2023-08-31-accounts - Havering Music Makers

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HM HAVERING MUSIC MAKERS Havering Music Makers Annual Report 2022-2023

Trustees’ Annual Report for the period: September 2022 – 31 August 2023 (Registered Charity 3 Jan 2017)

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Havering Music Makers

Charity registration number: 1170955

Summary of Objectives and Activities

Purpose as defined in our Constitution:

The object of the Society is to advance public education in Havering, the surrounding boroughs, Essex and Greater London through the presentation and promotion of musicals, concerts, operettas and other musical works and to advance education in the dramatic arts through membership of the Society giving the opportunity to perform to adults and, where appropriate, children of the area.

Main activities delivered this year:

Production: Last Orders At The Castle Inn at Tweed Way Hall, Romford, 14 – 16 October
Production: Waiting For God at Tweed Way Hall, Romford, 17 – 20 November
Production: The Wedding Singer at Kenneth More Theatre, Ilford, 9 – 11 February
Production: Our House at Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch, 13 – 15 July
Fundraising: raised over £4,000 through fundraising activities including raffles and refreshments during productions, a quiz night and a “boogie bingo”.

The trustees confirm that the operation and management of the charity has been in line with the policies as set out by the Charity Commission on public benefit.

Key Achievements – Productions

Last Orders At The Castle Inn Tweed Way Hall 14 – 16 October

Concept / Director – Sharon Sims Musical Director – Becky Hunt Choreographer – Jackie Parry Ticket Sales – 67%

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We love it when one of our members comes to us with an idea for a show, and when Sharon Sims suggested Last Orders At The Castle Inn

In the Queen's Platinum Jubilee year, we took a trip down memory lane with pub landlady, Liz, her beloved husband, Phil and her burgeoning family including grandchildren, Will, Beattie and Jeannie, not to mention her party-loving sister, Maggie. The show was packed with toe tapping tunes from the decades of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign.

We were also delighted that Becky Hunt joined us as Musical Director for the first time and alongside Sharon and Jackie Parry (who had choreographed our previous October concert), they were an ideal production team to celebrate our Queen’s reign.

Once again, we were able to celebrate the talents of those who are not always fortunate enough to take lead roles in our major productions and show off the amazing strength in depth that we have within the Society.

Ticket sales were maybe not as high as we had hoped, with around two-thirds of tickets being sold, but with limited expenditure and fantastic fundraising through raffle and refreshment sales, we were able to have a surplus of over £2,000 on the production

Comments from the audience members were, as always, very positive. With the Queen’s passing around a month before the show, it felt even more fitting to be celebrating her life and reign.

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One of the crowd favourites during Last Orders At The Castle Inn!

Waiting For God Tweed Way Hall 17 – 20 November

Director – Anna Martin-Morley Ticket Sales – 53%

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This year saw a first for HMM, when we performed our first straight play. We have been contemplating this for many years – partly to give those who may not always want to sing and dance a chance to perform with us, and partly to help our members build on their acting skills.

Our first play, Waiting For God , was an excellent choice and we were delighted to have Anna Martin-Morley direct for us. Anna was, in a way, new to the Society, in that she had never performed with us or directed for us. But was also very much known to the Society as a long term supporter and wife of one of our members.

We didn’t expect huge ticket sales for our first attempt at plays and we were pleased with getting over 50%. Being able to share the rehearsal venue with Last Orders At The Castle Inn reduced our costs (and was part of the reason we felt we could do a play) and, again, some fantastic fundraising via raffle and refreshments meant that we had a surplus of nearly £1,500 for this production.

The audiences enjoyed what they saw and we had a lovely NODA report. This was a great first play for us and we decided to make it a regular feature of our Autumn.

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The Wedding Singer Kenneth More Theatre

9 – 11 February

Director & Choreographer – Christine Brown Musical Director – Nick Ford Ticket Sales – 42%

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In February 2023, HMM presented the musical, The Wedding Singer. Based on the film of the same name, starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, it was also the year of the 25[th] anniversary of the film being released.

The production team for this show was Christine Brown (Director & Choreographer) and Nick Ford (Musical Director). Both are very long serving members of the Society both on stage, off stage and in production team roles. We were delighted that they agreed to lead the production team.

Again, despite superb efforts by our publicity team, we struggled to sell tickets for the show, with 42% sold. It wasn’t immediately clear to us whether this was due to the choice of show (albeit we felt this one was sufficiently well-known), the location of the theatre (we have noticed a drop off in audiences at this theatre), or if there were still some nervousness following the pandemic. Regardless, this led to a deficit of around £4,250 on this show.

As in the past, members of the Society not performing in the show operated the lighting and follow spots, as we continue to give opportunities to our members to learn new technical skills.

As always, we had a review from the District representative of the National Operatic and Dramatic Association (NODA) which was excellent. This also led to us receiving another London Regional awards – with the Harvey Kesselman Comedy Award going to our very own Paula Harris Brett. We were so proud to be winners of an award from all of the Societies across London again and, of course, of Paula.

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HMM members attending the NODA London awards, including our Regional winner, Paula Harris Brett.

Our House

Queen’s Theatre

14 – 16 July

Director – Paula Harris Brett Musical Director – Ben Summers Choreographer – Gemma Marks Ticket Sales – 100%

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The production for July was Our House . Based on the music of the popular ska band, Madness, it is a technically challenging show involving a Sliding Doors-esque storyline – telling two stories at the same time. It proved to be incredibly popular with local audiences and was essentially sold out for all performances – the first time we had achieved this for 10 years.

We welcomed back members of the production team: Paula Harris Brett as Director, who’s last time directing for us was The Matchgirls in 2020; Ben Summers as Musical Director, who last MD’d for us in February 2022 with Honk! ; and Gemma Marks, who similarly last choreographed for Honk!

The cast had an absolute blast with this show, with high energy and well-loved numbers such as Baggy Trousers and Wings Of A Dove as well as some darker and more dramatic moments.

The ticket sales did just not happen accidentally. It was the result of another phenomenal effort from our publicity and social media teams and the support from the whole cast.

It was the main cause of us seeing a surplus of nearly £6,000 for this production, despite being one of our most expensive shows to put on in our history.

Once again we had a very complimentary NODA Review and won our District’s award for Best Production of a Musical. Such a pleasing result for all the hard work that the Society put in.

We were also incredibly pleased to see a lot of Madness fans in attendance. We heard from some of them afterwards that they didn’t even realise it was a musical they were coming to see, but that they absolutely loved it.

Audience reaction to Our House via Facebook

We hope that we converted a few to the joys of musical theatre!

Key Achievements – Fundraising

With fundraising resource among the trustees and enthusiasm and support within the Membership, we had a very successful year of fundraising. Here are the highlights:

Grants and Trusts:

We were unsuccessful with applications for grants in this financial year and, due to availability of volunteers, we also struggled to apply for as many as we have previously.

Community and Events:

We held two quiz nights and also introduced an Open Mic Night event. These proved to be an excellent source of fundraising for the society, including raffles. These events raised £1,650 between them. We also hold raffles at all of our shows, which is a great way of raising funds. Across our four productions this year, we raised £1,450 in this way . We also raised just over £600 selling refreshments at productions.

Individual Giving and Affiliate Income:

We have continued to receive affiliate income from a range of sources, including easyfundraising and Amazon, totalling £436. We also received miscellaneous donations (including Give As You Earn) totalling just over £7,150.

The fundraising total (minus donations) for the year was £4,136.

Financial Review

Summary of Finances:

The charity recorded a surplus over the 2022/23 financial year of £11,409 (on a cash or “Receipts and Payments” accounting basis – it was a surplus of £14,279 on an accruals basis, which is used to report to Trustees). In term of our productions, the contributions were from a surplus on Last Orders At The Castle Inn of £2,190 (mainly due to good ticket sales and strong raffle and refreshment sales), a surplus of £1,482 on Waiting For God (for similar reasons), a deficit of £(4,249) on Wedding Singer (mainly due to low ticket sales and rising theatre hire and production costs) and a surplus of £5,890 on Our House (this was due to sell out performances and despite spending a lot more on scenery and production costs). Otherwise, the key contributors were donations of £7,150 (including a one-off donation of £5,000), £2,360 in membership and patron contributions alongside the fundraising total detailed in the previous section. Otherwise there were general running costs of around £1,300 and we also purchased additional radio microphones, a printer and sound equipment.

Reserves:

Havering Music Makers does not have an explicit reserves policy. Funds are retained within the charity in order to create a buffer to offset potential losses on activities. Productions are incredibly dependent on the level of ticket sales that we can achieve, with poor sales leading to losses of up to £10,000 in the past (but could be much higher given rising costs). We therefore retain funds where possible to ensure our continued ability to promote the musical arts and provide performance and education opportunities to the people of Havering and surrounding boroughs, in line with our objectives.

Structure, Governance and Management

The charity is governed by its Constitution, which is provided to all members when they join and is available upon request for non-members.

The trustees are selected at the Annual General Meeting (October annually). Each trustee must receive two nominations in order to stand. If there are more than 10 people who wish to become trustees in any one year, then this is put to a members vote at the AGM. 28 days’ notice is given of the AGM to all existing members, Patrons and Vice Presidents.

The offices of Chairman, Vice-Chairman and Secretary are elected in the same way.

Reference and Administrative Details (for the financial year)

Charity name: Havering Music Makers

Other name the charity uses: HMM

Registered charity number: 1170955

Charity's principal address: 26 Redden Court Road, Romford, Essex, RM3 0XA

Trustee name	Office(if any)
Nick Ford	Chair(to 27thMay2023)& Treasurer
Jason Markham	Vice-Chair
Paula Brett	Secretary
Freddie Cossey	Members’ Representative
Gemma Marks	Members’ Representative

Declaration on behalf of trustees

The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees' report above.

Signed on behalf of the charity's trustees

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Signature(s)

Full name(s) Nick Ford Position(s) Treasurer Date 12[th] July 2024

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Paula Brett Secretary 12[th] July 2024