|**Trustees' Annual Report**|**Trustees' Annual Report**|**Trustees' Annual Report**|**Trustees' Annual Report**|**Trustees' Annual Report**|**for theperiod**|**for theperiod**|**for theperiod**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**From**|Period start date|||**To**|Period end date|||
||**1st**|**January**|**2023**||**31st**|**December**|**2023**|
## Section A Reference and administration details
**Charity nameLeigh Folk Arts Association CIO**
## **Other names charity is known byLeigh Folk Festival**
**Registered charity number (if any)1171298**
|**1171298**||
|---|---|
|**20 Ceylon Road**||
|**Westcliff-on-Sea**||
|**Essex**||
|**Postcode**|**SS0 7HP**|
## **Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity**
|1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
10
11
12|**Trustee name**|**Office (if any)**|**Dates acted if not for whole**
**year**|**Name of person (or body) entitled to**
**appoint trustee (ifany)**|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||Michael Davison|Chairman|||
||Keith Baxter|Secretary|||
||Paul Collier|Artistic Director|||
||John Batch|Treasurer|||
||Neil Harding||||
||Nick Dart||||
||Sarah-Jane Holmes||||
||Elliott Waters||||
||||||
||||||
||||||
## **Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)**
**Name Dates acted if not for whole year**
## **Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)**
**Type of adviser Name Address**
## **Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)**
March **2012**
**TAR**
1
**Section B Structure, governance and management**
## **Description of the charity’s trusts**
Constitution
Type of governing document
- (eg. trust deed, constitution)
Charitable Incorporated Organisation
How the charity is constituted
- (eg. trust, association, company)
New Trustees are appointed at the Annual General Meeting of the Trustee selection methods Association by way of a vote of members present at that meeting. (eg. appointed by, elected by)
## **Additional governance issues (Optional information)**
Regular meetings of the trustee body separate from the festival organising group were held during the year. The trustees are all involved with organising the festival and are usually members of the festival organising group. Resources available do not permit separation of roles, which is considered best practice.
You **may choose** to include additional information, where relevant, about:
- policies and procedures adopted for the induction and training of trustees;
As a result of the Charity’s policy of paying all performers, performance fees (of no more than £300 in total), were due to 3 trustees who performed at the Festival. The payments were in line with other performers.
- the charity’s organisational structure and any wider network with which the charity works;
- The trustees instigate assessed the risks the Charity faces and then
- relationship with any related considered how to eliminate, mitigate or transfer the risks faced.
- parties;
- trustees’ consideration of major risks and the system and procedures to manage them.
## **Section C Objectives and activities**
**Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document**
The Trustees are empowered to hold the Association’s funds in trust for any purpose, which is charitable in accordance with the law of England and Wales, for the benefit of any individuals or group of people, or corporate bodies including the aim of organising and running the annual Leigh Folk Festival, and to preserve and advance the public education in the appreciation of traditional and contemporary folk music.
March **2012**
**TAR**
2
The Association has been running the Leigh Folk Festival for over 30 years. However due to Covid the Festival was cancelled in 2020 and 2021. As an alternative the Frontroom Folk Festival was streamed in 2020 and the Garden Gatherings was organised on behalf of LFA in September 2021 in Leigh Library Gardens. The Festival returned in 2022 and 2023.
During the year the Association has:
- Benefited society by provided much needed entertainment
- Provided artists the opportunity to perform, reach an audience and receive payment.
- Provided a community event
**Summary of the main activities undertaken for the public benefit in relation to these objects (include within this section the statutory declaration that trustees have had regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit)**
- Maintained a lasting legacy on You Tube
- Additional Organisational, Life and IT skills were undoubtedly learnt or enhanced for those involved.
The Association has received grants, sponsorship and donations during the period and disbursed these by way of operating expenses. The Association also raised funds during the period through concessions at the festival, the sale of merchandise and concert tickets.
The trustees have had regard to the commission’s public benefit guidance when exercising any powers or duties to which the guidance is relevant.
## **Additional details of objectives and activities (Optional information)**
We greatly value the contribution made by volunteers both in organising the festival and during the festival. The event could not happen without them. In line with other Charitable organisations, we faced difficulty in attracting sufficient volunteers to organise the festival. Although sufficient volunteers came forward to assist with the festival, there were fewer than previous years prepared to assist with the less glamorous but vital roles such as collecting donations and litter picking.
You **may choose** to include further statements, where relevant, about:
- policy on grant-making;
- policy programme related investment;
- contribution made by volunteers.
March **2012**
**TAR**
3
Section D Achievements and performance
## **Summary of the main achievements of the charity during the year**
During 2023 the Charity achieved:
- Successfully arranging Leigh Folk Festival in June 2023.
- Arranged two fundraising concerts
- Raised Funds for Leigh Folk Arts to enable the festival to go ahead .
- Improved the risk assessment framework
March **2012**
**TAR**
4
## **Section E Financial review**
The Trustees endeavour to maintain adequate resources to provide finance **Brief statement of the charity’s** for the Folk Festival to take place. The money at the end of the year under **policy on reserves** review (£15,935) is shown on the Receipt and Payments accounts and, is considered adequate for the Associations activities in 2024 as the festival will not be held and allowing for fund-raising activities which will take place during 2024 and 2025. The trustees recognise that the increasing costs of organising the festival, in particular professional management and increasing production costs, will require greater fund raising efforts.
Funds for ongoing activities are held with the Association’s bankers in a current account and within our Pay Pal account.
The charities reserves are held in a deposit account, and the trustees maintained the amount held in reserves, and reserves currently stand at £7,874. These reserves are held rather than being immediately expended for our charitable aims:
- to protect against the potential for drops in future income, for example because of poor weather over the festival weekend and other contingencies; and
- to allow us the financial headroom to consider other charitable activities and be more ambitious with our fund-raising.
While good progress has been made with strengthening the financial position and reserves of the charity, our medium term objective is to increase reserves to cover the annual expenditure of the charity.
Our reserves can be spent on any of our charitable aims.
**Details of any funds materially in deficit**
None
## **Further financial review details (Optional information)**
You **may choose** to include additional information, where relevant about:
- the charity’s principal sources of funds (including any fundraising);
- how expenditure has supported the key objectives of the charity;
- investment policy and objectives including any ethical investment policy adopted.
The Charities principal sources of funding are grants, donations, street collections, sale of merchandise, sale of concert tickets and payments from concessionaires and advertisers.
Although the 2023 festival was considered a great success, financially we needed to pay some late invoices from the 2022 festival, corporate fundraising was very difficult, and the grants we were able to secure were significantly down. In addition significant additional cost was incurred for professional management of the festival, The Trustees had systems in place to continually monitor the financial position and took remedial action to mitigate by deciding not to hold one of the concerts due to poor ticket sales, holding a fund-raiser and organising a raffle during the festival.
The committee actively managed costs with the festival manager, this helped mitigate increases in operating costs identified. Systems have been implemented by the Trustees to minimise any future risk to assets.
The Treasurer regularly monitors the financial position of the Charity and reports this to the Trustees.
March **2012**
**TAR**
5
This has identified the need to increase fund-raising effort to protect the Trust’s assets and future. To enact this, a fund-raising committee seeks to widen the sources of funding and seeks funds locally and nationally. The trustees are looking to recruit additional members to the fundraising committee.
We have our back catalogue available on streaming services, encourage sponsored events, added channels for fund-raising over the past few years, such as a raffle, fundraisers, a 50/50 club and text to donate with varying success.
It is the trustees’ opinion that continued discipline with expenditure and a significant increase in fund-raising effort can enable the Association long term to continue its activities in furtherance of is charitable aims and to grow.
The Trustees are concerned regarding the financial position of the Charity in the short term if the additional fundraising is not successful,given the difficult position regarding fundraising and increased costs faced by the Charity.
## **Section F Other optional information**
The trustees took the difficult decision during the year not to hold the festival in 2024, with the aim of rebuilding and returning in 2025.
## **Section G Declaration**
**The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.**
## **Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees**
**Signature(s) Full name(s) John Batch Position Treasurer Date 22/04/24**
March **2012**
**TAR**
6
**Leigh Folk Arts Association CIO**
**1171298**
**CC16a**
## **Receipts and payments accounts**
**1/1/23**
**31/12/23**
## **For the period from**
**To**
## **Section A Receipts and payments**
|**A1 Receipts**
Grants
Sponsorship
Donations
Merchandise sales
Concert tickets
Giftaid
Concessions
Advertising
Raffle
Fundraiser
50/50 club income
**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for_
_AR)_|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Restricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Restricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**||**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Last year**
**to the nearest £**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**6,978**||**-**||**-**||**6,978**|**13,500**|
||**3,850**||**-**||**-**||**3,850**|**4,925**|
||**8,636**||**-**||**-**||**8,636**|**12,353**|
||**3,311**||**-**||**-**||**3,311**|**2,355**|
||**8,250**||**-**||**-**||**8,250**|**14,268**|
||**2,747**||**-**||**-**||**2,747**|**942**|
||**14,051**||**-**||**-**||**14,051**|**9,300**|
||**830**||**-**||**-**||**830**|**1,090**|
||**2,336**||**-**||**-**||**2,336**|**-**|
||**1,594**||**-**||**-**||**1,594**|**-**|
||**1,217**||**-**||**-**||**1,217**|**1,265**|
||
**53,800**||**-**||**-**||**53,800**|**59,998**|
||**-**
**-**
**-**
**53,800**||**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|||
|||
|**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**|||||||||
|None|**-**||||**-**||**-**|**-**|
||**-**||||**-**||**-**|**-**
**-**|
|**_Sub total_**|**-**||||**-**||**-**||
|**_Total receipts_ **
**A3 Payments**|||||||||
||||||**-**||**53,800**|**59,998**|
||||||||||
|
Performers
Security
Festival Management
Infrastructure
Infrastructure (previous year)
Insurance
Licences
Promotional
Cost of sales
General expenses
Storage
Waste Clearance
Concession costs
Volunteer catering and costs
Donations
50/50 club prizes
**_Sub total_ **|**16,289**|
|**-**|
|**-**|
|**16,289**|**25,539**|
||**3,902**||**-**||**-**||**3,902**|**3,107**|
||**12,000**||||||**12,000**|**-**|
||**12,133**||**-**||**-**||**12,133**|**10,171**|
||**6,538**||||||**6,538**|**-**|
||**2,537**||**-**||**-**||**2,537**|**2,196**|
||**1,167**||**-**||**-**||**1,167**|**1,117**|
||**3,627**||**-**||**-**||**3,627**|**3,832**|
||**1,662**||**-**||**-**||**1,662**|**703**|
||**1,950**||**-**||**-**||**1,950**|**1,923**|
||**2,638**||**-**||**-**||**2,638**|**3,745**|
||**774**||**-**||**-**||**774**|**659**|
||**1,680**||**-**||**-**||**1,680**|**1,328**|
||**175**||**-**||**-**||**175**|**277**|
||**350**||**-**||**-**||**350**|**200**|
||**875**||**-**||**-**||**875**|**515**|
||**68,297**||||**-**|
|**68,297**|**55,312**|
|**A4 Asset and investment**
**purchases, (see table)**|||||||||
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|**-**|
||**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**|**-**
**-**|
|**_Sub total_ **|**-**||**-**||**-**||**-**||
|**_Total payments_ **
**_Net of receipts/(payments)_ **
**A5 Transfers between funds**
**A6 Cash funds last year end**
**_Cash funds this year end_ **
CCXX R1 accounts (SS)|**68,297**
**- 14,497**
**-**
**30,432**
**15,935**|||||
|||
||||||**-**||**68,297**|**55,312**|
||||||||||
||||||**-**||**- 14,497**|**4,686**|
||||**-**|
|**-**|
|**-**|**-**|
||||**-**||**-**||**30,432**|**25,656**|
||||**-**||**-**||**15,935**|**30,342**|
|||||||||26/04/2024|
|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**||
|---|---|---|---|
|**Categories**
**B1 Cash funds**
**B2 Other monetary assets**
**B3 Investment assets**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
**B5 Liabilities**
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees|**Details**
**Current Account**
**Reserves**
**Cash**
**Paypal**
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))
**Details**
None
**Details**
None
**Details**
Equipment for Folk festival
**Details**
None
Signature|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**7,952**
**-**
**7,874**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**109**
**-**
**15,935**
**-**
OK
OK
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
Unrestricted funds
**-**
**Fund to which**
**liability relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**
Print Name
**John Batch – Treasurer**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||OK|
||||**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**When due**
**(optional)**|
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
||||Date of
approval|
|||**John Batch – Treasurer**|**26/04/23**|
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)
26/04/2024
2
## **Independent examiner's report on the accounts**
## **Section A Independent Examiner’s Report**
**Report to the trustees/** Charity Name **members of Leigh Folk Arts Association CIO On accounts for the year** 31[st] December, 2023 **Charity no 1171298 ended (if any) Set out on pages** 2 (remember to include the page numbers of additional sheets)
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended **31/12/2023** .
- **Responsibilities and** As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation **basis of report** 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 the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.
**Independent** I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have **examiner's statement** come to my attention ~~(other than that disclosed below~~ *) 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.
* _Please delete the words in the brackets if they do not apply._
**Signed: Date:** 24/10/2024 **Name:** Derek John Oliver **Relevant professional** PhD, DBA, MSc, CISA, CISM, CRISC **qualification(s) or body (if any): Address:** Ravenswood, Essex Way South Benfleet Essex, SS7 1LN
1
**October 2018**
**IER**
## **Section B Disclosure**
Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).
**Give here brief details of** There are no matters of concern to highlight **any items that the examiner wishes to disclose** .
2
**October 2018**
**IER**