SECRETARY’S REPORT FOR THE AGM 2025
For the year 2024
Well, I can only apologise for not being here this year to join you at the AGM. I am blaming my partner for booking a surprise weekend abroad and not checking the dates with me – though it was a lovely surprise!
As I am not here to read the Secretary’s Report out this year – I have been asked to keep it short – so here goes and let’s look at what the year 2024 bought.
With ever rising prices it is difficult to find trips at a modest price as coaches and theatre tickets are both so expensive, so we are trying to diversify and include outings to other places of interest which are often less costly. Huge thanks to Priscilla and Theo for sourcing and arranging the many fantastic outings that we have this year – we visited 10 theatres and several other places of interest, had two lovely meals at the Chalkwell Park Rooms and a weekend away Nottingham. We also had a couple of outings to productions at our own Palace Theatre too.
We are grateful to those who support these trips – please do keep coming along if you can.
The Palace Theatre Lottery has continued to be a big success. Last year we gave out £650.80 in prizes, and the lottery raised £976.20 for the Club – so please keep buying these tickets.
I would like to thank Jan Pope for all her hard work on this and of course Peter Knight for counting all the monies collected for the lottery.
And whilst I am on thanking people – another big thank you to David Simpson our archivist for enthusiastically continuing to keep our archive up to date and scanning programmes and fliers from all our shows. Do not forget if you ever want to visit the Palace archive or have any old Palace programmes that you want to donate, David is usually around at our Saturday foyer meetings.
And of course thanks to my fellow Committee members and a special thank you to Carol who will be missed as she stands down this year.
Overall, despite the challenges, we have had a good year and are holding our monies for various potential projects at the Palace.
As you will be aware from our Newsletters, we have been told that it is not possible to replace the design of the ladies on the Safety Curtain, which is disappointing, but we are now looking at ways we can produce something to show people what it looked like and to keep the lovely Edwardian ladies in our memory.
I asked our Theatre Director Nick Parr for some thoughts on the past year for the Palace and here are his comments.
Investment : over the past year we have completed - upgrades to dressing rooms 4 and 5 (finishing touches underway), new Stalls carpet, new Stalls seat armrests, we’ve upgraded and expanded our CCTV system, improved the front of the stage, replaced the Dixon floor and we’ve completed a structural survey of the front of the building to enable us to design the new external signage which we hope to deliver this year. We also opened the Gallery Office in the spare space next to David’s archive room, which now offers six hot desks for local and central colleagues.
Content : we have had some big productions with some big names including Viggo Venn, David Suchet, Miles Jupp, The Mousetrap, Dom Joly, Sleuth, Iain Stirling, Julian Clary, Sir Bradley Wiggins, Ian Botham, Griff Rhys Jones, Joe Pasquale, Will Young, Ruby Wax, and another hugely successful Summer Youth Project The Addams Family (with thanks to the PTC for your support).
Creative Learning : all of our regular activity, plus we launched a new Work Experience programming offering week-long placements for 14- to 18-year-olds and Total Palace, our new SEN youth theatre.
Community: We maintained a full programme of shows by local amateur companies in both the Palace and the Dixon and hosted two hirers’ meetings. We also reinstated amateur shows featuring in our season brochures.
People: We promoted Oliver Stacey to the new role of General Manager, overseeing both venues and acting as deputy Theatre Director. We recruited a second marketing professional, Jules Easlea who we met at our last foyer meeting is now our Venue Marketing Lead.
The RAAC in the Dixon roof has not been removed due to a procurement delay at the Council, but we are hopeful that the work will be completed this summer, with minimal impact on the Dixon programme.
We also supported two local companies develop work in the Dixon: Charles Sharman-Cox produced Wake Up! starring Ian Sanders which was filmed for a documentary about Ian’s health issues.
Plus of course Club favourite and member, Ryan Philpott of Dickens Theatre Company who tested two news shows – Charles Dickens: The Readings and The Rumours and Charles Dickens and the Stink of Murder in the Dixon. Ryan also presented his version of A Christmas Carol in the main house in November which the Club bought a party of member to and returned with Macbeth and Jekyll and Hyde in February.
So lets hope 2025 will have some similar experiences and remember to keep our Palace Theatre going we need to do our bit and keep seeing lots of shows at the Palace to keep it thriving for 2025.
Jan W
| Charity Name The Palace Theatre Club |
Charity Name The Palace Theatre Club |
Charity Name The Palace Theatre Club |
No (if any) 1175187 |
CC16a |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Receipts and payments accounts | ||||
| For the period from |
Period start date 01-Jan-24 |
To |
Period end date 31-Dec-24 |
| Section A Receipts and | payments | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1 Receipts | Unrestricted funds to the nearest £ |
Restricted funds to the nearest £ |
Endowment funds to the nearest £ |
Total funds to the nearest £ |
Last year to the nearest £ |
| Subscriptions Foyer, Lunch & Coach Raffles Miscellaneous Outings Merchandising Donations Lottery Gift Aid Interest |
3,821.56 | - | - | 3,821.56 | 3,506.31 |
| 1,660.10 | - | - | 1,660.10 | 1,399.80 | |
| - | - | - | - | - | |
| 40,122.06 | - | - | 40,122.06 | 38,555.09 | |
| 321.00 | - | - | 321.00 | 649.81 | |
| 615.00 | - | - | 615.00 | 552.00 | |
| 1,627.00 | 1,627.00 | 1,583.00 | |||
| 523.50 | - | - | 523.50 | 816.84 | |
| - | 675.78 | 675.78 | 399.25 | ||
| - | - | - | - | - | |
| Sub total(Gross income for AR) | 48,690.22 | 675.78 | - | 49,366.00 | 47,462.10 |
| A2 Asset and investment sales, (see table). |
|||||
| - | - | - | - | ||
| - | - | - | - | - | |
| Sub total | - | - | - | - | - |
| Total receipts A3 Payments |
|||||
| 48,690.22 | 675.78 | - | 49,366.00 | 47,462.10 | |
| Newsletters & Publicity | 1,751.95 | - | - | 1,751.95 | 2,136.53 |
| Lottery | 650.80 | 650.80 | 633.20 | ||
| Stationary, Telephone & Postage | 509.91 | - | - | 509.91 | 594.33 |
| Sundries | 145.82 | - | - | 145.82 | 33.00 |
| Outings | 35,705.18 | - | - | 35,705.18 | 36,466.00 |
| Tips | 580.00 | - | - | 580.00 | 529.00 |
| Merchandising | - | - | - | - | - |
| Support to Community Brochure | - | 125.00 | - | 125.00 | - |
| Sponsorship of Summer Youth Project | - | 400.00 | - | 400.00 | 370.00 |
| - | - | - | - | 3,338.75 | |
| - | - | - | - | - | |
| **Sub total ** | 39,343.66 | 525.00 | - | 39,868.66 | 44,100.81 |
| 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 |
|||||
| 39,343.66 | 525.00 | - | 39,868.66 | 44,100.81 | |
| 9,346.56 | 150.78 | - | 9,497.34 | 3,361.29 | |
| - 9,751.56 | 9,751.56 | - | - | - | |
| 12,393.99 | 34,831.12 | - |
47,225.11 |
43,863.82 |
|
| 11,988.99 | 44,733.46 | - | ~~56,722.45~~ | 47,225.11 |
Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
| Categories Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of all the trustees B1 Cash funds B2 Other monetary assets B3 Investment assets B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use B5 Liabilities |
Details | Unrestricted funds to nearest £ |
Restricted funds to nearest £ |
Endowment funds to nearest £ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bank Lloyds - Club Account | 1,819.85 | 9,751.56 | - | |
| Bank Co-op - Club Account | 10,156.30 | |||
| Bank Co-op [35d-Dep] - 'Amenities' | - | 34,981.90 | - | |
| Petty Cash | 12.84 | - | - | |
| ( g p p y Total cash funds |
11,988.99 |
44,733.46 | - | |
| account(s)) Details |
OK | OK | OK | |
| Unrestricted funds to nearest £ |
Restricted funds to nearest £ |
Endowment funds to nearest £ |
||
| - | - | - | ||
| - | - | - | ||
| - | - | - | ||
| - | - | - | ||
| - | - | - | ||
| - | - | - | ||
| Details | Fund to which asset belongs |
Cost (optional) | Current value (optional) |
|
| - | - |
|||
| - | - | |||
| - | - | |||
| - | - | |||
| - | - | |||
| Details | Fund to which asset belongs |
Cost (optional) | Current value (optional) |
|
| - | - |
|||
| - | - | |||
| - | - | |||
| - | - | |||
| - | - | |||
| - | - | |||
| - | - | |||
| - | - | |||
| - | - | |||
| Details | Fund to which liability relates |
Amount due (optional) |
When due (optional) |
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- |
||||
| - | ||||
| - | ||||
| Welfare for the Blind funds | Restricted | 2,300.00 | ||
| 2,300.00 | ||||
| Signature | Print Name | Date of approval |
||
| Peter T MorleyFCMA CGMA | 07/02/2025 | |||
| Peter R Knight | 07/02/2025 |
Independent examiner's report on the accounts
Section A Independent Examiner’s Report
Report to the trustees/ Charity Name Palace Theatre Club members of On accounts for the year 31[st] December 2024 Charity no 1175187 ended (if any)
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 31 December 2024.
- 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.
Date: 7 February 2025 Signed: Name: Peter T. Morley Relevant professional Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants qualification(s) or body FCMA CGMA (if any): Address: 51 Chalkwell Esplanade, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, SS0 8JH.
October 2018
1
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 any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .
October 2018
2
IER