“Great service - can't fault you on how quickly the money is in the bank after being requested. Brilliant.”
Hugh Greater Manchester
8th December 2020
This year for reasons that I am sure will escape no one, has
to be the most difficult year yet in our 28 years of operating Flamesavers
Credit Union. Sadly the prospects for
next year do not appear to offer much optimism that’s things are going to
improve greatly. Though, if a vaccine is found to be safe and effective, and
our ability to move around more freely restored, economically, we are warned,
that job losses and personal debt will become a factor in all our lives next
year.
Our common bond states that all members should be in receipt
of a fire service payroll or pension, and fortunately that means that although
we have seen the effects of the pandemic within our members, we have been
somewhat shielded from the full force of the problem.
However, several members have asked for our help with loan
repayments and savings deductions due to a reduction in their household income
due to partners inability to work or closure of their business.
The virus has also made members more wary of committing to
further debt, loans granted has reduced, and where loans are taken out, they
have tended to be smaller than previous years.
A consequence of this has also been that members have paid
loans off early this year and subsequently saved more.
Its is not my intention in the report to analyse every
figure but I do need to highlight the more pertinent ones
We started the year holding £3,541,496 in members shares and
closed the year holding £3,951,943. This is an increase of just over £400,000.
This includes £68,000 given to members in last year’s dividend (2.0%)
If we look at loans, we can see that we opened the year with
a loan book of £2,977,788 and closed the year with total loans of £
2,880,762. A difference of £-97,000.
This is the first year we have ever seen a reduction in our loan total. This
includes £188,000 of interest that was added during the year.
If we strip out the loan interest, then we see that we
granted a total of £1,224,513 and received repayments of £1,509,596. A
reduction in our loan total of £285,000. The number of loans held at the end of
the year though was down by 30 on the previous year.
Membership has continued to grow with an increase of 60 new
members at the year end.
This year has been our first full year in our new office
premises. While we were not forced to leave our subsidised office premises at Hanley,
we were offered very little help or encouragement to stay with the
organisation. I know that several members expressed concern that the additional
costs would have a detrimental effect on our profits, but I am pleased to
report that our accommodation cost was approximately £9,200. This year it will
cost us around £40,000 for each one percent of any dividend we pay, so our
accommodation costs make very little difference to our dividend declaration.
We are a very cash rich credit union, we have around
£1,000,000 in investments that are now paying very little in interest and over
£500,000 in our current account earning nothing.
Our total net assets now stand at £491,455 a slight increase
on last year’s figures.
Our total income this year was £181,335 an increase of only £4000
on last year’s figures and our total expenditure £106,054. This was decrease on
last years expenditure of £25. Last years expenditure was higher due to the
office move.
So, our surplus this year is £75,281 and increase of £5,000
on last year., this leaves a surplus after corporation tax of £73,767.
As we have already discussed the economic outlook for next
year does not look encouraging, so I think it prudent that we do make small
increase in our bad debt provision to allow for any problems and as also
mentioned our members shareholding has increased considerably. The more members
share we hold the more profit we need to make to pay a dividend.
With the auditor’s approval I propose that we pay this year
a dividend of 1.5%. this will cost us £60,719.
Lastly, I would like to thank Ann and Lisa for all their
help, patience, advice, and encouragement over the last few months, They have
embraced, new working practices, to make us all safe within the office, new
technologies to enable us to work more easily from home, and gladly suffered
the loneliness and extra work from being alone in the office. They are an asset
to the credit union and we would not be as successful as we are without them
So, a difficult year, but not so bad that we need to enter
this year with a heavy financial heart. We are still in a strong position; the
board and staff members are as I say an asset to the credit union.
I am sure we will weather this storm and bounce back from
these problems which face us all now.
“Great service - can't fault you on how quickly the money is in the bank after being requested. Brilliant.”
Hugh Greater Manchester
“Thank for all your help in explaining things to me. I appreciate your patience and think your service is great.”
Nicky Staffordshire