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2025-03-31-accounts

AVCA Chair’s Report April 2025

It has been a busy 12 months for Allen Valleys Community Arts.

We have organised 4 events since our last AGM: the folk festival in September, the NYE ceilidh and a couple of one-off concerts involving Saul Rose and James Delarre and The Pear Blossoms (with Noah, Paddy and Oran supporting) and a talk by the author, Rob Chapman about Syd Barrett and Nick Drake.

As well as a full programme of music in the village hall and St. Cuthbert’s Church, the festival included dance, a programme of workshops and a guided walk, the burning of the Allendale Wolf bonfire, music at the Forge Café and Studios and the Lion House pub. The festival also included a number of spoken word events for the first time. Many of the events were free to festival goers and local people and were well attended.

The music during our festival weekend, from the very beginning with Anna and Jessie of Watersmeet and Kathryn Tickell and her band, The Darkening on the Friday night, all the way through the weekend to the Sunday afternoon finale with Johnny and Lillie Flynn, was incredible: The energy and passion of the bands and artists was something to behold.

Our spoken word events were a lovely blend of self-expression, social connection and artistic creativity and were really well received by our festival crowd.

Dance played a huge part, as it always does, over our festival weekend with Crook Morris, Star & Shadow Dance and Hadrian Clog entertaining our festival goers in the village centre on the Saturday of the festival.

Our diverse mix of workshops (which featured everything from yoga through to songwriting) were well attended and then, what can you say about our burning of the Allendale Wolf bonfire in the village centre on the Saturday evening of the festival? Thanks to Bill, Ashley and Jonah.

A brilliant and enjoyable year and a huge thank you to everyone who supported and helped us on the way. Thank you!

Planning for the 2025 festival is well underway and following a local and online sale of tickets earlier in the year, weekend passes have sold out. A Christmas concert is also being planned for early December and the NYE ceilidh will take place again in the village hall on the evening of the 31st December. Planning is underway for another one-off gig too.

Our board is made up of myself, Craig Atkinson (chair), Tim Reed (treasurer), Peter Aldcroft, Glynn Galley, Nick Pepper, Oran Villiers-Stuart, Caitlin Kendall, Kate Maughan, Phillip Bell, Bryony Villiers-Stuart and Hollie-Ann Coleman. Kerry Crellin and Sue Reed are also involved in the group and have made significant contributions to the work of AVCA since joining us.

I would like to thank the Allen Valleys Community Arts team for all of their hardwork, continued enthusiasm and dedication to the cause.

Craig Atkinson AVCA - Chairperson

Some thank yous …

A special thank you to our volunteers. It takes lots of hard-working, talented and passionate people to keep the Allen Valley Folk Festival going and without our community of Volunteer Stewards, this festival could not exist. Throughout the festival weekend, our dedicated team of volunteers act as the public face of the Allen Valleys Folk Festival, welcoming our visitors to our spaces for performances and events and ensuring they have a safe and enjoyable experience.

A thank you to our team of volunteers who decorate our venues so beautifully.

Thank you to our comperes over the weekend: Heather, James, Sam and Phillip.

Thank you to Chris and John and all the volunteers at the village hall (and Gary, the caretaker) for all they do on the lead up and over our festival weekend and at our one off events, like the New Year;’s Eve Ceilidh (We couldn’t do it without you. THANK YOU!).

A thank you to Shirley and Chris and Martin at our local church for their help and advice and for letting us use the church and church hall as venues over our festival weekend.

Thank you to Sam and Jane at Higher Ground for the use of The Medway Building and for also growing and providing much of the vegetables that are used by Chris and her catering volunteers to provide food at the village hall to our festival goers over the festival weekend.

Thanks to all at The Forge Café and Studios for hosting our music and open mic sessions on the Saturday morning of the festival.

Thanks to Emma and Cordelia at Emma’s Coffee and Sweets for being a venue for our spoken word events and to all at The Lion House for hosting our Friday night gig and various ad hoc music sessions.

Thanks to Wendy for the use of Baynes Field for our campers and thank you to the Burnley Community, Glynn and Wendy, Mon and all those who provided accommodation to our bands and artists

Thanks to Dave and Rob, our sound engineers and Jona and Noah, our lighting engineers. They all go that extra mile for us. Thank you.

Thanks to Bill, Ashley and Jonah for their bonfire spectacular on the Saturday night of our festivals. The wolf bonfire has become one of the highlights of the festival weekend. Thanks to John and all at the Tar Bar’ls Association for the use of their barriers and to Damien and all at MKM ( Hexham) for providing the sand base for the bonfire. Thanks to Molly Agar (and her sister, Bryony) for coming to the festival with their wolf puppet too!

Thanks to Peter McGlynn for our fabulous flyer designs and designs used on our merchandise and in our print media and on our social media too. Thanks to Natalie Reid for our lovely festival map design and Louise Hick for our new Allen Valleys Folk Festival ‘wolf’ design. Thanks to Chris Walton for our banners designs and thanks to Robson Print for all of their support of our printing needs.

A massive thank you to Ed and Mel George and all at Treehorn Offshore for their generous support of our workshop programme.

A huge thank you to the Allendale Co-op (especially Kirstin and Neville) for their support with printing and advertising and selling tickets (and funding in the past too).

A thank you to the Parish Council for their support and to Allendale Brew Co. for their beer sponsorship.

Thanks to the North Pennine National Landscape, the Sir James Knott Trust, The Joicey Trust and Phillip James Bell for all of their financial support of our festival.

Thanks to Natalie at the Hexham Courant for the lovely press coverage about our festival.

And lastly, a massive thanks to all the artists, dancers and performers who made the festival weekend so special. Thank you all.

Festival Feedback

“Privilege to be involved.” Helen Adamson (Volunteer)

“Thank you ever so much for the opportunity - facilitating the workshop, along with the lovely feedback from the women totally filled up my cup back up, I loved it.

And the festival too, so skillfully curated, and so much kindness and warmth from all that attend. Really special stuff you all do.” Lindsay Joy (Workshop Leader)

“There was such a lovely atmosphere in the village all weekend. Well done to you and your team, I know how much work goes into the organising.”

Wendy Baynes (Local Resident and campsite owner)

‘We really appreciated being part of the programme. A great experience all round - and playing with Johnny and Lilly was a real treat.” Gareth Davies-Jones (Artist - Howay The Lasses)

“Thanks for making us feel welcome at your lovely festival. We had a great time and we're glad it was a success!”

Ford and Kate (Artists - Mishra)

“A pleasure as usual. Great festival, loved it.” Bill Pierce (The Allendale Wolf Bonfire Team)

“Thank you for having us along. We all really enjoyed it too. A fantastic little festival!”

Evie (Dancer - Crook Morris)

“Well done to all for a splendid weekend.” John Colley (Tar Bar’ls Association)

“Thank you all so much, we had such a great time. What a special festival.” Dan (Artist - Wayward Jane)

“It was an absolute pleasure as always! I think that's the most people we've had at our workshop to date and they all did a great job performing what they learnt in the market place afterwards too. Thanks for the invite and hopefully see you all again next year!”

Kelly Elliott (Dancer - Hadrian Clog)

“I really enjoyed the weekend. The atmosphere was great, I talked to lovely people, both volunteers and visitors, and the music, of course, was brilliant.” Sheila Walke (Volunteer)

“It was such a wonderful festival. Absolutely amazing line up.” Kathryn Naylor (Volunteer)

“Just wanted to say thank you and well done to you and your team for all your hard work in making such a great weekend possible in Allendale. We loved it! You must be exhausted but pleased.”

Ashley Hipkin (The Allendale Wolf Bonfire Team) and Lisa

“Thank you and all the team for a spectacular weekend. Loved it & will be back.” Nicky Calvert (Volunteer)

“It was good fun and a brilliant event!” Bryony Agar (Puppeteer - The Wolf puppet)

“Great to be part of something so special!” John Milburn (Volunteer)

“Allendale and the folk festival are just great. Suntou really enjoyed himself on stage. The sound and the energy were so warm. And I was loving the stage, what a beautiful design. Congratulations on a wonderful event.” Anna (Suntou Susso’s manager)

“Was a fab weekend!” Heather Bell (Compére)

“A massive thank you in return to you and everyone involved in the festival this year. We had a successful evening and it was great to see so many new and familiar faces at the brewery. I know myself and other members of the team made it to various events over the weekend and what a lovely atmosphere there was in the village, it felt really special. We were very proud to support the festival and play a part in the proceedings, and we look forward to doing so again next year.” Neil Thomas (Sponsor - Allendale Brew Company)

“It was one of the best fests I've been to. Well done for making it happen!” Johnny Campbell (Artist)

“It’s a great festival and genuinely a joy to be a part of again!” Rob Griffiths (Sound Engineer)

“A huge thank YOU for inviting us to play and making us feel so welcome. The hospitality we received was so lovely, and we really enjoyed our set.” Anna Hughes (artist - Watersmeet)

“Congratulations on a fabulous festival! We particularly enjoyed the addition of spoken word (we went to Friday night and Saturday morning) and some world music (Suntou Sussou). Johnny and Lily were, of course, fabulous.” Celia and Michael (Local Residents and Ticket Holders)

“Just wanted to say thank you very much for another splendid festival, the music decorations and atmosphere made it a wonderful weekend.

The venues looked great and the music selection was spot on, was really impressed with a good mix of styles and some traditional to some modern stuff being played.

Nice to hear some new music and some more local artists with new material, was really happy to finally get to see Kathryn Tickell in a setting with good acoustics and the sound set right both great performances on the Friday, love bluegrass music so the Saturday afternoon session was great. The Rheingans sisters were also really good great unique sound and special to see their new album, they got a good review in The Guardian which is fab as they are often tough on album reviews and they aren't always favourable depending on the journalists taste.

Saturday night was top managed to have a boogie to Panther Panther and Turfu good selection of sounds with those acts!

The artists that played were all very humble and took time to talk to everyone after the sets (or even come and play some music or enjoy the festival also) which is always great.

There was a really nice crowd of people who came along this year, met some lovely people and really got to enjoy my birthday, even took the new steel guitar out and had a little go in the pub on Saturday, have never joined a session and haven't played out for a while so that was nice.

A good age range of people and everyone seemed happy with the variety of music to cater for everyones tastes, great to see some older folks at the night performances.

The outdoor tent and area was great got to talk to Terry and the Vikings they were super canny, Jonah and friends did a great job with the wolf and I really enjoyed the Diddly Squat music they were playing together in the square. So nice to be able to come out of the venue and go straight to a tent with a fire and nice relaxing space.”

Matty Pandrich (Volunteer and Ticket Holder)

Financial Report for the year ending 31[st] March 2025

The Financial report for 2024/5 covers the Festival in September 2024, NYE Ceilidh Dec 24 and 2 stand alone events.

The Profit and Loss account that you have in front of you show the figures for this year, on the left, and also those for the previous year, in italics on the right. They show the consolidated totals for all activities.

I’ll deal with each activity in turn.

Stand Alone Events:

This year we had 2 events: Saul and James in November and the Pear Blossoms in March. In 2024, there was just one: Frankie Archer.

Ticket sales were around £2,210 and costs £1,940 leaving a surplus of £270

NYE Ceilidh

Once again, this was a very successful event and sold out well in advance.

135 tickets were sold which gave an income of £4,035. We received sponsorship in the form of reduced beer costs from Allendale Brew Co to the tune of £100

Costs, which comprise of artist fees, catering, and venue hire were around £2,400.

This left us with a surplus of £1,700

Merchandise

During the year we increased our range of merchandise to include tea towels, mugs, hats and a wider range of t shirts.

Sales during the year amounted to £1,450 and a surplus of around £300 was made. We have stock of about £1,000 valued at cost.

The Festival

There was an increase in the number of tickets sold, with revenue rising to £15,250 (£14,370 py)

We were successful in applying for grants in the year and received £5,900. This was £5,000 more than the previous year. We thank the following for their backing:

We received generous sponsorship from The Lion House, The Forge and Treehorn Offshore to whom we are very grateful. Income from sponsorship was down on the previous year, as we felt that our increased grant funding meant that we did not need to approach as many local businesses.

We also received support from Fire & Dough and Allendale Brew Co in relation to sales of pizzas and beer.

Festival costs rose

We spent more on our direct costs such as artist fees, workshop costs, the Wolf, and sound/Light. This, we felt, was necessary to maintain the high standards that our audiences deserve.

We were able to commission local artists (Louise Hick/Natalie Reid and Christo Wallers) to produce artwork in the form of illustrations, our map and film/photography.

Expenses remained much the same as in the last year. Printing costs show an increase; this was due to a catch-up of previous years' expenditure that was invoiced late.

One of the major items here is venue hire. We are very grateful to the village hall and the church for their continued support. We would be very lost with them.

The Festival made a surplus of around £720.

Total surplus for the year was £3,033. The balance brought forward was £6,339, giving us total reserves of £9,372.

Looking at our balance sheet :

Our bank balance on 31[st] March 2025 was just under £21,000.

This includes advanced sales and grants received for this year’s festival.

Total sales for the September 25 festival at the end of March amounted to £16,565, £5,840 of this is held by our Gigantic (our ticket agency) and the rest has been banked. Advance grants received were £2,000. We have made payments for venue hire and insurance of £500.

Having reserves puts us in a great position.

Music festivals are suffering from increased costs and lower incomes and many have been cancelled this year. One of the oldest and most prestigious folk festivals, Cambridge, has been cancelled, for what would have been its 60th anniversary. We have done very well in staging such a fabulous program and remaining financially stable.

With reserves, we are able to plan for the future with increased confidence. We are able to stage more ambitious projects and fund wider community activities. They allow us to bring exciting world class acts to the locality at affordable prices.

Allen Valleys Community Arts Financial Statements For The Year Ending

31st March 2025

Charity name: ALLEN VALLEYS COMMUNITY ARTS

CIO - FOUNDATION Registered 11 Feb 2020 Company CEO20645 Charity Registration number: 1187875

Trustees Resigned Re-elected Elected
Timothy Edward Reed 26/07/2023
Peter Aldcroft 17/04/2024 17/04/2024
Nicholas Pepper 17/04/2024 17/04/2024
Hollie-Ann Coleman 17/04/2024 17/04/2024
David Craig Atkinson 17/04/2024 17/04/2024
Bryony Villiers Stuart 26/07/2023
Glynn Galley 17/04/2024 17/04/2024
Michael Oran John Villiers-Stuart 26/07/2023
Phillip Bell 14/06/2023
Kate Maughan 26/10/2023
Appointed
Caitlin Kendall 17/04/2024

Allen Valleys Community Arts Profit and Loss Account

For the Year Ending 31st March 2025

For the Year Ending 31st March 2025
Income
Ticket Sales
Sponsorship
Concessions (Coffee/Pizza)
Grants and Donations
Merchandise Sold
Raffle
Camping Income
Total Income
Direct Costs
Artist Fees
Artistic Commisions
Sound & Light
Catering
Ticket Commission
Workshop Costs
Merchandise
Volunteer/Artist Expenses
PRS
Camping Expenses
Gross Contribution
Expenses
Administration
Insurance Expense
Donations Given
Equipment Rental
Membership
Printing
Publicity
Venue Hire
Surplus after Grants		 £
£
£
£
21,494
19,996
1,550
2,430
566
1,113
6,518
1,256
1,451
110
470
830
815
505
32,863
26,240
15,930
12,645
1,340
0
3,545
1,750
1,200
1,619
0
57
536
30
1,143
50
1,003
998
769
735
735
277
26,200
18,162
6,663
8,078
830
694
517
724
0
100
150
300
0
120
902
464
0
280
1,231
1,170
3,630
3,852
3,033
4,226
Previous Year

Allen Valleys Community Arts Balance Sheet

As At 31st March 2025

Previous Year Previous Year
£ £ £ £
Current Assets
Cash At Bank and Petty Cash 20,990 10,482
Stock of Merchandise 1,000 0
21,990 10,482
Current Liabilities
Accounts Payable 400 735
Receipts in Advance and Accruals 12,218 3,408
12,618 4,142
Net Current Assets 9,372 6,339
Surplus for Year 3,033 4,226
Surplus B/Fwd 6,339 2,114
Capital and Reserves 9,372 6,339

Independent Examiner’s Report to the Trustees of Allen Valleys Community Arts - CIO No 1173463 on the Accounts for the period ended 31 March 2025

Respective Responsibilities of the Trustees and Independent Examiner

The charity’s trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. The charity’s trustees consider that an audit is not required for this period under section 144 of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Charities Act”) and that an independent examination is needed.

It is my responsibility

Basis of Independent Examiner’s Statement

My examination was carried out in accordance with general Directions given by the Charity Commission.

An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking explanations from the trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit, and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a ‘true and fair’ view.

Independent Examiner's Statement

In connection with my examination, no matters have come to my attention which gives me cause to believe that in any material respect:

I have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

6 October 2025

C M Welch FCA, Shilburn Road, Allendale