Principal activities of the company

Context and purpose Oakbrook Orchard is a volunteer run company in the process of establishing a new orchard at Oakbrook Farm, with the intention of operating a Community Supported Agriculture system to supply a seasonal share of locally grown fruit to local people. The land we farm is community owned and a public footpath runs through the field where our trees are planted. The project was started by Jessie in 2019, operating as a sole trader from 2020 onwards. Oakbrook Orchard was registered as a CIC in early January 2024, with Jessie as the sole registered director. All the assets of the sole trader business were transferred to the CIC when it was formed. Leigh and Hester were invited to become directors soon after the company was formed, and started attending meetings in May 2024. They each formally registered as directors in January 2025. The stated aim of Oakbrook Orchard Community Interest Company is to benefit the community by producing food and flowers with and for local people, using agroecological methods. Activity, successes and challenges This year we have planted and guarded an additional 70 trees in the orchard, bringing the total number of trees in the orchard to around 175, close to our ultimate planned total of 200 trees. It has been very satisfying, as well as convenient, to be able to use trees that we have grafted ourselves in our onsite nursery to extend the orchard. We have continued to run monthly volunteer work parties to carry out seasonal tasks including mowing, mulching, pruning, planting and guarding trees. Thanks to collaboration with landlord Oakbrook Community Farm and co-tenant Stroud Micro Dairy, we were able to erect single strand steel wire fencing around each tree row to protect the trees from grazing cattle. We started using a new form of tree guard of our own design, which offers benefits both in terms of easier maintenance and cost savings. We did not have enough labour to care for the trees as well as we would have liked, and some trees suffered from vole damage to their bark. However, we only lost one or two trees over the year. Some of our volunteers are now gaining in skills and experience, meaning that we can be more productive and effective with the limited labour available. We also benefited from a regular volunteer tree planting group from Stroud Valleys Project who visited us for a day and helped to plant at least 20 of the additional trees put in during the year. As in previous years, we ran a seasonal daffodil share for a few weeks in the spring. This turned out to be quite stressful; in the wet spring the daffodils suffered unprecedented slug damage and some of the bulbs planted the previous year just didn’t come up. We were grateful for the support and understanding from our customers and experienced first hand the benefits of a Community Supported Agriculture system. Thanks to funding from the Tree Council, secured in collaboration with Oakbrook Farm and our co-tenants, we were able to run two scything workshops during the summer, and purchase additional scythes for use by our volunteer team. Tree Council funding also covered the costs of some tree guards used during the year. More tools, including the scythes, and some proper wooden hay rakes purchased this year, meant that we could work more effectively and or host more volunteers. As well as the scything workshops and monthly work parties, we ran a free and well received farm tour as part of the national Agroforestry Open Weekend. We also held our first ever public wassail event in early January 2025, which was very well attended. We hope to make this an annual event. Despite some hopeful signs, we still did not have a written lease with Oakbrook Farm. Whilst this does potentially leave us vulnerable, and we do want to secure a written lease, our relationship with the farm and other tenants remains positive, and as a result of not having a lease, we do currently benefit from not paying any rent. We continued to be fully biodynamic and organic certified by the BDA, under the umbrella of Oakbrook Farm.

Additional information

Financial Review - Commentary to the accounts Summary The assets and liabilities of the previous sole trader operation were transferred to the CIC when it was registered. This included £0.00 cash, approximately 225 fruit trees, receivable income of £7400 from Countryside Stewardship, and a loan of £800 from Jessie. During the year we received a total of £8794.65 in grants and sales income. Our total expenditure, on materials, tools, fees and publicity was £2531.16. We repaid the loan of £800 to Jessie. Our closing balance was cash in the bank £5463.50, with assets (trees) now valued at £3675.00, and a liability for Corporation Tax of £1190.06. Income Our bank account was opened using money from the Countryside Stewardship scheme, passed on to us by Oakbrook Community Benefit Society, our landlord. This money was awarded to retrospectively cover the costs of tree guards for fruit trees planted and guarded in the orchard in 2023, and which had been funded by the sole trader operation before the CIC was registered. Through a collaboration with Oakbrook Community Benefit Society, we also received some grant funding from The Tree Council, which covered the costs of a tutor to deliver two subsidised scything workshops, purchase of additional scythes for use by volunteers in the orchard and some materials for constructing tree guards. The other income during the year comprised payment for seasonal daffodil subscriptions from a number of local customers, and contributions towards the costs of the scything workshops from workshop participants. Expenditure Our main costs in 2024 were purchase of materials and tools, plus some contractor fees. Contractor fees allowed us to pay an experienced tutor to deliver two scything workshops during the summer, and a local farmer to deliver woodchip mulch from the farm gate out to the tree rows. Materials purchased were primarily chestnut posts and cactus tree guards, to construct guards for additional trees planted during the year. We strategically bought enough guards and posts to complete the entire current planned planting in the orchard, which will continue into 2025 and possibly 2026. Tools bought were scythes and rakes, which are used by volunteers for managing the grass and wildflowers within the tree rows, and to mulch the trees. Other minimal costs were printing fliers and posters, web hosting, and online events listings, all promoting the orchard and orchard events. We were not charged any rent during the year. Loans, debts and liabilities We started the year with £800 of debt to Jessie. During the year this loan was fully repaid. We believe we owe £1190.06 in Corporation Tax. There were no other debts or liabilities. Assets Our only non-cash tangible asset is the trees in the ground. All of these trees were already owned by the business when we registered as a CIC. We have valued these at an approximate replacement cost of £20/tree in the field, and £3.50/rootstock in the nursery. This gives us a total value of £3675.00. Future Plans We plan to continue running monthly volunteer work parties at the orchard, caring for the trees and land. We hope that we might have our first harvest in 2025, which is likely to be of a scale that it can be distributed among volunteers. We want to complete the orchard planting within the next two years, bringing the total number of trees in the orchard to around 200. We aim to erect a temporary structure in the field to provide tool storage, and shelter from the elements for volunteers. This will significantly increase efficiency as we will no longer need to walk so far to our tool store, and make volunteering more attractive, especially to those who are less physically resilient. In the longer term we will need more permanent structures to allow for storage of tools, storage of fruit and a collection point for customers to pick up their seasonal fruit shares. We will continue to work towards having a formal lease in place with Oakbrook Community Benefit Society, our landlord, to secure the future of the orchard. This of course will also mean that we need to start paying rent. We aim to have a more robust financial plan in place over the next year, to account for rental payments, purchase of a shed, administrative costs and investment in more tools. At the end of 2024 there were negotiations underway about the future use of the orchard field. The wide alleys between our trees had been grazed by Stroud MicroDairy, which had gone into administration, and new tenants were arriving. The biggest of these is Stroud Community Agriculture, who are now starting to grow field scale vegetables on the land. This presents a significant change to the land use between the tree rows and and in late 2024 and early 2025 we were in negotiations with them about how to share the space to make it as workable as possible for everyone.

This report was approved by the board of directors on 4 October 2025
and signed on behalf of the board by:

Name: Jessie Marcham
Status: Director