2024-12-31-accounts - Herts Musical Memories

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Herts Musical Memories Annual Report

For Period 01/01/2024 - 31/12/2024

Charity No: 1176007

Charity Registered Address: 20a Bournehall Ave, Bushey, WD23 3AY

Office Address: The Metropolitan Centre, Aldenham Road, Bushey, WD23 2TR

Trustees

Chair: Katsuko Ishizeki-Chaudhari Treasurer: David Bates Trustee: Anna Bosatta

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) – Kerry Brabant

Independent Examiner Anthony Phillip Creasey FCA ICAEW Parkgate House 33a Pratt Street London NW1 0BG

Trustees’ Report

The financial statements have been prepared to comply with the charity's Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) constitution, the Charities Act 2011 and "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

Herts Musical Memories (HMM) provides stimulating and inspiring singing sessions for people with dementia and their carers, improving the quality of their lives and helping them to live well with dementia.

Values

HMM passionately believes that all people with memory problems or dementia should still enjoy positive fulfilling experiences that enhance their lives and improve their health, confidence, and sense of wellbeing.

Health, wellbeing, and equality are at the core of HMM’s activities relating to service users, staff, volunteers and the wider public.

HMM will actively promote equality for people with dementia and their carers, demonstrating to the wider community that people with dementia still have a place in society and should be treated with dignity and respect.

Governing Documents

HMM is a CIO whose only voting members are its Board of Trustees. Trustees are recommended and elected by the Board. The Board has access to training through HMM’s membership of its local CVS and the Hertfordshire Community Foundation.

HMM’s Structure

The charity has a board of Trustees supporting the CEO who is responsible for the delivery of the 5-year business plan and fundraising strategy, developing long-term sustainability for the charity. A part-time assistant helps with management of the groups, venues and book-keeping. For social media and website there is a freelancer who works up to 4 hrs per week. For the delivery of the singing sessions there are 6 freelance staff who are supported by a regular team of 58 volunteers.

Volunteers have been invaluable to HMM. As well as supporting the sessions on a weekly basis, they help at events run by the charity and nominate the charity for fundraising events through their connections with local choirs, amateur dramatic societies and businesses.

Fees

HMM has maintained the price of £6 for people living with dementia; carers go free. Considering economic hardship, we felt it was important to keep the fees at the same level. Towards the end of the year, we saw an increase in service users. For 2025, we will continue to find ways to promote our services. As seen in the financial report, we have increased income from services users from £21,518

to £27,095 for this financial year. We expect to see continued growth in these figures.

Aims of the Charity

HMM sessions are about minimizing the impact of dementia by playing to members’ strengths and focusing on what they can do rather than what they cannot. The sessions are based in music therapy whilst remaining informal and fun. Many people who come to the groups tell us they can’t sing; however, through regular attendance people find they can sing, and the sessions bring them a sense of achievement and joy.

HMM plays a valuable role in enhancing the quality of life for people living with dementia and their carers. Music has the power to bring people together, providing a way for them to stay connected with loved ones and carers through shared experiences. The sessions enliven, stimulate and enable people to creatively express themselves beyond words. This involvement allows people to be seen for who they are beyond their diagnosis.

Partners

The charity has close links to Age UK who have helped HMM to develop training and support for volunteers, strengthen the charity’s policies and procedures whilst offering help and advice where needed. We are also members of East Herts Healthy Hub and Hertsmere Healthy Hub and Communities 1[st] .

Finance

HMM receives 61% of its income from Trusts and Foundations, 26.5% from earned income and 12.5% from donations. In December 2023 we received a grant of £10,000 from the Morris Benevolent Fund to set up the Borehamwood group in 2024. This sum was shown on the accounts for 2023 but essentially was for 2024. The Borehamwood Group is based in one of the most deprived areas of Hertfordshire, with the grant we were able to offer sessions for free.

Charitable Grants 2024

Restricted Grants

D’Oyly Cart 4520 – Watford Group East Herts 3000 – Bishops Stortford & Hertford HCF 5000 – St Albans Group Nth Herts DC 5000 – Knebworth Group Letchworth Gdn City Trust 1000 – Letchworth Group

Total 18520

Unrestricted Grants
Masonic Charitable Trust	5000
Clarion Futures	10000
Charles Hayward	5000
Postcode Lottery	25000
Total	45000

Achievements 2024

The 5-year fundraising strategy created at the end of 2022 is now in its third year of delivery and has already enabled us to create a more sustainable future. For 2025 we will be updating the fundraising strategy and including it in our 5-year business plan. The business plan will focus on the current position in the charity and highlight areas of improvement and set goals for the future including the development of projects that can run alongside the charity’s core work.

Sue Johnson, our volunteer fundraiser has continued to help us throughout 2024. She raised £44,000 towards our target of £100,000. Through her support we were able to achieve our targets for 2024 in addition to gaining 5 months funding towards 2025. We are delighted that Sue was awarded an MBE for her extensive charitable work, well-deserved recognition and heart felt thanks from all of us at HMM.

We received another grant in November from the Post Code Lottery of £25,000 which was unrestricted funding towards our core costs.

We received the second year of our grant from the Masonic charitable trust for £5,000 and a grant from D’Oyly Cart for £4,250.

Our aims from 2023/2024 were:

To Grow Our Board of Directors: We are delighted that we now have a new Chair, Katsuko, and the Board has grown. For 2025 we will continue to work on strengthening the Board, accessing training and encouraging new members to join us.
Increase Staff Levels: 2024 we were delighted to recruit a part- time bookkeeper along with a part-time Comms/fundraising officer. As a result we have a greatly improved website and our social media presence has doubled. Other benefits are improved recruitment, and we are finding that more and more people are using social media to access our services. Our finance officer has successfully transferred our accounts onto Quick Books streamlining the charity finances.
To Grow Our Groups: Being more confident financially has enabled us to turn our focus into growing our groups. As mentioned, we have seen significant growth in all our groups. We were delighted to launch and new group at Borehamwood in October and will begin a marketing campaign in 2025.
To Develop Closer Relationships with Local Government and Health Agencies: We have been working closely with Herts County Council for their bid to become a Centre of Excellence for Music and Dementia – of which the outcome will be found in 2025. For Health Agencies we have been asked to do a number of events and presentations for 2025 and will look forward to meeting staff and patients, sharing the health benefits of our singing groups.
Improve Evaluation: We began an evaluation of all our sessions at the end of 2023 and continued the work in 2024. We were delighted with the results. We had an excellent response from members, with over 80% returning their forms. Out of the responses we found that the majority strongly felt that we had met their expectations and all were happy with how we ran the sessions. We had some lovely comments which we will share on our website. We also carried out case studies, enabling the charity to get a clear picture of how we were supporting our members.
Reach Clients on Point of diagnosis: This is still a challenge, but we are hoping that by working closely with Herts County Council on becoming a Centre of Excellence for Music and Dementia this will improve. However, we do get up to 3 referrals per week, largely self-referrals, and have come via our social media pages or as a result of presentations and events.

7. Participating in More Health and Wellbeing Events: We participated in two events, one in Potters Bar where we also ran demonstrations outlining the service the charity provides. We were also invited to present at the Watford Healthy Hub for people living with dementia and attracting more members to our Watford Group. These events enable us to meet potential clients and talk face to face. It helps people to understand the way the sessions work and get past the fear of singing.

8. Create More Groups: We received a grant from the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation to reopen our group in the area. We ran sessions in Letchworth Garden from when the charity was founded in 2017 and were devastated that it had to close due to lack of funds after the pandemic. This funding will arrive in January 2025, and we are looking forward to returning.

Events

We were delighted to be invited back to St Alban’s Cathedral and deliver a fantastic event in partnership with the Clover Singing Club. The event was a great success, attracting over 200 people.

We were invited to participate in the Knebworth Village Christmas Fair. The volunteers, group leaders and members of the Knebworth group sang carols at St Martin’s Church.

For Christmas we once again ran parties for all our groups. These were a great success, and we were grateful that the halls relaxed the time we could spend in them, allowing our members to enjoy the music and socialising.

Kerry Brabant, the Founder, was asked to do a presentation at the Herts Chorus Christmas Concert. This was an inspiring event, and the Herts Chorus were sublime. As a result an incredible £2160 was raised for Herts Musical Memories taking our donations up to £2220 in December.

Summary

HMM has been through some challenging times but thanks to the all the staff and volunteers we have been able to overcome these challenges to become a stronger and more robust charity looking forward to the future. Towards the end of 2024, we found ourselves in the unprecedented position of not only having achieved our funding targets for the year but also to have made substantial progress towards our targets for 2025.

A huge thank you to our funders for making this possible and to all the people who gave up their time to raise much needed funds, and for all those whose generous donations have been an invaluable support.

Declaration

The Trustees declare they approve the above report. Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees

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CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examinerfs report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner's Report Report to the trusleosl memb•rs of Herts Musical Memories On accounts for the year ended 31 December 2024 Charty no (If any) 1176007 Set out on pages I r8POrt to the trustees on my examination of th8 accounts of the above charfty (Ihe Trusf) for the year ended 3111 Y2024 Responslbllltl•s and As the charlty trustees of the Trust, you are responslble for the preparation bas1$ of report of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charitl8s Act 2011 (Ihe Acr). I report in resp8Ct of my examlnation of the Trust's accounts carrfed out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carying out my 8xamination, I have followed the appllcable Directions given by th8 Charlty Comml8slon under section 145(5){bl of the Act. I have completed my examination. I confirm that no matert81 matters havo come to my attention (other than that disclosed below ') in connection wlth trte examinatbjn which gives m8 caus8 to believe that In, any mat8rlal respect: accountlng rerdS bvere not kept In accordanc8 wlth 8e¢tlon 130 of the Act or the accounts do not accord with the aoUntIng records Independent examinerfs statement I have no conc8ms and have come across no other matters in connècllon with the examinatlon to whith attention should b8 drawn in ordér to enable a propèr underslanding of the accounts to be reached. ' Please delete the words in the brackets if they do not apply. Slgned: Data: 2311012025 Nam•: Anthony Philip Cr8as8 Relevant professlonal quallflcatlon(s> or body (If any): FCA ICAEW Address: Parkgatg House 338 Pratt Street London. NW1 OBG IER October 2018

Section B Disclosure Only complete rfthe examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Ind8P8ndÈnt examination of charity accounts.. directions and guidance for examiners). Glve here briof dotails of any Items that the examiner wishes to dlsclos8. IER October 2018

CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Hort6 MusKal Pkmories Recel ts and pa ents accounts CC16a For the perlod To Ol+t)Ir2024 3111212024 Section A Receipts and payments Unrèstrided lund Restricted fvnd$ End¢)wment nds Total tunds Last yoar toth• n••mt t to th• n••v•t£ tothE to th• N$t£ b) th• tt•arnst£ A1 R•e•l Group f90$ Donatk)ns Gronts Evants 2S.995 13 45.000 25.993 13.483 6J.820 21.$16 6,390 1•,S2 10,252 ross income ARJ 18.520 102.998 102201 nv•• •nt sa ta 18,520 102,998 102.2 A3Pa monts P*sonn81 Venue hir• Surance glkoti 74264 13.267 74204 13.267 168 334 3,645 8,484 929 7,810 875 101,370 40,937 13.410 1565 1.313 Computerj 8 lehphr stonry Rent & giorw• 7370 970 8,008 92# 7.610 B75 108,376 Sub total T4.424 A4 A•s•t and InvHtrn•nt Sub totsl 108.376 108,376 74,424 Net of recWpW(paentsj AS Tran$fers betWn funds A6 Cash funds last year end Cash fvnd$ this year end 2319 18,520 5,378 27.867 10,47 18,520 28.994 27,867 CCXX Rl arnts ISSI 2311012025

Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period Unrstrictgd funds n•afSt£ Restricted nd to ntrar05t£ Endowment funds to TrBarEst£ B1 Cash funds 2B.494 Total cash funds 28,994 Endovmi•nt fund• to ttMr•st£ fund• to MaMt£ VT2tiils n•MtÈ FuThl 10 D•t4 ¢o•tlopknr) Cumnt valua Fu041 to whkh ¢un•n¢v•l¥• Details Co•tlopllon•ll 84 As8ets retalned for the ch•rlty'S own u#• Fund to whkh Amountdy• Wh•n du onal tr12il BS Llabllltles SWe(I by one truthes on behaifof all tha truths Date of roval sIa{re Print Name CCKX R2 accounts ISS) 2311012025

CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES H•rts Muslcal M•morigs Recei tsandpa ents accounts CC16a For th• p•ri4)d To 01n1r224 3111212024 Section A Receipts and payments Unrestricted Restrict•d funds th• n••v•st t kn th• M•rMt£ Endovmi•nt lund• Tot41 funds Last year ts th• n•M•l£ to th• n•ar¢st A1 R•c•l Group laB6 DonalDn$ Gwts Evwt• 25,995 2S,905 13A83 63.520 21,518 ,390 64,131 10,252 45,000 18.$20 ARJ H471 11,520 102.M8 102201 an nv•• 18, 20 102.901 ,29 A3Pa m•nt• parnonnol V8nu• air• Inguranf¥ Marteung Tralnlnu Compulgra & ho Sl¥tk>ngry Rent & 8toro99 sund18 742¢4 13.267 74,264 13.267 96B 334 40.937 13,410 568 1.313 1.840 7,270 970 ,008 J34 •29 7.010 875 108.376 929 7,610 87S 10B,370 Sub totsl 74,424 A4 A•ut and Inv••lm•nt Sub total 108.376 106,376 74,424 Net of rec•lpts/(paymentsJ AS Transf•rs between fund¥ A6 Cash funds last y•ar •nd Cash funds thls year end 23.B9 18,520 5.378 27.867 10A7 18,520 28.994 27,867 CCXX R1 aeLt*unts ISSI 23110r2025

Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period Unrgstrictsd lunds Restrict¢d funds to Dear¢st£ Endown70nt funds to n¢4rest£ to nearest£ 81 Cash funds Total cash fvnds R••trlct•d lund$ Endowm•nt funds tunds Detaws n•ar•st£ b) n••rest£ Fund to *kh •sMtb•k• Details B3 Inveslmont amets Fund towhleh ¥•tb•lo Curr•nt valu• Dttails ¢os¢ lopuorwll B4 Assets retslned for tho charlty'• ¢xvn u AMOt• Wh•n du• Details BS Llabllltl¢$ &gned byone or h¥0 trustees c¥) b8half olall the trusie88 Dale of rov81 Jnabjre Prfnt Name CCXX R2 counts Issi 23110r2025