## londinium
## **TRUSTEES’ REPORT AND ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31st AUGUST 2023**
## **Trustees**
Sophia Anderton (re-elected May 2023) Michael Bolton (re-elected May 2023) Sonia Johnson (re-elected May 2023) Christopher Lemar (re-elected May 2023) Chau-Yee Lo (re-elected May 2023) Hazel Mehta (re-elected May 2023) Helen Statham (re-elected May 2023) Maurice Wren (re-elected May 2023)
Charity’s principal address: Tully's Head House, Farnham Lane, Haslemere, Surrey GU27 1HD Registered Charity Number: 1135786 Bankers: CAF Bank Ltd
## **Structure, governance and management**
Londinium is a registered charity governed by a constitution adopted on 29th September 2009, as amended 23 April 2016 and 4 April 2022.
The Charity is managed by its Trustees, who are elected or re-elected annually at the Annual General Meeting, or appointed by the Trustee body during the course of the year. During the year ended 31st August 2023 Andrew Griffiths was the Musical Director of Londinium.
The Trustees give their time voluntarily, and do not receive remuneration or other benefits. The Musical Director is appointed by the Trustees and receives fees from Londinium in his/her professional capacity from Londinium, as do any other professional musicians engaged in the course of the Charity’s activities.
Singers wishing to join Londinium are auditioned, and are usually asked to sing with the choir on a trial basis before membership is confirmed. As at 31st August 2023 Londinium had 79 members, including members who no longer sing with the choir. During the year around 44 members sang regularly in concerts and other projects.
1
Members do not pay an annual subscription, but are asked to pay a subscription for each concert or other project in which they participate. This covers the cost of music and contributes towards general rehearsal costs.
## **Objectives and Activities**
Londinium’s objectives are:
1. to promote, improve, develop and maintain education in the appreciation and knowledge of the art and science of music by the presentation of public concerts and by such other activities as the Trustees shall think fit;
2. to encourage and support for the public benefit all art forms, particularly but not exclusively those involving music, including other cultural and educational activities in order to make these more accessible to the public at large.
The choir primarily achieves these objectives by promoting, organising and/or giving choral performances. In planning activities the Trustees have regard to The Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit.
Londinium’s season-opening project in October 2022 was a wonderful programme of music about and by George Herbert, the centrepiece being Alec Roth's _Shared Ground_ , with texts written in response to Herbert by Vikram Seth – we were delighted to have the composer at one of our rehearsals. Our Christmas programme, ‘Star of Wonder’ included Poulenc’s _Un soir de neige._ ‘Credo!’ in February 2023 gave the choir the chance to re-visit Martin’s _Mass for Double Choir_ in a programme inspired by composers of strong faith, while ‘Crux fidelis’ included Poulenc’s _Quatre motets pour un temps de penitence_ , in a sequence of Passiontide music.
On 5 March 2023 Londinium appeared as the chorus for _The Fields of Sorrow_ in the London Sinfonietta’s Queen Elizabeth Hall tribute to Harrison Birtwistle, conducted by Martyn Brabbins. The concert received 4-star reviews in the _Times_ , _Guardian_ and _Telegraph_ , and on _Bachtrack_ , in all of which Londinium’s performance was singled out for praise.
The highlight of the year came in May, when Londinium’s album of choral music by Kenneth Leighton, _Every Living Creature,_ was released by SOMM Recordings. It included five premiere recordings (about two-thirds of the disc), with most of the other works having been recorded only once before. The central work was the magnificent, unpublished, cantata _Laudes Animantium_ for double choir, soloists and children's chorus, which was specially set for Londinium from the manuscript by Ben Byram-Wigfield of Ancient Groove Music. The choir was delighted to sing _Laudes Animantium_ , and other works, with two of the album soloists, Rebecca Lea and Nick Pritchard, at the launch concert, ‘Delicious Fire’, attended by members of the Leighton family, on Friday 26 May at St John’s Waterloo.
2
During the year the Leighton album received exceptionally good reviews from the _British Music Society_ , _Choir & Organ_ (5 stars), _MusicWeb International_ , _Opera Today_ , _Gramophone_ and _Sequenza21_ . A number of tracks were played on BBC Radio Three. Further favourable reviews followed after the year end, including from _BBC Music Magazine_ (4 stars) and _Fanfare_ ; the album was also a _Gramophone_ Critics’ Choice for 2023 and a _MusicWeb International_ Recording of the Year.
A highly successful tour to Glasgow and Edinburgh in June also resulted in acclaim from two critics, writing in the same edition of _The Edinburgh Review_ . We were particularly pleased that Robert Leighton was able to attend the concert in Edinburgh.
## **Accounts for the year ended 31st August 2023 and Financial Commentary**
Londinium’s financial results are set out on the attached sheets. They comprise three pages of financial information: a schedule of general income and expenditure, an income and expenditure sheet showing the surplus or loss for each separate musical event and a balance sheet. Bearing in mind this season was still affected by some Leighton CD production costs, the overall outcome was very satisfactory.
The income and expenditure account shows a surplus of £887 in the year to 31 August 2023 (2022 - a deficit of £4,868).
There was a surplus on Musical Events of £815. Of the seven events, four made a surplus, and three, deficits. The best result was for the Credo concert in February 2023 with a surplus of £1,031.
Our Gift Aid reclaim amounted to £2,232 (2022 £2,797). The higher 2022 figure included Gift Aid reclaimed on the Leighton recording project donations. Thank you to all those who have signed Gift Aid forms. The recovery of Gift Aid makes a major contribution to our overheads.
We require a reasonable overall surplus on our Musical Events and Sundry Income to cover the choir’s general running costs. These include insurance, the Musical Director’s annual retainer, auditioning costs and website costs. In total, our general expenditure amounted to £4,220 (2022 - £1,163). The higher 2023 figure was mainly due to the inclusion of production and engineering costs for the Leighton CD which was launched in May 2023. In 2022, all income and costs relating to the CD were included as part of musical events.
As at 31 August 2023, Londinium had reserves of £13,146 (2022 - £12,372).
The Trustees consider that we need to maintain reserves of between £2,000 and £3,000 as working capital to fund ongoing concert and running costs. This means that as at 31 August 2023 we had about £10,000 of reserves available towards the cost of future ventures.
The current season is progressing very well financially. Three of the four concerts given have achieved surpluses. These results reflect the generally higher ticket income we have
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achieved both through increases in audience numbers and higher ticket prices. The
outcome is particularly pleasing given the higher rates that we are now having to pay for
venues and has enabled us to hold subscription rates at £55.
On behalf of the Trustees
Helen Statham
Trustee and Chair
20 April 2024
**Charity Name No (if any) Londinium** 1135786 **Receipts and payments accounts CC16a For the period** Period start date Period end date **To from** 1-Sep-22 31-Aug-23
## **Section A Receipts and payments**
|**Section A Receipts and payments**|**Section A Receipts and payments**|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**A1 Receipts**
Income from musical events
**9,973**
Fees and donations
**1,974**
Subscriptions
**13,479**
Other income
**4,292**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**29,718**
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for AR)_||**to the nearest £**
**Restricted**
**funds**|**Endowme**
**nt funds**
**to the**
**nearest £**|**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Last year**
**to the nearest £**|
|Income from musical events|**9,973**|**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**9,973**
**1,974**
**13,479**
**4,292**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**29,718**|**5,441**|
|Fees and donations|**1,974**||||**4,193**|
|Subscriptions|**13,479**||||**12,799**|
|Other income|**4,292**||||**2,983**|
||**-**||||**-**|
||**-**||||**-**|
||**-**||||**-**|
||**-**||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for AR)_|**29,718**
||||**25,416**|
|**-**
**-**
**_Sub total_ -**
**_Total receipts_ 29,718**
**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**||||||
|||**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**||
||||||**-**|
||||||**-**|
|||||**29,718**||
|||**-**|**-**||**25,416**|
|**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for AR)_|**29,718**
||**-**||**-**||**29,718**||**25,416**||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**A2 Asset and investment sales,**|||||||||||
|**(see table).**|||||||||||
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||||
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||
|**_Sub total_**|**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||
||||||||||||
|**_Total receipts_ **|**29,718**||**-**||**-**||**29,718**||**25,416**||
|**A3 Payments**
Musical events
**25,557**
Other expenditure
**4,594**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**_Sub total_ 30,151**
**-**
**-**
**_Sub total_ -**
**_Total payments_ 30,151**
**_Net of receipts/(payments)_ - 433**
**A5 Transfers between funds**
**A6 Cash funds last year end**
**12,198**
**_Cash funds this year end_ 11,765**
**A4 Asset and investment**
**purchases, (see table)**|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
||**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**25,557**
**4,594**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**30,151**|**28,754**|
|||||**1,117**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**29,871**|
||||||
||**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**||
||||||
|||||**-**|
||||||
||**-**|**-**|**30,151**|**29,871**|
||||||
||**-**
**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**- 433**
**-**
**12,198**
**11,765**|**- 4,455**|
|||||**-**|
|||||**16,653**|
|||||**12,198**|
## **Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**
|**Categories**
**B1 Cash funds**
**B2 Other monetary assets**
**B3 Investment assets**
**B5 Liabilities**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees|**Details**
CAF Bank Current Account
CAF Bank Deposit Account
**Details**
**Details**
**Details**
**Details**
Signature
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))|**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**3,848**
**-**
**7,917**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**11,765**
**-**
OK
OK
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
Print Name
Christopher Lemar
**Unrestrict**
**ed funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**Unrestrict**
**ed funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**Fund to**
**which asset**
**belongs**
**Fund to**
**which asset**
**belongs**
**Fund to**
**which**
**liability**
**relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**|**to nearest £**
**Endowment**
**funds**|
|---|---|---|---|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||OK|
||||**to nearest £**
**Endowment**
**funds**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**When due**
**(optional)**|
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
||||Date of
approval|
|||Christopher Lemar|20-Apr-24|
CHARITY COMMISSION
FOR ENGLAND AND WALES
Independent examiner's
report on the accounts
Section A
Independent Examiner's Report
Report to the trusteesl
members of
Londinium
On accounts for the year
ended
31 August 2023
Chaiity no
lrfanyl
1135786
Set out on pages
Fonn CC16a
I retM)rt to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above
charrtyllhe Trusf) for the year ended 31 August 2023.
Responslbllltles and As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation
basis of report of the accounts in rdance with the requirements of the Chafities Ad
2011 (Ihe Acr).
I report in respect of my examinatton of the Trust's Unts carried out
under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carying out my examination, I
have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission
under section 145(5){b) of the Act.
I have completed my examination I confimi that no matefial matters have
come to my attention (other than that disdosed below "l in connection with
the examinatson which gives me cause to believe that in, any material
respect:
accounting records were not kept in accordance viith section 130 of
the Ad or
the accourrts do not w)rd with the arxounting records
Independent
examinerfs statement
I have no COnmS 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 reached
' Please delete the words in the brackets rfthey do not apply.
Signed:
Date:
Name:
Eleanor Cranmer
Relevarrt professional
qualification{s) or body
(rfany):
FCA
Address:
127 Dora Road
London SW19 7JT
IER
October 2018