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← Rainbow Chorus

2024-03-31-accounts

Report of the Trustees

and Financial Statements

for the Year Ended 31 March 2024

for

RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330

RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330

Contents of the Financial Statements
for the Year Ended 31 March 2024
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

Page 1

RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330

Report of the Trustees

for the Year Ended 31 March 2024

The Trustees present their report together with the financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2024. 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

Page 2

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)

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. Our activities included our usual programme of performances, concerts and gigs, to mark some important dates in the LGBTQ+ calendar including working with Brighton Gay Mens Chorus, 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 local networking and support organisation.

Membership of all the above organisations helps our reputation 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.

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RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330

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.

There were no risks arising in the current year.

Page 4

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. Marco Nardi continues to support us using British Sign Language to interpret our main performances. The previously awarded £1500 from Tesco Community Grants enabled us to provide BSL interpretation at 3 concerts in 2023.

In an uncertain world, we continue to hear of discrimination experienced by LGBTQ+ people in our communities and around the world. Rainbow Chorus raises awareness of LGBTQ+ issues through our activities and performances and ensures that we promote and support equality and diversity.

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RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330

RC+: Thanks to grants from The Brighton Rainbow Fund we have continued with RC+, our monthly 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 and changing voice. Many members of the weekly Rainbow Chorus choir also enjoy attending RC+.

We also signpost members to other LGBTQ+ services particularly those needing support with their mental health.

We were proud to be part of the Various Voices choral festival in Bologna in June 2023, attended by over 4000 other LGBTQ+ choir members. We were also delighted to be singing at Choirfest, Brighton & Hove, organised by our MD in October, as a celebration of choirs, the people and their stories. Preparations were also made to attend the Hand-in-Hand choral festival in Bristol in August 2024.

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 offer a concert ticket concession price at approximately 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 or with a reduced fee, 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 live performances :

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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 Carolyn Ansell and more recently by Michael Trist.

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.

Achievements and performance

The following is a timeline of Rainbow Chorus activities and events in which we have taken part during the year to 31st March 2024. 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 - IDAHOBIT: RC/RC+ performance always proud to support this event and show our solidarity and support for LGBTQ+ people and communities everywhere who continue to experience discrimination, hatred and violence.

June:

14th to 18th Various Voices Bologna choral festival.

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RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330

July:

8th - 'Hot Harmonies' our summer concert.

15th - Trans Pride Brighton - despite some extreme weather, the organisers moved from an outdoor to an indoor event and RC was pleased to contribute to the days activities with our performance. 21st - Zero HIV Stigma Rally - A new event for RC to support. A global initiative, organised locally by our friends at Lunch Positive, to raise awareness of those living with or affected by HIV and to help eliminate HIV stigma.

August:

9th - Rainbow Chorus take part in the Pride parade with our float. September:

12th - Eusarf Conference (The European Scientific Association On Residential And Family Care For Children And Adolescents) - a private booking for Rainbow chorus to perform at this event.

October:

RC+ was awarded a 6 month grant of up to £4000 from The Rainbow Fund.

15th - ChoirFest! Performances celebrating local choirs, the people & their stories.

November:

20th - Trans Day of Remembrance vigil at Jubilee Square and the Ledward Centre with a performance by the chorus.

December:

1st - World Aids Day with the joint choirs’ concert, co-arranged by Rainbow Chorus, with £3427 raised for Lunch Positive.

9th - 'Snowing Me, Snowing You' - our Christmas concert with just a touch of Abba. A touch of sadness too, as we said Goodbye to our long standing accompanist, Mojca Monte Amali after 11 years.

January:

We welcome Olly Parr as the new accompanist for Rainbow Chorus & RC+.

March:

22nd - Lesbian Lives Conference with a performance by Rainbow Chorus.

In addition to the above we ran 12 RC+ Workshop Choir sessions.

Page 8

RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330

Financial review

Brief statement of the charity's policy on reserves

Further financial review details

Details of any funds materially in deficit

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 also consider it prudent to hold some level of reserves to cover a few months running expenses particularly as grants are often paid following payment of expenditure on receipt of a claim from us. When adjusted to include credits received (£2050) and payments made just after our year end (£1986), the year end reserve balance was £23,412.

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.

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.

Page 10

Rainbow Chorus Registered Charity 1161330

Receipts and Payments For the Year Ended 31 March 2024

Receipts and Payments
For the Year Ended 31 March 2024
Unrestricted Restricted Total Last
funds funds funds year
Receipts £ £ £ £
Membership Subscriptions 23899 - 23899 21152
Gift Aid 4925 47 4972 5238
Grant Income ‐ 4809 4809 5287
Concert Income 15383 ‐ 15383 11656
Bursary, Donations to Chorus & Sponsorship 2188 201 2389 5811
Sundry income & refunds 360 ‐ 360 183
Uniforms & Merchandise 436 129 565 1882
Bucket Collections, Grand Draw & Raffles 2140 ‐ 2140 1838
Special Projects (Tours) - 4273 4273 19480
Bank Interest 182 102 284 100
Previous year reclassification of income ‐ - ‐ ‐
Sub total 49513 9561 59074 72627
Asset and investment sales etc ‐ ‐ ‐ ‐
Total receipts 49513 9561 59074 72627
Payments
Music Director & Accompanist's fees 19045 4603 23648 21598
Other musician & professional fees 7635 1500 9135 6535
Regular rehearsal costs 1967 478 2445 2105
Performance costs 2558 ‐ 2558 1695
Marketing & publicity - ‐ - 55
Subscriptions & website fees 1525 234 1759 1276
Postage & stationery 1079 ‐ 1079 680
Travel 193 ‐ 193 120
Music purchases 4021 60 4081 2361
Insurance 113 38 151 143
Storage 3225 ‐ 3225 2959
Uniforms & Merchandise - - - 2615
Special projects 937 11157 12094 15540
Community events 1559 ‐ 1559 1546
Props, equipment & costumes 757 ‐ 757 509
Accountancy 990 ‐ 990 1110
Donations - ‐ - -
Sundries 1447 ‐ 1447 566
Bank charges 251 - 251 210
Sub total 47302 18070 65372 61623
Asset and investment purchases ‐ ‐ ‐ ‐
Total payments 47302 18070 65372 61623
Net of receipts/ (payments) 2211 (8509) (6298) 11004

Page 11

RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330

Receipts and Payments

For the Year Ended 31 March 2024

Unrestricted Restricted Total Last
funds funds funds year
£ £ £ £
Transfers between funds - -
Cash funds last year end 18,360 11,286 29,646 18,642
Cash funds this year end 20,571 2,777 23,348 29,646

Page 12

RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330

Statement of Assets and
Liabilities For the Year Ended 31 Unrestricted Restricted Total
March 2023 funds funds
£ £ £
Cash funds
Bank balances 20,571 2,777 23,348
20,571 2,777 23,348
Other Monetary Assets
Outstanding Grant Funding - 964 964
Debtors 150 936 1086
Liabilities 150 1900 2050
Creditors 1786 200 1986
1786 200 1986

Name of Trustee:

Signature:

…Carolyn Ansell................ ….......................................

Date of approval: …. 25-Mar-2025.............

Page 13

RAINBOW CHORUS REGISTERED CHARITY 1161330

Notes to the Financial Statements

for the Year Ended 31 March 2024

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 £1986 which related to expenses that were incurred in the financial year to 31 March 2024. Amounts owing to Rainbow Chorus at the year end totalled £2050; of these £150 was paid just after the year end, with £187.77 and £964 received later in the following year. The remaining £748 relates to amounts due from members to cover expenses already incurred for Hand in Hand 2024 (Tours). If these credits had been received and the expenses had been paid prior to 31 March 2024, these would have been included in the receipts and payments in this year's financial statements, resulting in a small decrease in the net deficit and a increase in cash funds held. The amounts owing to Rainbow Chorus at the year end all relate to funds which are recorded as restricted in our accounts, except for £150. Last year's report advised of expenses to be paid by RC of £3101 and a credit owing of £1325, relating to the financial year to 31 March 2023. These amounts are included in this year's figures as it had not been possible to process these before 31st March 2023.

Page 14

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 2024, 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 7A Church Street Brighton East Sussex BN1 1US

Date........25-MAR-2025

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