2024-03-31-accounts

Trustees' Annual Report for the period

Period start date Period end date Day Month Year Day Month Year From 1st April 2023 To 31st March 2024

Section A Reference and administration details

Charity name Gladrags Community Costume Trust Other names charity is known by Gladrags Community Costume Resource Registered charity number (if any) 1122704 Charity's principal address Unit 10, Westergate Business Centre Westergate Road Brighton Postcode BN2 4QN ~~——~~ Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity Name of person (or body) Dates acted if not for whole Trustee name Office (if any) entitled to appoint trustee year (if any) 1 Heather Butler Chair Trustees John Adams Treasurer Trustees 3 Neil Border Secretary Trustees 4 ~~—————~~ Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information) Vania Mills

Section B Structure, governance and management

Description of the charity’s trusts

Type of governing Trust Deed document (eg. trust deed, constitution) How the charity is Charitable Trust constituted (eg. trust, association, company) Trustee selection Appointed by Trustees methods (eg. appointed by, elected by)

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Section C Objectives and activities

Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document

Educating the public in historical and world dress by providing low-cost costumes and related resources as an educational tool.

To advance education of the public by providing various costumes and related resources at low cost as an educational tool.

OVERVIEW:

Gladrags is a unique, eco-minded provider of costume resources and expertise which serve to further the activities of our beneficiary groups. Planet-friendly principles are key to our ethos: it is by virtue of both fostering and promoting the concept of re-using costumes since 1994 that we have built a resource of 10,000 items, 95% of which are donated stock that we repurpose and adapt to benefit the community time and time again.

We support and enrich the projects of our beneficiary groups by offering the following:

Summary of the main Affordable hire of pre-loved costumes and artefacts to organisations activities who would otherwise struggle to afford or have access to them. undertaken for Our beneficiary groups include: the public benefit in ➢ Education: schools, colleges, further and higher education relation to ➢ Arts: amateur and fringe theatre, film and arts groups; professional these objects theatre, film, heritage and arts organisations with a socially conscious (include within remit this section ➢ Community and wellbeing: libraries, day centres; community and the statutory youth groups; charities and not-for-profits declaration that trustees Principal resources are: have had ➢ historical, world dress and show costumes and accessories for children regard to the and adults, suited particularly to educational practice, performance, guidance wellbeing projects and community arts. issued by the Charity resource boxes: costumes and artefacts tailored to a specific project or Commission theme, most commonly to support primary school topics, promoting on public 'historical-detective' work and role-play activities. benefit)

• reminiscence boxes: containing authentic vintage clothing and everyday memorabilia, selected to fit an era or theme.

Reminiscence and heritage resources that support memory-sharing activities, within a context of wellbeing. Primarily we provide reminiscence boxes, vintage clothing and artefacts for:

• ➢ heritage exhibitions and activities.

• ➢ reminiscence sessions and interactive activities for older people experiencing isolation, including those living with dementia and Alzheimer’s.

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Store visits that offer educational or wellbeing support including:

• ➢ nurture visits for children, young people and adults who experience additional disadvantage, exploring the role of costume as part of a project’s process and gaining experiential access to culture and the arts

• ➢ mentoring of school pupils and university students with drama or costume based assignments and projects

Costume-making resources:

• ➢ Sewing equipment and recycled fabrics to resource user groups’ own costume-making projects and encourage sustainable practice.

• ➢ Library collection: referencing historical dress of ordinary people; world and cultural dress; affordable, local costume resources.

Rehome-it! Scheme:

Surplus costumes, props and textiles are donated back to the community, with a focus on:

• ➢ reaching schools, colleges, community arts groups and low-income families.

• ➢ further completing the cycle of donations to Gladrags, an estimated 1 tonne annually, and mitigating textile waste by rehoming an estimated 1.2 tonnes annually.

COMMUNITY:

Through our Community Outreach Programme we reach further groups and individuals who experience disadvantage and isolation. In response to the increasing cost-of-living crisis, we particularly focus on partnering with food security projects to deliver the following:

Creative dress-up activities designed to encourage a sense of play for children and families experiencing life challenges. Costume inspires the creation of characters, scenarios and social interaction, whereby children stretch their imaginations and live out their dreams and hopes.

Reminiscence sessions with older people who come together to be socially active, often as a means of combating social isolation. Our sessions contribute to their wellbeing with:

• ➢ themed memory boxes that ignite the meaningful sharing of past experiences

• ➢ vintage and fancy-dress photo-booths that encourage playful activity and a reminder of the sense of fun that can be had at any stage of life

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VOLUNTEERS:

The volunteer team support the running of all our operations, which we could not deliver effectively without them. They are therefore instrumental in determining our capacity to reach more beneficiaries and to deliver on the organisation’s aims and objectives. We support a diverse community of 60-70 volunteers annually, and we continue to provide opportunities for people with a range of learning and support needs, tailoring roles to their interests and aspirations. We provide training opportunities and supportedwork placements within the organisation that build and maintain selfconfidence or support specific pathways into the creative arts industry and general employment.

Trustees have regard to the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit.

Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)

SUSTAINABILITY:

Environmental sustainability frames our aims and objectives, with the re-use of resources at the core of our ethos and the services we offer, as well as being integral to the communication of key organisational values. Our longstanding commitment to be part of the solution to a sustainable textile industry and our planet-friendly practices influence organisations and individuals and ensure that our own carbon footprint remains minimal.

Our hire-not-buy service encourages a consumer ethos of accessing high quality pre-loved garments versus cheaply bought and unethically made ones. The 10,000 costumes we share with our local communities predominantly comprise donated and recycled stock, some of which is further adapted by us for a longer life or a wider range of purposes. We encourage beneficiary groups to gift their un-used costumes to Gladrags to re-share these within our communities. The free costume-making support and recycled materials we offer groups further promotes sustainable costume practice.

Our Rehome-it! scheme brings together our principles of minimal waste with opportunities to provide additional support to the charities, schools and community projects who benefit from the scheme.

n ethos of wider participation and social inclusion is key to the delivery of and access to our services and our organisational purpose is sustained by this focus.

Consequently, we are committed to reaching communities experiencing disadvantage and isolation and achieve this further through our own outreach projects.

We actively recruit, support, and develop volunteers with wide-ranging skills and learning needs and celebrate the inclusivity of our team as an organisational asset. The wellbeing of our volunteers and staff is paramount to Gladrags’ sustainability, and the longevity of service from many in our team is testament to this.

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Section D Achievements and performance

Summary of the Summary of the main achievements of the charity during the year main achievements of the charity during the year PROVISION OF COMMUNITY RESOURCES:

Gladrags reached 10, 300 beneficiaries in 2023-24, by supplying costumes and related resources to projects they participated in or attended. An increased reach of 1,800 beneficiaries on the previous year, we contributed to the following:

• ➢ Education: complementing interactive approaches to learning, in particular adding context to social history or world cultures; creating access opportunities to arts and culture in an educational context.

• ➢ Sustainability: promoting a planet-friendly approach to costume, clothing and fashion; responsibly re-homing costumes and textiles within our local community; resourcing climate-focussed initiatives.

• ➢ Health and well-being: stimulating and nurturing memory, imagination, creativity and play within our outreach sessions. Providing activities that specifically promote positive mental health and wellbeing, and that develop self-confidence and awareness of personal abilities.

• ➢ Community cohesion: bringing people together through live arts events and shared creative activities that encourage sociability and community connection.

• ➢ Celebration: adding colour and magic to performance-based projects, theatre and film, social and cultural events.

COSTUME PROVISION

Education

Overall increased uptake of our resource boxes enabled interactive approaches to learning with artefacts and costume that, for example:

• ➢ brought history to life for pupils learning about topics such as Anglo-Saxons at Southway School and St Luke’s Primary , to Evacuees at Stanford Juniors and West Park Primary , or key historical figures such as Henry VIII at Bevendean Primary and local suffragette Mary Clark as part of Brighton Dome ’s heritage schools' tour.

• ➢ gave context to world cultures for children learning about African art at Bevendean Primary and Chinese New Year at Coombe Rd School.

• ➢ enhanced educational experience with a kinesthetic approach, particularly suited to children and young people with special education needs such as a Viking’s re-enactment at Moulsecoomb Primary School , and an aspirationfocused cooking video for a young person supported by Sense Learning.

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Section D Achievements and performance

Meetings with the Poverty Proofing in Schools Network inspired us to offer the following free provision to schools for World Book Day in March 2024:

• ➢ World Book Day boxes, containing classic children’s fairytale and literary character costumes to assist schools in providing outfits for children whose families were not able to support them in this global celebration.

• ➢ Working alongside Leftover Threads (a partner in our newly formed Textile Reuse Hub ) we ran a free World Book Day costume-making workshop, whereby surplus textiles and items for rehome were refashioned into book character costumes, helping low-income families navigate the well-documented stress of taking part in school dress-up days.

Our mentoring of college and university students with costume or production responsibilities linked to their courses extended further, including:

• ➢ Student group visits and styling sessions for film students at Brighton Screen and Film School and costume students at Northbrook University.

• ➢ Costume advice sessions for performing arts students at East Sussex College , selecting outfits for their Sussex-wide theatre in education Pantomime tour to 14 local schools

Arts Access

Promoting and resourcing wider participation in community-led arts is at the centre of our subsidised costume hire ethos. It enabled the creative vision of a broad range of projects, including:

• ➢ performances that promoted wide-reaching creative experience for first-time performers such as Coldean Primary School ’s staging of Mary Poppins involving every school pupil, and Brighton People’s Theatre’s show Born and Bread devised and performed by a community cast.

• ➢ live arts that championed the rights of young people with a learning disability to flourish such as the theatre shows at St John’s College and Woodlandsmeed School , and the stage and screen output of aspiring professional performers at Different Planet Arts and Carousel.

• ➢ community Pantomimes in the heart of rural Sussex communities by amateur societies such as Ringmer Drama , Henfield Theatre and Weald Panto.

The transformative nature of costume plays a pivotal role in projects that look to the arts as a means of nurturing wellbeing and bringing communities together. In 202324 these included:

• ➢ provision of safe, fun, creative space to explore gender identity and gender expression with Brighton Youth Centre ’s drag workshops and Kidzone ’s drag storytelling for children

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Section D Achievements and performance

• ➢ wellbeing and acknowledgement events for Brighton & Hove’s Children In Care Council

• ➢ 1920s-style Christmas Dinner hosted by young teenagers at the Crew Club for their local elders in Whitehawk

• ➢ sensitive festive celebrations held by staff and volunteers at Martlets Hospice Care and Kennedy Street Recovery Cafe

Our Place, Brighton Festival’s flagship community initiative ran for its third year in Moulsecoomb and Bevendean. Gladrags led again in artistic liaison and support to the initiative's artists in residence, East Side Print, and as part of a local steering committee oversaw their free festival workshops and final community event for neighbourhood residents who have less opportunities to access arts and culture. We again engaged our volunteer team in fulfilling creative output by producing a collection of textile greetings postcards in the range of languages that reflected the diversity of our team, contributing to the project’s ‘Say Hello’ theme. Alongside block-printed postcards created by schools and community groups, these 500b ‘hello’ and ‘welcome’ messages in different languages were screen-printed on to community banners and cushions for local venues.

Heritage:

Walk the Chalk

Spotlighting the King Charles III Coast Path, this large-scale multi-disciplinary fiveday event in Cuckmere Haven celebrated local heritage, history, natural environment and folklore through art and creativity. Gladrags collaborated with LYT Productions, taking on the costume design and wardrobe for the 100-strong cast of community volunteers, ensuring they could convincingly recreate an Iron Age settlement and a Smugglers Lair, along with WW1 and WW2 outposts. This also enabled us to provide styling, design and wardrobe mentoring opportunities for our volunteers, supporting their pathways into professional costume work.

Brighton Dome

Supporting the Dome’s free access events, Gladrags resourced dress-up corners and workshops that evoked key moments in the venue’s performance history, inviting guests to step in the shoes of pop-stars such as Pink Floyd, David Bowie and Abba or re-imagine staged Pantomimes and Fairytales of decades past. Furthermore we curated resource boxes of authentic artefacts and accessories for their Full of Surprises schools outreach tour, featuring key figures in the Dome’s social and event history.

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Section D Achievements and performance

Food Security

With the cost-of-living an increasing concern nationally and locally, we provided support and subsidised costume packages for projects bridging the food poverty gap by:

• ➢ supporting theatre company One Fell Swoop for the third year running in their efforts to raise funds for Fareshare Sussex, the surplus food redistribution charity. By providing 200 costumes for free and assisting with costume design for their Shakespeare Unlocked festival we resourced a series of outdoor Shakespeare plays and boosted the company’s fundraising capability.

• ➢ providing food themed dress-up tents for Very Local Food Hubs and Cooking Good’s free, educational community events in Moulsecoomb and Bevendean, celebrating sustainable, affordable food.

• ➢ fully subsidising Lewes Foodbank , who saw volunteers fundraising by dressing up to create awareness of their cause and raise vital funds.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH:

Our 15-years' experience of delivering outreach programmes reaches low-income communities who have few opportunities for outings and social interaction. With a focus on East Brighton, we reach children, families and older people who live in areas that fall within the 10% most deprived parts of the UK, as defined by the Index of Multiple Deprivation.

Family Sessions

Our programme enables us to reach people most in need by bringing the transformational nature of our dress-up activities into the heart of communities experiencing disadvantage and hardship. We invite families to be socially active together via interactive dress-up play. The results are:

• ➢ children stretch their imaginations and are active in their play.

• ➢ children feel safe in expressing themselves creatively or discovering unique identities through the lens of the ‘new me’ that character dress-up can offer.

• ➢ families experience the freedom and fun that dress-up play offers and have an opportunity to step out of sometimes very challenging life situations.

In response to the ever-increasing cost-of-living crisis, we were able to grow the scope of our family outreach sessions. Building on the previous success of our partnership work with 3 local food poverty initiatives: CHOMP Moulsecoomb , Bevendean CHOMP , and the Bevy Pub’s kids club we expanded our reach by collaborating with an additional 5 community food partners. We identified a joint vision to bring people together to share nutritious food and explore creative, interactive activity. By addressing wellbeing and food provision together we could give families the experience of a ‘day out’, with respite from sometimes

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very tough daily lives and opportunities for joyful, sociable family fun. This expansion of family outreach enabled us to provide dress-up activities to:

• ➢ established free holiday meal clubs run by Bevendean CHOMP and CHOMP Central , in Whitehawk, Hangleton and Central Brighton for people receiving free school meals or on low incomes.

• ➢ new free initiatives such as community cook-a-long sessions in Moulsecoomb and Bevendean with Cooking Good , intergenerational family fun days in Whitehawk with Robert Lodge 50+ group and Fire and Feast events in Bevendean with Fernee Forest Club .

Furthermore we piloted a series of collaborative Christmas family sessions with these existing partners in Moulsecoomb and Bevendean, jointly increasing our reach to the most vulnerable families in the area by 35%. Families were able to enjoy a roast dinner and a range of festive activities, with Gladrags supplying Christmas dress-up, building a Santa’s Grotto and arranging a special visit from Father Christmas himself.

The momentum we built from this and the incoming requests for our provision led to the roll out of our commitment for 2024 to deliver 30 free community dress-up sessions as a meaningful way to celebrate our organisation’s 30[th] anniversary.

Reaching older people

We ran a final event with Chatterboxes , the social group for elderly residents of Moulsecoomb and Bevendean. We all celebrated in style with a coronation reminiscence session and festive lunch, with regal dress up and many a tale of previous coronations shared, sparked by historical memorabilia. Having partnered with The Bevy pub to set up this post-pandemic initiative, the group’s activities became absorbed into an existing seniors club, changing their needs regarding the suitability of our provision. We stayed connected with the group and invited them to community events that proactively engaged different generations.

We began a re-evaluation of the need and potential reach of our provision, consulting with local advisors Trust in Developing Communities as well as a local reminiscence consultant. We identified two potential new elders’ groups to engage with in Moulsecoomb and Whitehawk and began planning taster sessions for Spring 2024.

SCOPE OF BENEFICIARIES

We maintained our aim to prioritise reaching both children and adults most in need by:

• ➢ continuing to tailor our resources to suit the individual needs of educational and community projects addressing disadvantage.

• ➢ maintaining the same level of costume provision subsidy to our beneficiaries (unchanged for groups most in need since 2010).

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• ➢ delivering our community outreach programme in partnership with food security organisations in the most deprived areas of our city.

We increased our reach to new beneficiary-groups by:

• ➢ pro-actively engaging with local schools, community groups and the local arts sector.

• ➢ promoting our resource provision beyond Brighton through a consistent online presence on social media platforms that celebrated our mission and gave a platform to our beneficiary groups.

New beneficiaries included:

• ➢ Ditchling Primary and Carden Primary schools, who benefitted from resource boxes and costumes for Stunning Starts, whereby teachers introduce new topics innovatively at the start of the school term

• ➢ Haywards Heath College and Cavendish School who were able to costume casts of over 50 students and add authenticity to their staging of era-specific musicals Made in Dagenham and Little Women .

• ➢ Amateur arts groups such as Eastbourne Gilbert and Sullivan , Arundel Players and Wings Youth Theatre who were able to affordably supplement their own wardrobe collections and avoid hiring full show sets unnecessarily.

• ➢ Emerging professional theatre companies Cue Fanfare and Rabbit in the Headlights who accessed high quality costumes at discounted rates, producing professional quality productions despite very low budgets.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT:

Brighton Textile Reuse Hub

Gladrags’ invitation to like-minded sustainable organisations to further common goals boosted our combined ability to implement a waste-free approach to textile resources. This resulted in the launch of the Textile Reuse Hub in November 2023, a dynamic and growing collaboration between Gladrags, Leftover Threads , garment upcycling specialists and Smarter Uniforms who collect and redistribute school uniform.

By pooling our resources, community networks and experience, we promote and facilitate textile reuse with shared aims to:

• ➢ increase the reuse and circulation of existing textiles in the local area.

• ➢ support individuals impacted by the rising cost of living, by encouraging the use of second-hand or repurposed clothing and providing assistance with repairs.

• ➢ raise awareness of the environmental impact of textile waste and the importance of sustainable practices.

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Section D Achievements and performance

With support from East Brighton Trust, we established an operational base from which the Gladrags Rehome-it! Scheme was able to flourish. This initiative redistributes our surplus costumes and textiles for free within the Sussex community, especially to schools, colleges and grassroots community groups. It prompts us to assess the relevance and usage of our existing costume collections, and to pass on items donated to Gladrags that are more suited to other projects.

The Rehome-it! Scheme acts as an important extension to our hire-not-buy service and aligns with local and UK-wide ambitions for a circular economy, all contributing to the Brighton and Hove City Council ’s objective of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030.

Rehome-it!:

Our Rehome-it! scheme began in March 2023 and gained significant traction into 2024 with consistent promotion, fostering relationships with key audiences and operating the scheme from the Textile Reuse Hub premises. We engaged with 40 groups across the year and repurposed 1,250 items in the following ways:

• ➢ Store visits for individual groups that provided:

• → warm street wear for the clothing hub run by First Base Day Centre for homeless people

• → fabric remnants, a sewing machine and haberdashery kit to resource the new community sewing group at Bristol Estate Tenant’s Association Hub .

• → children’s dressing up costumes to support Moulsecoomb Primary School’ s Opal scheme, boosting imaginative free play activities in breaktimes.

• ➢ Running four Rehome-it! Open Days with attendees including: Textile and Arts faculty students from Varndean School , Brighton MET college and Northbrook University ; textile teachers from BHASVIC and Blatchington Mill Schools , and community groups Art Space and Far Far Away Musical Group .

• ➢ Hosting a Rehome-it! Facebook group to facilitate direct item exchanges between members and promote external bulk rehoming opportunities. The platform also facilitates the connection between groups, allowing them to share and exchange ideas for reusing and repurposing items.

• ➢ Delivering a three-day eco residency at Brighton MET college where we rehomed 334 items alone and engaged students in our mission to mitigate textile waste with a sustainability presentation.

• ➢ Rehoming to families in need via outreach activities, including gifting over 70 Halloween costume items for trick or treating fun, and nearly 100 dress-up items as part of a Christmas pop-up ‘rehome’ collective we steered with Smarter Uniforms , CHOMP Brighton and Very Local Food Hubs . Families were able to move into the festive season with gifted stocking presents, holiday dressing-up costumes, school uniform essentials and fruit & veg boxes.

Sustainability Placements:

Since introducing our Revive to Rewear programme in March 2023, we supported 12 volunteers through our textile sustainability placements across the year, supporting pathways to further education and employment for young people and those stepping back into the workplace. These placements offer volunteers with diverse learning needs the opportunity to develop their knowledge of sustainable

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textile practices in action, whilst equally supporting our in-house costume provision and community outreach work. Key benefits for the volunteers who took part were:

• ➢ acquiring practical skills such as customer service, repair and upcycling techniques, costume styling and garment repurposing, framed within both sustainability and industry knowledge.

• ➢ achieving learning objectives, evidenced by certification, relevant to the modern world of work where implementing sustainability practices are increasingly important.

• ➢ becoming confident ambassadors of our approach to reducing apparel waste through our hire-not-buy costume service and broader sector initiatives to combat fast fashion.

Vintage Sales

The selling of our vintage stock is a means of repurposing sellable items and dress fabrics less relevant to the beneficiary groups accessing our Re-home-it! scheme. Via our online and in-person sales we are able to:

• ➢ align our circular fashion ethos by using the re-sale of clothing to fund our mission, serving beneficiary groups in Sussex.

• ➢ promote the purchase of second-hand clothing and be actively part of the solution to textile waste.

A shift in public awareness and attitudes to the perils of fast fashion has enabled us to reach new audiences seeking to reduce their personal impact on textile waste and opt out of ‘purchasing new’.

We experienced lower-level online sales than in previous years through Vinted and E-bay, reflected in market trends, with a return to high street shopping postpandemic. This led us to:

• ➢ channel further stock into mini outlets, via established Vintage clothing shops: Up North, Department and Showgirl Vintage as well as selling direct to vintage traders.

• ➢ expand our pop-up sales, a particular highlight being our participation in the first ever city-wide event for Sustainable Fashion Week . At the two-day marketplace we were able to showcase our entire vintage apparel for sale as well as a collection of ‘repair and refashion’ clothing. In addition to raising over £1000 revenue, this gave us a meaningful platform to engage with our city's circular fashion conscious community and promote our environmental mission.

VOLUNTEERS:

Opportunities:

Over the course of the year, 69 volunteers helped us to maintain our resources, deliver activities and serve our beneficiaries and we welcomed 37 new volunteers to the team.

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Section D Achievements and performance

We provided volunteer opportunities for people with a range of learning, social and career needs, including:

• ➢ 12 certificated textile sustainability placements to support pathways into further education or employment

• ➢ 3 student module placements and 9 work experience placements for school pupils

• ➢ 5 supported workplace opportunities for people with learning disabilities, and volunteer roles for 7 people with mental health needs

• ➢ 7 further roles for school and university students

Progression:

For some, volunteering at Gladrags is a stepping-stone on professional or personal journeys, bolstering portfolios and fostering self-confidence. We maintained our commitment to supporting this with tailored volunteering roles and signposting volunteers to relevant arts internships and progression opportunities. Since working with us in 2023-24:

• ➢ 2 volunteers gained the experience they needed to apply for prestigious internship schemes.

• ➢ 5 volunteers boosted their portfolios and styling experience to support their career paths in theatre design, costume in film and costume construction.

• ➢ 3 recent graduates gained invaluable work experience and the confidence to reach paid positions in wardrobe, box office management, and events.

Engagement:

For others still their contribution to Gladrags is an integral part of their life, and by March 2024, 6 volunteers in our team had been with us for over 12 years; another 8 for over 5 years. We are proud of the strength and experience this maintains in our team and the safe and welcoming environment this offers for new volunteers to come into. We bolstered volunteer engagement by:

• ➢ ensuring that volunteers’ roles evolved according to what was relevant and rewarding for them individually and ensuring that their effort and dedication was valued by the organisation.

• ➢ delivering free upskilling initiatives in sewing and repair, from refresher machine sewing workshops, to more advanced technique sessions.

• ➢ providing additional training and skills development with a particular focus this year on millinery repair and restoration, conducted by an industry professional, and 1:1 beginner sewing sessions with volunteers under 21 and volunteers with additional needs.

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• ➢ offering subsidised access to arts and culture events, acknowledging the link between volunteers' work for Gladrags and the projects and organisations we resource.

Wellbeing

For most, volunteering with Gladrags also fulfils a personal need, such as:

• ➢ social interaction and building confidence

• ➢ acquiring new skills or sharing existing ones

• ➢ gaining general workplace experience or costume knowledge

• ➢ being immersed and purposeful in a creative environment

We place high importance on a sense of belonging and community within our volunteer team and recognise how important this is to ensure that individual volunteers feel valued and equally that the charity can deliver on its aims and

objectives. We provide opportunities both within volunteering roles and via social gatherings for volunteers to connect meaningfully with each other and with the organisation. We organise a range of social events throughout the year and during National Volunteer’s Week that acknowledge the immense difference our volunteers make to Gladrags’ ability to deliver on its aims and objectives.

INCOME GENERATION

Having the ability to raise our own regular source of revenue is key to our organisational sustainability, building unrestricted reserves that ensure we are able to maintain our costume provision and support our team in the immediate term as well as plan costume outreach and services in the longer-term.

Our principal revenue model links costume hire fees directly to our resource provision: beneficiaries, who make up 78% of our hire revenue, contribute at a very minimal level in order to loan costumes and resource boxes affordably; this service is then subsidised by the top-rate hire fees paid by professionals and partygoers. Collectively this raised £53,200, over half our annual income of £101,300. Our evolving relationships with professional costume designers and stylists boosted hire revenue and a growing awareness of our stock quality for film and TV brought us business and revenue from the BBC, ITV and Channel 5.

Income from grants and significant donors are equally crucial to our capacity to deliver services and activities to our beneficiaries. Repeat funding from Arnold Burton Trust, MF Mills, The Brian Mitchell Charitable Settlement and East Brighton Trust was boosted by a new grant from Brighton and Hove city Council, collectively bringing £32,700 to the organisation.

Our Winter Warmer Appeal raised over £3000, largely from the general public, to specifically support our dress-up provision for community food initiatives and grassroots arts projects, whilst £5,900 revenue from Vintage Sales and events further boosted our unrestricted income.

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Secllon E Flnanclal revlew 8rlef statement of the charlty's pollcy on rese￿e8 The charity holds reserves to ensure thal: essential core and operatlonal cosls can be cover8d,' longer term plans can be commilled lo.. unforeseen circumslanc8s can be rnitigaled. Reserves are reviewed quarterly.. £18,000 is Ihe rolling mlnimum reserve limit per quarter lo enable oplimum operational continuity., £8000 Ihe bare minimum unrestricted reserves at any one time io ensure viabilily. Section G Declaration The trusiees declare that they have approved the trustees, report above. Slgned on behalf of the charlty's trustees Slgnature(s) &1 Full name{s) kn-LEn Posltlon Date TAR 15 2023 -2024

CHARIIY COMMISSION IOR FPIGIANLI AND WAIIS Ol•drng Communlty Coitsmw TN•l Receipts and payments accounts CC16a Foi lh• p•rtod Irom 0410112023 To 311312024 Sectlon A Recelpts and payments Unrv•lrf¢i•d lund• R••lrfcl•d lund• 00•1gnBt•d lund• Total lund• Al R•￿1 l• 13.21• 4J,•7• GtAnti r•JnNIkn iJ.2 3).2 12.rna 1.141 E¥wT Fo•• J.nJ Orh•r Sub lotallGmu ￿cOme lor AR) 11.7 IQI.>D? •J.41J A2 A•MI 4nd Inv••im•nt Ml••. Sub tot•1 To¢•lrnc•W• 69.214 2).250 12.711 101.JD? gJ,48J A3P •nt• 4.•QJ 1.34J YJ 747 IfYni 771 J4,?15 3•4 707 St•ll 4 VINJrt•w• i.mj .717 ••#)nl Fffl•• PR & jii 7.JJJ tJ• •J 377 Sub lot•1 YO.1 •.iJJ A4 A•ul •nd In￿•1m•nI rchM• ••• l•bl• Sub tot•1 70,101 2S.079 9.aJJ 17.539 Il•1 of r•c•lWlp•ym•nt•) A5 Trnn•l•rn b•tw••n lund• A8C••h lundi I•￿ y••f •nd 1.029 J.1 JS J.Jio 5,934 JO.194 9.561 C•h lunds ihls y••r •nd JJ.471 19.831 Section B Statoment of assets and liabilities at tho end of the period Unrn•lrt¢¢•d R••irtet•d lund• lund• io rna•••l C 0•#1on•t•d lund• lo n••r••l £ JI471 i•.•J• CCXX Rl •faxmi• (SS Jinir2

81 C•Jh lund• Tol•l c•8h fvnd• 33.471 19.gJ8 12,891 UnM•tdct•d lund• R••lrl¢t•d fund• Endowm•nt lund• 82 Olh•i mon•l•ry •sA•lA C•# 83 Inv••lm•nt ••••t• Ib•l 84 A•••lJ r•t4ln•d lof lh• C￿rIly,• tr4m 85 U•blllii•• 91pnftd onv oi ￿1001 ¢ bohirf ol Il Iho INI1••• D1• ov*1 s¥n•￿1• Prffil Nan J_ CCXX P2 •EMunii ISSI 31101ft025

Trustees' Annual Report for the period

Period start date Period end date Day Month Year Day Month Year From 1st April 2023 To 31st March 2024

Section A Reference and administration details

Charity name Gladrags Community Costume Trust Other names charity is known by Gladrags Community Costume Resource Registered charity number (if any) 1122704 Charity's principal address Unit 10, Westergate Business Centre Westergate Road Brighton Postcode BN2 4QN ~~——~~ Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity Name of person (or body) Dates acted if not for whole Trustee name Office (if any) entitled to appoint trustee year (if any) 1 Heather Butler Chair Trustees John Adams Treasurer Trustees 3 Neil Border Secretary Trustees 4 ~~—————~~ Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information) Vania Mills

Section B Structure, governance and management

Description of the charity’s trusts

Type of governing Trust Deed document (eg. trust deed, constitution) How the charity is Charitable Trust constituted (eg. trust, association, company) Trustee selection Appointed by Trustees methods (eg. appointed by, elected by)

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Section C Objectives and activities

Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document

Educating the public in historical and world dress by providing low-cost costumes and related resources as an educational tool.

To advance education of the public by providing various costumes and related resources at low cost as an educational tool.

OVERVIEW:

Gladrags is a unique, eco-minded provider of costume resources and expertise which serve to further the activities of our beneficiary groups. Planet-friendly principles are key to our ethos: it is by virtue of both fostering and promoting the concept of re-using costumes since 1994 that we have built a resource of 10,000 items, 95% of which are donated stock that we repurpose and adapt to benefit the community time and time again.

We support and enrich the projects of our beneficiary groups by offering the following:

Summary of the main Affordable hire of pre-loved costumes and artefacts to organisations activities who would otherwise struggle to afford or have access to them. undertaken for Our beneficiary groups include: the public benefit in ➢ Education: schools, colleges, further and higher education relation to ➢ Arts: amateur and fringe theatre, film and arts groups; professional these objects theatre, film, heritage and arts organisations with a socially conscious (include within remit this section ➢ Community and wellbeing: libraries, day centres; community and the statutory youth groups; charities and not-for-profits declaration that trustees Principal resources are: have had ➢ historical, world dress and show costumes and accessories for children regard to the and adults, suited particularly to educational practice, performance, guidance wellbeing projects and community arts. issued by the Charity resource boxes: costumes and artefacts tailored to a specific project or Commission theme, most commonly to support primary school topics, promoting on public 'historical-detective' work and role-play activities. benefit)

• reminiscence boxes: containing authentic vintage clothing and everyday memorabilia, selected to fit an era or theme.

Reminiscence and heritage resources that support memory-sharing activities, within a context of wellbeing. Primarily we provide reminiscence boxes, vintage clothing and artefacts for:

• ➢ heritage exhibitions and activities.

• ➢ reminiscence sessions and interactive activities for older people experiencing isolation, including those living with dementia and Alzheimer’s.

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Store visits that offer educational or wellbeing support including:

• ➢ nurture visits for children, young people and adults who experience additional disadvantage, exploring the role of costume as part of a project’s process and gaining experiential access to culture and the arts

• ➢ mentoring of school pupils and university students with drama or costume based assignments and projects

Costume-making resources:

• ➢ Sewing equipment and recycled fabrics to resource user groups’ own costume-making projects and encourage sustainable practice.

• ➢ Library collection: referencing historical dress of ordinary people; world and cultural dress; affordable, local costume resources.

Rehome-it! Scheme:

Surplus costumes, props and textiles are donated back to the community, with a focus on:

• ➢ reaching schools, colleges, community arts groups and low-income families.

• ➢ further completing the cycle of donations to Gladrags, an estimated 1 tonne annually, and mitigating textile waste by rehoming an estimated 1.2 tonnes annually.

COMMUNITY:

Through our Community Outreach Programme we reach further groups and individuals who experience disadvantage and isolation. In response to the increasing cost-of-living crisis, we particularly focus on partnering with food security projects to deliver the following:

Creative dress-up activities designed to encourage a sense of play for children and families experiencing life challenges. Costume inspires the creation of characters, scenarios and social interaction, whereby children stretch their imaginations and live out their dreams and hopes.

Reminiscence sessions with older people who come together to be socially active, often as a means of combating social isolation. Our sessions contribute to their wellbeing with:

• ➢ themed memory boxes that ignite the meaningful sharing of past experiences

• ➢ vintage and fancy-dress photo-booths that encourage playful activity and a reminder of the sense of fun that can be had at any stage of life

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VOLUNTEERS:

The volunteer team support the running of all our operations, which we could not deliver effectively without them. They are therefore instrumental in determining our capacity to reach more beneficiaries and to deliver on the organisation’s aims and objectives. We support a diverse community of 60-70 volunteers annually, and we continue to provide opportunities for people with a range of learning and support needs, tailoring roles to their interests and aspirations. We provide training opportunities and supportedwork placements within the organisation that build and maintain selfconfidence or support specific pathways into the creative arts industry and general employment.

Trustees have regard to the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit.

Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)

SUSTAINABILITY:

Environmental sustainability frames our aims and objectives, with the re-use of resources at the core of our ethos and the services we offer, as well as being integral to the communication of key organisational values. Our longstanding commitment to be part of the solution to a sustainable textile industry and our planet-friendly practices influence organisations and individuals and ensure that our own carbon footprint remains minimal.

Our hire-not-buy service encourages a consumer ethos of accessing high quality pre-loved garments versus cheaply bought and unethically made ones. The 10,000 costumes we share with our local communities predominantly comprise donated and recycled stock, some of which is further adapted by us for a longer life or a wider range of purposes. We encourage beneficiary groups to gift their un-used costumes to Gladrags to re-share these within our communities. The free costume-making support and recycled materials we offer groups further promotes sustainable costume practice.

Our Rehome-it! scheme brings together our principles of minimal waste with opportunities to provide additional support to the charities, schools and community projects who benefit from the scheme.

n ethos of wider participation and social inclusion is key to the delivery of and access to our services and our organisational purpose is sustained by this focus.

Consequently, we are committed to reaching communities experiencing disadvantage and isolation and achieve this further through our own outreach projects.

We actively recruit, support, and develop volunteers with wide-ranging skills and learning needs and celebrate the inclusivity of our team as an organisational asset. The wellbeing of our volunteers and staff is paramount to Gladrags’ sustainability, and the longevity of service from many in our team is testament to this.

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Section D Achievements and performance

Summary of the Summary of the main achievements of the charity during the year main achievements of the charity during the year PROVISION OF COMMUNITY RESOURCES:

Gladrags reached 10, 300 beneficiaries in 2023-24, by supplying costumes and related resources to projects they participated in or attended. An increased reach of 1,800 beneficiaries on the previous year, we contributed to the following:

• ➢ Education: complementing interactive approaches to learning, in particular adding context to social history or world cultures; creating access opportunities to arts and culture in an educational context.

• ➢ Sustainability: promoting a planet-friendly approach to costume, clothing and fashion; responsibly re-homing costumes and textiles within our local community; resourcing climate-focussed initiatives.

• ➢ Health and well-being: stimulating and nurturing memory, imagination, creativity and play within our outreach sessions. Providing activities that specifically promote positive mental health and wellbeing, and that develop self-confidence and awareness of personal abilities.

• ➢ Community cohesion: bringing people together through live arts events and shared creative activities that encourage sociability and community connection.

• ➢ Celebration: adding colour and magic to performance-based projects, theatre and film, social and cultural events.

COSTUME PROVISION

Education

Overall increased uptake of our resource boxes enabled interactive approaches to learning with artefacts and costume that, for example:

• ➢ brought history to life for pupils learning about topics such as Anglo-Saxons at Southway School and St Luke’s Primary , to Evacuees at Stanford Juniors and West Park Primary , or key historical figures such as Henry VIII at Bevendean Primary and local suffragette Mary Clark as part of Brighton Dome ’s heritage schools' tour.

• ➢ gave context to world cultures for children learning about African art at Bevendean Primary and Chinese New Year at Coombe Rd School.

• ➢ enhanced educational experience with a kinesthetic approach, particularly suited to children and young people with special education needs such as a Viking’s re-enactment at Moulsecoomb Primary School , and an aspirationfocused cooking video for a young person supported by Sense Learning.

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Meetings with the Poverty Proofing in Schools Network inspired us to offer the following free provision to schools for World Book Day in March 2024:

• ➢ World Book Day boxes, containing classic children’s fairytale and literary character costumes to assist schools in providing outfits for children whose families were not able to support them in this global celebration.

• ➢ Working alongside Leftover Threads (a partner in our newly formed Textile Reuse Hub ) we ran a free World Book Day costume-making workshop, whereby surplus textiles and items for rehome were refashioned into book character costumes, helping low-income families navigate the well-documented stress of taking part in school dress-up days.

Our mentoring of college and university students with costume or production responsibilities linked to their courses extended further, including:

• ➢ Student group visits and styling sessions for film students at Brighton Screen and Film School and costume students at Northbrook University.

• ➢ Costume advice sessions for performing arts students at East Sussex College , selecting outfits for their Sussex-wide theatre in education Pantomime tour to 14 local schools

Arts Access

Promoting and resourcing wider participation in community-led arts is at the centre of our subsidised costume hire ethos. It enabled the creative vision of a broad range of projects, including:

• ➢ performances that promoted wide-reaching creative experience for first-time performers such as Coldean Primary School ’s staging of Mary Poppins involving every school pupil, and Brighton People’s Theatre’s show Born and Bread devised and performed by a community cast.

• ➢ live arts that championed the rights of young people with a learning disability to flourish such as the theatre shows at St John’s College and Woodlandsmeed School , and the stage and screen output of aspiring professional performers at Different Planet Arts and Carousel.

• ➢ community Pantomimes in the heart of rural Sussex communities by amateur societies such as Ringmer Drama , Henfield Theatre and Weald Panto.

The transformative nature of costume plays a pivotal role in projects that look to the arts as a means of nurturing wellbeing and bringing communities together. In 202324 these included:

• ➢ provision of safe, fun, creative space to explore gender identity and gender expression with Brighton Youth Centre ’s drag workshops and Kidzone ’s drag storytelling for children

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• ➢ wellbeing and acknowledgement events for Brighton & Hove’s Children In Care Council

• ➢ 1920s-style Christmas Dinner hosted by young teenagers at the Crew Club for their local elders in Whitehawk

• ➢ sensitive festive celebrations held by staff and volunteers at Martlets Hospice Care and Kennedy Street Recovery Cafe

Our Place, Brighton Festival’s flagship community initiative ran for its third year in Moulsecoomb and Bevendean. Gladrags led again in artistic liaison and support to the initiative's artists in residence, East Side Print, and as part of a local steering committee oversaw their free festival workshops and final community event for neighbourhood residents who have less opportunities to access arts and culture. We again engaged our volunteer team in fulfilling creative output by producing a collection of textile greetings postcards in the range of languages that reflected the diversity of our team, contributing to the project’s ‘Say Hello’ theme. Alongside block-printed postcards created by schools and community groups, these 500b ‘hello’ and ‘welcome’ messages in different languages were screen-printed on to community banners and cushions for local venues.

Heritage:

Walk the Chalk

Spotlighting the King Charles III Coast Path, this large-scale multi-disciplinary fiveday event in Cuckmere Haven celebrated local heritage, history, natural environment and folklore through art and creativity. Gladrags collaborated with LYT Productions, taking on the costume design and wardrobe for the 100-strong cast of community volunteers, ensuring they could convincingly recreate an Iron Age settlement and a Smugglers Lair, along with WW1 and WW2 outposts. This also enabled us to provide styling, design and wardrobe mentoring opportunities for our volunteers, supporting their pathways into professional costume work.

Brighton Dome

Supporting the Dome’s free access events, Gladrags resourced dress-up corners and workshops that evoked key moments in the venue’s performance history, inviting guests to step in the shoes of pop-stars such as Pink Floyd, David Bowie and Abba or re-imagine staged Pantomimes and Fairytales of decades past. Furthermore we curated resource boxes of authentic artefacts and accessories for their Full of Surprises schools outreach tour, featuring key figures in the Dome’s social and event history.

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Food Security

With the cost-of-living an increasing concern nationally and locally, we provided support and subsidised costume packages for projects bridging the food poverty gap by:

• ➢ supporting theatre company One Fell Swoop for the third year running in their efforts to raise funds for Fareshare Sussex, the surplus food redistribution charity. By providing 200 costumes for free and assisting with costume design for their Shakespeare Unlocked festival we resourced a series of outdoor Shakespeare plays and boosted the company’s fundraising capability.

• ➢ providing food themed dress-up tents for Very Local Food Hubs and Cooking Good’s free, educational community events in Moulsecoomb and Bevendean, celebrating sustainable, affordable food.

• ➢ fully subsidising Lewes Foodbank , who saw volunteers fundraising by dressing up to create awareness of their cause and raise vital funds.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH:

Our 15-years' experience of delivering outreach programmes reaches low-income communities who have few opportunities for outings and social interaction. With a focus on East Brighton, we reach children, families and older people who live in areas that fall within the 10% most deprived parts of the UK, as defined by the Index of Multiple Deprivation.

Family Sessions

Our programme enables us to reach people most in need by bringing the transformational nature of our dress-up activities into the heart of communities experiencing disadvantage and hardship. We invite families to be socially active together via interactive dress-up play. The results are:

• ➢ children stretch their imaginations and are active in their play.

• ➢ children feel safe in expressing themselves creatively or discovering unique identities through the lens of the ‘new me’ that character dress-up can offer.

• ➢ families experience the freedom and fun that dress-up play offers and have an opportunity to step out of sometimes very challenging life situations.

In response to the ever-increasing cost-of-living crisis, we were able to grow the scope of our family outreach sessions. Building on the previous success of our partnership work with 3 local food poverty initiatives: CHOMP Moulsecoomb , Bevendean CHOMP , and the Bevy Pub’s kids club we expanded our reach by collaborating with an additional 5 community food partners. We identified a joint vision to bring people together to share nutritious food and explore creative, interactive activity. By addressing wellbeing and food provision together we could give families the experience of a ‘day out’, with respite from sometimes

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very tough daily lives and opportunities for joyful, sociable family fun. This expansion of family outreach enabled us to provide dress-up activities to:

• ➢ established free holiday meal clubs run by Bevendean CHOMP and CHOMP Central , in Whitehawk, Hangleton and Central Brighton for people receiving free school meals or on low incomes.

• ➢ new free initiatives such as community cook-a-long sessions in Moulsecoomb and Bevendean with Cooking Good , intergenerational family fun days in Whitehawk with Robert Lodge 50+ group and Fire and Feast events in Bevendean with Fernee Forest Club .

Furthermore we piloted a series of collaborative Christmas family sessions with these existing partners in Moulsecoomb and Bevendean, jointly increasing our reach to the most vulnerable families in the area by 35%. Families were able to enjoy a roast dinner and a range of festive activities, with Gladrags supplying Christmas dress-up, building a Santa’s Grotto and arranging a special visit from Father Christmas himself.

The momentum we built from this and the incoming requests for our provision led to the roll out of our commitment for 2024 to deliver 30 free community dress-up sessions as a meaningful way to celebrate our organisation’s 30[th] anniversary.

Reaching older people

We ran a final event with Chatterboxes , the social group for elderly residents of Moulsecoomb and Bevendean. We all celebrated in style with a coronation reminiscence session and festive lunch, with regal dress up and many a tale of previous coronations shared, sparked by historical memorabilia. Having partnered with The Bevy pub to set up this post-pandemic initiative, the group’s activities became absorbed into an existing seniors club, changing their needs regarding the suitability of our provision. We stayed connected with the group and invited them to community events that proactively engaged different generations.

We began a re-evaluation of the need and potential reach of our provision, consulting with local advisors Trust in Developing Communities as well as a local reminiscence consultant. We identified two potential new elders’ groups to engage with in Moulsecoomb and Whitehawk and began planning taster sessions for Spring 2024.

SCOPE OF BENEFICIARIES

We maintained our aim to prioritise reaching both children and adults most in need by:

• ➢ continuing to tailor our resources to suit the individual needs of educational and community projects addressing disadvantage.

• ➢ maintaining the same level of costume provision subsidy to our beneficiaries (unchanged for groups most in need since 2010).

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• ➢ delivering our community outreach programme in partnership with food security organisations in the most deprived areas of our city.

We increased our reach to new beneficiary-groups by:

• ➢ pro-actively engaging with local schools, community groups and the local arts sector.

• ➢ promoting our resource provision beyond Brighton through a consistent online presence on social media platforms that celebrated our mission and gave a platform to our beneficiary groups.

New beneficiaries included:

• ➢ Ditchling Primary and Carden Primary schools, who benefitted from resource boxes and costumes for Stunning Starts, whereby teachers introduce new topics innovatively at the start of the school term

• ➢ Haywards Heath College and Cavendish School who were able to costume casts of over 50 students and add authenticity to their staging of era-specific musicals Made in Dagenham and Little Women .

• ➢ Amateur arts groups such as Eastbourne Gilbert and Sullivan , Arundel Players and Wings Youth Theatre who were able to affordably supplement their own wardrobe collections and avoid hiring full show sets unnecessarily.

• ➢ Emerging professional theatre companies Cue Fanfare and Rabbit in the Headlights who accessed high quality costumes at discounted rates, producing professional quality productions despite very low budgets.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT:

Brighton Textile Reuse Hub

Gladrags’ invitation to like-minded sustainable organisations to further common goals boosted our combined ability to implement a waste-free approach to textile resources. This resulted in the launch of the Textile Reuse Hub in November 2023, a dynamic and growing collaboration between Gladrags, Leftover Threads , garment upcycling specialists and Smarter Uniforms who collect and redistribute school uniform.

By pooling our resources, community networks and experience, we promote and facilitate textile reuse with shared aims to:

• ➢ increase the reuse and circulation of existing textiles in the local area.

• ➢ support individuals impacted by the rising cost of living, by encouraging the use of second-hand or repurposed clothing and providing assistance with repairs.

• ➢ raise awareness of the environmental impact of textile waste and the importance of sustainable practices.

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Section D Achievements and performance

With support from East Brighton Trust, we established an operational base from which the Gladrags Rehome-it! Scheme was able to flourish. This initiative redistributes our surplus costumes and textiles for free within the Sussex community, especially to schools, colleges and grassroots community groups. It prompts us to assess the relevance and usage of our existing costume collections, and to pass on items donated to Gladrags that are more suited to other projects.

The Rehome-it! Scheme acts as an important extension to our hire-not-buy service and aligns with local and UK-wide ambitions for a circular economy, all contributing to the Brighton and Hove City Council ’s objective of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030.

Rehome-it!:

Our Rehome-it! scheme began in March 2023 and gained significant traction into 2024 with consistent promotion, fostering relationships with key audiences and operating the scheme from the Textile Reuse Hub premises. We engaged with 40 groups across the year and repurposed 1,250 items in the following ways:

• ➢ Store visits for individual groups that provided:

• → warm street wear for the clothing hub run by First Base Day Centre for homeless people

• → fabric remnants, a sewing machine and haberdashery kit to resource the new community sewing group at Bristol Estate Tenant’s Association Hub .

• → children’s dressing up costumes to support Moulsecoomb Primary School’ s Opal scheme, boosting imaginative free play activities in breaktimes.

• ➢ Running four Rehome-it! Open Days with attendees including: Textile and Arts faculty students from Varndean School , Brighton MET college and Northbrook University ; textile teachers from BHASVIC and Blatchington Mill Schools , and community groups Art Space and Far Far Away Musical Group .

• ➢ Hosting a Rehome-it! Facebook group to facilitate direct item exchanges between members and promote external bulk rehoming opportunities. The platform also facilitates the connection between groups, allowing them to share and exchange ideas for reusing and repurposing items.

• ➢ Delivering a three-day eco residency at Brighton MET college where we rehomed 334 items alone and engaged students in our mission to mitigate textile waste with a sustainability presentation.

• ➢ Rehoming to families in need via outreach activities, including gifting over 70 Halloween costume items for trick or treating fun, and nearly 100 dress-up items as part of a Christmas pop-up ‘rehome’ collective we steered with Smarter Uniforms , CHOMP Brighton and Very Local Food Hubs . Families were able to move into the festive season with gifted stocking presents, holiday dressing-up costumes, school uniform essentials and fruit & veg boxes.

Sustainability Placements:

Since introducing our Revive to Rewear programme in March 2023, we supported 12 volunteers through our textile sustainability placements across the year, supporting pathways to further education and employment for young people and those stepping back into the workplace. These placements offer volunteers with diverse learning needs the opportunity to develop their knowledge of sustainable

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textile practices in action, whilst equally supporting our in-house costume provision and community outreach work. Key benefits for the volunteers who took part were:

• ➢ acquiring practical skills such as customer service, repair and upcycling techniques, costume styling and garment repurposing, framed within both sustainability and industry knowledge.

• ➢ achieving learning objectives, evidenced by certification, relevant to the modern world of work where implementing sustainability practices are increasingly important.

• ➢ becoming confident ambassadors of our approach to reducing apparel waste through our hire-not-buy costume service and broader sector initiatives to combat fast fashion.

Vintage Sales

The selling of our vintage stock is a means of repurposing sellable items and dress fabrics less relevant to the beneficiary groups accessing our Re-home-it! scheme. Via our online and in-person sales we are able to:

• ➢ align our circular fashion ethos by using the re-sale of clothing to fund our mission, serving beneficiary groups in Sussex.

• ➢ promote the purchase of second-hand clothing and be actively part of the solution to textile waste.

A shift in public awareness and attitudes to the perils of fast fashion has enabled us to reach new audiences seeking to reduce their personal impact on textile waste and opt out of ‘purchasing new’.

We experienced lower-level online sales than in previous years through Vinted and E-bay, reflected in market trends, with a return to high street shopping postpandemic. This led us to:

• ➢ channel further stock into mini outlets, via established Vintage clothing shops: Up North, Department and Showgirl Vintage as well as selling direct to vintage traders.

• ➢ expand our pop-up sales, a particular highlight being our participation in the first ever city-wide event for Sustainable Fashion Week . At the two-day marketplace we were able to showcase our entire vintage apparel for sale as well as a collection of ‘repair and refashion’ clothing. In addition to raising over £1000 revenue, this gave us a meaningful platform to engage with our city's circular fashion conscious community and promote our environmental mission.

VOLUNTEERS:

Opportunities:

Over the course of the year, 69 volunteers helped us to maintain our resources, deliver activities and serve our beneficiaries and we welcomed 37 new volunteers to the team.

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We provided volunteer opportunities for people with a range of learning, social and career needs, including:

• ➢ 12 certificated textile sustainability placements to support pathways into further education or employment

• ➢ 3 student module placements and 9 work experience placements for school pupils

• ➢ 5 supported workplace opportunities for people with learning disabilities, and volunteer roles for 7 people with mental health needs

• ➢ 7 further roles for school and university students

Progression:

For some, volunteering at Gladrags is a stepping-stone on professional or personal journeys, bolstering portfolios and fostering self-confidence. We maintained our commitment to supporting this with tailored volunteering roles and signposting volunteers to relevant arts internships and progression opportunities. Since working with us in 2023-24:

• ➢ 2 volunteers gained the experience they needed to apply for prestigious internship schemes.

• ➢ 5 volunteers boosted their portfolios and styling experience to support their career paths in theatre design, costume in film and costume construction.

• ➢ 3 recent graduates gained invaluable work experience and the confidence to reach paid positions in wardrobe, box office management, and events.

Engagement:

For others still their contribution to Gladrags is an integral part of their life, and by March 2024, 6 volunteers in our team had been with us for over 12 years; another 8 for over 5 years. We are proud of the strength and experience this maintains in our team and the safe and welcoming environment this offers for new volunteers to come into. We bolstered volunteer engagement by:

• ➢ ensuring that volunteers’ roles evolved according to what was relevant and rewarding for them individually and ensuring that their effort and dedication was valued by the organisation.

• ➢ delivering free upskilling initiatives in sewing and repair, from refresher machine sewing workshops, to more advanced technique sessions.

• ➢ providing additional training and skills development with a particular focus this year on millinery repair and restoration, conducted by an industry professional, and 1:1 beginner sewing sessions with volunteers under 21 and volunteers with additional needs.

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• ➢ offering subsidised access to arts and culture events, acknowledging the link between volunteers' work for Gladrags and the projects and organisations we resource.

Wellbeing

For most, volunteering with Gladrags also fulfils a personal need, such as:

• ➢ social interaction and building confidence

• ➢ acquiring new skills or sharing existing ones

• ➢ gaining general workplace experience or costume knowledge

• ➢ being immersed and purposeful in a creative environment

We place high importance on a sense of belonging and community within our volunteer team and recognise how important this is to ensure that individual volunteers feel valued and equally that the charity can deliver on its aims and

objectives. We provide opportunities both within volunteering roles and via social gatherings for volunteers to connect meaningfully with each other and with the organisation. We organise a range of social events throughout the year and during National Volunteer’s Week that acknowledge the immense difference our volunteers make to Gladrags’ ability to deliver on its aims and objectives.

INCOME GENERATION

Having the ability to raise our own regular source of revenue is key to our organisational sustainability, building unrestricted reserves that ensure we are able to maintain our costume provision and support our team in the immediate term as well as plan costume outreach and services in the longer-term.

Our principal revenue model links costume hire fees directly to our resource provision: beneficiaries, who make up 78% of our hire revenue, contribute at a very minimal level in order to loan costumes and resource boxes affordably; this service is then subsidised by the top-rate hire fees paid by professionals and partygoers. Collectively this raised £53,200, over half our annual income of £101,300. Our evolving relationships with professional costume designers and stylists boosted hire revenue and a growing awareness of our stock quality for film and TV brought us business and revenue from the BBC, ITV and Channel 5.

Income from grants and significant donors are equally crucial to our capacity to deliver services and activities to our beneficiaries. Repeat funding from Arnold Burton Trust, MF Mills, The Brian Mitchell Charitable Settlement and East Brighton Trust was boosted by a new grant from Brighton and Hove city Council, collectively bringing £32,700 to the organisation.

Our Winter Warmer Appeal raised over £3000, largely from the general public, to specifically support our dress-up provision for community food initiatives and grassroots arts projects, whilst £5,900 revenue from Vintage Sales and events further boosted our unrestricted income.

TAR

14

2023 -2024

Secllon E Flnanclal revlew 8rlef statement of the charlty's pollcy on rese￿e8 The charity holds reserves to ensure thal: essential core and operatlonal cosls can be cover8d,' longer term plans can be commilled lo.. unforeseen circumslanc8s can be rnitigaled. Reserves are reviewed quarterly.. £18,000 is Ihe rolling mlnimum reserve limit per quarter lo enable oplimum operational continuity., £8000 Ihe bare minimum unrestricted reserves at any one time io ensure viabilily. Section G Declaration The trusiees declare that they have approved the trustees, report above. Slgned on behalf of the charlty's trustees Slgnature(s) &1 Full name{s) kn-LEn Posltlon Date TAR 15 2023 -2024

CHARIIY COMMISSION IOR FPIGIANLI AND WAIIS Ol•drng Communlty Coitsmw TN•l Receipts and payments accounts CC16a Foi lh• p•rtod Irom 0410112023 To 311312024 Sectlon A Recelpts and payments Unrv•lrf¢i•d lund• R••lrfcl•d lund• 00•1gnBt•d lund• Total lund• Al R•￿1 l• 13.21• 4J,•7• GtAnti r•JnNIkn iJ.2 3).2 12.rna 1.141 E¥wT Fo•• J.nJ Orh•r Sub lotallGmu ￿cOme lor AR) 11.7 IQI.>D? •J.41J A2 A•MI 4nd Inv••im•nt Ml••. Sub tot•1 To¢•lrnc•W• 69.214 2).250 12.711 101.JD? gJ,48J A3P •nt• 4.•QJ 1.34J YJ 747 IfYni 771 J4,?15 3•4 707 St•ll 4 VINJrt•w• i.mj .717 ••#)nl Fffl•• PR & jii 7.JJJ tJ• •J 377 Sub lot•1 YO.1 •.iJJ A4 A•ul •nd In￿•1m•nI rchM• ••• l•bl• Sub tot•1 70,101 2S.079 9.aJJ 17.539 Il•1 of r•c•lWlp•ym•nt•) A5 Trnn•l•rn b•tw••n lund• A8C••h lundi I•￿ y••f •nd 1.029 J.1 JS J.Jio 5,934 JO.194 9.561 C•h lunds ihls y••r •nd JJ.471 19.831 Section B Statoment of assets and liabilities at tho end of the period Unrn•lrt¢¢•d R••irtet•d lund• lund• io rna•••l C 0•#1on•t•d lund• lo n••r••l £ JI471 i•.•J• CCXX Rl •faxmi• (SS Jinir2

81 C•Jh lund• Tol•l c•8h fvnd• 33.471 19.gJ8 12,891 UnM•tdct•d lund• R••lrl¢t•d fund• Endowm•nt lund• 82 Olh•i mon•l•ry •sA•lA C•# 83 Inv••lm•nt ••••t• Ib•l 84 A•••lJ r•t4ln•d lof lh• C￿rIly,• tr4m 85 U•blllii•• 91pnftd onv oi ￿1001 ¢ bohirf ol Il Iho INI1••• D1• ov*1 s¥n•￿1• Prffil Nan J_ CCXX P2 •EMunii ISSI 31101ft025

GLADRAGS COmMUNf￿ COSTUME TRUST (CIIARrrY NUMBER 11227114) INDEPENDENT EXAMINERS REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF GLADRAGS COMMuNrfY COSTUME TRUST OR THE YKARENDED 31 MARCH 21124 I report to the trustees on my ¢￿￿minatiOn of thc accoullts of the above charity ('%he Trust") for the year ended 31 March 2024. As the charity trustees of the Trust you responsible for the pwaration of the accounts in accord8nce with th¢ requirements of the Cl)arities Act 2011(*he Ace). I rcport in respect of my examination of the Trnst's accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in c8rying out my cknmination J bave followed the applicable Directions given by tbe Charity Conullission under sectioD 145(5Xb) of the A I have Completed my examination. J confirnl that no material matt¢rs hav¢ come to my attention in connection with th¢ examillation which gives m¢ caus¢ to beli¢ve that in any material respect: (i). accounting records w¢re not kept in accordance with section 130 of th¢ Act or (ii). the accounts do not accord with the a¢c04mting r¢¢ords I have no concerns aAd have wme across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper Ulld¢rstsnding of the accounts to b¢ reached, C R Tyler FCA; DCIL4; FCIE Chartered Accountant Flat 24 Wellingtollia CourL Laine C105e, Brighton East Sussex BNI 6TD