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London City Brass
Annual Report
0110112023 - 3111212023
## Reference and administration
## Charity name and number
London City Brass (1186265)
## Principal address
249 Buckhurst Way Buckhurst Hill Essex IG9 6JB
## Trustees
Jack Boyles 11/11/2019-current Chair Josephine Ashdown 11/11/2019-current Secretary Hannah Scales 11/11/2019-current Treasurer Christopher Silberberg 11/11/2019-08/02/2023 Laura Kirk 26/01/2022-current Laura Fox 08/02/2023-current
## Structure and governance
London City Brass (LCB) is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) registered with the Charities Commission, registration number 1186265.
LCB is governed by a Constitution adopted 11 November 2019.
Trustees are appointed or re-appointed by election at an annual general meeting.
## Charitable objectives
LCB set out the following charitable objectives in their constitution:
- To advance, improve, develop and maintain public education in, and appreciation of, the art and science of music in all its aspects by any means the trustees see fit, including through the presentation of public concerts and recitals.
- To support such other purposes deemed to be exclusively charitable within the laws of England and Wales as the trustees in their absolute discretion from time to time determine.
## Activities undertaken for public benefit
In planning the activities of London City Brass, the Trustees have taken into account the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit.
Over the course of 2023, we carried out a large number of performances for public benefit, as well as our usual schedule of rehearsals. Regular rehearsals are an essential feature for all members to feel part of a welcoming and sociable community. We also gained two new band members this year. Our first event of the year was our Easter concert, showcasing all the new music we learned and prepared from January through to April. The concert brought a varied and entertaining programme of music to a public audience, with free entry and informative, educational introduction to each piece from our conductor. Concerts are greatly enjoyed by members as they get a chance to learn new music to a high standard and to perform.
Following this successful return to public performance, we began the summer programme, starting with the MacMillan Cancer charity’s annual Parliamentary Tug of War event. We were asked back again this year to provide music for their fundraiser in Westminster with high profile attendees. Our presence was greatly appreciated as entertainment at a crucial fundraising event for our partner charity. We then embarked on our bandstand season, providing varied musical programmes to audiences across London. We played at a Battersea Park, Victoria Park, Clapham Common, and Regents Park. Notably, this was our first performance at Battersea Park, bringing brass band music to yet another new area of London. Each bandstand had a substantial audience of all generations who were introduced to the sounds of a brass band through popular music alongside traditional repertoire, free of charge. To end the summer period, we performed a Summer Concert at and in support of St Barnabas’ Church, Clapham Common as part of their 125th Anniversary
celebrations. This was a new venue and a new, diverse audience for us, and the local congregation welcomed us with much enthusiasm.
After the summer period, the focus shifted to Wychavon Festival of Brass, an entertainment contest in Eavesham. As we are a large band that prefers not to turn people away, we were too big to all perform in the same section at the contest, so we decided to enter two sections so that everyone got a chance to play. This meant everyone was included and we worked hard as a band to rehearse our two programmes to a high standard. This meant that we came second in the Fourth Section - an amazing achievement and another trophy to add to our collection!
Towards Christmas, we were able to provide carols and incidental music at the Surrey Cricket Foundation’s Cricket Builds Hope carol service in Kennington, raising money to bring cricket to disadvantaged children around the world and in the UK. This was followed by our Christmas concert, another meaningful opportunity for the band members to share their hard work with the public and with friends. This free annual concert had our biggest audience yet, with standing room only as the night went on. Because of our central location and free entry, we attracted many audience members who had never heard of us before. Other Christmas events included carolling at the O2 shopping centre, Stepney City Farm, Chelsea’s Duke of York Square, and the Famous Royal Oak pub in Muswell Hill for community events which were attended by people of all ages and backgrounds. Children were able to take part with percussion, contributing to their understanding and enjoyment of music and brass bands. Members of the public could also join in with singing, giving them an opportunity to take part in the music-making. Our Christmas performances brought musical enjoyment and education to the public, as well as chances to perform for our members, which is a valuable part of musical education and personal development. With so many events in 2023, we learned a huge amount of new music of different genres and styles, widening and growing members’ musical skills and knowledge. We were also able to raise money through donations which support the activities undertaken by the band to benefit the public.
As well as our in-person engagements, we continued to foster a thriving online community through social media and our website. Sharing videos of rehearsals and performances helped to bring brass band music to a wider audience. Evidence of our extended reach includes an increase of 41 Facebook page likes and 95 Instagram followers. We also continued to run our Friends of LCB programme. This initiative allows more of
our followers to feel involved and engaged in the band’s activities through our regular updates and quarterly newsletters, while providing financial support for our activities.
## Main achievements
Over the course of 2023 we put on 17 successful, high-quality performances:
- Easter Concert
- Macmillan Parliamentary Tug of War
- Battersea Park Bandstand
- Clapham Common Bandstand
- Victoria Park Bandstand
- Regent’s Park Bandstand
- Summer Concert
- Wychavon Festival of Brass
- Carolling Chelsea #1
- Carolling Chelsea #2
- Cricket Builds Hope Carol Service
- Christmas Concert
- Carolling Stepney City Farm
- Carolling City #1
- Carolling Famous Royal Oak
- Carolling O2
- Carolling City #2
We reached a high standard of performance and saw members grow in confidence and in musical ability, a great achievement for us. Achieving 2nd Place (4th Section) at Wychavon Festival of Brass is evidence of our continued high-quality performance.
We have maintained a sense of community and belonging integral to our ethos as a band. This was achieved through regular social events in addition to weekly rehearsals and performances.
The continued development of our Friends of LCB scheme supports the work of the band financially as well as advancing the public understanding and appreciation of brass band music.
## Plans for the future
LCB will be maintaining our charitable objectives in 2024 and our plans for the future continue to support these objectives.
We plan to continue supporting other charitable organisations through fundraising at events. In addition to spreading awareness and appreciation of the brass band music genre through free concerts and public performances across London.
We hope to include a trip in the UK as part of our programme for 2024 where we can take the brass band genre to new audiences and further develop the community spirit within the band itself.
We will continue to challenge and develop our members’ and audiences’ education and appreciation of brass band music with an expanded and varied repertoire and programme of events.
## Financial review
## Financial position
2023 has been a strong year for LCB’s finances, allowing us to rebuild our reserves following the one-off loss event that occurred in 2022. The band’s income continues to exceed its costs on an ongoing basis, allowing for investment in band assets and activities as the Trustees deems appropriate. Subs from members remains our major income stream, and adequately covers the running costs of the band. Although our venue hire costs have increased since September due to our rehearsal venue increasing their hire costs, our strong and consistent membership income has allowed us to absorb the increase with no requirement for increased subs. Non-competition performance income has increased markedly this year, which puts the band in a strong position to build on coming into 2024.
With the balance of the band’s account now sitting significantly higher than the reserve position, into 2024 we will consider the best way to invest this surplus into the future of the band, and supporting future endeavours.
## Policy on reserves
The trustees have set a policy to ensure an unrestricted reserve of £3,000 as a minimum is kept in the current account. This is to ensure short term commitments such as Musical Director expenses and hire of rehearsal premises can be sustained for at least 6 months.
## Declaration
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.
Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees:
## J Boyles
Jack Boyles Chair
22 March 2024
|**Charity Name**||**No (if any)**|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|**London City Brass**||**1186265**|||
|**Receipts andpayments accounts**||||**CC16a**|
|**For the period**
**from**|01/01/2023
Period start date|31/12/2023
Period end date
**To**|||
## **Section A Receipts and payments**
|**A1 Receipts**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest**
**£**
**5,905**
**2,980**
**1,206**
**195**
**141**
**1,851**
**148**
**-**
**12,426**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**12,426**
**3,711**
**-**
**872**
**-**
**227**
**1,016**
**2,100**
**4**
**455**
**8,385**
**570**
**482**
**1,052**
**9,437**
**2,989**
**-**
**2,478**
**5,467**|**Restricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**
**5,905**
**2,980**
**1,206**
**195**
**141**
**1,851**
**148**
**-**
**12,426**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**12,426**
**3,711**
**-**
**872**
**-**
**227**
**1,016**
**2,100**
**4**
**455**
**8,385**
**570**
**482**
**1,052**
**9,437**
**2,989**|**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**
**5,905**
**2,980**
**1,206**
**195**
**141**
**1,851**
**148**
**-**
**12,426**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**12,426**
**3,711**
**-**
**872**
**-**
**227**
**1,016**
**2,100**
**4**
**455**
**8,385**
**570**
**482**
**1,052**
**9,437**
**2,989**|**Last year**
**to the nearest £**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Subs|**5,905**|||||**6,221**|
|Performance Income|**2,980**|||||**2,776**|
|Gift aid|**1,206**|||||**335**|
|Donations|**195**|||||**199**|
|Socials|**141**|||||**30**|
|Competitions|**1,851**|||||**7,200**|
|Miscellanous|**148**|||||**2,821**|
||**-**|||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for_
_AR)_|**12,426**|||||**19,582**|
||||||||
|**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**|||||||
||**-**||||||
||**-**|||||**-**|
|**_Sub total_**|**-**|||||**-**|
|**_Total receipts_**
**A3 Payments**|||||||
|||||||**19,582**|
||||||||
|Venue Hire|**3,711**|||||**3,015**|
|Staff|**-**|||||**-**|
|Admin Costs|**872**|||||**220**|
|Incidentals|**-**|||||**41**|
|CharityDonations|**227**|||||**282**|
|Socials|**1,016**|||||**403**|
|Competitions|**2,100**|||||**18,046**|
|Miscellanous|**4**|||||**48**|
|Member Refunds|**455**|||||**408**|
|**_Sub total_ **|**8,385**|||||**22,463**|
||||||||
|**A4 Asset and investment**
**purchases, (see table)**|||||||
|Music,equipment,instruments|**570**|||||**382**|
|Uniform|**482**|||||**240**|
|**_Sub total_ **|**1,052**|||||**622**|
|**_Total payments_**
**_Net of receipts/(payments)_**
**A5 Transfers between funds**
**A6 Cash funds last year end**
**_Cash funds this year end_**|||||||
|||||||**23,085**|
||||||||
||**2,989**|**-**|**-**|
**2,989**||**- 3,503**|
||**-**|**-**|**-**|**-**||**-**|
||**2,478**|**-**|**-**|**2,478**||**5,981**|
||**5,467**|**-**|**-**|**5,467**||**2,478**|
CCXX R1 accounts (SS)
28/02/2024
1
## **Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**
|**Categories**
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees
**B1 Cash funds**
**B2 Other monetary assets**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
**B5 Liabilities**
**B3 Investment assets**|**Jack Boyles**
Signature
**Hannah Scales**
**Details**
**Details**
Main Bank Account YE 2022
Cash funds 2023
**Details**
**Details**
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))
**Details**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**2,478**
**-**
**2,989**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**5,467**
**-**
OK
OK
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Fund to which**
**liability relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
Print Name
**Hannah Scales**
**Jack Boyles**|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
|---|---|---|---|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||OK|
||||**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**When due**
**(optional)**|
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
||||Date of
approval|
||**Hannah Scales**|**Hannah Scales**|**27/02/2024**|
||**Jack Boyles**|**Jack Boyles**|**28/02/2024**|
CCXX R2 accounts (SS)
28/02/2024
2