2024-03-31-accounts

Chair’s Report - AGM July 2024

This report covers the activities and achievements of Inside Out Community from August 2023 - July 2024.

Overview:

This year Inside Out Community has continued to offer arts and wellbeing workshops to adults aged 18+ in Ipswich and the surrounding areas. We have welcomed 3 new members to the team; our new Fundraising Officer Jo Blyth and our new Administrative team Helen and Tasnim who have all already made a terrific difference to the charity. We are thrilled to have you on the team and are looking forward to working together more closely in the future.

We have also said goodbye to some of our other team members. Ankita, who joined Inside Out Community as a trustee in 2021 before taking on the joint role of Manager and Fundraising Officer, moved on in October. We would like to thank Ankita for her work in both of these roles and wish her all the best for the future.

David Hardy, will also bid us farewell in September having been our Staff Supervision Facilitator for the last 4 years. David has been an Inside Out Community supporter since the very early days of the charity and we would like to take this opportunity to thank him and wish him well as he continues in his new life in the North.

So this has been a year of significant change and the changes do not stop there. We are now delivering a brand new workshop programme.

Programme:

Over the past 12 months, Inside Out Community has successfully delivered 168 workshops across 3 terms to 126 people whilst continuing to attract new members and a greater variety of artists than ever before.

Following the completion of several of our funding streams, our previous programmes, Artworks, Creative Lives and Young Creatives have now been replaced with three new workshops which we hope will allow for greater diversity and freedom of expression as well as offering members the opportunity to go deeper using self-analysis as part of their wellbeing journey.

Wellbeing UK Registered Charity Number: 1136104

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The new programme consists of 4 weekly workshops:

• The Creative Wellbeing Studios, which run twice weekly on a Wednesday and a Friday, offer themed workshops which members can choose to follow or alternatively, bring their own approach to. Visiting artists attend several times a term and the remaining sessions are run by Programme Leaders, Allan Williams and Karen Densham. It is our studio programme that is visited by patients at Woodlands Unit at Ipswich Hospital and we continue to receive positive feedback of the impact of this creative outlet on their recovery.

• Our second new workshop is all visiting artists led. The Creativity for Wellbeing Pathway, which began in Spring 2024, is a 12 week creative exploration through the visual and performing arts. This workshop offers a space for social connection and self expression.

• Finally, we continue to offer our popular Moving Minds workshops. Run in collaboration with Dance East, Moving Minds are movement workshops facilitated by dance professionals Sam Moss and Lynette King.

Moving Minds:

One Moving Minds participant recently said “Even though I’m in the middle years of my life I feel as if I’m on a journey of self discovery and self expression through dance”

Moving Minds is Inside Out’s weekly expressive dance workshop, led by inspiring dance teacher Sam Moss and held in the fantastic well-being dance studio at Dance East. It has continued to be a popular part of our programme. The average attendance at sessions is around 12, although 25+ individuals, from young adults to those in later life, are regular participants. There is always a wonderful vibe when the group meets, a sense of anticipation of the pleasure of a class in which you are encouraged to dance freely, individually, collectively and collaboratively, and to explore the way the body responds creatively to an evocative variety of music and to the dance movements of others.

Sometimes there are themes, such as water or air; in recent sessions it has been birds, which ended in a thrilling enactment of a murmuration. The feedback from members on the benefits to mental and physical health reflect the healing power of dance. Here are some recent reflections: ‘it strengthens me emotionally’; ‘it energises me & leaves me feeling more alive’; ‘it’s uplifting’; ‘there’s a sense of the freedom to be me through dance that I’ve seldom found in my life’; ‘it’s not only fun, it’s exhilarating’. We are pleased to report that we have already secured funding for another year of Moving Minds, up to July 2025.

Charity Activities:

Unlike in previous years, it has been an active choice not to be so present in collaborative spaces as much over the last 12 months and we will explain why we made that decision later in this report.

Whilst we may not have been involved in so many external projects, we have continued to make positive progress independently.

Wellbeing UK Registered Charity Number: 1136104

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• We have maintained our membership and attracted new members.

• We have also maintained our commitment to becoming more reflective of the Ipswich community as an organisation and again this year have managed to further diversify our portfolio of visiting artists. This has included welcoming textile artist Rahila Tambe and professional writer Elelia Ferro as regular contributing artists.

Having had to be selective about which events we took part in this year, it was important that we continue to honour our prior commitments as a charity; these included delivering on our promise to Pride in Practice (having achieved the Gold Award in May ‘23) by making ourselves visible as a LGBTQ+ friendly organisation.

• For the second year running we were delighted to join the Suffolk Youth Pride team on 22nd June at The Hold to celebrate the young LGBTQ+ community in Ipswich. Attendees had the opportunity to create postcards inspired by the colours and principles of the Progressive Pride Flag and the whole event was a really vibrant and positive experience for all concerned.

• Following an enthusiastic response by visitors to Mildenhall Library, our PAWsitive Pride of Pups, created as part of the Suffolk Libraries fundraiser project, PAWSitivity in March and April ‘23, were auctioned at Trinity Park on the 12th October. We were delighted that the Pride stayed together and was bought for £250 by a local business. All proceeds from the event which totalled in excess of £26,000 will help to support the provision of services offered by Suffolk Libraries, spaces that we know are hugely important to our community members.

• On Thursday 19th October, Eastern Angles supported us to host our own fundraising event with the purpose of sharing the vision of Inside Out Community and attracting new Trustees. It was a reasonable success. By the end of the evening we had gone from 5 trustees up to 7 and also secured Omid Djalili for a special workshop for our members. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Omid for his support.

• We also took part in the Jobs Fair at Ipswich Academy on 12th April, participating to continue raising the profile of the charity.

• On 12th June, with support from Lapwing Education, a young supporter Marie, who contacted us after reading about Inside Out Community online, raised £55.50 for the charity through the sale of her own artwork and accessories. We would like to thank Marie for all her hard work. Support like this is so appreciated by us all.

Marie is an example of how the work of Inside Out Community continues to touch and inspire people and these individual acts of support have been the encouragement that we as a Board have needed during what has been a rather turbulent year.

Challenges:

When the new Board was elected in July ‘23, there were 9 trustees. Of these, 8 had not held a trustee position previously. The uncertainty surrounding the future of the charity’s funding after August ‘23 meant that by September this number had reduced to 5. Leaving amongst the vacancies, the Treasurer role.

Wellbeing UK Registered Charity Number: 1136104

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This year’s priority focus therefore has been securing the future of the charity. It has been quite a journey!

One early decision made by the Board was to reduce the programme that we offered in order to maximise our resources. As a result of these changes we had to part ways with Ankita who had been Inside Out Community’s Manager for the previous year. This additional loss was another blow.

We are grateful to Ed Ngai and Peter for stepping into the breach to cover the responsibilities of the Treasurer role and a special thank you also to Katie for stepping into the roles of Secretary and Acting Manager. Without Katie’s contribution this charity would have been in a much worse state than it was and it is likely we would not have achieved our current stability.

We had also recently welcomed Helen and Tasnim who were trained and ready to begin in this rather uncertain situation. We would like to formally thank them both for staying with us through such a challenging time. Particularly our Administrator Helen who has gone above and beyond to ensure that the challenges behind the scenes have not been experienced by our members. Thank you Helen.

Essentially, the only people who were still in their original roles were our two Programme Leaders, Karen and Allan and our Dance Facilitator, Sam who as well as maintaining the high standard of workshops for our Members, also took a significant cut to their hours or pay to help reduce costs and strain on resources.

Again we would like to formally thank all three for their kindness and support whilst we regained stability for the charity.

Due to the situation feeling rather hopeless, it was concluded that there were two options: Either put our energy and finances into closing the charity. Or, since we were already running a reduced programme, to let things run until the end of the Autumn term before making a final decision at Christmas whether to continue or not.

We actually made the decision to continue in November 2023 and part of that decision was because we had successfully recruited three new trustees. Sarah Wilson was the first to join us, bringing with her a wealth of skills and experience in marketing and a collaborative spirit.

With the arrival of Spring, we were feeling more hopeful as a charity and we launched our new Monday Creativity for Wellbeing Pathway. This has been a pilot project and we are now analysing the feedback and seeing how best to build upon this for the next year.

Although there is still much to learn and to do, we are proud of the fact that there has not been a break in service and we have continued our weekly provision for our members.

Our relationship with Woodlands mental health unit at Ipswich Hospital continues to go from strength to strength with further projects in discussion for 2025. This relationship is very important because the need for mental health and wellbeing support has never been greater.

Wellbeing UK Registered Charity Number: 1136104

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We are mindful that the last year has felt at times very uncertain and stressful, but we are happy to report that the future looks brighter and we hope this is reassuring for our staff and our members.

Progress:

The theme for this year has been a commitment to building stability and steadiness. As you can see it’s been a challenging year, starting off in quite a low place, lots of rocky starts but slowly the tide turned and we are now in a more comfortable place.

But we would not have got to this point without actively seeking help. The most significant of all of these being the invaluable funding from Equity in Mind through Suffolk Community Foundation which kept us running for an entire year. We would like to say a big thank you to them.

We would also like to thank our previous Treasurer, Gale Pryor who not only secured this funding but has continued to support us whenever we have needed her. Thank you Gale.

A major turning point has been the recruiting of Jo Blyth as our Fundraising Officer who has been a fantastic addition to the Inside Out Community Team. The knowledge and experience that Jo has brought has meant that the transition into our next chapter has been much steadier.

Another turning point was when we sought the view of a trusted financial expert in Gavin Buckle from Ensors in May. We were able to consider that our financial challenges were perhaps not as bleak as we had first feared and that a change in reporting approach would greatly assist how the charity presents to prospective funders. We received helpful advice with regards to how we understand our finances better going forward and this gave an injection of hope and confidence which we have been building on over the last few months.

The Future:

We fully intend to continue and are happy to report that funding has already been secured for the delivery of both our Creative Wellbeing Studios for the coming year.

Our studio sessions will run as usual for Autumn 2024 and in Spring 2025 we intend to resume the Creativity to Wellbeing Pathway. As mentioned, having been awarded funding for the entire year, Moving Minds will also continue as before.

We have lots of wonderful ideas and collaborative projects which are in discussion at the moment and we look forward to sharing more details with you as things develop.

Inside Out Community has always had a history of connection with the theatre. It used to refer to ‘theatre and arts’ and has had previous associations with the Wolsey, Red Rose Chain and now Eastern Angles. We would love to revive that connection going forward.

Wellbeing UK Registered Charity Number: 1136104

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As we are reflecting on where Inside Out Community began it seems apt to now share the news that our Founding Father and long standing trustee Peter Watkins has made the difficult decision to retire from the charity after 21 years.

Peter, who (with Jan Addison) founded the charity back in 2003, has been a source of stability and continuity and we want to say a massive thank you to him.

Peter has been the beating heart of Inside Out Community for over 2 decades. He has seen the charity from inception through Covid, to receiving the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service and most recently the Gold Award for Pride in Practice earlier in 2023. Without Peter, and his founding fellow Jan, there would quite simply be no Inside Out Community and words do not seem enough to truly represent the extraordinary contribution that Peter has made not only to our members but to the arts and wellbeing world in general. Thank you Peter. For everything. We wish you a long and very happy retirement.

We are not letting Peter go off too quietly and there are plans afoot for a suitable tribute to both Peter and Jan for next year. We will update you all as this develops.

So from a rocky start to a more stable present with plenty to feel positive about and a new business plan in place for the next 12 months. We are heading into a new academic year sure of three things:

1. Inside Out Community does make a difference to people’s lives and this year especially, we have seen how the difference it has made to people has inspired others to step up and step forward in support.

2. Our current reporting year does not line up with our financial year and this is creating an imbalanced impression for funders who are repeatedly seeing deficits as we do not currently have a reporting approach which shows funds carried over from the previous year. We are working with Ensors to rectify this going forward.

3. We have a truly special team here at Inside Out. Individuals who are committed to making a difference and to investing time and energy into learning how to offer the very best service they can to the people of Ipswich and the surrounding area.

Annabel Djalili Chairperson Inside Out Community

Wellbeing UK Registered Charity Number: 1136104

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INSIDE OUT COMMUNITY ARTS IN MENTAL HEALTH BALANCE SHEET AS AT 31st MARCH 2023

Cash at Bank Represented by ; Retained funds 1st April 2023 Retained funds 31st March 2024 Excess/(Deficit)Income over Expenditure	31/3/24 £ 60,580 75,489 - 14,909 60,580	31/3/23
		£ 75,489 141,996 - 66,507
		75,489

INSIDE OUT COMMUNITY ARTS IN MENTAL HEALTH BALANCE SHEET AS AT 31st MARCH 2023

Income Voluntary Income - donations Income from Charitable Activities - Grants Income from Fundraising Activities Total Income Charitable Activities costs Fundraising Costs Total Expense Excess of Income over expenditure Expenses Full programme costs Annual report costs Printing & Stationery costs Admin costs IT costs Fundraising officer costs Fundraising costs	12 months to 31st March 2024	12 months to 31st March 2023
	Total Funds	Total Funds
	6,703 59,800 1,553	9,424 33,636 251
	68,056 82,965 78,569 318 1,063 1,419 81,369 1,596 1,596	43,311 105,923 201 2,326 1,302
		109,752 66
		66
		109,818
	(14,909)	(66,507)