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2024-03-31-accounts

MUSIC FOR THE MANY

ANNUAL REPORT TO TRUSTEES

17/6/24

1. Structure and Governance

a. Structure

The board of trustees currently consists of:

Steph Booth Phil Fowler – Chairman Jasmine Mackay-Palmer - treasurer Tony Simms – secretary Alice Brockman

In July 2023 Maxine Campbell (treasurer) resigned from the board of trustees and Jasmine took up the role of treasurer. Alice Brockman (head of performing arts at Todmorden High School) was welcomed onto the board of trustees.

Jenny Sheldon, having taken up the newly established paid role of administrative assistant, has attended all board meetings since September 2023 and has kept financial records and written and presented minutes of meetings.

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.

Our policy documents currently are:

These were all revised and approved in November 2023. They are due to be revised again in November 2024.

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 because of the resultant social, cultural and financial barriers. 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. On our pilot project 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 10 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) Jen Trott (violin) (since September 2023) Dickon Kyme-Wright (all instruments) (since September 2023) Jenny Sheldon (flute and strings) (since September 2023)

David Insua-Cao (percussion, ensemble work and improvisation) (since September 2023)

As last year, we currently provide weekly instrumental tuition to children in Ferney Lee School, St. Joseph’s R.C. Primary Academy, Todmorden C. Of E. School, Todmorden High School and Beech Hill School (Halifax).

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.

In September 2023 Dickon Kyme-Wright, Jen Trott, Jenny Sheldon and David Insua-Cao joined our team of tutors, enabling us to establish the orchestra learning/teaching model in all our schools, which was a decision taken having observed he great success of this model in Beech Hill and National last academic year.

The weekly orchestral rehearsal lasts an hour straight after school. During the hour before the rehearsal (i.e. during school hours) the tutors do interventions with individual pupils who need specific input. For a few children, whose particular circucmstances prevent them from being able to attend the afterschool session, we still make provision for them to have tuition in school time. Tuition on non-orchestral instruments (i.e. piano, guitar and tabla) still takes place as before, during school time, separate from the orchestra-based work.

In order to protect the existing work of other tuition providers, our tuition in the High School has been limited to:

In May 2024 in Todmorden High School, in order to make the orchestra more accessible to all and to integrate more closely into the life of the school, the timing of the orchestra session was moved so that it takes place during school hours.

In March and April 2024 five of our pupils at Beech Hill school passed their Grade 1 instrumental exams with flying colours (4 merits and one pass). This was a very positive affirmation of the effectiveness of the CBSO model, as these children have learnt from scratch as part of the orchestra at Beech Hill over the course of 18 months.

There are currently 149 children receiving tuition from our tutors in 5 schools on 14 different instruments. This is an increase of 28 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 3 2 3 2 3 13
Clarinet 3 2 2 2 1 10
Flute 3 3 2 1 1 10
French Horn 1 1
Guitar 9 6 9 24
Oboe 1 2 3
Percussion 3 3
Piano 4 1 5 10
Recorder 6 5 11
Saxophone 1 4 5
Tabla 4 4
Trombone 1 1 2
Trumpet 2 2 2 2 2 10
Violin 11 15 8 5 3 42
Total number of
pupils in each
school		 24 45 18 26 35 Total
number of
pupils
overall:

148

ii. Singing

Throughout September and October 2023 we worked with Jon Boden in Todmorden High School to get the whole school (students and all staff) singing in 3-part harmony, using Jon’s Colourchord method. This engaged about 800 people in singing together in harmony, using a variety of different types of song.

Our South Asian music concert with Todmorden Orchestra in November 2023 involved 60 children from Castle Hill and St. Joseph’s Schools in singing Bollywood songs together in schools workshops and the final performance.

In March 2024 a group of 8 children from Hamza mosque rehearsed and performed nasheeds for the community iftar at Todmorden Town Hall to great acclaim from the community.

We have continued to deliver weekly whole-school singing assemblies at Ferney Lee on Thurday mornings. These have successfully developed various part-singing techniques, using 2- and 3-part canons, drones, call-and response and 3-part Colourchord .

iii. Performances

May 2023

Our second annual Festival of Nasheeds took place at Tod College, including performances from Hussnain Hanif, the Khan Sisters, Feversham Primary Academy (Bradford) and our own nasheed group from Todmroden Hamza Mosque.

Also in May our Beech Hill School Orchestra gave a performance for their whole school community.

June 2023

We launched Todmorden Youth Orchestra properly with a combined Todmorden schools’ orchestras concert in Todmorden High School. This had lots of support from players from Todmorden Orchestra and a very full audience. The performance involved 65 children from Tod High, Ferney Lee, St. Joseph’s, National and Cornholme.

July 2023

Our tabla ensemble performed brilliantly at Todmorden High School’s summer concert.

November 2023

A group of 30 children from St. Joseph’s and Castle Hill schools sang and danced bollywood songs in our South Asian orchestral concert at St. Mary’s Church, in collaboration with Hussains Hanif, Imaan Lone and Anaya and Laiba Khan.

Our combined M4M youth orchestra, including children from our Todmorden Schools, plus some children from Beech Hill School, gave a very inventive performance at Todmorden Hippodrome Theatre in collaboration with poet Peter Sansom, young poets from Shade School and Cornholme School’s Primitive Percussion Youth Orchestra. As well as a diverse selection of orchestral pieces, the concert finished with a specially written poem all about artistic Todmorden set to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.

December 2023

Each of our schools held its own Christmas Concert, with lots of festive treats played by our pupils. Our common orchestral anthem was Shostakovich’s Troika.

January 2023

Beech Hill Orchestra played for the launch event of Culturedale at Dean Clough. The children dealt very professionally with this unfamiliar and challenging performance situation and were very well received. (It must be noted, however, that funding for our work from Culturedale has not been forthcoming.)

January also saw the second of our collaborations on Todmorden Orchestra’s family concert in Todmorden Town Hall. Several of our more advanced pupils sat in and played with the adult orchestra for 4 pieces and our National School Orchestra joined in with 2 pieces: Bizet’s March of the Toreadors and Prokofiev’s Montagues and Capulets. Also taking part with percussion, visual art and movement responses to the programme were children from Cornholme School, who had taken part in creative workshops leading up to the concert brilliantly led by David Insua-Cao and Wendieh Thorne.

March 2024

Our Hamza Mosque nasheed group performed at the community iftar at Tod Town Hall.

May 2024

Our Beech Hill School Orchestra gave an evening performance, along with the school Indian dance group and nasheed choir in the school hall for their local community. The programme included European classical repertoire and two pieces from the children’s diverse cultural heritages: Qij Kalli Lew Alli (a Kurdish folk song) and Mawtini (a Palestinian national song), arranged for our orchestra. Another first in this concert was a collaboration between orchestra and nasheed choir, performing the Arabic nasheed, Tala al Badru Alayna together, with the audience joining in too. There were also very confident solo performances from our children who had recently passed their grade 1 instrumental exams. This was a great community occasion with lots of people on stage and in the audience who had not been to an orchestral concert before.

Also in May three of our guitar pupils from Todmorden High School performed at a special guest spot of their own arrangements of pop songs to a big audience at Choirfest in Hebden Bridge.

iv. Grant-funded projects

We have continued into the second year of our three-year project in collaboration with Todmorden Orchestra with funding from Calderdale Cultural Fund. Work on this project over the past year has included:

Our Colourchord project, led by Jon Boden in September and October 2023 in Todmorden High School was funded by Arts Council England.

Todmorden Book Festival, with help from Arts Council England, funded our rehearsals, workshops and performance with Peter Sansom at Todmorden Hippodrome in November 2023.

Grants from The Sir George Martin Trust and from the Scurrah Wainwright Trust have enabled us to engage the professional services of Jenny Sheldon as an administrative assistant for the year, which has transformed the running, efficiency, creativity, productivity and administration of Music for the Many very greatly. Thank you Jenny!

We are currently negotiating some funding from pupil premium funds to subsidise our work with at Tod High with pupil premium children, who make up about half of the children we teach.

v. Fundraising

Fundraising has taken place in various forms throughout the year:

Other performers have also raised money from performances elsewhere, such as the Danie Bath and Friends at the Trades Club, Choirfest at St. James’, Hebden Bridge and Antony and Friends chamber concerts at Central Methodist Church.

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

We have submitted the Expression of Interest application to Youth Music for a potential grant of £150,000 to be spent over the next three years on our orchestral work and other youth-led projects. This will give us some muchneeded financial security. This will involve the establishment of a steering group of pupils, parents and tutors, to help make decisions about how best to deploy our work. This would also pay a part-time wage for our administrator and our musical director.

We are looking forward to welcoming three patrons to represent and advocate for Music for the Many. They are Jon Boden, Linton Stephens and Rima Ahmed.

Balance Sheet Music for the Many

31st March 2023 31st March 2024
Fixed Assets £
0		 £
0
Current Assets
Debtors £
0		 £
0
Bank account £
14,383		 £
6,193
Total £
14,383		 £
6,193
Current Liabilities
Creditors short term £
0		 £
0
Current Assets less Current Liabilities £
14,383		 £
6,193
Total Assets less Current Liabilities £
14,383		 £
6,193
Long term Liabilities
Creditors long term £
2,850		 £
2,100
Total Assets less Total Liabilities £
11,533		 £
4,093
Proft/loss £
5,414		 £
(7,440)

Notes:

Creditors long term is loan from Artistic Director. This has no deadline to pay

1

31st March 2023 31st March 2024
Income
Donations £
15,590		 £
17,431
Fundraising concerts £
4,843		 £
8,015
Grants £
15,101
Other £
4,016		 £
6,648
Gift Aid £
1,928		 £
4,830
Total £
26,376		 £
52,025
Expenses
Professional fees £
16,352		 £
54,393
Fundraising concerts £
1,192		 £
3,362
Bank and other charges £
72		 £
262
Instrument repair and accessories £
638
Admin/ofce costs inc insurance £
810
Misc £
3,346
Total £
20,962		 £
59,465
Proft/loss £
5,414		 £
(7,440)

2

Music for the Many Accounts as at 31st March 2024

I have reviewed the accoun:ng records of Music for the Many and have undertaken a sample check receipts and payments. I have found all suppor:ng paperwork and invoices present and have matched records to bank account receipts.

I have undertaken a bank reconcilia:on as at 31st March 2024 indica:ng a current account balance of £6193.04, which is reflected in the bank statement number 049. I have reconciled the bank account transac:ons to the profit and loss account :tled “Accounts Music for the Many 2023/24” and I am sa:sfied that this represents a true picture of the charity's financial statements.

I note that some grants received in 23/24 will be spent in 24/25 and the giM aid reflected is more than one year’s worth. There is also a long-term liability quoted at £2,100 for which there is no deadline to pay.

Taking into account the above, I believe the Accounts represent a fair and accurate record of the financial posi:on of Music for the Many Charity as at 31st March 2024.

Signed Date 21[st] July 2024

Ann long BSc (Hons) MBA PMP AMBA

Programme Manager (managing Enterprise-level, Global IT change programmes)