Trustees report 1[st] March 2023 – 31[st] August 2023
Charity number 1184284
Registered office and operational address 1 Tomarton Road Marshfield Chippenham SN14 8NN
Trustees
The trustees who served during the period this report covers were as follows:
Ben Hargreaves, Martyn Harries, Charlotte Hum, Katharine Jordan, Gill Jones MBE
Bankers NatWest Bank 62 Fore Street Bath BA14 8EX
Structure, governance and management
Music for Miniatures Charitable Incorporated Organisation is governed by a constitution. The CIO is overseen by a board of 5 trustees. The trustees for the period covered in this report are Martyn Harries, Ben Hargreaves, Charlotte Hum, Gill Jones MBE and Katharine Jordan. The board of trustees has the power to appoint new or additional trustees and to remove any trustee, provided the number of trustees does not fall below a minimum of three.
Music for Miniatures has policies in place for Equal Opportunities and Safeguarding of Children.
Objectives and activities
The object of the CIO is:
▪ To advance the education of children and young people in the art and science of music in all its aspects by the provision of interactive and pedagogical performances, recitals and concerts.
Music for Miniatures provides opportunities for children aged 0-11 and their families to experience professional classical musicians performing in their community.
Our baby-friendly concerts support child development, benefit parent’s wellbeing and bring communities together.
Our work in schools allows us to enrich the lives of children, plant a seed of inspiration and spark a curiosity and passion for the arts.
Our performances benefit:
-
Children - Live classical music has a positive effect on cognitive development, sensory stimulation, emotional expression, language skills, relaxation, bonding, and fosters an appreciation for the arts
-
Parents – Our concerts have positive effect on parent wellbeing by providing enjoyment and relaxation as well as memorable bonding time with their child.
-
Community – we increase the range and quality of cultural activities available locally and bring people together in their own community.
-
Schools – teachers and children benefit from our interactive, educational and inspiring performances
Our work broadly falls into 3 strands :
-
Baby friendly concerts in communities across Bristol, Bath, Wiltshire, Somerset, and Gloucestershire aimed at children aged 0-4 and their families. These concerts provide an opportunity for babies, toddlers and their grown-ups to experience live performances in a supportive, relaxed and child-friendly environment. The music is performed by professional musicians who are skilled in creating immersive and interactive musical experiences.
-
Performances in schools across the UK by our professional musicians enrich the musical life of a school and inspire children to pursue their own musical interests.
-
Theatrical chamber music performances which tour across the south west. Our theatrical chamber music shows combine music, storytelling, and visual elements to create multi-sensory experiences for young audiences. This makes classical music more accessible and engaging for children, fostering a lifelong appreciation for the arts.
Pay What You Decide
We are committed to making live classical music inclusive and accessible for EVERYONE. That’s why in 2022 we started our Pay What You Decide concerts in areas of high deprivation and continued the project through 2023. The response we had was overwhelmingly positive with large, appreciative audiences and 100% of survey respondents reporting a positive impact on the wellbeing of parents and children. 60% of the audience had never been to a classical concert before. 100% of our audience surveyed said they would like to see more concerts in their community in the future.
Music for Miniatures is the ONLY organisation in the south west dedicated to providing classical music for young audiences, and the ONLY organisation to bring classical music to areas of high deprivation.
We predominantly work across Bristol area, Wiltshire, Somerset, B&NES, and Gloucestershire. Over 40 local professional musicians work with us, sharing their talents and inspiring the next generation with a variety of instruments and styles.
Music for Miniatures started giving concerts in Oct 2014, became a CIC in Feb 2016 and converted to a Registered Charity in July 2019.
How our activities deliver public benefit
Our activities deliver public benefit by providing opportunities for children and families to experience high quality live music. We give concerts and performances in public spaces and in schools so that children can engage with live music and gain knowledge and inspiration. We provide these concerts on a Pay What You Decide basis in some cases. We always try to make our performances as inclusive and accessible as possible for all children and families.
The trustees have had regard to the guidance contained in the Charity Commission’s general guidance on public benefit and referred to it when reviewing our aims and objectives and in planning our future activities.
Achievements and performances March 2023 – August 2023
Our popular ticketed baby-friendly concerts continued monthly in Bath and we toured “Let’s Dance” to venues during February half terms, and “A Musical Circus” to 14 venues during the summer holidays.
We are particularly proud of our Pay What You Decide project which continued to bring live classical music baby-friendly concerts to people across 6 areas of high deprivation.
Bubble Bach continued to delight school children with the virtuosic music and bubbles.
We work regularly with 23 venues across a wide geographical area including Bristol, Bath, Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset, Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. Communities we visited are: Bath, Bradford on Avon, Bristol, Calne ,Chepstow, Chew Magna, Chippenham, Chipping Sodbury, Devizes, Frome, Keynsham, Larkhall, Melksham, Nailsea, Oldfield Park, Portishead, Radstock, Salisbury, Street, Tetbury, Trowbridge, Twerton
Organisational development
The charity has gone from strength to strength during this period, increasing the hours of the Artistic Director and being able to fund both some admin assistance and a freelance fundraiser.
We continue to rely on ticket sales, donations and income from grant-making organisations to fund our work.
We strive to reduce our carbon footprint by using only local professional musicians and by taking our concerts out of the city centre to more communities where audiences can access our events by foot or bicycle.
Financial review
A decision has been taking to move the CIO’s financial year to line up with the school year (Sept – Aug). This will make planning and budgeting more straightforward in future years. As a result of this, the financial information enclosed in this report is for a period of 6 months. This should be noted when comparing to the previous period, which was 12 months.
The CIO’s income derives predominately from ticket sales, donations, and grant funding. During the period, the CIO achieved a successful string of Pay What You Decide concerts, funded via grants and donations.
Reserves were used to grow the charity during the period, including employment of its first employee and increased resources for fundraising. The period ended with over £3,000 of unrestricted reserves. This puts the organisation in a strong position for further moderate growth in the coming year.
The trustees are happy to continue with looking at each project/concert as an individual item that must fund itself in addition to forecasting longer-term to monitor potential gaps in income in the future.
A note from the Chair
The trustees are very proud of the growth and direction of Music for Miniatures, particularly through the efforts of our dynamic Artistic Director Julie Payne alongside all of the musicians we work with and not forgetting our volunteers who help keep the concerts running smoothly. The positive impact that our “Pay What You Decide” concerts are having is demonstrated in the enthusiastic feedback from parents at these events. Our plan is to add to these concerts and reach new audiences in other areas of social depravation (as defined by IoD2019 - such as Hartcliffe in Bristol) where removing any financial barrier is important. Grant applications and fundraising to support these important family experiences are high on our priority list.
All of our concerts have seen a steady increase in new families attending as well as our many regulars who all appreciate the variety of music on offer as well as the quality of our musicians.
As Music for Miniatures heads towards another busy year we have decided to align our financial reporting year with that of the schools we serve and hence the shorter period covered by this report. We look forward to a very rewarding, busy year ahead.
Approved by the Trustees on 12[th] June 2024 and signed on their behalf by
Martyn Harries Chair of Trustees
Music for Miniatures
Receipts and payments account
For the 6 month period 1 March 2023 - 31 August 2023
| Receipts Sales Grants Donations Total Receipts Payments Performance Fees Administration Venue Hire Salaries Advertising & Marketing Prop's and costumes General Expenses Audit & Accountancy fees Ticket Sales Fees Travel Insurance Donation Collection Fees Web Hosting Total Payments Net receipts / (payments) Cash funds at 1 March 2023 Cash funds at 31 August 2023 |
Restricted £ Unrestricted £ 6 months 1 Mar 2023 - 31 Aug 2023 £ 12 months 1 Mar 2022 - 28 Feb 2023 £ - 11,823 11,823 35,006 800 - 800 6,450 - 3,700 3,700 4,887 800 15,523 16,323 46,343 3,635 11,280 14,915 26,475 718 4,942 5,660 3,350 360 2,156 2,516 4,219 - 2,176 2,176 - - 684 684 1,174 - 316 316 330 - 200 200 976 - 160 160 1,370 - 153 153 1,372 - 99 99 - - 65 65 126 - 52 52 71 - 33 33 296 4,713 22,315 27,028 39,759 (3,913) (6,792) (10,705) 6,584 3,913 9,885 13,798 7,214 - 3,093 3,093 13,798 |
|---|---|
Music for Miniatures
Statement of assets and liabilities
As at 31 August 2023
| Cash funds Cash at bank and in hand Total cash funds Cash funds Restricted funds Unrestricted funds General funds Total cash funds |
31 Aug 2023 £ 28 Feb 2023 £ 3,093 13,798 3,093 13,798 - 3,913 3,093 9,885 3,093 13,798 |
|---|---|
Approved by the trustees on 12th June 2024 and signed on their behalf by
Martyn Harries
Chair of Trustees