Bardney · Southrey · Tupholme · Bucknall
Geoffrey Pacey
Chair · Bardney [email protected]A retired farm-shop owner from Bardney, Geoffrey has served as a trustee since 2009 and as chair since 2018. He keeps the long, careful minutes that are the trust's main administrative discipline.
A small bequest, a long sentence, and a hundred and sixty years of writing cheques in plain envelopes.
The Kitchings General Charity was founded by a single bequest in the 1860s and has been doing more or less the same quiet work since. We are a grant-making trust, not a service provider. Nine trustees, four parishes, no paid staff.
A short history.
The Misses Kitching — sisters who lived together in a small house on Church Lane — left a bequest in the late 1860s for the relief of widows of the parish of Southrey, then for the schoolrooms of Bardney and Bucknall, and then, if anything remained, for the comfort of households in difficulty across the four parishes. The bequest was modest by Victorian standards: a few hundred pounds, an income from a small piece of glebe, and the use of a vestry room.
For ninety years the fund was administered informally by the parish — a churchwarden and two neighbours, meeting twice a year in the vestry, paying out small sums by hand. In November 1964, the trust was registered with the Charity Commission as charity number 219957, and a scheme of management was adopted that has been amended only once, in 1998. The basic shape of the charity has not changed since.
The endowment is small. Our annual income in the year ending 31 December 2024 was £31,862, and our expenditure was £33,688 — a small overspend from reserves to meet a winter of unusual demand. Most of that money was given out in grants of between £40 and £400 to households across the four parishes, and as quarterly pensions to the widows on our Southrey list. We have no paid staff. We have no office of our own — we meet in the old vestry of St Lawrence's at Bardney, where the original bequest was first received.
The trust does not raise money in any large way. Most of our income comes from the endowment, from a small annual collection at the four churches, from the Witham Walks in April and October, and from the occasional gift in memory of a parishioner. We do not have, and have never sought, registration with HMRC for Gift Aid; the administrative cost of operating Gift Aid would, for us, exceed the income it would generate. We give very small grants. We do them well, we hope.
From a Victorian vestry to a modern parish office.
c. 1864
A small bequest at Southrey.
The Misses Kitching, two unmarried sisters living on Church Lane in Bardney, leave a bequest for the relief of Southrey widows, with secondary provision for the schoolrooms of Bardney and Bucknall and the relief of hardship across the four parishes.
1864–1932
Administered by the parish.
For sixty-eight years the trust is held informally by the churchwarden and two neighbours, meeting twice a year. Accounts kept in a single leather-bound ledger which still exists in the vestry safe.
1937
The Tupholme parish is added.
The Charity Commissioners issue a scheme amending the area of benefit to include the parish of Tupholme, then largely depopulated but with a small number of agricultural households still resident in the hamlets at Sotby and Donington.
06 November 1964
Formal registration.
The trust is registered as a charity under the Charities Act 1960, registration number 219957. A new scheme of management is adopted, formalising the constitution of nine trustees drawn from the four parishes.
1972
The first Witham Walk.
A small parish sponsored walk from Bardney to Southrey is organised by the then-chair to top up the hardship fund. The Witham Walk is now held twice a year and is one of our two regular fundraising occasions.
1998
A revised scheme of management.
The 1964 scheme is amended to allow trustees to make hardship grants in kind as well as in cash — reflecting changes in how households needed to be supported. This is the last formal change to the trust's governance.
2014
A hundred and fifty years.
The trustees mark the charity's hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary with a quiet service at St Lawrence's, Bardney, and the publication of a small history pamphlet. A printed copy is still posted free of charge to anyone who writes for one.
2020
An unusual year.
Grant-making rises sharply during the first year of the pandemic. We make 91 hardship grants, twice the usual annual number. The trustees agree to meet by telephone and a temporary scheme of expedited decisions is adopted.
2024
A small overspend, a winter of demand.
Expenditure exceeds income for the first time in twelve years — modestly, by £1,826 — reflecting a difficult winter for households on fixed incomes. The trustees draw on reserves and openly note the position in the annual report.
2026
Where we stand today.
Nine trustees, four parishes, four named funds, no paid staff. Our work is the same as it was in 1864. We are very lucky in this.
Our trustees
Nine local people who meet four times a year in the Bardney vestry.
Our trustees are unpaid. They receive no expenses other than the tea at the meetings and the postage on a few hundred letters a year. They are drawn from the four parishes and serve a five-year term, renewable once.
Katie East
Trustee · Southrey [email protected]A primary-school teacher in retirement, Katie joined the trustees in 2019. She holds the brief for the Schools & Pupils Grants and is the trust's first point of contact for the two village schools.
Christopher Pacey
Trustee · Bucknall [email protected]A working farmer from the parish of Bucknall, Christopher took up trusteeship in 2016. He holds the small farms portfolio and acts as the trust's land steward for the glebe land that came with the original bequest.
Darren John Wilkinson
Trustee · Treasurer · Southrey [email protected]An accountant in semi-retirement, Darren has served as trustee since 2017 and as treasurer since 2021. He compiles the annual report and is the trust's point of contact with the auditors.
The remaining trustees.
Our other five trustees serve quietly and prefer not to be photographed for the website. Their names are published on the Charity Commission register, as they must be:
- · Jayne Hayes (Bardney)
- · James Armstrong (Tupholme)
- · Catherine Lee (Bardney)
- · K Hutchinson (Bucknall)
- · Barry Percival (Bardney)
A simple constitution, kept simple on purpose.
We are governed by the 1964 scheme of management, as amended in 1998. The scheme requires nine trustees, drawn proportionately from the four parishes, serving five-year terms renewable once. There is a chair, a secretary, and a treasurer, elected by the trustees at the first meeting of each calendar year.
Trustees meet four times a year — the four grant days, traditionally on the second Saturday of February, May, August, and November. A quorum is five. Decisions on individual grants are taken by a majority of trustees present, save that any trustee with a personal interest in the application withdraws from the discussion. We hold a current conflict-of-interest policy on file, available on request.
The trust holds no trading subsidiary. We are not registered for VAT. We are not currently recognised by HMRC for Gift Aid, by deliberate choice. Our annual accounts are independently examined by a small firm of accountants in Lincoln; full audit is not legally required at our scale but we voluntarily file an examiner's report each year.
We hold an interest in a small piece of glebe land at Bardney, which produces an annual rent of just under £900 from a tenant farmer. This is the original Kitching glebe; we have never sold it, and we do not intend to.
Would you like to help with the work?
A small donation, a quiet hour, or a kind word about us to a neighbour.