rental costs of an additional line. The figure shown includes the cost of the freephone service, which amounted to £18.74 (£17.36).
A total of £1,239.17 was spent on studio and general studio items and equipment, compared to £5,004.73 in 2004. The majority of this amount was spent on the purchase of a new PC for a cost of £398.33, a new radio microphone for £348.62 and various items to upgrade the equipment used at Layer Road for a cost of £231.04. As previously stated this meant that £1,224.17 was added to the value of equipment assets.
Insurance costs for 2005, excluding the premium paid for event insurance for the Fun Day which as previously mentioned is shown as a Fun Day cost, increased to £409.50 from £167 in 2004. The cost for 2005 is for a 12 month period where as the premium for 2004 was for a six month period only.
Licence fees of £630.81 were paid in 2005, up from £377.50 in 2004, this includes the cost of a TV licence at £121, a licence fee paid to IRN of £117.50, £172 paid to JFMG for a Radio Link licence and the sum of £220.31 paid to PPL for the use of sound recordings.
Other expenditure in 2005 includes £250.63 for the setup and subscription of the Plusnet internet service, £32.75 spent on new CD’s, and £159.11 (£134.45) on administration.
9.4 Reserve Funds
HRC operates a contingency fund currently set at £7,000, to cover core expenses for 1 year. In addition there is currently also a reserve fund of £15,000 in respect of the move to the hospital.
10. Prospects for 2006
The Trustees feel that after another successful year Hospital Radio Colchester remains in a very strong financial position for the year 2006 and beyond. However we cannot be complacent and need to ensure we have the right structure and policies in place in order to continue to provide a beneficial service for patients.
During 2006 we will continue to focus on making sure we operate consistently and in accordance with the policies which have been agreed and implemented over the past couple of years. We need to ensure that we provide a unique service to our listeners, one that they want to listen to and take part in. To this end extending patient request shows and patient-interactive programmes will remain a primary objective of the service. In addition we will continually monitor the results of both patient surveys and listening statistics from Patientline to ensure we are providing a “complete” service to our listeners.
To support the growth in patient focused programmes continued focus will be put into recruiting and placing new members onto the service with hospital visiting being a core responsibility of all new members. Our members are our most important asset and we will continue to route out the various skills that already exist within our membership and put them to good use in supporting the running of the organisation.
Another key area of continued focus for 2006 will be the planning for our move to the General Hospital. With the formal launch of the project we will progress with the specific design and layout of the new studios, equipment requirements and moving costs etc. Although we are unlikely to move before 2008 it is imperative that we plan the move well and ensure we have adequate funds available.
We will continue to work closely with the hospital authorities to ensure that Hospital Radio Colchester is recognised as an integral part of the hospitals services.
11. Approval by Management Committee
This report was submitted to and approved by the Management Committee (the Trustees) on Friday 17th March 2006 for submission to the Annual General Meeting of Hospital Radio Colchester on Tuesday 21st March 2006.
Signed on behalf of the Management Committee:
C. Bennett (Chairman)
M. Roberts (Vice Chairman / Station Manager)
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
