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2025-04-05-accounts

THE LIVEWIRE TRUST ANNUAL REPORT

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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Contents

  1. Front Cover

2. Contents

3. Partners and Friends

6. Letter from the chair

8. Annual programme 2025 - 2026

11. An Explanation of our work

13. Objectives

14. Creative Directors report

19. Organisation

15. Recruitment

20. Recruitment

21. Child Protection Policy

34. Basic Practical Measures

33. Charities Commission Accounts Submission

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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Partners and Friends

We would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank our partners, funders and friends for their support this year. It has been a difficult couple of years for a small charity such as ours and at several moments we felt we were unable to carry on. However, with the support from all the people and organisations below we have survived the storm and now stand steady, ready to continue working with Harlow’s young people and ready to respond to our towns needs. Thank you. - Sam Ashford, Creative Director

The Jack Petchey Foundation

Without the support of The Jack Petchey Foundation we would not be here today. We have taken advantage of the excellent achievement awards scheme which has been a very rewarding experience for our young people. We would like to thank Nikki Casey, in particular, for her firm support and encouragement which drove our fundraising efforts forward so we are more able to source funding and eventually be self sufficient.

Essex Community Foundation

We regularly deliver work funded through the ‘Essex Community Foundation’. Although in this Academic year we did not apply for funding we continue to value their support and look forward to working with them again this year.

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Hare Street School continue to be a fantastic supporter of Livewire. Not only promoting our events to their students so they can take part and have been a key part in developing a Livewire project for the Royal Opera House Bridge.

The Harlow Playhouse is now our major partner, our big sister. We run workshops each week and holiday sessions all within this wonderful facility that is the heart of our community. Without The Playhouse we would not be able to deliver he programme of work to the levels we are at now, thank you

We run our Primary School sessions and our Yr7 and 8 group at Pemberley Academy. Without their donation of space, promotion to parents and all round support and enthusiasm we would not be able to run these sessions and reach 80 young people every week. A key part in developing a Livewire project for the Royal Opera House Bridge and we look forward to delivering our first Arts and Culture Theatre Challenge in the Autumn!

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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The National Lottery Community Fund / Reaching Communities Fund have been a major part of our year. The Community Fund funded a project to reach new areas of the town whilst Reaching Communities are a part of the biggest development in Livewire’s existence…..words really don’t do enough to state the impact this support will have on our organisation.

ECC ARTS AND CULTURAL FUND

Essex County Council funded our Primary Theatre Challenges this academic year allowing us to reach hundreds of young people and new perform to new audiences across our town!

Essex Music Hub

EMH have funded our Livewire Vocal Collective sessions meaning we are able to have Roisin Quinn on board as a key member of the Livewire delivery team! These sessions are already making a huge difference to the quality of our young peoples singing and the experiences they are having with us.

The Foyle Foundation

FF gave provided 15k of funding to support our Primary School Theatre Challenges. Thisproject has ben integral to recruiting new members, introducing young pole across the town to devising original theatre, picking up instruments for the first time, dancing and acting and finding new talents.

Oddfellows

The Oddfellows funded our Prrimary Aged Theatre Challenge during the summer holidays. This was a wonderful opportunity for our younger members to spend time creating a piece of theatre and this enabled us to foster a new relationship with a long term partner and supporter. The Oddfellows principles, aims and objectives align with Livewire’s perfectly so a partnership on many projects going forward is an exciting prospect!

Hays Travel Foundation

The Hays travel foundation supported our work across the summer holidays helping over 100 young people perform, play and create!

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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A letter from our Chair Person

This has been another amazing year for Livewire! Its amazing to see how Livewire continues to grow. From our modest roots of one session on a Monday to where we are today is quite remarkable. With support from The National Lottery our team are settled and delivering consistently high quality workshops.

I have enjoyed watching all of the performances this year, in particular the reworking of “PlayDead”. Not only was the performance really well attended and received; the video of the play itself is outstanding.

If I was to show anybody what Livewire it is I would point them towards the documentary of Play Dead rehearsals. It really captured the family feeling we have at Livewire and showed how hard our young people work to create original theatre.

Through the hard work and dedication of Sam, Becky, Roisin and Steve, along with a supportive team from the Stow Project and Music School Livewire has been able to grow, yet again, beyond what we ever thought it could become, so thank you all for this. I would also like to send a huge thank you to our Board of Trustees for your support and passion that you give to Livewire behind the scenes to help keep it running. This has been another great year for Livewire, and I look forward to seeing what comes next!

Gemma Nicholson

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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Annual Programme 2025 - 2026 What do we want to deliver this year?

Primary and secondary age Livewire Sessions every week (Playhouse/Pemberley)

LTC Livewire Sessions at The Playhouse every Thursday.

HeadSpace Sessions every week for every group.

LMC, LDC and LVC sessions for primary and secondary ages.

Development workshops during every half term holiday

Theatre Challenge Workshops during Easter and Summer Holidays.

A successful bid and plan to deliver an interactive Theatre Tour of Primary Schools

A pilot open session for adults - parents and former members.

Theatre Visits and trips for members development

The Development of a Livewire Music School

Continuation of The Stow Project

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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An explanation of our work

Theatre devising

All of livewire’s workshops are based around improvisation and the devising of new and original pieces of theatre. The Livewire ‘Theatre Challenge’, in particular, is a unique and intense programme where the young people are involved in all aspects of putting on a piece of theatre in a theatre for the public. This process allows the young people to:

Interactive theatre

Interactive theatre is partially controlled by the audience with the assistance of a facilitator. The audience are presented with a scenario, which ends with four key characters all having opposing objectives. The action stops at a key point of decision and the audience guide the characters through the rest of the play. This is done by separating the audience in to four groups and allocating one character to each group. The audience then have to tell their character what to do and say according to what the character wants. By being responsible for the actions of one character at a time the audience are required to understand how and why people make decisions that affect theirs and other peoples’ lives well beyond the moment of action. The process aims to;

The interactive model provides young people with a ‘challenging’ but safe environment where they can experiment with and rehearse a wide range of behaviours in response to a multitude of social pressures. The process has to be based on the principle of ‘respect for all’ and the preservation of self-esteem. However, there is no attempt to ‘preach’ a right answer, ‘sloganise’ or even deliver a specific message, rather it allows young people to;

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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Music Workshops

The Livewire Music Collective is open to young people who play instruments already and are ready to devise new, original music. Members are given opportunities to explore their own material, record and perform though gigs and as part of our theatre Challenge Projects.

Dance Workshops

The Livewire Dance Company is open to young people with zero experience or a lot of experience but who want to devise new, original dances. Members will take part in many performances and will work with Drama and Music closely to devise Dances that tell a story or highlight an important issue rather than commercial dancing (although this is still explored for technique purposes).

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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Livewire Objectives

To maintain and care for all young people’s mental wellbeing

.

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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Creative Director’s Report

This year our workshops have continued to run smoothly with numbers sustained and new groups developing as a result of our stability.

Through independent fundraising we have been able to start a weekly Tap Dance session, buying our own tap shoes so that the class remains open and accessible to all. A local resident and usher “Ed” at the Playhouse has donated his own money to get us off the ground as it was his wife’s passion. We are forever grateful to him and is another example of the fantastic community links that we are constantly building.

We have continued our work in The Stow, an area of high deprivation in Harlow. Funding was extended through the Safer Harlow Partnership and we now have new members attending our Lottery Funded Sessions as a direct result of our outreach work into the community.

Essex Music Services also extended their provision through us as we began our LDJ sessions where young people can spend an evening each week learning how to mix and DJ.

Our Easter Theatre Challenge was a huge success with a cast of over 70 young people attending. We initially upped the amount of participants to 40 (20 in drama and the rest divided between band and dance). However, the applications for spaces where overwhelming! We decided to recruit an extra member of staff and developed a model of per-

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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formance where they could all be engaged. This involved the drama cast being split onto 2 large groups that had two separate story lines that could be performed in turn but still impacted each other. Dancers were divided into groups rather than all dancing on the same songs. We also performed twice, back to back, allowing all parents/carers the chance to see the show, over 250 people attended across the 2 shows, a sell out twice over!

We have made a decision that we will continue to work in this way as long as we can find funding for the extra members of staff and that the space we are working in has capacity for that amount of young people.

Following the Easter Theatre Challenge our groups continued to run smoothly however we did have to make one decision that would impact some of our young people. We adjusted our dance timetable, removing the eldest group and replacing with the youngest. We have had a huge surge in younger members taking part and many, if not all of our older members, were moving on to university or employment. It felt like a natural step to focus on those younger members and we have offered the chance for those that showed enthusiasm for it to come and assist with the younger groups. This is something that happens throughout Livewire, older members move on and younger members come through and we are delighted that it has happened smoothly although we are sad to say good bye to to some of that older group.

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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They still have the option to join Drama or Music if they wish so it’s not goodbye forever!

Our Open Mic session in May was another great success. The LMC (Livewire Music Collective) opened the evening with two hours of original music performed by all of our musicians and singers. Parents, other members of Livewire and members of the public all enjoyed a lively and enjoyable community event. When our guys had finished performing we held an open mic event for the public and it was really encouraging to see young people who were not Livewire members getting up to perform. The event itself is ticking up momentum and is becoming an event that many young musicians in our town look forward to and see is a great opportunity to perform live, something that is desperately lacking in Harlow.

Following this we turned our attention to bringing our play from last summer “Play Dead” back to the main stage. We felt that this show needed to be seen by a wider audience and we wanted it to be recorded properly, to showcase what we can achieve and leave a legacy of our work for all to see.

We invited councillors, agencies working on the issue of “Violence towards women an girls” such as MIND, teachers and students from local secondary schools. We almost sold out the main auditorium which is a massive step for us, especially with a smaller cast and we were delighted to have our MP Chris Vince in attendance.

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838 13

This was a landmark occasion for us and one that really shows our progression in the past few years as long people have grown through Lottery funded Livewire Sessions.Play Dead Act One and Act Two:

We finished the year with strong sessions across the board with activities happening every weekday evening! Followed by three successful Theatre Challenge Projects.

Firstly we ran our main Theatre Challenge for Secondary aged members. We spent the week at Hare Street devising a show called “Melody” which we performed at Victoria Theatre. We took the skills one of our members had learnt at LDJ and incorporated them into the performance. This was a first theatre challenge for many of our young people and we focussed on making sure all of their ideas were valued and praised, we wanted to create a positive/energetic environment from the start and I feel we definitely achieved this.

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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We then held our first Primary Theatre Challenge since 2020 with funding through The Oddfellows. We handed the role of Creative Director to Becky Gentry who oversaw the week. She was supported by Leo Shepherd who devised the drama and we were able to em[ploy too former members who are now working in education and at University to be support workers to both Becky and Leo.

On a personal level this was a massive step, this was the first project that I wasn’t involved with devising, I just turned up and enjoyed the performance! Massive congratulations to Becky and the team for their achievement and for keeping the Livewire “vibe” and quality

The Oddfellows response was entirely positive, they are so supportive of our work and we are looking forward to repeating the project next year as they have agreed to fund the Theatre Challenge again.

Our Playhouse Summer School was funded by Hays Travel, another first time funder. We used our funding to spend a week devising stories, characters, songs and choreography for our Playhouse Summer School. Week two saw the whole cast coming together to put the show together. We had already decided to set the play in The Stow (although we never mentioned it by name) and, as we began devising, there was unrest in the real world. Flags had gone up around town and their was violence outside of hotels housing people who had migrated to the UK. We found ourselves devising our story to reflect what was going on around our community and devoted a piece that told the story of a young person caught dealing drugs in the community and how the people of the area reacted when they discovered he was originally from another country.

We all felt incredibly proud of our performer, we sailed to make it more “musical” and with our devising period we were able to double the amount of songs thank in other theatre challenges.

Overall we were very happy with what we achieved but, as the creative director I felt we could have been tighter. We could have been sharper. Maybe this would have only taken another performance or two to reach but it is a reminder of the capacity we have in this projects and that if we aim for too much then the quality can suffer.

This sounds harsh, it was a great show and every young person performed brilliantly. The songs and dances were excellent and we were real proud to be raising these issues at such a turbulent time, I just know that we can be sharper and I will factor this in to shows moving forward, we must allow for time to run through shows fully more than once to give us that flow and energy we get from confidence.

Overall it’s been another fantastic year with new faces coming through, different young people coming to the front and leading. We have more new projects for young people in Harlow to get involved with and the family keeps growing. We were able to provide DJ sessions for the best part of the year with support from Essex Music Services and Essex Community Services continue to support Livewire by funding Sing and Play workshops for primary schools in Harlow.

On to the next year, who knows what we will have achieved in that time!

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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Average Participant Numbers across the academic year 24/25

Livewire Drama Year 3up
37
Livewire Drama Year 3up
37
Livewire Drama Year 7up
42
Livewire Drama Year 9up
32
LTC (School leavers Drama)
20
Livewire Dance Company Year 1up
20
Livewire Dance Company Year 3up
30
Livewire Dance Company Year 7up
25
Livewire Dance Company Year 9up
12
Livewire Music Collective Year 5up
16
Livewire Music Collective Year 7up
20
Livewire Vocal Collective Year 3up
6
Livewire Vocal Collective Year 7up
12
Livewire Stow Project
10
Livewire DJ Sessions
3
Livewire Music School
50
Total number of weekly participants
345

Sam Ashford Creative Director

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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Organisation

Livewire’s working address for correspondence and day-to-day management is:

Livewire C/O Gemma Nicholson

Chair Person

Harlow Playhouse

Playhouse Square

Essex

CM20 1LS

Sam Ashford - 07354 224079

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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Recruitment

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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Child Protection/Safeguarding Policy

Livewire Theatre Company Safeguarding Policy Statement

The purpose and scope of this policy statement

Livewire Community Theatre Company is a non-profit community theatre charity offering free and accessible drama, dance and music workshops and weekly sessions to young people in Harlow.

The purpose of this policy statement is:

This policy applies to anyone working on behalf of Livewire Theatre including senior managers and the board of trustees, paid staff, volunteers and sessional workers.

Legal framework

This policy has been drawn up on the basis of legislation, policy and guidance that seeks to protect children in England

Supporting documents

This policy statement should be read alongside our organisational policies, procedures, guidance and other related documents

We recognise that:

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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We will seek to keep children and young people safe by:

Nominated child protection lead

Name: Abbie Cody Phone/email: abbie_cody@yahoo.co.uk

Deputy child protection lead

Name: Sam Ashford Phone/email: sam_ashford@live.com

Trustee/Senior lead for safeguarding and child protection

Name: Neil Coster Phone/email: head@harestreet.sch.essex.uk

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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Financial Report

Livewire Trust Annual Report 2024 - 2025 Registered Charity Number 1104838

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1104838

The Livewire Trust CHARITY COMMISSION

CC16a

Receipts and payments accounts

For the period
from
For the period
from
4/6/2024 To 4/5/2025
Section A Receipts and payments Section A Receipts and payments
Unrestricted
funds
Restricted
funds
Endowment
funds
Total funds Last year
to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
A1 Receipts
Grants - - 1,800 - - 1,800 3,760
Donations / Fundraising 3,544 - - - 3,544 1,186
Essex Community Fund - - - - - 5,460
Harlow Council/ Harlow Rec Trust - - 6,685 - - 6,685 4,185
Essex County Council - - 11,500 - - 11,500 4,500
Foyle Foundation - - - - - 15,000
TNL Reaching Communities - - 58,590 - - 58,590 73,980
- - - - - - -
Sub total(Gross income for AR) 3,544 78,575 - - 82,119 108,071
A2 Asset and investment sales,
(see table).
- - - - - -
- - - - - - -
Sub total - - - - - - -
Total receipts 3,544 3,544 78,575 - - 82,119 108,071
A3 Payments
Schools Tour, Workshops and Theatre
challenges - - 83,577 - - 83,577 89,658
Website - - - - - - -
Insurance 482 482 - - - 482 467
LDC Primary Classes 720 720 - - - 720 -
Sundries 313 313 - - - 313 75
Music Equipment 1,260 - - - 1,260 420
Hall Hire 275 275 - - - 275 -
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - -
**Sub total ** 3,050 83,577 - - 86,627 90,620
A4 Asset and investment
purchases, (see table)
- - - - - -
- - - - - -
**Sub total ** - - - - - - -
Total payments 3,050 3,050 83,577 - - 86,627 90,620
**Net of receipts/(payments) ** 494 494 - 5,002 - - - 4,508 17,451
A5 Transfers between funds
-
- - - - - - -
A6 Cash funds last year end
-
- - - - - 40,081 22,630
**Cash funds this year end ** 494 494 - 5,002 - - 35,573 40,081

Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period

Unrestricted Restricted Restricted Endowment
Categories Details funds funds funds
to nearest £ to nearest £ to nearest £
B1 Cash funds B1 Cash funds - - - -
- - -
- - -
Total cash funds 494 - 5,002 -
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))
OK OK OK
Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
funds funds funds
Details to nearest £ to nearest £ to nearest £
B2 Other monetary assets - - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
Details Fund to which
asset belongs
Cost (optional) Current value
(optional)
B3 Investment assets - -
- -
- -
- -
- -
Details Fund to which
asset belongs
Cost (optional) Current value
(optional)
B4 Assets retained for the - -
charity’s own use - -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
Fund to which Amount due When due
Details liability relates (optional) (optional)
B5 Liabilities -
-
-
-
-
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees
Signature Print Name Date of
approval
#VALUE! Rory Davies 2/4/2026

| | | |

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K CHARITY COMMISSION| FOR ENGLAND AND WALES

. Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A

independent Examiner’s Report

Report to the trustees/ | Charity Name

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On accounts for the year Charity no
ended | 2025 (if any) | 1104838
Set out on pages
| report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above
charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 95/04/2025 ,
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Responsibilities and As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation of basis of report the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act’).

| report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, | have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent | have completed my examination. | confirm that no material matters have examiner's statement | Come to my attention (other than that disclosed below *) in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect: * accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or

| have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

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Signed:| S - a Date: | 47/12/25
Name: |Sarah Whelan
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Relevant professional |[SBM] qualification(s) or body (if any):

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1
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IER

October 2018

Address:

13 HAWFINCH CRESCENT HARLOW ESSEX CM17 0GP

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Section B

Disclosure

Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).

Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose.

2

IER

October 2018