2024-12-31-accounts - Whiddon Autumn Festival

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Charity No: 1195063

ANNUAL REPORT

Trustees’ Annual Report (incl. Chairman’s Report) Statement of Income & Expenditure

Balance Sheet

Independent Examiner’s Report

2024

Trustees’ Annual Report for the Period 1[st] January 2024 to 31[st] December 2024

Charity Name:	Whiddon Autumn Festival
Registered Charity No:	1195063
Principal Address:	56 The Square, Chagford, Devon TQ13 8AE
Trustees:	Michael Ball
	Freddie Crowley (Festival & Artistic Director)
	John Crowley (Chairman)
	Neil Loden
	Claire O’Donnell (appointed 10 December 2024)
	Alison Routh

Apart from the initial Trustees, every Trustee must be appointed for a term of three years by a resolution passed at a properly convened meeting of the Trustees. In selecting individuals for appointment as a Trustee, the Trustees will have regard to the skills, knowledge and experience needed for the effective administration of the Charity.

Independent Examiner: Michael Knight

Chairman’s Report:

This Annual Report of the Whiddon Autumn Festival reports on the charity’s year of 2024, covering the fourth Festival in September 2024.

Following the success of the first three Festivals, the fourth Whiddon Autumn Festival (“WAF”) once again took place over 5 days and covered a total of 13 events. While most of the events, as previously, were in five parish churches in the Chagford area, other venues this year included Chagford’s Jubilee Hall, the Long Room at Drewsteignton’s newlyreopened and now-community-owned historic pub, the Drewe Arms and, once again, an informal ’Meet-the-Artists’ event in Chagford’s wonderful bookshop, Astor’s.

As in previous years, Corvus Consort was ‘Ensemble-in-Residence’ under their director Freddie Crowley, WAF’s Festival and Artistic Director, while this year’s guest artists were the Solem Quartet. In the Long Room, this rising young string quartet gave mesmerising performances of Steve Reich’s Different Trains and their own arrangements of

Kate Bush songs, while being joined the next day in Moretonhampstead Church by the Festival’s own String Quartet for a memorable performance of Mendelssohn’s Octet .

This year’s Festival Jazz Night saw the UK first performance of the German jazz pianistcomposer Lukas DeRungs’ KOSMOS Suite , an extended work for jazz ensemble and chamber choir, involving Lukas’ Quintet, the vocalist Immy Churchill and Corvus Consort.

A defining feature of the Festival each year is the opportunity for the artists to make music together in various combinations over the period of the Festival. The Festival String Quartet appeared in the first event, with the Kathleen Ferrier Award-winning tenor, Matthew McKinney, and in five other events, including a popular and varied programme in Throwleigh Church with Harry Baker; Harry, the Festival’s stalwart and wonderfully versatile pianist and accompanist, appeared in six events; Corvus Consort also appeared in six events, including their hugely popular concert of ‘Renaissance Gems’.

The 2024 Composer-in-Residence was Sun Keting, the China-born, London-based composer who focuses on blending Eastern cultural elements with performing arts in her compositions. Four of the events in the Festival received world-premiere performances of newly-commissioned works by Keting, including a piece written especially for the WAF Children’s Choir.

WAF’s ‘learning and engagement’ programme involves increasing numbers of local schools, this year providing a larger-than-ever group of schoolchildren with the exciting experience of inspirational outreach sessions leading to a concert performance alongside professional musicians. The ‘Come-&-Sing’ day again proved very poplar, bringing together 27 local amateur singers for a day of improvised music-making and rehearsal, culminating in a performance alongside Corvus Consort in the Festival’s final concert – ‘The Magic of Folk Song’.

More details of the 2024 Festival, including a gallery of photos of the individual events, and information on past Festivals can be found in the Archive section of the Whiddon Autumn Festival website.

A very special ‘bonus’ Festival event was held in November, with the ‘global superstar cellist’ Sheku Kanneh-Mason and his pianist duo partner, WAF’s very own Harry Baker. Their programme ‘Bach & Beyond’ was performed in two hour-long sittings to packed and hugely appreciative audiences in Chagford Church.

WAF remains ever-grateful to all its Supporters: the grant-making organisations and local sponsors who helped to fund WAF 2024; the WAF Friends and Patrons, whose support makes the Festival possible and helps WAF to build its reserves to ensure its sustainability for the future; the kind hosts in Chagford who accommodate our musicians; our trustees and administrative team members; all the wonderful volunteers who assist our team in making each Festival run smoothly and successfully; and finally our concert and event audiences, whose numbers continue to grow year by year and without whose generosity and support the Festival could not happen.

Charity’s status:

The Charity is constituted as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation under a CIO Foundation Model Constitution approved and adopted by the Trustees on 10 May 2021.

The Charity’s organisational structure:

WAF’s activities are organised and managed by the Festival Director, who is also the Artistic Director and a Trustee. Following the 2022 Festival, a small team was appointed to assist the Festival Director with roles including Administration, Fundraising, Publicity and Learning & Engagement. Also, a team of volunteers (recruited by the Festival Director) provides accommodation, transport, concert and venue administration, etc, during the period of the Festival.

Apart from the Festival Director, the other Trustees are entirely voluntary and provide high level management and oversight to ensure good management and governance practice, in support of the Festival Director. The Trustees also provide assistance, as required, in the smooth running of the Festival.

Trustees’ consideration of major risks and the system and procedures to manage them :

The Trustees maintain a Risk Management Schedule, which (a) covers all aspects of the charity’s activities (b) identifies and quantifies the risks facing WAF and (c) specifies the measures taken to eliminate or mitigate those risks. The Trustees review the Risk Management Schedule regularly, and at least annually, and are satisfied that all reasonable measures are being taken to reduce risks to an acceptable level.

Objects of the charity as set out in its governing document:

To promote the appreciation, enjoyment, participation and understanding of music and the arts for the public benefit, through the provision of musical events and educational activities, particularly but not exclusively in central Devon as part of an annual Arts Festival and at other times of the year.

Summary of the main activities in relation to these Objects:

WAF has four core aims:

to present world-class live music in a part of the country that so infrequently sees professional classical music performances;
to provide a platform for young musicians in the early stages of their professional careers, particularly at this very difficult time for freelance artists;

to deliver education workshops for local children, encouraging enjoyment & participation in music from an early age and promoting values of teamwork & collectivity through group singing;
to engage and involve the community by holding participatory events which offer local residents the opportunity to join with our professional artists in a collective performance.

The main activities to achieve these aims are the concerts and other events forming the Whiddon Autumn Festival, held each September in and around the small town of Chagford on the north-east edge of Dartmoor in central Devon.

Summary of the main achievements of the charity during its first four years:

Since the initial three-day Festival of four events over three days in September 2021, WAF 2024 saw thirteen events over five days. WAF brings world-class young professional musicians to a corner of Dartmoor that rarely sees such a level of performance and increasingly draws audiences from further afield. It draws in people from across the local parish communities - not just audience members but also school children through WAF’s inspirational outreach programme, volunteers to ensure the smooth running of the Festival, keen and ‘have-a-go’ singers for the Come-&-Sing day, hosts to accommodate the musicians, etc.

An effective administration team has been assembled by the Festival Director, with individuals assisting him in covering most of the main tasks: general administration; learning and engagement; fund-raising; marketing and publicity; Friends coordination.

WAF is establishing itself as a regular feature of the Devon cultural scene. As well as the regular return of Corvus Consort and the Festival String Quartet, plans for 2025 include the singer/guitarist Jamie Doe, a Jazz Night with Harry Baker and his Trio, the exploration of further new venues and a further-extended learning and engagement programme.

Brief Statement of the charity’s policy on reserves:

The Trustees believe that the main purpose of the charity’s reserves is to cover any unexpected shortfall in funding and income.

The Trustees consider that a prudent level of reserves would be a minimum of 50% of the previous year’s total expenditure.

To achieve and then maintain this level of reserves, the Trustees intend in each financial year to budget for the charity to make a surplus, taking into account the financial outcome of the annual Festival itself and regular annual subscriptions from Friends and Patrons.

Public Benefit:

The Trustees have considered the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit in planning all WAF’s events. The Trustees consider that they have satisfied the criteria of ‘public benefit’ in the following ways:

The Festival benefits the communities in the Chagford area, as well as the wider region, by the provision of musical performance and learning and engagement programmes by high quality professional artists in an area that normally sees little of either.
Members of the community have the opportunity to perform alongside the Festival's professional artists in a collaborative performance. Also, the learning and engagement programmes bring the experience of classical music and its live performance to local schoolchildren, including the opportunity for public performance as part of the Festival.
The Festival places high importance on the encouragement of attendance at, and where possible participation in, the Festival from people from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. The ticket pricing for the Festival’s events, and especially the provision of free access for children and young people, ensures that they and their families, as well as those on lower incomes, have a reasonable opportunity of attending concerts and events in the Festival.

Payments to Trustees:

WAF’s Founder, Festival Director and Artistic Director is Freddie Crowley, who is also a Trustee. This presents potential conflicts, especially with regard to his remuneration, for him and for John Crowley, who is a connected person as his father and is also a Trustee and Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

The intention is for the Festival & Artistic Director to be retained on a rolling annual contract for services. The performance of the Festival & Artistic Director is reviewed annually by the Trustees. Any discussion and decision about the retention and, if so, future remuneration for the Festival & Artistic Director is made solely by the independent Trustees, with no input from the Festival & Artistic Director (should he/she remain a Trustee and whether or not in future that position is held by Freddie Crowley) nor from any connected person of the Festival & Artistic Director among the Trustees.

In 2023, Freddie Crowley received the following remuneration from the Charity:

Festival & Artistic Director’s fee:	£3,935
Performer’s fees:	£1,625

The total fee due to the Festival & Artistic Director for 2024 was £7,134. The balancing sum of £3,199 was paid after the year end.

A further £3,199 was agreed and approved by the (independent) Trustees in respect of Freddie Crowley’s Festival & Artistic Director fee for 2024. This was paid after the year end and will therefore fall into the 2025 accounting year.

In setting and agreeing these fees, the Trustees are satisfied that they are in line with the normal rates in the sector and for comparable events.

In addition, Freddie Crowley received £85 in reimbursement for travel expenses.

DECLARATION

The Trustees declare that, at a meeting held on 21 May 2025, they approved the Trustees’ Annual Report above, they accepted and acknowledged the Independent Examiner’s Report below and they authorised the signature of the Report on the Trustees’ behalf by the following two Trustees:

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John Crowley Michael Ball
Chairman & Trustee Trustee
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Whiddon Autumn Festival

Receipts & Payments Accounts for the Period 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2024

NOTES

1. The Income & Expenditure Statement is prepared on a Receipts and Payments basis.

2. All figures rounded to the nearest £.

3. All receipts are in unrestricted funds.

4. In 2023, Artists Travel was included in ‘Artists Fees’ and Artists subsistence was included in ‘Catering’.

5. Further payments totalling £3,574, due in respect of 2024, were paid after the year end.

Balance Sheet at 31[st] December 2024

Independent Examiner’s Report to the Trustees of Whiddon Autumn Festival

I report on the accounts of the company for the period 1[st] January 2024 to 31[st] December 2024, which are set out above on page 8 and which are consistent with the Charities Act 2011 and the Statement of Recommended Practice “Accounting and Reporting by Charities” applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with Financial Reporting Standard 102.

Respective responsibilities of Trustees and Examiner:

The Trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. The Trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year under section 144(2) of the Charities Act 2011 (the 2011 Act) and that an independent examination is needed.

Having satisfied myself that the Charity is not subject to audit and is eligible for independent examination, it is my responsibility to:

examine the accounts under section 145 of the 2011 Act;
to follow the procedures laid down in the General Directions given by the Charity Commission (under section 145(5)(b) of the 2011 Act), and
to state whether particular matters have come to my attention.

Basis of Independent Examiner’s Report :

My examination was carried out in accordance with the 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 you as 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 and the Report is limited to those matters set out in the statement below.

Independent Examiner’s statement:

In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention:

(1) which gives me reasonable cause to believe in any material respect the requirements:
to keep accounting records in accordance with section 130 of the 2011 Act; and
to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records, comply with the accounting requirements of the 2011 Act and comply with the methods and principles of the Statement of Recommended Practice: Accounting and Reporting by Charities

have not been met; or

(2) to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Signed: Michael Knight MA, ACA Apple Tree Barn, 2 Manor Close, Sparkford, Somerset, BA22 7JZ

Date: 21 May 2025