Principal activities of the company

The charity seeks to distribute donated materials to provide or assist in the provision of facilities for recreation, education and other leisure time activities for children and adults in Dorset including Bournemouth and Poole so that their education and social welfare is advanced. The charity further seeks to advance education particularly in connection with the reuse of scrap and waste materials so as to protect the environment.

Political and charitable donations

Thanks to the Valentine Trust for donating £5000 and our community for raising over £500 we were able to buy a newer and more reliable van in March 2025.

Additional information

OBJECTIVESAND ACTIVITIES The charity seeks to distribute donated materials to provide or assist in the provision of facilities for recreation, education and other leisure time activities for children and adults in Dorset including Bournemouth and Poole so that their education and social welfare is advanced. The charity further seeks to advance education particularly in connection with the reuse of scrap and waste materials so as to protect the environment. ACHIEVEMENTS AND PERFORMANCE FINANCIALREVIEW A Key Performance Indicator for Dorset Scrapstore is the size of our membership base. Members are the beneficiaries of our charity; getting access to cheap recycled material for arts, crafting and creative projects that would otherwise have gone to landfill, and access to education and skills workshops and events. Membership The membership of Dorset Scrapstore has remained stable at around 1500. However, the number of people benefitting from Dorset Scrapstore is much greater. We estimate that 4,000 people benefit from our service each year. Some extracts from Google reviews: Utterly incredible and a gorgeous resource we are so lucky to have They have a lot of things there, some things are to go in baskets and others you must pay little amounts in comparison to retail prices. However, you can only buy goods from them if you pay a yearly subscription fee of £5, which I didn’t mind because the items I was going to buy would have cost me 5 times more from the retail shop. The people working there are friendly and chatty and you can spend a good two hours looking around. Definitely a place to go and visit if you want to buy arts and crafts, bulk buy on carpets, wrapping paper and cellophane, boxes and electrical cable. See you soon ladies and thank you for your assistance. The go to place if you are a crafter or have kids that like to make stuff, wonderful to see things going to good use rather than be dumped in landfill. Prices are fantastic and staff so helpful, grateful to the person who told me about this place - check the opening hours before heading off but well worth a visit. Oh wow, what a fantastic idea! A brilliant concept. Loads of stuff for every project. Unbelievable prices and membership. Fab. Volunteers Dorset Scrapstore has a firm base of long standing volunteers. We pride ourselves in having volunteers from a very diverse section of society with varied backgrounds, skills and experience. For many years we have offered work experience placements to students with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities from Poole and Bournemouth College. They visit once per week for two hours throughout term time with a tutor. Throughout the year, we have provided over 100 work experience hours. The students enjoy coming to the store, we love having them here and they do some excellent work for us helping to sort things. We have a reliable team of four volunteers who provide fortnightly workshops for home educated children. At the start of the year we were half way through a trial year of having a volunteer co-ordinator, funded by a National Lottery Awards for All Grant. The funding ended in August 2024 and we have not continued the role, the volunteers have continued to be co-ordinated by staff in the store. Throughout the year we have continually had 11-12 individual volunteers in the store each month, contributing over 2000 shop volunteer hours throughout the year. Workshops Our volunteer run workshops for home educated children go from strength to strength. We run fortnightly sessions with two groups each with 12 children. The sessions are always fully booked and we have a waiting list. Giving children and young people the opportunity to gain Arts Awards qualifications has been very popular within the home educated community. It gives them the opportunity to work towards a nationally recognised qualification. Feedback received from the home education sessions: It’s a brilliant course that my children have thoroughly enjoyed and learnt a great deal. Materials are all ideal, covers not only the art elements of the course but teaches thinking differently about everyday items, and with a little imagination the ability to re-use and recycle in such an amazing way. Content is only limited by the time available! Never a dull moment and so much is covered. If I had to offer a suggestion for improvement to content then perhaps more classes so more children, and adults, could attend. Arts Awards Qualifications In August 2022, Dorset Scrapstore became an Arts Award Centre. At that time we had one volunteer who set up the centre and could help children with the two basic levels of the award Discover and Explore. By the end of this financial year, we had two assessors at the basic level, one of which could also deliver and assess the Bronze and Silver level, 16 children had completed the Discover, 9 had completed Explore and 8 were working towards the Bronze level. In future we would like to expand our provision of the Arts Awards to include children not attending our workshops either home educated or in school. However, this requires grant funding as we currently rely solely on volunteers to provide these services. Dorset Scrapstore Van Thanks to the Valentine Trust for donating £5000 and our community for raising over £500 we were able to buy a newer and more reliable van in March 2025. PLANS FOR FUTURE PERIODS Looking towards the 2025-26 financial year, we have a few things planned. We know that attending external events helps increase the profile and bring people into Dorset Scrapstore. We are planning to apply for a grant for an event coordinator as this would take the pressure off our relatively small team of volunteers who organise and attend our external events. As mentioned above, we will be looking to secure funding to extend the provision of our children’s workshops and Arts Awards.

This report was approved by the board of directors on 17 December 2025
and signed on behalf of the board by:

Name: Carolyn Corr
Status: Director