MUSIC FOR THE MANY
ANNUAL REPORT TO TRUSTEES
8/5/23
1. Structure and Governance
a. Structure
The board of trustees currently consists of:
Steph Booth Maxine Campbell - treasurer Phil Fowler – Chairman Jasmine Simms – Tony Simms secretary
There have been no changes to the board of trustees wince last year ’ s AGM.
Governance
Music for the Many has been governed via a meeting of the board of trustees which takes place several times throughout the year.
Non-trustees who have been appointed to carry out specific functions, especially tutors, have attended Trustees meetings and contributed in areas of particular interest and expertise.
Board meetings have been run according to an agenda circulated prior to each meeting and have been minuted. Minutes are all available from the secretary.
This year, owing to lockdown and social distancing restrictions, our meetings have mostly taken place online.
Our policy documents currently are:
-
Safeguarding Policy
-
Data Policy
-
Tutors Policy (including payment and recruitment policy)
-
Volunteers Policy
-
Complaints policy
These are all due to be revised.
2. Background, Objectives and Activities
a. Background
Since 1996 instrumental tuition in schools has been delivered at a cost to families and schools, which has generally increased over the years, leading to the exclusion of the majority of children from these opportunities on financial and social grounds. Partly as a result of this, high schools have seen a sharp decline in pupils choosing music as an exam subject, leading to many schools dropping music from their curriculum altogether.
Todmorden was seen as an ideal place to set up Music for the Many, as it is an area of multiple deprivation and has experienced an especially dramatic decline in the number of children accessing instrumental tuition. Todmorden is also a town with a strong tradition of community action, organising and self-sufficiency.
As a positive response to the crisis in music education, Music for the Many started as an experiment to see what would happen if we removed the financial, social and cultural barriers to instrumental tuition. The initial response from the children at St. Joseph’s School was overwhelming, with about half of all the children in Key Stage 2 taking up our offer of instrumental tuition.
b. Objectives
The Charity’s constitution states:
“The charity’s objects are, for the public benefit, the advancement of education of the arts through the provision of free instrumental and vocal tuition to school children in Todmorden and the surrounding areas. ”
These objectives are met through tuition, public performances, fundraising and campaigning.
c. Activities
i. Tuition
Tuition takes the form of weekly lessons during school term time to children either individually, in pairs, in small groups or in an orchestra, and usually in a combination of all these configurations.
The Charity currently engages the services on a weekly basis of 5 tutors:
Will Lenton (woodwind) (since March 2018)
Wendieh Thorne (woodwind) (since September 2021) Daniel Bath (violin, keyboard and brass) (since March 2018) Jack Hogg (guitar) (since May 2018)
Helen Thatcher (cello) (since October 2018)
- Emily Alexander (violin) (intermittently since May 2018)
Will Lenton has increased his regular work with M4M, particularly in training the new orchestra at National. Emily Alexander has rejoined us as a regular tutor.
Individual and small group lessons take place during school hours on school premises and orchestra rehearsals take place after school.
We have continued to provide tuition to children in St. Joseph’s and Ferney Lee primary schools. We have also continued to provide tuition to students at Todmorden High School. In order to protect the existing work of other tuition providers, our tuition in the High School has been limited to:
-
exsiting pupils (i.e. those who started learning with Music for the Many whilst in primary school).
-
pupils learning an instrument for which no other existing provision is available at the school.
In Autumn term 2022 we started a new method of delivering instrumental tuition. This is called Complete Beginners ’ Symphony Orchestra (CBSO). For the ideal session there are 20 children (2 flutes, 2 clarinets, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, 9 violins, 3 cellos), 3 professional tutors and one or two adult volunteer players. The children learn to play the instruments from scratch by playing simple, well-known orchestral repertoire in the context of the orchestra, supported and trained by the adults. The weekly rehearsal lasts an hour straight after school. During the hour before the rehearsal the tutors do interventions with individual pupils who need specific input.
We are currently running the CBSO model in National and Beech Hill Schools. This model of delivery has proved more successful overall in terms of the pupils ’ enjoyment and progression than our previous model. As a result, we are intending to use the CBSO model in all our schools from September.
There are currently 120 children receiving weekly instrumental lessons from our tutors in 5 schools on 13 different instruments. This is an increase of 20 pupils from the number recorded in last year’s annual report.
| Schools Instruments |
Beech Hill | Ferney Lee | National | St. Joseph’s | Tod High | Total number of pupils for each instrument |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bassoon | 0 | |||||
| Cello | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 11 | |
| Clarinet | 2 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 5 | |
| Flute | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | |
| French Horn | 1 | 2 | 3 | |||
| Guitar | 6 | 7 | 4 | 17 | ||
| Oboe | 2 | 2 | ||||
| Piano | 2 | 6 | 8 | |||
| Recorder | 13 | 10 | 23 | |||
| Saxophone | 2 | 2 | ||||
| Tabla | 1 | 2 | 4 | 7 | ||
| Trombone | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||
| Trumpet | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | ||
| Violin | 7 | 10 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 32 |
| Total number of pupils in each school |
46 | 29 | 22 | Total number of pupils overall: 120 |
ii. Singing
During May and June 2022 we rehearsed and performed the Todmorden Cantata with around 80 children in Todmorden ’ s 7 primary schools.
In September 2022 we relaunched M4M whole-school singing assemblies on Thursday mornings at Ferney Lee. We also helped to set up Ferney Lee ’ s school choir, which now has 30 children and will be performing at the fundraising concert with The Greyhounds on 9[th] June.
In February 2023 we restarted weekly nasheed rehearsals at Hamza Mosque, involving about 30 pupils. The nasheed group has performed at the Town Hall for the community iftar and will be singing at the Festival of Nasheeds on 13[th] May.
iii. Performances
Summer term 2022 saw a focus on guitar ensemble playing. On 13[th] May a group of our guitarists from Ferney Lee school and from Todmorden High School performed a short set of pop songs arranged by Jack Hogg and Finn played a duet arrangement of Daytripperwith our visiting artist, Robin Hill.On 18[th] July, with visiting artists Two For Now,our Tod High group played their arrangement of Norwegian Wood and we also heard from the St Joseph's guitar ensemble.
21[st] May saw our first ever Todmorden Festival of Nasheeds, which started as an idea to engage more of our South Asian families in music-making and performances. Leading up to this performance we held weekly nasheed rehearsals with the children and young people at Todmorden Mosque. We welcomed guest choirs from Feversham Primary, Bradford and Parkinson Lane, Halifax. We also
enjoyed solo performances from professional nasheed artist, Hussnain Hanif, and Laiba and Anaya Khan, with accompaniment from 5 of our M4M tabla pupils. The 2023 Festival of Nasheeds will be on Saturday 13[th] May at 2pm at Todmorden Community College. It was also very well received when some of our Mosque group sang 2 nasheeds at the community iftar in the Town Hall during Ramadan.
On 19[th] June we celebrated the Jubilee Picnic in the Park with a performance in Centre Vale Park of A Todmorden Cantata specially composed by Daniel Bath, with theatre and choreography by Katrina Heath. The piece was rehearsed over 4 weeks in all 7 of Todmorden's primary schools. The orchestra was made up of some professionals and some volunteers from Todmorden Orchestra and The Fantasy Orchestra. As well as about 80 children, there were also adult singers from 3 Valleys Gospel Choir and Todmorden Choral Society.
A small orchestra of our instrumental pupils joined Red Hippo for 2 pieces in their concert in October 2022.
In December, in addition to the Christmas concerts at St. Joseph ’ s, Ferney Lee and Tod High, the new orchestra at National gave their first performance to some delighted family members. 7 of our more advanced instrumental pupils performed in Todmorden Orchestra in their Family Concert in January. Also in January we celebrated the cello as 8 of our cello pupils joined Celloship of the String in a beautiful rendition of Pachelbel ’ s Canon and our mini orchestra once again turned out to join Beware of Trains for 2 pieces in their February concert at Fielden Hall.
In March Kirsty Newton collaborated on 2 of her original songs with the Year 4 and 5 children from Ferney Lee.
iv. Grant-funded projects
In January we began our project in collaboration with Todmorden Orchestra, for which £25, 300 has been awarded from Calderdale Cultural Fund. We have subsequently topped up this amount with a grant of £1,716 to M4M, to be spent on the South Asian orchestral concert in October 2023.
The project started with 4 workshops with year 5 in Shade and Ferney Lee schools, leading to Todmorden Orchestra ’ s Family Concert. The concert was based on a retelling of Roald Dahl ’ s story, The Twits and included music by Mussorgsky, Vivaldi, Sibelius, Rahman, Copeland and Bach. The children joined in with theatrical, musical and artistic activities in response to the orchestral music. Some of our more advanced instrumental pupils played alongside the adults in Copeland ’ s Hoedown, Bach ’ s Toccata in D minor and Rahman ’ s Chaiya Chaiya, which also included Bollywood singing and dancing from the Shade and Ferney Lee children. There were a lot of families in the audience, which was completely full.
We are currently preparing for the inaugural Todmorden Youth Orchestra concert which will take place on 16[th] June at Todmorden High School and will include most of our instrumental pupils. The establishment and development of Todmorden Youth Orchestra is the overall aim of this project.
v. Fundraising
Fundraising has taken place in various forms throughout the year:
-
Appeals for private donations
-
Online appeal through Justgiving.com and through localgiving.com
-
Standing orders paid monthly
-
Fundraising concerts:
-
May – Robin Hill
-
June – Two for Now
-
October – Red Hippo
-
November – Amy Rose Atkinson
-
January – Celloship of the String
-
February – Beware of Trains
-
March – Kirsty Newton
Other performers have also raised money from performances elsewhere, such as the Hepton Singers, Rosemary Howes Quartet and Coaldust.
vi. Instruments Amnesty
We have had a steady supply of donated instruments of all sorts over the past year from many members of the community.
vii. Future Plans
-
In moving our provision towards the CBSO model, we are hoping to recruit 2 more tutors.
-
� Jasmine is writing an application to The Foyle Foundation to fund an administrative assistant.
-
We are meeting with Carla from The Sir George Martin Trust to discuss a possible grant to subsidise our teaching costs next academic year, which will increase considerably.
-
Daniel is in discussion with Todmorden High School and Jon Boden about him leading a harmony singing project for the whole school, based on his Colourchord system, in collaboration with M4M
D ate.. 1210412023 Time: 13.'15'.23 Music for the Man Balance Sheet Page.. From.. To.. Month 1. April 2022 Month 12, March 2023 Chart ol Accounls.. Default Layout of Accounts Perioii Year to Date Fixed Assets 0.00 0.00 Current Assets Deblors Ban k Account 0.00 4.064.63 19.00 14.383.39 4,064.63 14,402.39 Current Liabilities Ciedltors .' Short Term 1,170.00 1,218.05 1.170.OCt 2,894.63 2.894.63 1,218.05 13,184.34 13,184.34 Currellt Assels less Current Liabilities.. Total Assets less Current Liabilities.. Long Tefm Liabilitles Credltors . Long Terrn 11,950.001 2,850.00 {1.950.001 4,844.63 2,850.00 10,334.34 Total Assels less Total Liabilities- Capital & Reserves Funds P & L Acccunt Previous Year Adj 0.00 4,844.63 9,854.33 4,844.63 14,364.621 4.844.63 10,334.34
D ate.. 1210412023 Time.. 14'.26.'07 Musicfor the Man Profit and Loss Paue.. From: To.. Month 1, April 2022 Month 12, Mai¢h 2023 Chart of Accounts.. Delault Layout of Accounts Period Year to Date Sales Donalions Flld Generation - Fund Raising Charitable AGtivilies Othei Income 21,379.44 2,809.16 1176.00) 1.927.73 21,379.44 2,809.16 1176.DO} 1,927.73 25.940.33 25,940.33 Purchases 0.00 0.00 Direct Exp8nses Cost ol FkEnd Generation Fund Raising 780.00 780.00 780.00 780.00 Gross Prolit/{Lossl'. Overheads Support Costs - Malnte nance Support Costs - Genefal Expenses Management & Admln- Bank Charges and Management & Admln - Protesslonal Fees 25,160.33 25,160.33 1,274.11 1.684.51 72.00 17,285.08 1,274.11 1.684.51 72.00 17,285.08 20.315.70 20,315.70 Net ProfitllLossl.' 4.844.63 4,844.63
Music for the Many st Accounts as at 31 March 2023 Certificate of inde endent review I have reviewed the accounting records of Music for the Many as produced through the sage accounting system and undertaken a sample check of receipts and payments. I have found all supporting paperwork and invoices present, verified gift aid transactions to the value of £1927.73 against the HMRC record and matched all sampled entries to the bank account. I have sampled donations and reconciled as recorded in supporting records to bank account receipts. I have undertaken a sample check of the nominal ledger entrie5, considered the coding structure and undertaken a bank reconciliation as at 315t March 2023 indicating a current account balance of £14,1383.39 which is reflected in the bank statement sheet numbered 33. I have reconciled the bank account transattions to the profit and loss account dated 12th April 2023 and am th satisfied that the balance sheet dated 12 April 2023 represents a true picture of the charity's financial statements. There is long term liability quoted at £2,850 which l understand is not subject to any short-term repayment requirement and may in due course may be converted in due course to a donation and therefore not considered a material factor in considering the Charities liquidity. Taking into account the above, I believe the Unaudited Accounts Balance Sheet and Profrt and Loss Account to represent a fair and atturate record of the financial position of Music for the Many Charity as at 315t March 2023. Signed Date 12th October 2023 Colin Hill Former Town Clerk and Responslble Financial Officer to Todmorden Town Council Qualifications - CILCA (Certificate in Local Council Administration) ICB level 3 {Institute of Certif(ed Bookkeepers) ACIM (A55ociate of the Chartered Instltute of Marketing)