Arts Destination South Molton (ADSM) Trustees’ Annual Report 2020-21
The trustees of the charity submit their annual report and the financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2021. The trustees have prepared Receipts and Payments accounts, as well as complying with statutory requirements and the governing document.
Constitution and Organisational Structure
The charity was entered on the Register of Charities on 9 March 2020 and is Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) governed by a Foundation Model constitution adopted on 9 March 2020.
Its registered charity number is 1188431 and its registered office address is The Amory Centre, 125 East Street, South Molton EX36 4BB.
It is governed by a board of trustees which consists of:
Matthew Bushell, Chair – appointed 9 March 2020 Marc Cornelius, Treasurer – appointed 28 February 2021 Rev Dr Michael Grandey – appointed 28 February 2021 Stell Levy, vice Chair – appointed 9 March 2020 Alison Verney, Secretary – appointed 9 March 2020
New trustees are elected by the board of trustees. Apart from the founding trustees, who serve initial terms of between two and four years, trustees serve for four years but may be re-elected.
Working parties are set up to organise specific events and consist of volunteers with the required skills and at least one trustee.
Objectlves
The objects of the CIO are to advance and promote the arts, culture, and heritage for the benefit of persons predominately, but not exclusively, resident in South Molton and the surrounding area, as well as for visitors to the area.
Accounts Summary
Accounts are prepared on a Receipts and Payments basis. Opening Balance: £450.00 Closing Balance: £6,462.89 Total Receipts £7,037.28 (Including sponsorship, donations and grants) Total Expenditure £1,024.39
Receipts restricted for specific projects totalled £3,500.
Arts Destination South Molton has a policy of ensuring that £1,500 is held in reserves to cover unforeseen expenditure.
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ADSM in Lockdown
Directly after our AGM in March 2020, we informed our ADSM members that we had postponed our plans for our Deep Roots Festival (DRF) - a celebration of the arts of all types for the people of South Molton and further away - which was due to be held in June 2020, and for which plans had been well laid. The postponement was due to the disruption that the C-19 pandemic would cause.
Shortly after our AGM, Britain entered its first lockdown because of the pandemic. These days were very uncertain for everyone - including all of us at ADSM. As we had become a registered charity just before being locked down, we decided to use some of our “newly found free time” to open our own business bank account for Arts Destination South Molton.
During May 2020 Professor Ashley Solomon - of the Royal College of Music - began to perform solo flute concerts from his Conservatory by Zoom to raise money for charity – and support himself. As our secretary knows him, she asked if he would add an extra performance in aid of ADSM. He generously agreed to do so in June 2020.
ADSM’s Zooms
Thus began ADSM’s regular zoom events. Our treasurer took over the role of technician for the Zoom events. Since that first occasion, we have organised five more Zoom events, ranging from a homegrown poetry reading to a storyteller at Halloween, from a local professional folk duo to a poetry evening in conjunction with Mary Evans Picture Library, and a demonstration-talk from a South Molton print maker. Our February event regrettably had to be postponed due to the difficulty of Zooming a classical piano concert from a household with limited IT equipment! Our March event featured a well-known local children's author who entertains and informs children, parents, grandparents, and all those in between.
These diverse events have been successful, and we have been able to build up a database of attendees of over 330 attendees. Many of our audience are local people, others are from elsewhere in The UK and yet more join us from overseas.
Not only has our audience grown, but also so have our funds. Donations from our Zoom events account for a large proportion of the money in our bank account.
Marketing & Publicity
Our programme of ADSM Zoom events has been promoted through editorials in local papers and magazines, including South Molton News, Molton Monthly, The Community News, North Devon Journal and North Devon Gazette. We have received scores of extremely positive responses from our Zoom audiences. These have fed into reviews of the events, which have also appeared local publications
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We are immensely grateful for the support of local publishers. We have also been fortunate enough to get a general article about ADSM published in the regional magazine, Devon Life.
In addition, regular, frequent social media updates are made on our two Facebook pages: ADSM and Deep Roots Festival. Furthermore, our ADSM website was being developed and went live shortly after the end of the financial year.
Planning for Deep Roots Festival (DRF)
As Lockdown eased in June 2020, we also began to meet monthly to make plans for putting our DRF on this summer, June 2021. Larger meetings of “planners”– and smaller ones of project managers, on a need to meet basis - continued on Zoom; even though the situation for mounting live events was still unclear. We explored a variety of ways of continuing with our festival; for example, by live streaming on different platforms, recording events and creating films to show on platforms such as YouTube, and continuing to use and develop our expertise in Zooming.
We intend to put on a festival in summer 2021 over three separate weekends with, due to covid, some events being held virtually via Zoom and others ‘face-to-face’. We are committed to meeting the needs of our community and drawing all sectors of it into our activities through the variety of provision which we offer. We continue to plan for this diversity of delivery.
Our fund raiser is generously giving of her time to raise funds towards a splendid festival in summer 2021. Yet the current economic climate in the pandemic creates difficulties hitherto unknown. However, we have raised £1,000 and are very much hoping for more. We have also generously been donated £250 from a local charity.
We aim to involve local businesses in our efforts to raise further funding in the form of sponsorship. We were successful in pitching to a South Molton businessman to fund a poetry project, which would involve local people in jointly making a community poem, under the aegis of a Devon-based professional poet. This sponsorship was worth £3,000.
Links with the community
Following the impact of Covid-19 we are particularly concerned to include not only those who are not used to partaking in cultural activities, but also to make provision for those who are isolated and lonely within our community; in order to give them joy and satisfaction in taking part in artistic activities - and in creating art of different types.
A focus of the charity’s work over the last year has been in creating links with organisations such as One South Molton and One Northern Devon/ Northern Devon: Arts and Wellbeing to support the work of meeting the needs of those with mental health problems. This direction of our work indicates a shift in our emphasis but does not in any way disregard our aims to draw people into South Molton because of the high quality and diverse range of cultural events that we provide.
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Over the year we developed closer links with South Molton Library. We draw upon the positive impetus that the library coordinator offers us, particularly in terms of literary events and exhibitions.
We also built-up links with local arts organisations (Beaford Arts and The Plough, Torrington). We look towards strengthening these connections to the mutual benefit of all the organisations.
Patrons
During the year we have been lucky enough that the following three people have agreed to be our patrons:
-
Professor Ashley Solomon, Chair and Head of Historical Performance at the Royal College of Music;
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Lady Melanie Peek from our local community (North Molton);
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Rachel Campbell-Johnston, author and art critic at The Times.
We are very appreciative of their willingness to join us – and look forward to developing our links with them.
Trustees
Due to Covid-19 our meetings have been patchy over the year. We did manage some socially distanced face-to-face meetings in the summer - and have all managed to become proficient at Zooming. We have used Zoom meetings - as well as emailing and telephoning - to confer over matters of urgency. With the end of lockdown on the horizon, we set up a schedule of meetings at 6 weekly intervals.
We are focusing on building our core responsibilities: taking the lead in defining the overall strategic direction of the charity; working out how we will get there; monitoring finances; ensuring we comply with the Charity Commission’s guidelines and fulfil the terms in our Constitution.
Our principles are based on needing to take decisions together; making sure that things are running smoothly and that everyone works in cooperation and collaboratively with small - and larger – groups - and creating simple ways of working and clear lines of communication.
We recognise the need to expand our trustee base to spread the workload more evenly and take the pressure off us as individuals. Two new trustees (the Rev Dr Michael Grandey and Marc Cornelius) were recruited during the year. We continue to need to look at the skill sets which we currently possess and focus on building up a strong trustee team with a balanced, and appropriate, range of capabilities and knowledge.
Matthew Bushell, Chair
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Arts Destination South Molton No: 1188431 Receipts and Payments accounts For the period from 01 April 2020 to 31 March 2021 Section A Receipts and payments Unrestricted funds Rostrictsd funds EndowTn•nt funds Total funds A1 Receipts Sponsotship by Hcrfne Instead (Noie 11 3,fyJO.QO I(I4407 400.00 59J.21 500.00 2SO.00 250. 1044.07 Compensabon (Note 21 Grant Grant Iroffl EimgiantTru5t Donabon from Rotary naion from Rotsry (Note 31 59321 250.00 250.ty) £0. ti.037. Sub total(Gftxs income forAR) A2 Asset and investment salos. (see tsblel. f3,$37 Els.00 Sub total 453728 7.037.28 A3Pa ents Art15Vwfwieruts Lvgo aeggn Profeonal se[%4.graftt 3thtiL Web srte and ernal Leafle* printi and INote 1) Repaymentto Rotary (Note 3} 50.00 5.00 250.00 Sub total $19.39 1,024.39 A4 Asset and Investment purcha$e$, (see table Sub totsl 1,024.39 Net ol receipts/(payments) A5 Transfers beeen funds A6 Cash funds last ar end Cash funds this year end l947.89 3.06& 6.012.89 3,397.89 35 6.462.89 CCXX R1 aco)unts ISS 22112r2021
Section B Ststement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
Unrestricted
fvnds
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Categorles
Details
81 Cash funds
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2,947.Bg
Total cash funds
3,397A9
3.065.00
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2,565.00
85 Liabilities
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