The Trustees present their annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2025.
The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the accounting policies set out in note 1 to the financial statements and comply with the Church's trust deed, the Companies Act 2006 and "Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2019)".
The vision statement of the Church - We believe that God has called us to be a Church that raises the next generation.
To achieve this end the Church is engaged in numerous activities from Sunday worship to weekday meetings catering for all ages. The Church has also undertaken several stepstone events to appeal directly to those outside the immediate membership, some of these in conjunction with other churches within Brighton. The ongoing caring for all connected with Holland Road remains a high priority.
The Trustees have paid due regard to guidance issued by the Charity Commission in deciding what activities the Church should undertake.
Overview of 2025
God has continued to be gracious to us as a church, throughout 2025, blessing us in all kinds of ways, and helping us in our vision for “Every generation to be raising the next generation”, particularly helping them to follow Jesus.
Throughout the year, we have continued to gather Sunday by Sunday. For the first half of the year, we were reflecting on the Beatitudes and then on the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. In the second half of the year, we focused on the first part of the book of Acts.
In June, we had a great church weekend away, at Dalesdown, where young and old connected together with food, games, bible teaching and prayer. There were new people there for the first time, and those who had been at the church for decades. It was a wonderful “extended family” time.
We appointed 3 new elders, who have been a great blessing. In the second half of the year, we took on one Intern with a particular focus on students, which, as the new academic year began, led to a great number of students connecting.
We had 2 amazing gift days, which exceeded our budget expectations. The rest of this report outlines many different ways the lives of all different ages have been impacted through the work of the church. One wonderful example to note at this point has been the 13 baptisms we had spread at different points throughout the year. A reminder of how God changes lives as people discover the love of God and the hope that there is in Jesus Christ.
The Social Action Team
The team continued to offer hope and practical help to people in our City in 2025. The main priorities continued to
be:
1. To serve those experiencing or in danger of being homeless
The Monday Lunch Club continues to occur virtually every Monday from 12-1 p.m. every week throughout the year. This is a place of true community. It is also a vehicle to provide practical help, such as signposting to other agencies, including our own CAP centre, as well as a source of grant applications, e.g., Acts 435.
The team also provides donations of small furniture items and kitchenalia to clients of St Mungo's Housing Led and Justlife moving into new accommodation.
We continue to offer our site/spaces to frontline charities working with the homeless and people with no recourse to public funds. For example, CGL Smart meetings take place in the hall every Thursday and Voices In Exile regularly uses a room to support refugees and those seeking the right to remain.
2. To help address food poverty
The church continues to be an emergency food (and household items) source. This is a non-refer/ in case of need service.
We also now host the Hove Food Hub, an affordable food project with a £5 a week membership fee on a Friday
3. Collaboration
The Social Action Team continues to seek to work with other churches and organisations in the City that try to support those in need by sharing best practices and resources to avoid unnecessary duplication.
The team continues to be active in the support of Christian Action Brighton (CAB)
https://www.christianactionbrighton.org.uk/.
We remain financial supporters of Street Support https://streettsupport.net/brighton-and-hove/.
For regular updates on the ongoing work of the practical team, you can join the dedicated Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/practicalteam.
Children’s Work Report - 2025
Sundays
Holland Road Kids continues to run on Sundays alongside the service and we have averaged 25-30 children coming along in Primary School. We continue to offer the Early Years Room for ages 2-4, and have had about 6-9 children coming along. We also have the Family Room open for those with children under 2 years old to watch the service and have tea and coffee in a more relaxed setting with toys. We have also taken the opportunity mostly in the summer or school holidays to run a Family Space in the hall, which is available for parents to continue to watch the livestream of the service, along with their children, in a more relaxed environment when we aren’t running official children’s activities.
Primary School
Holiday Club
We ran Pyramid Rock during the February half term on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and Sunday, with over 80 children attending on each day (bar the Sunday with about 30 children). We had an amazing team of volunteers, with all ages and generations helping to serve. We had about 50 people attend the lunch after the Sunday service, and then we had a few new families come along to church and The Hub in the weeks following the Holiday Club.
The Hub
We relaunched our afterschool club in January 2025 as we had great enthusiasm and support from the team. Our numbers started off low, but increased slowly as the year went by, helped by big events such as a Pancake Party that we ran on Pancake Day with 60 people attending, and also from the Holiday Club.
Year 5+6 Activities
We run some of these special activities for the older primary school children to help them build and strengthen their relationships with each other and the leaders, including a residential weekend in October to Lodge Hill.
Light Party
We ran a Light Party for children in Primary School as an alternative to Halloween on 30th October. We had about 30 children attend this event, again a reduction in numbers from previous years and one to think about for next year’s planning.
Kids’ Christmas Choir
We offered a Sunday afternoon session for children to learn the song that they would sing at our Candlelight Service. We had 15 children as part of the choir this year, as well as some youth helpers.
Under 5s
Fledglings
We continued to run our Toddler Group, which is in its 4th year. It’s proven to be a popular group and has on average 15-20 families attending each week, with some regulars and also some new people each time. We don’t really have to advertise as people tend to hear about it via word of mouth, invites from friends or via social media.
Messy Easter and Messy Christmas
We ran two special events especially for parents with children under 5, which allowed them to engage with the Easter and Christmas stories in an interactive way. We offer a variety of crafts and activities, a chance to hear the real Easter and Christmas story, and we always provide food at the end. These are very popular and we always have a good amount of people coming along.
All ages/Family events
Family Easter Trail
We ran a new event on Easter Saturday, 19th April, as a way to engage families with the real Easter story. We made it as part of our Easter weekend events. We had 40 people come along to this event; many who were not known to us previously. We had a great team and the trail was run in the local area and we offered a cafe in the church hall afterwards.
Christmas Pantomime
We invited back Duggie Dug Dug to run his Nativity Delivery show as a way of engaging families with the Christmas story and the church. We had over 150 people sign up for this event, and we even had a group from Care for Calais come along as a special treat for their refugee families. This was a great way to engage with the community at Christmas time.
Youth
Youth Sundays
We offer a varied programme for the youth on a Sunday morning, which includes an interactive adult-led session in the red room, a Bible study for older youth or those wanting to go deeper, having input into the ‘Next Gen panel’, serving on a team and staying in the main service. Some youth tend to be registered on the door, so this year I have started tracking attendance of Youth Sundays and Youth at Church to account for those who are in the building but not in the red room session. We ran a Youth Sunday session during 29 services, and the average attendance recorded for Youth Sunday in 2025 was 13.
We started tracking numbers of youth who were at church but not at Youth Sunday in May, and the average number for 2025 was 5. This means that on average, 18 young people are engaging with church life on any given Sunday morning.
A number of young people serve across a variety of teams, the numbers are shown below. There are some overlaps where the same person serves on multiple teams.
Band: 3
Early Years: 5
Communion: 1
Kids: 8
HRY (Young leaders): 5
Production: 1
Sunday morning refreshments: 5
We had 4 team members initially serving the young people on Sundays during 2025, which increased in the Autumn term to 10, which includes 3 who were designated to the ‘Going Deeper’ studies.
We followed the sermon series all year. 2 young people were baptised in 2025.
HRY
We ran 32 Youth Thursday sessions, with an average attendance of 14 young people each week. We began the year with the Alpha Youth course, which had very high attendance and was a fantastic experience of witnessing to over 30 different young people about Jesus and the Christian life.
In September we started ‘Small Groups’, with 4 groups set up to meet in homes on a HRY night at least once per term. We continued to attend The Gathering, and the youth band led worship in October.
The team included 6 regular leaders for much of the year, and 4 young leaders, which increased to 5 in the Autumn term.
Summer Camp
This year, we attended May Camp over the May half term bank holiday. A team of 5 leaders took 12 young people, some for the whole weekend and some for day visits. It was a positive experience for all, with some powerful moments of group prayer and vulnerability.
Older Youth
This year we have instigated a regular ‘Going Deeper’ Bible study, which is aimed at those in year 10 and above, although year 9s who feel mature in their faith have also been coming along. It is supported by 3 adult leaders, but the intention is for the young people to prepare and lead the study themselves. Youth mentors are well placed to help the preparation stages.
We also began a Young Leaders training programme, with a once-monthly lunch followed by the Young Leaders Essentials course from Youthscape. As many as 7 young people came to this, but 5 were particularly regular.
Youth Band
The youth band has continued throughout 2025. The young people wrote a song for the Holiday Club and have led worship at prayer night.
This meets every other week and contains 4 young people who have grown in skill and unity as they worship together. One of the young leaders took ownership of the youth band in September 2025, proposing ideas for development and growing in leadership of the band.
Mentoring
19 young people were in mentoring relationships with various church members during this year. Mentors meet either 1 to 1 or with a couple of young people every 4-6 weeks to chat, pray and study the Bible together.
Training
I attended a national youth training weekend with another youth worker from the city, and completed a course in Christian Theology in Outline with Cliff College.
Wider Youth Events
We attended The Gathering, run by Bishop Hannington, three times over 2025, once per term. This is a gathering of around 100 young people from youth groups and churches across the city and includes social time, games, worship and a preach.
2025 was a year of faithful giving, praying and going. Our World Gift day in May saw an amazing £53466.03 being given, from this, we were able to give gifts to the emergency response efforts in Myanmar, Gaza and Jamaica as well as organisations such as Open Doors (supporting persecuted Christians around the world) and Tearfund (supporting the poorest of the poor in many places).
World Mission 2025
We continued to pray with, and for, our partners in various contexts and countries as they reached out to those around them with the good news of Jesus. In January two of our leaders spoke at a pastors’ conference in Ethiopia and in April our Thrive interns visited partners in North Africa and joined a 50 hour prayer time focussed on the region, and in December a team of two made a pastoral visit to our partners in France.
There was a deficit on the unrestricted funds for the year of £72,911 before transfers (2024: deficit of £13,019). The balance in the unrestricted fund is £948,738 (2024: £1,021,649).
The majority of the Church's funds are invested in land and buildings, which are utilised to carry out the Church's purposes. It is the policy of the Church to accumulate only an adequate level of cash and readily accessible reserves deemed sufficient to meet likely and unexpected capital expenditure needs. The Church has specifically set aside the sum of £85,000 as a reserve. Subject to any donor's wishes, restricted funds are generally held to meet specific purposes or capital projects.
The majority of monies are invested in deposit accounts with recognised financial institutions. The Church seeks to obtain the highest possible returns consistent with a cautious attitude to risk and short term availability of such monies.
Risk management
The Church has a risk management policy. The Trustees are satisfied that appropriate systems are in place to mitigate the Church's exposure to such risks, to safeguard the assets of the Church and should prevent and/or detect fraud and other irregularities.
The Trust was formed on the 19 April 2010 and commenced activities on the 1 July 2010 with the transfer of the assets and work of Holland Road Baptist Church.
The Church was founded by a trust deed dated 19 June 1889 and is now governed by its Articles of Association and a new constitution, "The Governing Document of Holland Road Baptist Church" as agreed at a Church meeting on 13 March 2013, as well as being affiliated to the Baptist Union of Great Britain (a registered charity).
The Trustees who held office during the year to 31 December 2025 were as follows:
Deacons are those who serve in specific leadership roles in the church and are appointed by the Trustees as recommended by the elders.
The appointment of elders are nominated by the Pastor and voted on by the Church meeting.
Trustees are appointed by a Church meeting.
Newly appointed Trustees are provided with such induction and training as considered necessary for the role within the church which they are undertaking.
The Church is managed on a day to day basis by a core leadership team namely David Treneer and Tim Vellacott (the two Pastors) and other ministry leaders as required from time to time subject to the overall spiritual oversight of the elders. The Trustees are jointly responsible for the governance of the Church, especially for the operational, legal and financial aspects, referring some matters to a members vote as appropriate.
This report has been prepared in accordance with the special provisions relating to small companies within Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006.
The Trustees, who are also the directors of Holland Road Baptist Church Trust for the purpose of company law, are responsible for preparing the Trustees' Report and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).
Company law requires the Trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the Church and of the incoming resources and application of resources, including the income and expenditure, of the charitable company for that year.
In preparing these financial statements, the Trustees are required to:
- select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
- observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP;
- make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
- state whether applicable UK Accounting Standards have been followed, subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements; and
- prepare the financial statements on the going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the Church will continue in operation.
The Trustees are responsible for keeping adequate accounting records that disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the Church and enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Companies Act 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the Church and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.
I report to the Trustees on my examination of the financial statements of Holland Road Baptist Church Trust (the Church) for the year ended 31 December 2025.
Having satisfied myself that the financial statements of the Church are not required to be audited under Part 16 of the Companies Act 2006 and are eligible for independent examination, I report in respect of my examination of the Church’s financial statements carried out under section 145 of the Charities Act 2011. In carrying out my examination I have followed the Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Charities Act 2011.
Since the Church’s gross income exceeded £250,000 your examiner must be a member of a body listed in section 145 of the 2011 Act. I confirm that I am qualified to undertake the examination because I am a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, which is one of the listed bodies.
I have completed my examination. I confirm that no matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:
accounting records were not kept in respect of the Church as required by section 386 of the Companies Act 2006.
the financial statements do not accord with those records; or
the financial statements do not comply with the accounting requirements of section 396 of the Companies Act 2006 other than any requirement that the financial statements give a true and fair view, which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination; or
the financial statements have not been prepared in accordance with the methods and principles of the Statement of Recommended Practice for accounting and reporting by charities applicable to charities preparing their financial statements in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102).
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the financial statements to be reached.
Chartered Certified Accountants
The statement of financial activities includes all gains and losses recognised in the year. All income and expenditure derive from continuing activities.
Holland Road Baptist Church Trust is a private company limited by guarantee incorporated in England and Wales and registered charity, number 1136471. The registered office is 71 Holland Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 1JN.
The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the Church's governing document, the Companies Act 2006, FRS 102 "The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland" and the Charities SORP "Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102)". The Church is a Public Benefit Entity as defined by FRS 102.
The financial statements are prepared in sterling, which is the functional currency of the Church. Monetary amounts in these financial statements are rounded to the nearest £.
The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention as modified to include freehold investment properties at fair value. The principal accounting policies adopted are set out below.
At the time of approving the financial statements, the Trustees have a reasonable expectation that the Church has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. Thus the Trustees continue to adopt the going concern basis of accounting in preparing the financial statements.
Unrestricted funds are available for use at the discretion of the Trustees in furtherance of their charitable objectives.
Restricted funds are subject to specific conditions by donors or grantors as to how they may be used. The purposes and uses of the restricted funds are set out in the notes to the financial statements.
Cash donations are recognised on receipt. Other donations are recognised once the Church has been notified of the donation, unless performance conditions require deferral of the amount. Income tax recoverable in relation to donations received under Gift Aid or deeds of covenant is recognised at the time of the donation.
Resources expended are recognised in the period in which they are incurred and allocated to the particular cost centre to which they relate, including support costs. These costs include irrecoverable VAT.
The Trust is governed by its Constitution, as amended by the membership on 17 March 2019 and 18 October 2022.
The Trust’s charitable activities are carried out principally from its operational premises on Holland Road, Hove, including the Church building, Church Hall, Caretaker’s Cottage and the adjacent premises historically known as the YWCA. In the financial statements these operational properties are included within tangible fixed assets in accordance with the accounting policies adopted by the Trust.
The Trust also holds 17 May Road, which is disclosed separately in the financial statements as an investment property.
The freehold of the Holland Road operational premises is held by the Baptist Union Corporation Limited as custodian trustee, and the Trust occupies and uses those premises under lease arrangements through which it carries out its charitable activities.
Under those arrangements, expenditure on repair, maintenance and improvement of the operational premises is borne by the Trust and supports the buildings from which the charity’s purposes are delivered.
Property, plant and equipment are measured at cost, net of depreciation and any impairment losses. Details of the individual properties are given below:
Freehold property. Church Premises: 71 Holland Road, Hove, East Sussex
There is no record of original cost. In the opinion of the Trustees it is impractical to place a market value on the site. The property is held on Trust by The Baptist Union Corporation as custodial Trustee.
Freehold property. 65 Holland Road, Hove, East Sussex
The Charity elected to revalue the freehold property on the date of transition to FRS 102 SORP (1 January 2015) and to use this value as the deemed cost of the property in accordance with the transitional provision contained in section 35.10 (c) of FRS102.
Fixtures, fittings and equipment
Fixtures, Fittings and Equipment costing in excess of £2,500 are capitalised. All Fixtures, Fittings and Equipment are depreciated on a straight line basis over 5 years.
Depreciation
Freehold land is not depreciated. Freehold buildings are also not depreciated as it is the policy of the Trustees that they be maintained to such a standard that their residual value is not less than the carrying value at any given time.
The gain or loss arising on the disposal of an asset is determined as the difference between the sale proceeds and the carrying value of the asset, and is recognised in the statement of financial activities.
A freehold investment residential property in 17 May Road, Brighton was purchased in 2021 to earn rental income and/or capital appreciation and is shown at fair value.
At each reporting end date, the Church reviews the carrying amounts of its tangible assets to determine whether there is any indication that those assets have suffered an impairment loss. If any such indication exists, the recoverable amount of the asset is estimated in order to determine the extent of the impairment loss (if any).
Cash and cash equivalents include cash in hand, deposits held at call with banks, other short-term liquid investments with original maturities of three months or less, and bank overdrafts. Bank overdrafts are shown within borrowings in current liabilities.
The charity only has financial assets and financial liabilities of a kind that qualify as basic financial instruments. Basic financial instruments are initially recognised at transaction value and subsequently measured at their settlement value. Basic financial assets include trade and other receivables and cash and bank balances. Basic financial liabilities including trade and and other payables where trade payables are obligations to pay for goods or services that have been acquired on the ordinary course of operations from suppliers.
Basic financial assets, which include trade and other receivables and cash and bank balances, are initially measured at transaction price including transaction costs and are subsequently carried at amortised cost using the effective interest method unless the arrangement constitutes a financing transaction, where the transaction is measured at the present value of the future receipts discounted at a market rate of interest. Financial assets classified as receivable within one year are not amortised.
Basic financial liabilities, including trade and other payables and bank loans are initially recognised at transaction price unless the arrangement constitutes a financing transaction, where the debt instrument is measured at the present value of the future payments discounted at a market rate of interest. Financial liabilities classified as payable within one year are not amortised.
Debt instruments are subsequently carried at amortised cost, using the effective interest rate method.
Trade payables are obligations to pay for goods or services that have been acquired in the ordinary course of operations from suppliers. Amounts payable are classified as current liabilities if payment is due within one year or less. If not, they are presented as non-current liabilities. Trade payables are recognised initially at transaction price and subsequently measured at amortised cost using the effective interest method.
Financial liabilities are derecognised when the Church’s contractual obligations expire or are discharged or cancelled.
The cost of any unused holiday entitlement is recognised in the period in which the employee’s services are received.
Termination benefits are recognised immediately as an expense when the Church is demonstrably committed to terminate the employment of an employee or to provide termination benefits.
The Church contribute to the defined pension contribution scheme of certain staff. The contributions payable for the year are charged in the Financial Statements as part of salaries.
Grant Making Policy
The Trust supports by the provision of financial grants to Christian organisations whose own activities are in accordance with the Trust's objectives. The Church also supports long term missionary partners connected with the Church or the Baptist Union.
Trustees are reimbursed any expense costs directly incurred on behalf of the Church. These are not considered material to disclose.
The aggregate donations from the Trustees to the Church during the year was £53,913 (2024:£54,840 ).
Trustee Remuneration
The following were trustees during the year that received salaries and pension contributions in respect of their work as employees of the Church as allowed within the Memorandum and Articles of Association.
2025 Salaries Employer NIC Employer Pension
Contributions
£ £ £
D Treneer 48,420 6,241 4,842
S Walker 37,536 4,641 3,754
2024 Salaries Employer NIC Employer Pension
Contributions
£ £ £
D Treneer 48,149 5,389 5,838
S Walker 36,480 3,779 4,422
The average monthly number of full and part time employees during the year was:
Volunteers
The Trustees extend their thanks to numerous volunteers who give so sacrificially in both time and resource into the vision of the Church.
The remuneration of key management personnel was as follows:
The charity is exempt from taxation on its activities because all its income is applied for charitable purposes.
Investment property comprises the property at 17 May Road, Brighton, East Sussex. The property was revalued by Kendrick Property Services as at 31 December 2025, with no change in market value compared to the prior year.
The Church operates a defined contribution pension scheme for all qualifying employees. The assets of the scheme are held separately from those of the Church in an independently administered fund.
The restricted funds of the charity comprise the unexpended balances of donations and grants held on trust subject to specific conditions by donors as to how they may be used. Expenditure that meets these criteria is charged to the fund together with the appropriate management and support costs.
Property Fund - The property owned by the Trust other than the Church. The Properties are stated at cost of £1,200,000 within the balance sheet. The difference of £32,465 compared to the fund balance represents money raised through unrestricted funds.
The unrestricted funds of the charity comprise the unexpended balances of donations and grants which are not subject to specific conditions by donors and grantors as to how they may be used. These include designated funds which have been set aside out of unrestricted funds by the trustees for specific purposes.
Unrestricted General:
The General fund oversees the day to day work of the Church and incorporates the missionary work of the Church.
Designated:
Legacies General - monies from legacies not as yet allocated.
Legacies World Mission - money set aside specifically for World Mission.
Reserve - the sum of £85,000 is set aside as a general reserve in accordance with best practice.
Emergency repairs fund - money set aside for boiler breakdown or replacement.
The Projects Specified fund - money set aside larger projects, e.g. the final phase of stonework repairs.
The Projects Unspecified fund - money set aside for small projects, e.g. lino replacement in the kitchen and hallways.
This is a loan from the Baptist Union to enable the Church to cover its contributions for the past deficit of The Baptist Pension Fund. The loan is repaid over a 15 year term from 5 March 2018 with interest charged at 4.25% p.a.
There were no further related party transactions other than disclosed in the note 9 (2024 - none).