Children’s Concerts Trustees’ Annual Report
Year Ending 30[th] June 2023
The trustees are pleased to present their report on the charity for the period 1[st] July 2022 to 30[th] June 2023.
Objectives and activities
Our first concert took place in 1994, with Children’s Concerts becoming a registered charity in 2011. The charity’s objects are to promote the art of live orchestral music and to advance the education and appreciation of live orchestral music among children and young people.
Financial Review
The concerts had income of £40,648 in the year ending June 2023, of which £21,473 came from ticket sales and a total of £19,175 came from grants. The concerts were generously supported by the Bedhampton Charitable Trust, The Colles Trust, The Foyle Foundation, Humphrey Richardson Taylor Charitable Trust, Sussex Communities Foundation and two Anonymous donors.
Concert expenditure totalled £36,340, with overheads and administrative costs of £773.
The concerts made a profit of £3,534 this year which will go to support next year’s concerts.
The Charity’s financial reserves are held as cash, to help with the following year’s finances. The Charity aims over time to build up reserves to a level approximately equal to one year’s expenses. We continue to seek funding in order to be able to increase the number of concerts and broaden the geographical reach of the Charity, thereby giving more children the chance to experience live orchestral music.
We are very grateful to all those whose funding has made the concerts possible, and provided funding to support the cost of coach hire for state school pupils to come to the concerts.
For detail, please see the filed accounts.
Ticket sales at £5 are insufficient to pay for the events we run, so fund raising is essential to our activities. Ending the year with only £15,509 in the bank account, we had to consider whether we would be able to run our concerts at our usual three venues in 2024, but donations have been received or promised to enable us to do so.
Achievements
Approximately 4,500 school children from infant, primary, junior and special schools attended our concerts in January over three days in large public concert venues at Chichester, Guildford and Southampton. In past years we have also produced concerts in Dorking, Worthing, Petersfield, Portsmouth and Winchester. Concerts are one hour in length and comprise a series of short classical orchestral pieces, a narrative piece and a commissioned song for all the children to sing together with the orchestra. The children practise this song at school before the concert. Each year children are also asked to contribute designs for the concert programme. Three winning designs were printed on each venue’s programmes. State schools were offered up to 75% of their coach hire costs subject to funding being available, reducing in 2024 to a maximum of 70%.
The Children’s Concerts in 2023 were happy occasions. Jonathan Willcocks and the Southern Pro Musica continued to perform, as they have done since 1994. They were joined again this year by Neil Henry as compère, who entertained the 5-11 year olds at six concerts in three venues: The
Festival Theatre in Chichester, G Live Guildford and Central Hall Southampton. The children listened to orchestral pieces suitable for the age group and joined in a song with full audience participation at the end of each concert.
The pieces played this year included:
Rossini Overture to The Thieving Magpie Holst St Paul’s Suite Finale Jonathan Willcocks The Lonely Drummer for narrator and orchestra Tchaikovsky March and Russian Dance from The Nutcracker Ron Goodwin Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines Johann Strauss Thunder and Lightning Jonathan Willcocks Running Order (Song for audience participation)
In their own words
Some comments from children who attended the concerts:
I loved gong onto the stage and conducting the orchestra. It was scary and a bit hard holding the baton but I did it and the orchestra smiled at me.
I liked it when we sang the song with the orchestra. It was fun singing with all the instruments and doing the actions.
We enjoyed the magic tricks, especially setting fire to the tissue and making it into a drumstick for Claire.
We liked watching the orchestra because they worked really hard to play all the pieces of music.
The start of the concert was fun when all the instruments came past us onto the stage: the violins had a lovely high pitch, and the tuba came onto the stage blew us away
The story of the lonely drummer was great because Claire got to play a new instrument and play a tune. We thought she put lots of emotion and acting into her part. We enjoyed listening to the other instruments trying to cheer her up. When she came down from the back of the orchestra to play the xylophone, we were excited because we didn’t know what instrument was under the cover. Some of us were inspired to try and see if we can play the xylophone like Claire.
Structure, governance and management
As a Charitable Incorporated Organisation governed by a Trust Deed, our operations are managed and run by a committee of volunteer trustees, including the founder Elizabeth Gotto and the Conductor and Artistic Director of the Southern Pro Musica orchestra Jonathan Willcocks. The Committee meets three times each year. Three members of the Committee usually attend each concert to ensure all goes well. Responsibility for the children remains with their attending teachers or parents throughout the concert. Venue staff are also always on hand to assist teachers and children.
Trustees (all acted for the whole year): Elizabeth Curtis (Chairperson) Elizabeth Gotto Francis Gotto James Gotto Sarah Maybury (Treasurer) Hilary Otter Jonathan Willcocks
Rachel Wardell resigned as trustee during the year, and we are hoping to recruit a new school liaison trustee before the next concert series.
New trustees are appointed by the existing trustees.
We re-registered the charity as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation number 1189148 in 2020. The old charity number was 1143521.
Registered charity number 1189148
Principal address: 1 Old Manor Farm, Hinton Martell, BH21 7HR.
Contact email: admin@childrensconcerts.org.uk
Website: https://childrensconcerts.org.uk
Declaration
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ annual report above.
Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees
Elizabeth Curtis Sarah Maybury Chairperson Treasurer 15 August 2023 15 August 2023
Children’s Concerts
charity no 1189148
Balance Sheet 30[th] June 2023
| Notes 3 Current Assets Bank account Debtors sundry debtors 1 Advance payments made Current liabili�es Sundry creditors 2 Represented by Retained earnings Balance brought forward Current year surplus/(defcit) Balance carried forward Coach Reserve Balance brought forward Anonymous dona�on Anonymous dona�on Humphrey Richardson Taylor Trust less School reimbursement Balance carried forward |
2023 2022 £ £ £ £ 15,509.65 11,791.22 250.00 0.00 0.00 250.00 0.00 15,759.65 11,791.22 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 15,759.65 11,791.22 10,679.84 12,107.84 3,534.43 (1,428.00) 14,214.27 10,679.84 1,111.38 7,230.63 5,000.00 2,500.00 3,000.00 0.00 (10,066.30) (6,119.25) 1,545.08 1,111.38 15,759.35 10,679.84 |
|---|---|
…………………………………………… Sally Maybury, treasurer
…………………………………………………….. Elizabeth Cur�s, Chairman
Children’s Concerts
charity no 1189148
[st] July 2022- 30[th] June 2023
| Notes 2023 £ £ Concert income Ticket sales 4 21,473.22 Anonymous 1,000.00 Arnold Clark 0.00 Bedhampton CT 6,125.00 Colles Trust 300.00 Foyle Founda�on 7,500.00 Southern Pro Musica 0.00 Sussex Communi�es Fund 4,000.00 gi� aid recovery 250.00 Total of grants received 19,175.00 40,648.22 Concert expenditure Orchestra 3 21,355.00 Conductor fees 3 1,800.00 Narrator fees 1,050.00 Venue hire 9,246.42 PRS license 723.46 Programme costs 582.00 Sales commission 1,068.14 Cr card commission 250.46 Orchestra refreshments 250.00 Gratui�es 15.00 36,340.48 4,307.74 Overheads Travel expenses 0.00 Insurance 467.20 Subscrip�ons 200.00 Website 81.11 Poster art 25.00 Postage 0.00 773.31 _ Net Proft/(Loss) 3,534.43 |
2022 £ 2,500.00 1,000.00 5,000.00 300.00 0.00 2,000.00 0.00 0.00 13,740.00 1,200.00 700.00 5,898.80 290.52 355.00 1,211.22 33.40 281.00 10.00 _____ 25.00 380.20 98.00 107.94 69.00 20.40 |
£ 12,192.48 10,800.00 |
|---|---|---|
| 22,992.48 23,719.94 |
||
| (727.46) 700.54 _ (1,428.00) |
Children’s Concerts 2023
charity no 1189148
Notes to the Accounts
| 1 | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 2022 | ||
| 250.00 | 0.00 | gi� aid recovery | |
| 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| 250.00 | 0.00 |
| 2 | Sundry Creditors | |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 2022 | |
| 0.00 | 0.00 | |
| 0.00 | 0.00 |
3 provided and to orchestral musicians playing for a registered charity connected to that trustee.
| 2023 | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| 1,800.00 | 1,200.00 | Jonathan Willcocks - for services as conductor to the concerts. |
| 21,355.00 | 13,740.00 | Musicians playing for Southern ProMusica, of which Jonathan |
| 23,155.00 | 14,940.00 | Willcocks is ar�s�c director |
| Total | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Concert Analysis | Chichester | Guildford | Southampton | ||
| £ | £ | £ | £ | |||
| Income | ||||||
| Ticket sales | 7,706.00 | 8,042.22 | 5,725.00 | 21,473.22 | ||
| Expenditure | ||||||
| Orchestra fees | 7,118.33 | 7,118.33 | 7,118.33 | 21,355.00 | ||
| Conductor fees | 600.00 | 600.00 | 600.00 | 1,800.00 | ||
| Narrator fees | 350.00 | 350.00 | 350.00 | 1,050.00 | ||
| Venue hire | 2,922.42 | 4,164.00 | 2,160.00 | 9,246.42 | ||
| PRS license | 369.89 | 353.57 | 0.00 | 723.46 | ||
| Programme costs | 194.00 | 194.00 | 194.00 | 582.00 | ||
| Sales commission | 184.94 | 883.20 | 1,068.14 | |||
| Cr card commission | 231.18 | 19.28 | 0.00 | 250.46 | ||
| orchestra refreshments | 250.00 | 250.00 | ||||
| prizes | 5.00 | 5.00 | 5.00 | 15.00 | ||
| 11,975.76 | 13,687.38 | 10,677.33 | 36,340.48 | |||
| Net Gross Loss | (4,269.76) | (5,645.16) | (4,952.33) | (14,867.26) | ||
| before grants and dona�ons | ||||||
| no. of �ckets sold | 1,541 | 1,648 | 1,145 | 4,334 | ||
| loss per �cket | (2.77) | (3.43) | (4.33) | (3.43) | ||
| loss per �cket in 2022 | n/a | -6.48 | -3.2 | -3.43 |
Since there were empty seats in Southampton Hall, the decision was made to invite the pupils of local deprived schools into the concert as a one-off dona�on. So the concerts in Southampton played to full houses, but this is not reflected in the takings. If those �ckets had been paid for, the net gross loss at that venue and loss per �cket would have been smaller.
- 5 In April 2023, the charity was subject to a scam a�ack, and moneys amoun�ng to £11,129 were stolen. This was made up by the commi�ee member who had succumbed to the scam, pending compensa�on by the bank. So the the� has had no effect on the charity’s funds.
Children’s Concerts 2023
charity no 1189148
Independent Examiner's Report to the Trustees of Children's Concerts
I report to the charity trustees on my examina�on of the accounts of the charity for the year ended 30 June 2023 which are set out on pages 1 to 3.
Responsibility and basis of report
As the charity's trustees you are responsible for the prepara�on of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Chari�es Act 2011 (“the Act”)
I report in respect of my examina�on of the charity's accounts carried out under sec�on 145 of the Act and in carrying out my examina�on I have followed all the applicable Direc�ons given by the Charity Commission under sec�on 145(5)(b) of the Act.
Independent examiner’s statement
with the examina�on giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:
-
the accoun�ng records were not kept in respect of the charity as required by sec�on 130 of the Act; or
-
the accounts do not accord with those records; or
-
the accounts do not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content of accounts set out in the Chari�es (Accounts and Reports) Regula�ons 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a 'true and fair view' which is not a ma�er considered as part of an independent examina�on.
I have no concerns and have come across no other ma�ers in connec�on with the examina�on to which a�en�on should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
Hampshire
GU31 4PR
24th July 2023
Children’s Concerts
charity no 1189148
Balance Sheet 30[th] June 2023
| Notes 3 Current Assets Bank account Debtors sundry debtors 1 Advance payments made Current liabili�es Sundry creditors 2 Represented by Retained earnings Balance brought forward Current year surplus/(defcit) Balance carried forward Coach Reserve Balance brought forward Anonymous dona�on Anonymous dona�on Humphrey Richardson Taylor Trust less School reimbursement Balance carried forward |
2023 2022 £ £ £ £ 15,509.65 11,791.22 250.00 0.00 0.00 250.00 0.00 15,759.65 11,791.22 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 15,759.65 11,791.22 10,679.84 12,107.84 3,534.43 (1,428.00) 14,214.27 10,679.84 1,111.38 7,230.63 5,000.00 2,500.00 3,000.00 0.00 (10,066.30) (6,119.25) 1,545.08 1,111.38 15,759.35 10,679.84 |
|---|---|
…………………………………………… Sally Maybury, treasurer
…………………………………………………….. Elizabeth Cur�s, Chairman
Children’s Concerts
charity no 1189148
[st] July 2022- 30[th] June 2023
| Notes 2023 £ £ Concert income Ticket sales 4 21,473.22 Anonymous 1,000.00 Arnold Clark 0.00 Bedhampton CT 6,125.00 Colles Trust 300.00 Foyle Founda�on 7,500.00 Southern Pro Musica 0.00 Sussex Communi�es Fund 4,000.00 gi� aid recovery 250.00 Total of grants received 19,175.00 40,648.22 Concert expenditure Orchestra 3 21,355.00 Conductor fees 3 1,800.00 Narrator fees 1,050.00 Venue hire 9,246.42 PRS license 723.46 Programme costs 582.00 Sales commission 1,068.14 Cr card commission 250.46 Orchestra refreshments 250.00 Gratui�es 15.00 36,340.48 4,307.74 Overheads Travel expenses 0.00 Insurance 467.20 Subscrip�ons 200.00 Website 81.11 Poster art 25.00 Postage 0.00 773.31 _ Net Proft/(Loss) 3,534.43 |
2022 £ 2,500.00 1,000.00 5,000.00 300.00 0.00 2,000.00 0.00 0.00 13,740.00 1,200.00 700.00 5,898.80 290.52 355.00 1,211.22 33.40 281.00 10.00 _____ 25.00 380.20 98.00 107.94 69.00 20.40 |
£ 12,192.48 10,800.00 |
|---|---|---|
| 22,992.48 23,719.94 |
||
| (727.46) 700.54 _ (1,428.00) |
Children’s Concerts 2023
charity no 1189148
Notes to the Accounts
| 1 | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 2022 | ||
| 250.00 | 0.00 | gi� aid recovery | |
| 0.00 | 0.00 | ||
| 250.00 | 0.00 |
| 2 | Sundry Creditors | |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 2022 | |
| 0.00 | 0.00 | |
| 0.00 | 0.00 |
3 provided and to orchestral musicians playing for a registered charity connected to that trustee.
| 2023 | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| 1,800.00 | 1,200.00 | Jonathan Willcocks - for services as conductor to the concerts. |
| 21,355.00 | 13,740.00 | Musicians playing for Southern ProMusica, of which Jonathan |
| 23,155.00 | 14,940.00 | Willcocks is ar�s�c director |
| Total | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Concert Analysis | Chichester | Guildford | Southampton | ||
| £ | £ | £ | £ | |||
| Income | ||||||
| Ticket sales | 7,706.00 | 8,042.22 | 5,725.00 | 21,473.22 | ||
| Expenditure | ||||||
| Orchestra fees | 7,118.33 | 7,118.33 | 7,118.33 | 21,355.00 | ||
| Conductor fees | 600.00 | 600.00 | 600.00 | 1,800.00 | ||
| Narrator fees | 350.00 | 350.00 | 350.00 | 1,050.00 | ||
| Venue hire | 2,922.42 | 4,164.00 | 2,160.00 | 9,246.42 | ||
| PRS license | 369.89 | 353.57 | 0.00 | 723.46 | ||
| Programme costs | 194.00 | 194.00 | 194.00 | 582.00 | ||
| Sales commission | 184.94 | 883.20 | 1,068.14 | |||
| Cr card commission | 231.18 | 19.28 | 0.00 | 250.46 | ||
| orchestra refreshments | 250.00 | 250.00 | ||||
| prizes | 5.00 | 5.00 | 5.00 | 15.00 | ||
| 11,975.76 | 13,687.38 | 10,677.33 | 36,340.48 | |||
| Net Gross Loss | (4,269.76) | (5,645.16) | (4,952.33) | (14,867.26) | ||
| before grants and dona�ons | ||||||
| no. of �ckets sold | 1,541 | 1,648 | 1,145 | 4,334 | ||
| loss per �cket | (2.77) | (3.43) | (4.33) | (3.43) | ||
| loss per �cket in 2022 | n/a | -6.48 | -3.2 | -3.43 |
Since there were empty seats in Southampton Hall, the decision was made to invite the pupils of local deprived schools into the concert as a one-off dona�on. So the concerts in Southampton played to full houses, but this is not reflected in the takings. If those �ckets had been paid for, the net gross loss at that venue and loss per �cket would have been smaller.
- 5 In April 2023, the charity was subject to a scam a�ack, and moneys amoun�ng to £11,129 were stolen. This was made up by the commi�ee member who had succumbed to the scam, pending compensa�on by the bank. So the the� has had no effect on the charity’s funds.
Children’s Concerts 2023
charity no 1189148
Independent Examiner's Report to the Trustees of Children's Concerts
I report to the charity trustees on my examina�on of the accounts of the charity for the year ended 30 June 2023 which are set out on pages 1 to 3.
Responsibility and basis of report
As the charity's trustees you are responsible for the prepara�on of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Chari�es Act 2011 (“the Act”)
I report in respect of my examina�on of the charity's accounts carried out under sec�on 145 of the Act and in carrying out my examina�on I have followed all the applicable Direc�ons given by the Charity Commission under sec�on 145(5)(b) of the Act.
Independent examiner’s statement
with the examina�on giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:
-
the accoun�ng records were not kept in respect of the charity as required by sec�on 130 of the Act; or
-
the accounts do not accord with those records; or
-
the accounts do not comply with the applicable requirements concerning the form and content of accounts set out in the Chari�es (Accounts and Reports) Regula�ons 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a 'true and fair view' which is not a ma�er considered as part of an independent examina�on.
I have no concerns and have come across no other ma�ers in connec�on with the examina�on to which a�en�on should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
Hampshire
GU31 4PR
24th July 2023