As many who read our blogs, follow us & indeed have been supported by Celeb FC in the last (almost) decade will know; We were recently targeted to pay a “late filing” penalty (remember we don’t actually make any money / have any money in the bank & literally just file the very few transactions we have each year from sponsors etc to maintain transparency to everyone following / volunteering for / enjoying our supported events). This filing was made online within the time, but a computer glitch meant it hit Companies house 35 minutes late.
Despite our founder actually attending court & the Judge really trying to help us (as she thought this was a harsh application of the late filing law), The solicitors pushed for full penalty.
We raised this money (as Celeb FC has no money) from kind & very often generous donations.. – The list of donations received have been added below – as for Celeb FC – TRANSPARENCY is everything!
Celeb FC made the payment on the day the the donations hit the target, however as you can see, we have reached slightly more than we needed.
This has thankfully meant our founder could be reimbursed for the travel to Birmingham for the Court case (just under £100 ). Also we have been able to send letters by Special Delivery to The Court (Proof of payment & to ask for confirmation that the judgement has been set aside), The Judge (A thank you), The Solicitors (Proof of Payment) & to Margot James, MP for Stourbridge, who is the minister for small business, consumers and corporate responsibility (to ask for a meeting / phone call / let her know this is how the penalty has been applied & ask if she thinks this is the spirit of the law & works in the best interest of the UK small businesses who act as non-profits. Lastly an explanation of what’s happened to MP Paul Scully (Who our founder has sat with at many charity events, who knows Celeb FC & who was the minister for small business up until July 2022).
We have also been asking the Solicitors involved (since Wednesday 21st September by phone & by email to the main office & to the contact our founder was given) for a written confirmation that they received the payment & the case is closed with “No Further Action”.
Finally today after the 5th phone call & 4th email we received the email below.
The people at the Solicitors who Celeb FC had been dealing with hadn’t sent the confirmation of payment out, The case files were “closed” but nothing else had been done.
The “legal Assistant” our founder spoke to today apologised & sent the email confirmation over while she was on the phone.
All this tells us is there is a complete disregard for real cases, real stories, real reasons for eventualities & each case is just a number.
It would be interesting to know how many “penalty” cases this “Leading UK Law Firm” (verbatim) pursues weekly & how many they actually look at the individual circumstances.. By the judges comments to the gentleman there from the Solicitors – it is VERY unusual for a company director / founder to even attend; which should give them pause to look at the circumstances at least?
Lastly
“The team is a national team and has an increasing reputation for acting for national charities‘”
The above is taken from their website – which is extremely disappointing.. How is there such a opposition/disregard of charitable ethos when a small entity such as Celeb FC has an issue (through no fault of our own)?
Thank you again everyone who did help – we will keep you all posted of replies we receive.
The PayPal donation button is still active for Celeb FC – we have not done this before, BUT at the suggestion of someone we have supported, we will be leaving it open.
This is for anyone who would like to help us as we help others – obviously – as above – anything we use from donations will be detailed here & in our yearly accounts to HMRC….
Transparency when fundraising is EVERYTHING!
