## JazzLeeds
Charity number 1178875
Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 30 September 2025
## JazzLeeds
Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 30 September 2025
|**Contents**|**Page**|
|---|---|
|Trustees' report|2 to 5|
|Examiner's report|6|
|Receipts and payments account|7|
|Statement of assets and liabilities|8|
|Notes to the accounts|9 to 10|
## **Prepared by West Yorkshire Community Accountancy Service CIO**
1
## JazzLeeds
## Trustees' report for the year ended 30 September 2025
## **Reference and administrative details of the charity, its trustees and advisors**
The trustees during the financial year and up to and including the date the report was approved were: **Name Position Dates** Ramesh Narayanan Chair Steve Crocker Rosemary Holmes Steve Ross Karen Gourlay Resigned 15 May 2024 Sophie Speed Resigned 15 May 2024 Hayley Harding Joseph Allen Resigned 29 January 2025 Anthony Walsh Appointed 25 May 2025 **Charity number** 1178875 Registered in England and Wales **Registered and principal address Bankers** 11 Gledhow Park Drive HSBC Leeds 33 Park Row LS7 4JT Leeds LS1 1LD
Registered in England and Wales
## **Independent examiner**
Katy Sargeant ACA **West Yorkshire Community Accountancy Service CIO**
Stringer House 34 Lupton Street Leeds LS10 2QW
## **Structure, governance and management**
The charity is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) foundation formed on 21 June 2018, and is governed by a constitution as amended on 28 July 2023.
## **Method of recruitment and appointment of trustees**
The trustees of the charity are appointed at a properly convened meeting of the trustees.
2
## JazzLeeds
## Trustees' report (continued) for the year ended 30 September 2025
## **Objectives and activities**
## **The charity's objects**
To promote, improve, develop and maintain public appreciation of music in jazz and similar genre by:
- (i) the presentation of high quality artist's work in the city of Leeds and farther afield if necessary;
- (ii) engaging individuals through music in order to develop their interests, skills, capacities and capabilities, and thereby providing recreational and leisure time activity in the interests of social welfare, well-being and promotion of community cohesion;
- (iii) such other means at the trustees discretion.
## **The charity's main activities**
JazzLeeds is a volunteer led organisation providing an extensive and sustainable programme of jazz, associated music events and related community activities. JazzLeeds encourages and develops the local music and creative arts scene, supports new jazz activities, including promoting European and International collaboration and develops new audiences for jazz.
As a charity, one of JazzLeeds aims is to use live music to bring communities together and promote wellbeing.
## **Public benefit statement**
In setting our objectives and planning our activities our JazzLeeds trustees have given serious consideration to the Charity Commission’s general guidance on public benefit and in particular the promotion of the arts and culture, the promotion of volunteering and the advancement of education.
## **Achievements and performance Highlights**
**In total we put on 87 concerts and events** – fewer than last year, which is in line with our desire to “do less, but do it better”. We programmed a total of 116 bands during the year.
**Our audience total** was around 6,300, less than the 8,000 the previous year. Around 1,250 or so people attending our two festival stages at Cookridge Street (Leeds Jazz Festival) and Regent Street (Chapel Allerton Arts Festival). Our audience average for our international ticketed concerts was 76 (71 the previous year), our regional and local concerts (Sunday afternoons, rush hour jazz, jam session average was 61 (62 the previous year).
We held a total of **14 evening concerts** and **6 festival evening concerts** during the year, mostly at Seven Arts. We ran our regular evening series just between September and April. Three concerts were held at Howard Assembly Room – featuring **Eliot Galvin/Laura Jurd, Lighthouse Trio and Nicki Iles Jazz Orchestra** . We received sponsorship for one of these concerts but overall they made a loss.
Our spring season included two **Conservatoire Collection** concerts in April with six final year bands from the **Leeds Conservatoire BA Jazz Course** .
As part of the **Leeds Jazz Festival** in May we put on 12 bands in total with three highly successful evening concerts – **Jay Phelps Quintet, Sultan Stevenson Trio and Benet McClean Quintet** , a festival jam session and a rather cold (and wet!) **Cookridge Stage event** seven Leeds small groups and big bands.
Our summer season included a popular pay as you feel **Courtyard summer series** in June/August.
At the Chapel Allerton Arts Festival Concerts during August/September we programmed two evening concerts – **Olivia Cuttill Quintet and the Ancient Infinity Orchestra** . As well as five groups from Leeds in Regent Street on the Sunday jazz stage, we ran a second stage at the Willow Tree stage with three community bands.
3
## JazzLeeds
## Trustees' report (continued) for the year ended 30 September 2025
## **Achievements and performance continued**
Our **bi-monthly rush hour jazz** events in Seven Arts bar (with a visiting guest playing with the JazzLeeds trio) continue to flourish and were increased in frequency from two to three per month. **Pay as you Feel** events continued to prove very popular during the year generating good collections to pay the bands.
At **Northlight Arts** we continued our presence there with Sunday morning **workshops** with Dom Moore, the evening **Instant World Orchestra** with Richard Ormrod and our monthly jam sessions. The **jazz choir** retuned for a spring and summer session, taught by Tessa Smith, rehearsing in the Methodist Church in Chapel Allerton. The Jazz Workshop has around 20 regular players, and the Instant World orchestra a pool of 25 musicians.
**Our jam sessions** continued monthly at Northlight, and for six months moved to Seven Arts where they attracted larger audiences but were unfortunately not wanted there by Seven management. They are now once again at Northlight and with a more sustainable financial basis than previously. The number of playing musicians is 10-15. We are indebted to Phil Green for running them.
We finished the process of upgrading our JazzLeeds **website** , and our **marketing** using **Split designs** .
**Support bands** - we used twelve support bands with our evening gigs, mainly young musicians from the Leeds scene.
Our Jazz Education Projects jointly with Leeds Junior Conservatoire finished – it has not run this year due to shortage of funding.
## **Did we achieve our goals in 2024/2025?**
Our main goals in 2024/2025 from our Arts at Leeds funding award were as follows with comments indicating whether these were achieved:
## **JazzLeeds at the Festivals**
We will work with the Leeds Jazz and CAAF festival teams to deliver events during the festival in May (LJF) and with the Chapel Allerton team to deliver events in September. The events promoted by JazzLeeds are:
- l Big Events (three evening concerts were held as part of LJF, two at CAAF. We also held three city centre events with Howard Assembly Room. Our international programme was a further 14 events).
- l Supporting local musicians (12 support bands at our big concerts, Leeds Conservatoire collections with six groups, two festival events with a total of 12 local bands).
- l Free events for audience – several were held - Cookridge Street/Regent Street tents, our summer Courtyard series, and an increase in our Rush Hour jazz gigs to 3 per month.
## **Diversity**
Our performances featured evening bands led by rising star jazz women performers - Gravy Boat ( **Emma Johnson** ) **Emma Coates Group, Sophie Speed Quintet, Raquel Alvaro** and **Fee Buckton** , plus those led by a number of established artists – for example **Ingrid Laubrock** , **Nikki Iles, Laura Jurd** and **Georgia Mancio** . We also featured rising star musicians such as pianist **Sultan Stevenson** and established players such as **Jay Phelps** .
## **Jazz Education**
Community Jazz Workshops – we have run the Jazz Workshops and Richard Ormrod’s Instant World Orchestra at Northlight.
## **Jazz in communities**
In 2024/2025 we planned concerts in libraries – in Garforth and Crossgates, but these unfortunately did not go ahead because of licensing issues.
4
## JazzLeeds
## Trustees' report (continued) for the year ended 30 September 2025
## **Conclusion**
- l **It has been a successful 12 months** for JazzLeeds both artistically and financially. Our four “streams” - the evening international sessions, the regional Sunday afternoon sessions, our jazz jams and the rush hour jazz are all well established as well as thriving workshops and choir **.**
- l **We have addressed some of our big issues** – e.g. that of marketing/web presence and the future of our jazz jam sessions.
- l The next key concern for JazzLeeds is **succession planning –** our target for this is 2027, when a number of our key volunteers and trustees are standing down. We will also need to work out ways of funding and managing any future **Education programme** .
## **Financial review**
The net payments for the year were £6,371, including net payments of £1,076 on unrestricted funds and net payments of £5,295 on restricted funds.
Our total receipts 2024-2025 were £52,318 and our payments were £58,689. This loss was due to the cost of our new website and rebrand, the costs of which largely fell into this financial year. We were successful receiving Combined West Yorkshire Authority funding from Arts at Leeds of £8,271. We had one concert sponsorship donation of £2,050.
## **Reserves policy**
The charity's free reserves, at the year end were £46,067.
JazzLeeds had a reserves policy of retaining 25% of annual turn-over (equivalent to £13,000 for the current financial year). At the trustee meeting in September 2025 the reserves policy was changed to 50% of turn-over (being £26,000) for two main reasons:
- (a) The loss incurred in the financial year ended 30 September 2025;
- (b) Outline plans for events in calendar year 2027 that will mark JazzLeeds’ twentieth anniversary. Part of the financial planning for these will involve a bid to Arts Council England. This bid will require matched funding from JazzLeeds.
The trustees are aware that their reserves are currently significantly in excess of their stated policy, however having identified two specific items where they are cautious of budgeting, namely the increased costs of staging events (increased venue hire, technical support costs and costs paid to performers) and the matched funding required for the Arts Council for the additional activities planned in 2027 for the 20th anniversary celebrations. With this uncertainty, the trustees are comfortable that the current level of reserves is appropriate.
Approved by the board of trustees on 11/5/26
Steve Crocker (Trustee)
5
## JazzLeeds
## Independent examiner's report to the trustees of JazzLeeds
I report to the charity trustees on my examination of the accounts of the CIO for the year ended 30 September 2025, which are set out on pages 7 to 10.
## **Responsibilities and basis of report**
As the charity trustees of the CIO 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 CIO's accounts as carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act. 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:
1 accounting records were not kept in respect of the charity as required by section 130 of the Charities Act; 2 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.
Katy Sargeant ACA
14/5/2026
## **West Yorkshire Community Accountancy Service CIO**
Stringer House 34 Lupton Street Leeds LS10 2QW
6
#
## JazzLeeds
## Receipts and payments account for the year ended 30 September 2025
|Notes
2025
Unrestricted
funds
£
**Receipts**
Grants and donations
(2)
2,150
Sales and fees
39,875
Fundraising
1,512
Bank interest
510
**Total receipts**
44,047
**Payments**
Artists' pay
33,817
Artists' expenses
666
Venue payments
530
Technical payments
1,264
Marketing and PR
6,617
Subscriptions
-
Insurance
297
Independent examination
960
Other fees and travel
209
Bank charges
114
Equipment purchase
600
Office costs
49
**Total payments**
45,123
**Net receipts / (payments)**
(1,076)
**Fund balances brought forward**
47,143
**Fund balances carried forward**
(3)
46,067|2025
Restricted
funds
£
8,271
-
-
-
8,271
7,585
-
100
-
2,831
-
-
-
3,050
-
-
-
13,566
(5,295)
5,513
218|2025
Total
funds
£
10,421
39,875
1,512
510
52,318
41,402
666
630
1,264
9,448
-
297
960
3,259
114
600
49
58,689
(6,371)
52,656
46,285|2024
Total
funds
£
9,212
45,703
1,673
608
57,196
39,654
593
350
587
10,016
206
297
630
5,596
153
38
174
58,294
(1,098)
53,754
52,656|
|---|---|---|---|
7
## JazzLeeds
## Statement of assets and liabilities
|as at 30 September 2025
2025
Unrestricted
£
**Cash funds**
Cash at bank
46,044
Cash in hand
23
**Total cash funds**
46,067|2025
Restricted
£
218
-
218|2025
Total
£
46,262
23
46,285|2024
Total
£
52,653
3
52,656|
|---|---|---|---|
## **Assets retained for the charity's own use**
Yamaha upright piano Yamaha PA and 2 microphones i-Zettle card reader
|**Liabilities**
Accruals|2025
£
900
900|
|---|---|
The financial statements were approved by the board of trustees on 11/5/26
Steve Crocker (Trustee)
8
## JazzLeeds
## Notes to the accounts
## for the year ended 30 September 2025
## **1 Accounting policies**
## **Basis of accounting**
The trustees have taken advantage of section 133 of the Charities Act 2011 and have prepared the accounts on a receipts and payments basis.
There has been no change to the accounting policies since last year.
No changes have been made to the accounts for previous years.
## **Taxation**
As a charity the organisation benefits from rates relief and is generally exempt from income tax and capital gains tax but not from VAT. Irrecoverable VAT is included in the cost of those items to which it relates.
## **Fund accounting**
Unrestricted funds are available for use at the discretion of the trustees in furtherance of the general objectives of the charity.
Restricted funds are subjected to restrictions on their expenditure imposed by the donor or through the terms of an appeal.
Further explanation of the nature and purpose of each fund is included in the notes to the accounts.
9
## JazzLeeds
## Notes to the accounts continued
## for the year ended 30 September 2025
|**2 Grants and donations**
Leeds City Council (LCC)
Other donations
**3 Restricted funds**
LCF - Mohn Westlake Arts Fund
LCC - Culture Fund
**Fund name**
LCF - Mohn Westlake Arts Fund
LCC - Culture Fund|2025
2025
2025
2024
Unrestricted
Restricted
Total
Total
funds
funds
funds
funds
£
£
£
£
-
8,271
8,271
7,453
2,150
-
2,150
1,759
2,150
8,271
10,421
9,212
Balance b/f
Incoming
Outgoing
Transfers
Balance c/f
£
£
£
£
£
3,750
-
3,750
-
-
1,763
8,271
9,816
-
218
5,513
8,271
13,566
-
218
**Purpose of restriction**
JazzLeeds Education Project. For extra-curricular work with three local
schools to encourage young people to play jazz music.
International artists, Community bands, Improved marketing.|
|---|---|
## **4 Related party transactions**
## **Trustee expenses**
No trustee received any expenses during this year or the previous year.
## **Trustee remuneration and benefits**
No trustee received any remuneration or benefit during this or the previous year.
## **Other transactions with trustees or related parties**
|**Other transactions with trustees or related parties**
Steve Crocker
**Name of trustee**
**Relationship to**
**Description of transaction**
Trustee
Payment for performances
at concerts|2025
£
-
-|2024
£
550
550|
|---|---|---|
10