## **Trustees’ Annual Report for the period**
## **From 01 April 2021 to 31 March 2022**
## **Charity name: The Poetry Exchange**
## **Charity registration number: 1185714**
## **Objectives and Activities**
||SORP reference||
|---|---|---|
|Summary of the purposes of
the charity as set out in its
governing document|Para 1.17|To advance the arts and culture, in
particular poetry, for the public benefit, by
producing events and activities that
promote the public’s engagement with and
appreciation of poetry, for the general
public around the UK and worldwide.|
|Summary of the main
activities in relation to those
purposes for the public
benefit, in particular, the
activities, projects or
services identified in the
accounts.|Para 1.17 and
1.19|The Poetry Exchange runs various
activities that enable the widest possible
range of people to engage with and
appreciate poetry. Through our unique idea
of poems as friends, we invite people from
all walks of life to discover and share what
poems mean to them.
We talk with readers around the UK about
the poem that has been a friend to them,
making space for these individuals to
explore and deepen their sense of personal
connection with a chosen poem.
We then share some of these extraordinary
conversations through The Poetry
Exchange podcast, bringing poems to
thousands of listeners around the world
through the voices and stories of those who
read them.
We also run live events and workshops at
festivals, libraries, universities, community
centres and workspaces, inviting people of
all ages and backgrounds to connect more
closely with poetry, themselves and each
other.|
|Statement confirming
whether the trustees have
had regard to the guidance
issued by the Charity
Commission on public
benefit|Para 1.18|The trustees have had regard to the
guidance issued by the Charity
Commission on public benefit.|
**Additional information (optional)**
## You may choose to include further statements where relevant about:
||SORP reference||
|---|---|---|
|Policy on grant making|Para 1.38|N/A|
|Policy on social investment
including program related
investment|Para 1.38|N/A|
|Contribution made by
volunteers|Para 1.38|Much voluntary input goes into The Poetry
Exchange’s work, including the
involvement of trustees, our core team and
associates. Whilst we pay people
appropriately wherever possible for their
work, our community of practitioners and
supporters are often willing to give of their
time voluntarily, due to their passion for
and commitment to The Poetry Exchange.|
|Other|||
## **Achievements and Performance**
||SORP reference||
|---|---|---|
|Summary of the main
achievements of the charity,
identifying the difference the
charity’s work has made to
the circumstances of its
beneficiaries and any wider
benefits to society as a
whole.|Para 1.20|In spite of ongoing challenges brought
about by the Covid-19 pandemic during
2021-22, The Poetry Exchange continued
to find innovative ways of bringing poems
as friends into the lives of thousands of
people around the UK and worldwide, at a
time when the need for closer connection
and companionship could not have been
greater.
Our main achievements over 2021-22
included:
-
**Relaunching our in-person**
**events and activities around the**
**UK**
As the pandemic restrictions eased, we
were able to bring our live events and
conversations with poetry to various
communities again, re-igniting the intimate,
live encounters that have been a feature of
The Poetry Exchange from the beginning.
Highlights included conversations with
readers at the Birmingham & Midland
Institute and the National Centre for
Writing, and the live poetry that we brought
to audiences at Latitude Festival 2021.|
**----- Start of picture text -----**
|||
|---|---|
|-|Sustaining a multi-faceted digital|
|programme that enabled|
|thousands of people to engage|
|with poetry worldwide|
|As well as relaunching our in-person|
|activities, we continued to offer a wide|
|range of ways for people to engage with|
|The Poetry Exchange online – wherever|
|they are in the world.|
|We spoke with readers in Madrid,|
|Middlesborough, Middlesborough and|
|Manchester – all from the comfort of their|
|homes! Expanding our reach in this way -|
|through the digital skills and technologies|
|we had developed during the pandemic –|
|brought an even wider range of voices,|
|stories and poems to The Poetry|
|Exchange. This in turn greatly contributed|
|to the rich diversity of our podcast and|
|digital programming.|
|Programming highlights in 2021-22|
|included: a feature-length episode with|
|luminary host and founder of ‘On Being’,|
|Krista Tippett; an extraordinary story of|
|connection with ‘Old Mary’ by Gwendolyn|
|Brooks, resonating with a family’s|
|experience of a life-limiting condition; a|
|tender and illuminating conversation with|
|former Birmingham Laureate Casey Bailey,|
|exploring the poem that’s been a friend to|
|him - ‘The Way Home’ by Liz Berry.|
|-|Growing our audience and|
|receiving extraordinary feedback|
|from our listeners and followers|
|The Poetry Exchange continued to reach|
|an even larger audience in 2021-22, with|
|over 40,000 listens to our award-winning|
|podcast. As well as these impressive|
|numbers, the feedback we received from|
|our listeners and followers has been|
|extraordinary to receive, showing how|
|much people value our work and how it is|
|striking a chord in so many people’s lives:|
|“Your introduction of poetry to me has|
|become a part of my life. I wait impatiently|
|for your next episodes…your format, your|
|conversations just draw me in and make|
|life so much more enjoyable.” – Krist, an|
|infection prevention nurse|
|“I’ve always thought poetry is very far away|
|from me, that it's not for me, but the way|
|you presented it last night has completely|
**----- End of picture text -----**
_changed that. I’ve realised I can and do relate to poetry and it is for me too.” – A participant in a writing & wellbeing workshop “What an amazing way to spend an evening. I came away from our conversation full of hope and inspiration.” – Joe, a participant in The Poetry Exchange_ From the responses and feedback from listeners and attenders at events we are aware we contributed to health and wellbeing of many – notably providing a source of inspiration and respite to care givers at this time of challenge emerging from the pandemic. We responded to this warmth and appetite from our audiences in various ways, including creating new ways for people to get even closer to our work. For example, we devised ‘The Muse Club’ as a special online gathering through which some of our closest followers can get together to read, share and talk about poetry. We also continued to receive and respond to many nominations of ‘poems as friends’ by readers across the world, via The Poetry Exchange website.
**Additional information (optional)** You may choose to include further statements where relevant about:
||||
|---|---|---|
|Achievements against
objectives set|Para 1.41||
|Performance of fundraising
activities against objectives
set|Para 1.41|See review of the charity’s financial
position below.|
|Investment performance
against objectives|Para 1.41||
|Other|||
## **Financial Review**
|**Financial Review**|||
|---|---|---|
|Review of the charity’s
financial position at the end
of the period|Para 1.21|The Poetry Exchange remained in a
sustainable financial position at the end of
2021-22, in spite of a year of limited
income.
During 2021-22, we deliberately took a
more scaled-back approach to the Poetry
Exchange's work, since we knew that
income generation would be a challenge
this year. There were enormous calls on
public funds, trusts and foundations at a
time of social recovery, and Covid-19
restrictions meant we still had to be
tentative in the amount of live activity we
could undertake (and the amount of
associated income we could generate).
Therefore we decided to focus on our ‘core’
programme of conversations with readers
and digital programming, which was
deliverable within our resources for the
year. At the end of 2021-22 we had spent
£11,643 compared to an income of £8,452;
however the funds we had brought forward
meant we still carried forward £2,191 into
2022-23. Moreover we knew we had
confirmed funds in the pipeline for 2022-23,
notably a new £11,000 grant from Arts
Council England.|
|Statement explaining the
policy for holding reserves
stating why they are held|Para 1.22|The trustees’ ambition is to generate
sufficient reserves to sustain the regular
costs of The Poetry Exchange’s ‘core’
programme for up to 4 months, which
would allow us sufficient time either to
pause or wind up our activity, or to raise
additional funds to continue beyond this
period.|
|Amount of reserves held|Para 1.22|£1,984 unrestricted funds carried forward to
2022/23.|
|Reasons for holding zero
reserves|Para 1.22|Whilst The Poetry Exchange currently
holds minimal reserves, we operate as a
very light-touch organisation with no
offices, salaried staff or other overheads to
consider. Therefore the limited reserves at
this point in our organisational development
do not pose a significant risk to The Poetry
Exchange’s viability.|
|Details of fund materially in
deficit|Para 1.24|N/A|
|Explanation of any
uncertainties about the
charity continuing as a going
concern|Para 1.23|The Poetry Exchange operates sustainably
as a small charity, through having no
offices, salaried staff or other overheads to|
consider, and by only undertaking work when we have sufficient funds to do so.
|**Additional information (optional)**
You may choose to include further statements|**Additional information (optional)**
You may choose to include further statements|where relevant about:|
|---|---|---|
|The charity’s principal
sources of funds (including
any fundraising)|Para 1.47|Arts Council England – National Lottery
Project Grants (time-limited)
Donations from our extensive community of
followers and supporters – including
fundraising events and initiatives e.g. The
Muse Club.
Earned income through commissions and
collaborations with a wide range of partner
organisations e.g. National Centre for
Writing, Latitude Festival and Hertfordshire
Libraries in 2021-22.|
|Investment policy and
objectives including any
social investment policy
adopted|Para 1.46|N/A|
|A description of the principal
risks facing the charity|Para 1.46|Risk: highly competitive funding
environment in a time of limited funds and
socio-economic crisis.
Mitigation: The Poetry Exchange will
sustain a low-cost ‘core’ programme with
minimal overheads, whilst developing new
earned income streams and funding
relationships (e.g. podcast subscriptions;
arts & business commissions).
Risk: lack of continuity or capacity due to
reliance on freelance and volunteer work.
Mitigation: The Poetry Exchange will plan
and deliver a focussed programme of work
over 2023-25, whilst growing additional
capacity through its wide community of
supporters and stakeholders.|
|Other|||
## **Structure, Governance and Management**
|Description of charity’s
trusts:||N/A|
|---|---|---|
|Type of governing document
(trust deed, royal charter)|
Para 1.25|Foundation model constitution|
|How is the charity
constituted?
(e.g unincorporated
association, CIO)|Para 1.25|Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO)|
|Trustee selection methods
including details of any
constitutional provisions e.g.
election to post or name of
any person or body entitled
to appoint one or more
trustees|Para 1.25|New trustees appointed by existing trustees
i.e. Alison McManus, Roy McFarlane, Fiona
Bennett, John Prebble.
Every trustee must be appointed for a term
of three years by a resolution passed at a
properly convened meeting of the charity
trustees.
In selecting individuals for appointment as
charity trustees, the charity trustees must
have regard to the skills, knowledge and
experience needed for the effective
administration of the CIO.|
|**Additional information (optional)**
You may choose to include further statements|**Additional information (optional)**
You may choose to include further statements|where relevant about:|
|---|---|---|
|Policies and procedures
adopted for the induction
and training of trustees|Para 1.51|The charity trustees will make available to
each new charity trustee, on or before his
or her first appointment:
(a)
a copy of the current version of this
constitution; and
(b)
a copy of the CIO’s latest Trustees’
Annual Report and statement of accounts
We undertake a full induction into the work
of The Poetry Exchange with new trustees,
including opportunities for day-to-day work-
shadowing and participation in our artistic
activities.|
|The charity’s organisational
structure and any wider
network with which the
charity works|Para 1.51||
|Relationship with any
related parties|Para 1.51||
|Other|||
## **Reference and Administrative details**
|Charity name|The Poetry Exchange|
|---|---|
|Other name the charity uses|N/A|
|Registered charity number|1185714|
|Charity’s principal address|The Poetry Exchange
26 Monument Court
Woolners Way
Stevenage
SG1 3AD|
|||
## **Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity**
|1
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3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
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12
13
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15
16
17
18
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20|**Trustee name**|**Office (if any)**|**Dates acted if not for whole**
**year**|**Name of person (or body) entitled**
**to appoint trustee (if any)**|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||Dr Alison McManus|Chair|||
||RoyMcFarlane||||
||Fiona Bennett||||
||John Prebble|Secretary|||
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## – Corporate trustees names of the directors at the date the report was approved
**Director name**
Name of trustees holding title to property belonging to the charity
**Trustee name Dates acted if not for whole year**
## **Funds held as custodian trustees on behalf of others**
Description of the assets N/A held in this capacity Name and objects of the N/A charity on whose behalf the assets are held and how this falls within the custodian charity’s objects Details of arrangements for N/A safe custody and segregation of such assets from the charity’s own assets
## **Additional information (optional)**
## **Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)**
**Type of Name Address adviser**
**Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)**
## **Exemptions from disclosure**
Reason for non-disclosure of key personnel details
## **Other optional information**
## **Declarations**
**The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.**
**Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees**
**Signature(s)** John Prebble **Full name(s)** Fiona Bennett **Position (eg Secretary,** Secretary **Chair, etc) Date** 17th January 2023
|**The Poetry Exchange**|**The Poetry Exchange**||**1185714**||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|**Receipts and payments accounts**||||**CC16a**|
|**For the period**
**from**|**01/04/2021**|**To**|**31/03/2022**||
## **Section A Receipts and payments**
|**A1 Receipts**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**2,690**
**828**
**2,264**
**5,782**
**5,782**
**1,024**
**223**
**2,142**
**1,598**
**-**|**Restricted funds**
**to the nearest £**
**2,670**
**2,670**
**2,670**
**2,391**
**521**
**1,008**
**752**
**-**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**|**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**
**2,670**
**2,690**
**828**
**2,264**
**8,452**
**8,452**
**3,415**
**744**
**3,150**
**2,350**
**-**|**Last year**
**to the nearest £**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Arts Council England National Lottery Project
Grant|||||**24,030**|
|Earned income - fees from partners|**2,690**||||**4,391**|
|Donations - fundraising event(s)|**828**||||**2,432**|
|Individual donations|**2,264**||||**3,334**|
|**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for AR)_|**5,782**||||**34,187**|
|||||||
|**A2 Asset and investment sales, (see**
**table).**||||||
|||||||
|**_Sub total_**||||||
|**_Total receipts_**
**A3 Payments**||||||
||||||**34,187**|
|||||||
|Artists' fees & expenses|**1,024**|**2,391**||**3,415**|**6,687**|
|Venue hire & materials|**223**|**521**||**744**|**1,864**|
|Staffing - producing & marketing|**2,142**|**1,008**||**3,150**|**6,345**|
|Staffing - digital production|**1,598**|**752**||**2,350**|**8,675**|
|Other freelance support|**-**|**-**||**-**|**1,000**|
|Rights & permissions|**-**||**63**||||**63**||**-**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Advertising & promotion|**176**||**-**||||**176**||**1,480**|
|Software, subscriptions, insurance|**1,187**||**558**||||**1,745**||**2,754**|
|**_Sub total_ **|**6,350**||**5,293**||||**11,643**||**28,805**|
|**A4 Asset and investment purchases,**||||||||||
|**(see table)**||||||||||
|||||||||||
|**_Sub total_**||||||||||
|**_Total payments_**|**6,350**||**5,293**||||**11,643**||**28,805**|
|**_Net of receipts/(payments)_**|**- 568**||**- 2,623**||||**- 3,191**||**5,382**|
|**A5 Transfers between funds**||||||||||
|**A6 Cash funds last year end**|**2,552**||**2,830**||||**5,382**||**-**|
|**_Cash funds this year end_**|**1,984**||**207**||||**2,191**||**5,382**|
|||||||||||
## **Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**
|**Details**
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments account(s))
**Details**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**1,984**
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**-**|**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**207**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**-**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
|---|---|---|---|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
|||||
||||**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
||**-**|**-**|**-**|
## **B3 Investment assets**
**B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use**
## **B5 Liabilities**
|**Details**
**Details**
**Details**|**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Fund to which**
**liability relates**|**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**
**-**|**Current value**
**(optional)**|
|---|---|---|---|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**When due**
**(optional)**|
|||**-**||
> Signed by one or two trustees on behalf Date of Signature Print Name
> of all the trustees approval John Prebble 16.01.2023 Fiona Bennett 16.01.2023