2025-03-31-accounts - Poetry In Aldeburgh

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Poetry in Aldeburgh CIO Registered Charity No. 1167740

ANNUAL REPORT

AND

FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

For the year ended 31 March 2025

Prepared under the Receipts and Payments Basis

POETRY IN ALDEBURGH Year ended 31 March 2025

CONTENTS	Page
Trustees’ Report	1-3
Receipts and Payments Account	4
Independent Examiner’s Report	5

POETRY IN ALDEBURGH REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES For the year ended 31 March 2025

The trustees present their report with the financial statements of the charity for the year ended 31 March 2025. The trustees have adopted the provision of Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102) (effective 1 January 2019).

OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES

Objectives and aims

The objects of the charity are to promote the arts for the public benefit in particular the art of poetry and to advance public education and appreciation of the art of poetry in Aldeburgh by providing an annual poetry festival and/or other poetry events and/or educational outreach programmes.

ACHIEVEMENTS AND PERFORMANCE

After the difficulties which arose in 2023 a new committee of Trustees was formed, with local people at its core. In the period leading up to November 2024 the Trustees relaunched the festival. Plans for the 2024 festival were modest but hugely helped by four-figure donations from three charitable trusts, and generous support from festival lovers. Local businesses gave contributions in kind, e.g. refreshments and workshop space, and poets were lodged with hosts in Aldeburgh. Performers’ fees were set based on rates suggested by the Society of Authors and the Poetry Society. Tickets sold well and all the workshops (led by festival poets) were sold out, as were the weekend Festival Passes. Weekend highlights included a headline double bill of renowned poets Imtiaz Dharker and Caroline Bird; Jacob Sam-La Rose with the Barbican Young Poets; an editors’ panel; the Asian collective Red Bean Poetry; biographer, local poet and festival patron Blake Morrison with his Hosepipe Band; and the final event starring King’s Gold Medal poet Mimi Khalvati, also a patron. The festival’s theme of Water was reflected in the reading by Poets for the Planet, and eco-poetry from Essex, Norfolk and Indonesia. Artist-in-residence Simon Read showed his large-scale drawings of the Suffolk coast which have been used to inform discussions on flood management. Poet and facilitator Arji Manuelpillai ran very successful workshops with two secondary schools in Lowestoft earlier in the autumn. As the accounts show, the 2024 Poetry in Aldeburgh Festival made a modest surplus, which gives the Trustees confidence that they can begin to expand the Festival 2025.

FINANCIAL REVIEW

Financial position

The receipts and payments of the charity are set out in the accounts on pages 4 and 5.

Reserves policy

The charity holds reserves:

To provide financial stability and sustainability for the charity.
To protect against unforeseen financial challenges, such as sudden loss of funding, unexpected increases in expenses, or emergency situations.

The charity aims to maintain reserves equivalent to a minimum of 12 months of operating expenditure including a sum which the Trustees estimate to be sufficient to put on the Festival without resort to external financing. The Trustees will review the level of reserves annually and adjust them as necessary to reflect the current financial landscape and organisational needs.

POETRY IN ALDEBURGH REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES (continued) For the year ended 31 March 2025

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

Governing document

The charity is established as a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO) registered 20 June 2016.

Recruitment and appointment of new trustees

New trustees are recruited and appointed by the trustee board from the local community and from the broader community of persons with an interest in the appreciation and promotion of Poetry. They are made aware of the legal responsibilities, and asked to identify what they can bring to serve the interests of the charity. Where a specific role becomes vacant a detailed job description will be drafted.

Risk management

The trustees have a duty to identify and review the risks to which the charity is exposed and to ensure appropriate controls are in place to provide reasonable assurance against fraud and error.

REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS

Registered Charity number 1167740

Principal address

3 Twin Oak Drive Badingham Woodbridge Suffolk IP13 8LH

Trustees holding office during the year

Tamar Lindesay (Chair) Susannah Hart Fiona Moore Jacqueline Saphra Jeremy Solnick Robert Stein Paul Stephenson

POETRY IN ALDEBURGH REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES (continued) For the year ended 31 March 2025

Independent Examiner

P N van Dijk FMAAT Van Dijk Accountants Limited Georgian House 34 Thoroughfare Halesworth Suffolk IP19 8AP

Bankers

The Co-Operative Bank Plc

Approved by resolution of the board of trustees on 08 July 2025 and signed on its behalf by:

==> picture [116 x 32] intentionally omitted <==

Tamar Lindesay (Chair)

POETRY IN ALDEBURGH Receipts and Payments Account For the year ended 31 March 2025

Receipts Ticket Sales Voluntary Donations Other including Raffle Total Receipts Payments Marketing Ticketing Fees Accommodation Poet Fees and Travel Venue Hire Insurance General Schools Outreach Operations Management Catering Total Payments Surplus of Receipts over Payments Cash Funds brought forward Cash Funds carried forward Represented by: General Fund	2025 2024 £ £ 17967 0 9270 8450 174 0
	27411 8450
	1198 604 300 0 576 0 6587 0 3384 1377 56 0 1683 0 784 0 3508 0 717 0
	18793 1981
	8618 6469 6806 337
	15424 6806
	15424 6806
	15424 6806

INDEPENDENT EXAMINER’S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF POETRY IN ALDEBURGH

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts for Poetry in Aldeburgh (the Trust) for the year ended 31 March 2025.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the charity trustees of the Trust you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’).

I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent examiner’s statement

I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:

accounting records were not kept in respect of the Trust as required by section 130 of the Act; or
the accounts do not accord with those records.

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

P N van Dijk FMAAT Van Dijk Accountants Limited Georgian House 34 Thoroughfare Halesworth Suffolk IP19 8AP

08 July 2025