## **Report of the Trustees**
**and Financial Statements for the Year Ended 31 March 2022**
## **for**
**RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330**
## **RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330**
|**Contents of the Financial Statements**||
|---|---|
|**for the Year Ended 31 March 2022**||
||**Page**|
|**Report of the Trustees**|2-10|
|**Receipts and Payments Accounts**|11-12|
|**Statement of Assets and Liabilities**|13|
|**Notes to the Financial Statements**|14|
|**Report of the Accountants**|15|
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## **RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330**
## **Report of the Trustees**
## **for the Year Ended 31 March 2022**
The Trustees present their report together with the financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2022. The financial statements have been prepared under the receipts and payments basis.
## **Trustees**
The trustees shown below have held office during the whole of the period covered by this report.
Ms Finola Brophy Mr David Cooper Mr Edwin Borgars Ms Beverley Morgan Ms Carolyn Ansell
The principal office of the RAINBOW CHORUS is:
St George's Church St George's Rd, Kemptown Brighton England BN2 1ED
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**RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330**
## **Structure, governance and management**
## **Description of the charity’s trusts**
Type of governing document
Constitution
How the charity is constituted Trustee selection methods
Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO)
The members voted to accept an updated constitution at the last AGM. For governance purposes and to ensure efficient oversight and communication, at least one committee member must be appointed as a trustee. The committee may appoint up to a maximum of 5 trustees from within their number. Further external trustees (external to committee, so may or may not be RC members) up to a maximum number permitted by the constitution may be appointed. These external appointments require a majority vote of both the existing trustees and the committee members.
## **Additional governance issues**
All Trustees are and will be provided with the latest ‘The Essential Trustee' publication on appointment, together with copies of our Constitution and policies, our latest Annual Report and accounts information.
To ensure effective governance, the Chair of the Trustees is not on the operating Committee and the constitution states the Chair of the Committee may not be the same as the Chair of the Trustees.
Working together with other organisations has been and will continue to be an important part of how Rainbow Chorus operates. However covid restrictions and member concerns continued to affect and inform our activities for a majority of this financial year. Our various activities have included video performances to mark some important dates in the LGBTQ+ calendar and some in person performances in the last 4 months of the year, including working with Brighton Gay Mens Chorus, The Actually Gay Mens Chorus and Marco Nardi our sign language interpreter to produce our joint concert for World Aids Day to raise awareness of issues around HIV and Aids.
Working together makes us all stronger and sends clear messages of support and solidarity.
The Rainbow Chorus is part of Proud Voices, the UK and Eire choral network and Legato, the European Association of LGBTQ+ choirs. We also belong to Community Works, a networking and support organisation.
Membership of all the above organisations helps our reputation
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**RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330**
and enables us to exchange good practice. It further promotes our activities and allows us to access advice and training which helps us to run the charity and meet our objectives.
## **Risks**
Financially the risks for Rainbow Chorus are:
1. That we may not receive future funding for projects that are grant funded e.g. RC+ and our outreach to the Deaf & sign language user community;
2. That a concert may have to be cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances;
3. That a concert might make a loss;
4. That our membership numbers dwindle;
5. That the Trustees take decisions they believe to be in the best interests of the chorus, which are challenged, resulting in a loss to the chorus finances.
We therefore have some reserves in case these risks materialise - see reserves policy. Other risks for loss/damage/injury are covered by an insurance policy that includes public liability and cover for our members and volunteers.
## **Update on risks identified as having an impact in our 2020-2021 report:**
1. The Trustees noted the loss of some grant funding last year but are pleased to report that subsequently we were successful in obtaining a grant for RC+ from Brighton & Hove City Council Communities Fund.
2. The Covid pandemic was and has continued to affect our ability to rehearse and perform but Xmas 2021 saw the return of our concert, which was profitable and provided a much needed boost to our finances.
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**RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330**
## **Objectives and activities**
## The Charity's objectives are:
1. To advance public education in, and appreciation of, the art of choral singing, its study, practice and performance, and to contribute to the quality and range of community events and to assist other charitable causes.
2. To promote social inclusion for the public benefit of people who are socially excluded on the grounds of their sexual orientation or gender identity. This will be achieved by relieving the isolation and needs of those people.
3. To promote equality and diversity for the public benefit by the elimination of discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, in particular but not exclusively by raising public awareness of discrimination towards and issues affecting the LGBTQ+ community (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, Queer and other associated identities), and in such other ways as are exclusively charitable as the Trustees may from time to time determine.
The trustees have complied with the duty in section 4 of the Charities Act 2006 and 2011 to have due regard to public benefit guidance published by the Charity Commission.
As the largest LGBTQ+ community choir in the South East outside London we actively reach out to the whole community and we welcome Trans members and supporters. Supporting Trans Pride and Trans Day of Remembrance, having a dedicated Trans rep, promoting RC+ (our outreach project) and ensuring that our social media is explicitly inclusive sends a positive message to the Trans community.
We continue to raise awareness of deaf issues and to develop our work with the Deaf and sign language user community. Disablism against LGBTQ+ Deaf people is a regular experience for those within this community. Marco Nardi continues to support us using British Sign Language to interpret our main performances. In the early part of this financial year Marco supported our videos with his expressive interpretation, so that we could continue to reach out to the Deaf community.
The level of discrimination and racism experienced by LGBTQ+ people in our communities and around the world continues and the ongoing war in Europe has only served to highlight this more.
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**RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330**
RC+: Thanks to Brighton & Hove City Council and an individual donation we have continued with RC+, our workshop choir, giving all members of the LGBTQ+ community the opportunity to sing for fun. It is a safe space particularly for less confident or isolated members of the LGBTQ+ community (some living outside Brighton & Hove). It is also a safe space for members of the Trans community who may wish to explore their vocal ability. Many members of the performing Rainbow Chorus continue to attend to improve their music skills.
We also signpost members to other LGBTQ+ services particularly those needing support with their mental health.
Choral festivals have been delayed or cancelled during the covid pandemic but we have now registered for Various Voices Bologna in 2023 and look forward to this and the next Hand-in-Hand event in Bristol in 2024. Legato, who organise the Various Voices festival, created an online 'Winter Medley' concert in December and Rainbow Chorus took part in this.
We retain our policy of ensuring no-one is excluded from any of our activities on the grounds of cost and this starts with subscriptions. Some members therefore pay reduced, minimal or no payment. This all helps us to meet our objective of promoting social inclusion. In addition to ensuring none of our members are excluded, we retain the concert ticket concession price at two thirds of our full price tickets. This hopefully helps those members of the public on reduced or lower incomes to be able to attend our concerts. We also provide some free access to service users of a local HIV/AIDS charity to further ensure our performances are as inclusive as possible.
We perform at some community events without charge, to further raise our profile and ensure that those in the wider community are aware of discrimination towards and issues affecting the LGBTQ+ community. This year we supported these events with our video or live performances :
- IDAHOBIT (international day against homophobia, biphobia and transphobia).
- Trans Pride
- Trans Day of Remembrance.
- World Aids Day
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**RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330**
## **Additional details of objectives and activites**
The John Kernaghan Bursary Fund invites applications from any member who would otherwise be unable to take part in our activities, particularly tours away. There is a policy covering application and how decisions are made, with quidelines for applicants and the Trustees, including evidence needed. Applications are anonymised, so that decisions are made on the basis of evidence without favour. We currently have a healthy balance in this fund and are not actively fundraising for it.
Our volunteers are known as our **5[th] section:** We could not manage to run our concerts and other activities without our 5th section of volunteers, co-ordinated this year by Jane MacDonald with the support of Chris Cunningham.
## **Achievements and performance**
The 5th section is made up of partners, friends and family of RC members and members of RC+ who carry out a whole range of tasks from serving food, running bars and stewarding to filming, driving and joining sub groups to work on our fundraising and other activities. Our Committee members are all volunteers and run Rainbow Chorus with great enthusiasm for both our core activities and extra projects that add value for the wider community. There are also many members who give their own time to help with any number of projects or ongoing work to run the Chorus. Our MD, accompanist and treasurer invoice us for their time but also contribute a number of hours pro bono. We are extremely grateful to our volunteers, music team, members, the LGBTQ+ and wider community. Their support is always a source of inspiration and encouragement. The following is a timeline of Rainbow Chorus activities and events in which we have taken part during the year to 31st March 2022. In some way each of the activities and events has helped us to further or achieve the aims laid out in the Objectives of our constitution.
## **May:**
17th - RC video including messages of support for IDAHOBIT, with the theme 'You are Loved'. Always a hugely important day when we show our solidarity and support for LGBTQ+ people and communities everywhere who continue to experience discrimination, hatred and violence.
## **June:**
With a lot of work behind the scenes and help from a local school, Rainbow Chorus was able to return to in-person rehearsals outside. **July:**
Rainbow Chorus was proud to produce a performance video in support of Trans Pride, with the theme 'We See You'. We also included messages of support and thoughts from our members with their views on why Trans Pride is so important.
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**RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330**
## **September:**
10th - The Federation of Gay Games held its annual conference in Brighton and we were delighted to be invited to the awards ceremony, where RC+ received an award for our 'outstanding contribution to trans and non-binary culture participation'. **November:**
21st - Trans Day of Remembrance. An emotional event for many in our community. Our first live performance for 20 months. **December:**
1st - Our joint concert for World Aids Day in support of a local HIV and Aids charity 2nd - Christmas at St George's Church - Rainbow Chorus and RC+ sang at this event organised by the church where we rehearse & hold our concerts. 11th - Rainbows Return, our first main concert for 2 years 26th - Legato Winter Medley - an online concert featuring performances from many European LGBTQ+ choirs, including Rainbow Chorus **March:**
Rainbow Chorus records Rise Up to create a video of support for and solidarity with the people of Ukraine, including messages from our members.
In addition to the above we ran 12 **RC+ Workshop Choir** sessions either in person or online.
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## **RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330**
## **Financial review**
## **Brief statement of the charity's policy on reserves**
## **Reserves policy**
During the year our expenditure varies each month, partly due to some annual membership/website payments. We also purchase our music scores in advance and these costs are necessarily incurred in advance of terms rather than equally spread out over the year. This is the same for voice part file purchases online or their creation if completed by our music team. Our policy of ring fencing funds for specific projects and areas of expenditure ensures we are always aware of the true level of free reserves available for any unforeseen eventuality. However the fluctuating level of monthly expenditure can mean monthly income may not cover that month's expenditure. For these reasons, we need to hold a certain amount of reserves.
We have previously stated we consider it prudent to hold some level of reserves to cover a few months running expenses and during this financial year our reserves were needed at various points. When adjusted to include payments made just after our year end (£1460) the year end reserve balance was £17182 (including £5082 bursary fund).
## **Further financial review details**
The charity's income is sourced from 5 main areas: Membership subscriptions, grants, fundraising, donations and income from concerts and performances. We continue to be mindful of those members who are on a fixed or suddenly reduced income, or who have had little or no salary increases for a number of years and treat each case individually. This helps us create a balance between maintaining our income level and ensuring anyone can be a member of the chorus irrespective of income.
This has again been a difficult year in many ways:
- Total income was 6.2% lower than our budgeted figure
- Removing the one off insurance payout (£6553), year-on-year income was approximately 6.5% lower. Unsurprisingly with continuing restrictions on our activities, reduced concert income & donations were the major reason for this decrease.
Thanks to difficult decisions taken by the trustees and our operating committee, reduced expenditure compensated for the reduced income:
- Total Expenditure was 11% lower than our budgeted figure.
- Removing the one off legal costs (£7489) from the previous year's expenditure, year-on-year expenditure was approximately 12.8% lower.
## **Details of any funds materially in deficit**
None.
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## **RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330**
|**Details of any debt owed by**||
|---|---|
|**the CIO**|None.|
|**Details of any guarantees**||
|**given by the CIO**|None.|
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## **Rainbow Chorus Registered Charity 1161330**
## **Receipts and Payments For the Year Ended 31 March 2022**
|**Receipts and Payments**
**For the Year Ended 31 March 2022**|||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||Unrestricted|Restricted|Total||Last||
||funds|funds|funds||year||
|**Receipts**|£|£|£||£||
|Membership Subscriptions|19233|-||19233||20098|
|Gift Aid|3412|-||3412||4768|
|Grant Income|‐|5000||5000||4896|
|Concert Income|3590|‐||3590||1300|
|Bursary, Donations to Chorus & Sponsorship|605|-||605||3337|
|Sundry income & refunds|6687|‐||6687||5|
|Uniforms|‐|440||440||‐|
|Bucket Collections, Grand Draw & Raffles|785|‐||785||1067|
|Special Projects (Tours)|‐|‐||‐||‐|
|Bank Interest|1|26||27||61|
|Previous year reclassification of income|‐|-||‐||‐|
|_Sub total_|34313|5466||39779||35532|
|**Asset and investment sales etc**|‐|‐||‐||‐|
|_Total receipts_|**34313**|**5466**||**39779**||**35532**|
|**Payments**|||||||
|Music Director & Accompanist's fees|16332|4384||20716||29765|
|Other musician & professional fees|4695|‐||4695||10505|
|Regular rehearsal costs|1003|353||1356||198|
|Performance costs|716|‐||716||‐|
|Marketing & publicity|65|‐||65||‐|
|Subscriptions & website fees|1188|229||1417||1893|
|Postage & stationery|215|‐||215||468|
|Travel|‐|‐||‐||75|
|Music purchases|1168|‐||1168||906|
|Insurance|103|34||137||132|
|Storage|2923|‐||2923||2741|
|Uniforms|-|440||440||‐|
|Special projects|‐|546||546||‐|
|Community events|‐|‐||-||-|
|Props, equipment & costumes|693|‐||693||499|
|Accountancy|990|‐||990||1110|
|Donations|-|‐||-||-|
|Sundries|328|**‐**||328||947|
|Bank charges|217|-||217||264|
|_Sub total_|30636|5986||36622||49503|
|**Asset and investment purchases**|‐|‐||‐||‐|
|_Total payments_|**30636**|**5986**||**36622**||**49503**|
|**Net of receipts/ (payments)**|**3677**|**‐520**||**3157**||**‐13971**|
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## **RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330**
## **Receipts and Payments**
## **For the Year Ended 31 March 2022**
||Unrestricted|Restricted|Total|Last|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||funds|funds|funds|year|
||£|£|£|£|
|Transfers between funds|-546|546|||
|Cash funds last year end|10,429|5,056|15,485|29,456|
|**Cash funds this year end**|**13,560**|**5,082**|**18,642**|**15,485**|
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## **RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330**
## **Statement of Assets and Liabilities For the Year Ended 31 March 2022**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
Unrestricted Restricted
funds funds Total
£ £ £
Cash funds
Bank balances 13,560 5,082 18,642
13,560 5,082 18,642
Liabilities
Creditors 1460 - 1460
1460 - 1460
**----- End of picture text -----**
## **Name of Trustee:**
**----- Start of picture text -----**
…Edwin Borgars................
Signature:
….......................................
Date of approval:
…. 26-Jan-2023.............
**----- End of picture text -----**
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## **RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330**
## **Notes to the Financial Statements**
## **for the Year Ended 31 March 2022**
## **1. ACCOUNTING POLICIES**
## **Basis of preparing the financial statements**
The financial statements have been prepared under the receipts and payments basis.
## **Incoming resources**
## **Unrestricted funds**
The unrestricted funds represent membership subscriptions (including RC+), gift aid, fundraising unless targeted for a specific purpose, website donations and concert income.
## **Restricted funds**
The restricted funds represent grant funding (including RC+), Bursary fund, fundraising targeted for a specific purpose, uniforms and monies received for special projects.
## **Other incoming resources**
There are no restrictions on the use of other incoming resources towards achieving the organisations charitable objectives.
## **Resources expended**
Resources expended are accounted for by way of nature and on a receipts and payments basis.
## **2. PAYMENTS MADE FOLLOWING THE FINANCIAL YEAR END:**
Payments were made shortly after the financial year end amounting to £1460 which related to expenses that were incurred in the financial year to 31 March 2022. If these invoices had been paid prior to 31 March 2022, these would have been included in the payments in this year's financial statements,
resulting in a decrease in the net surplus and a reduction in cash funds held.
Last year's report advised of invoices to be paid by RC of £998, relating to the financial year to 31 March 2021. These amounts are included in this year's figures as it had not been possible to process these before 31st March 2021.
Exceptional income of £6,553 was received in the financial year to 31 March 2022 (an insurance claim detailed in last year's report).
In the year to 31 March 2022, these accounts show a modest increase in our reserves and a more balanced level of income vs expenditure compared to the previous year.
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**RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330**
## **Report of the Accountants to the Trustees of Rainbow Chorus**
## **INDEPENDENT EXAMINER'S REPORT**
I report on the financial statements of Rainbow Chorus for the year ended 31 March 2022, which are set out on pages 2 to 14.
## **Respective responsibilities**
The charity's trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. The charity's trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year under Section 144 of the Charities Act 2011 ("the Charities Act") and that an independent examination is needed. It is my responsibility to examine the accounts under section 145 of the Charities Act, to follow the procedures laid down in the general Directions given by the Charity Commission (under section 145(5)(b) of the Charities Act, and to state whether particular matters have come to my attention.
## **Basis of Independent Examiner's report**
My examination was carried out in accordance with the General Directions given by the Charity Commission. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking explanations from the trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit, and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a 'true and fair' view and the report is limited to those matters set out in the statement below.
## **Independent Examiner's statement**
In connection with my examination, I confirm no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect: accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or the accounts do not accord with the accounting records. I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
## **Signed by the Independent Examiner**
Lauren Newman MAAT Thomas Christopher & Co 44 Orange Row Brighton East Sussex BN1 1UQ
Date........26-JAN-2023
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