Owned and operated by East Boldre Community Stores Limited, Community Benefit Society
Chapel Stores
...run by and for our members
EBCS is delighted to have a wide diverse community membership of predominantly local people to steer our business.
By buying community shares in our Community Benefit Society members can stand for election to the management committee and can vote on key decisions. Regardless of their shareholding every member has one vote
We will publicise future opportunities to become members on this page.
As a Community Benefit Society we are registered on the FCA's Mutuals Register, society number 8481.
Annual Members Meeting 2024
Next Members Meeting July 2024
Details will be issued nearer the time
Share Offer 2022
We raised £225,000 through our community share offer in 2022 towards the funding we needed to acquire premises and create Chapel Stores!
In July 2024 we will apply to HMRC for certificates so that members can claim social investment tax relief.
The Audit Options for Our Community Benefit Society Explained
Community Benefit Societies have four financial audit options (only one of which is actually a formal audit).
Our society has a rule which gives us the power not to appoint auditors to audit our accounts (option 4) subject to a vote with an appropriate majority (80%) at our Annual Members’ Meeting.
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We satisfy the FCA’s requirements for this rule to be applied (our turnover <£5.1m and assets <£10.2m).
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Fawcetts quoted £5000 to audit the accounts and balance sheet (option 4); The management committee do not consider that this represents good value for money as it is not required by either our rules or the FCA.
The FCA very helpfully provides a decision tree to determine which type of audit is required.
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It shows that for the financial year 2022/23 we could opt for unaudited accounts (option 1) as our turnover for that year was below their threshold.
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However, some of our grant awards require an independent report on our accounts (option 3) so we have appointed Fawcetts to carry this out for the financial year 2022/23.
Therefore, the resolutions we will propose to our members at the AMM are:
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Not to appoint a qualified auditor to audit our accounts as allowed by our rules and FCA requirements
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To accept our aaccountant's report on our accounts.
The Community Ownership Fund (COF) funding agreement requires an independent audit specifically of our COF expenditure (to check we have spent the funds in accordance with the terms of the grant). We will separately commission Fawcetts to carry out this audit at the appropriate time.