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Member Handbook

Reserves

Our Beneficiaries

The Objects and Beneficiaries of Farset Labs are codified in our Charitable Aims, however, to summarise:

  • The objects of Farset Labs are the education of the public in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) and the provision of community accessible workspaces to facilitate STEAM outreach and education in Northern Ireland, primarily focused in the Belfast area.

  • The direct benefits which flow from the facilitation of STEAM Education, Entrepreneurship, and Experimentation include improved technical and non technical competencies within and around the STEAM fields, improving employability, personal development and productivity of those beneficiaries.

  • The direct benefits of the promotion of STEAM Education, Entrepreneurship, and Experimentation include introducing beneficiaries to STEAM fields with immersive and exciting outreach and education programmes driven by practitioners in their respective fields. These programmes lead to a higher level of interest in STEAM, increasing overall quality of life, and understanding of the modern world, whether beneficiaries continue in a STEAM field or not.

Rational for holding reserves

In the interest of Farset Labs continuing on a multi-annual basis, the Board has agreed to establish and maintain a operational reserve to ensure long-term stability of operations, and potentially providing bridges for unexpected upstream costs.

These approximations will be reassessed annually as part of the Trustees Annual Report to the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland, due on the 28th of December (2 months before the Financial Year End; 28th of February).

General Reserves

The organisation should retain at least 6 months core running costs (Rent/Service Charge/Electricity/Heating etc) to provide resiliance against revenue or upstream cost variations.

As of September 2019, these are approximated to be £8,000 based on 3 years of amoratised baseline costs, increasing based on the ONS CPI rate (2% at the time of writing)

The board of trustees reserves the right to modify this reserve in the event of any supplier notification of change of prices.

Designated Funds

The organisation should retain at least £3,000 for unexpected repairs, like-for-like replacements and consumable costs for maintaining capital investments (core infrastructure, security, and workshop equipment in particular)

Drawdown from this fund will follow the same conditions as the Financial Management.

This valuation is based on the current asset base of approximately £6,000, and assuming that no more than half of the assets will require replacement within one reporting period.

Monitoring of Reserves

A multi-annual financial summary will be available to trustees at all trustees’ meetings.

All trustees are responsible for monitoring for breaches, or risks of breaches to, this reserves policy, and should both take measures to remediate this breach, and to record the observation and response, and any further action/monitoring to be completed.