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2023-03-31-accounts

Colchester Operatic Society Registered Charity no. 1198865 15 Parkside Quarter, Colchester, Essex, CO1 1EA

Annual report of the trustees for year ending 31[st] March 2023

Our structure and governance

Colchester Operatic Society’s (also referred to as “the/our Society” and/or “COS” throughout this report) is an amateur musical theatre company (consisting of members from 11 years & over) that produce shows & concerts in Colchester for the general public. Membership is open to all aged 16yrs plus & 11-23 yrs for our youth section, providing opportunities to learn, perform & participate in local theatre. We also put on singing, acting & dancing workshops for members & the local community. We registered as a charity with the charity commission on 9[th] May 2022, governed by our CIO Association Constitution which refers to our charity trustees as the Executive Committee. Our youth section operates under the name CO2 (Colchester Operatic Society Second Edition) but is part of our charitable organisation. In addition to our constitution, we have supplementary rules to govern our youth section (referred to as “CO2” throughout this report) and the following policies and procedures currently in place (these are regularly reviewed, and new policies are adopted as necessary and appropriate. All policies can be found on our Society website):

Membership of the Society for 2022-2023 stood at 110 members at our last AGM (23[rd] June 2022) rising to162 as we came to the end of the year. Our last AGM was attended by 28 members. Our youth section (CO2) had 38 members but many more participating in our activities throughout the year (see “purposes and activities” section below).

Our Executive Committee manages the Society and is annually elected at our AGM in June, although trustees are recruited throughout the year if Executive Committee members stand down, depending on the needs of the Society. For this year, our Executive Committee consisted of the following trustees:

Name of Trustee Role/Office Date acted if not for whole
year
Katie Cutmore Chair
Deputy Safeguarding
Lead
Neil Somerville Treasurer
Amanda Powell Secretary Up until 23rdJune 22
Max Woodward Secretary Trustee for whole year but
Secretary from 23rdJune 22
Sarah White Business Manager Up until 28thSeptember 22
Amy Wilson Business Manager From 28thSeptember 22
Laura Hicks Committee Member then
Assistant Secretary from
28thJuly 22
Emily Lane Assistant Secretary Up until 28thJuly 22
Ann Taylor Chair of CO2 (Colchester
Operatic Society Second
Edition: our Youth section)
Up until 2ndNovember 22
Charlotte Butcher Chair of CO2 (Colchester
Operatic Society Second
Edition: our Youth section)
Safeguarding Lead
Chair of CO2 from 29th
November 22
(Safeguarding lead but not
trustee for whole year)
Kirstie Heathcote Co-Chair of CO2
(Colchester Operatic
Society Second Edition:
our Youth section)		 From 29thNovember to 8th
February 23
Paul Kusel-Baum Membership Secretary
Deputy safeguarding lead		 Up until 28thAugust 22
Claudia Haswell Inclusion Lead
Andrew Hodgson Committee Member
Jessica Bailey Marketing & Events Lead
Rebecca Lee Committee Member From 29thNovember 22
Wayne Setford Funding Co-ordinator From 22ndFebruary 23

This year, we amalgamated our Executive Committee role of Membership Secretary with that of Secretary to streamline communications which has worked well. We also added a role of Funding co-ordinator. We extend thanks to all those who served as a trustee over the course of this year, without whom we could not continue our work. The Executive Committee seeks and responds to views of members and the wider public when making decisions about our activities and governs and operates the Society for public benefit, having due regard to the charity commission’s public benefit guidance when exercising any powers or duties, to which the guidance is relevant.

Risk Management

We hold public liability insurance and carry out risk assessments for our work and activities to manage/control any Health and Safety risks. Our Bank Account has double signatories to safeguard the charity finances and ensure money is only spent as agreed by its trustees for its purpose and associated activities.

To manage risk for our young people, we have safeguarding leads in place who ensure the wider membership, volunteers and other professionals/organisations we work with are aware of and follow our safeguarding policy. We ensure those working directly with young people are suitable to do so, are appropriately supervised and/or have clear DBS checks in place as necessary and appropriate. We also ensure DBS checked Chaperones are in place at rehearsals and performances to ensure the safety and well-being of our young members/performers.

Chair’s Report

Our 98[th] year as Colchester Operatic Society saw our first year as a registered charity (Charitable Incorporated Organisation: CIO). We have achieved a lot this year through teamwork driven by a shared passion for musical theatre, meeting our charity’s purpose and providing valuable learning experiences for all. Through producing shows and events, addressing audiences and sharing information publicly on our website and through social media we have increased the public awareness of our work and seen evidence of the difference it makes to the general public as well as those members involved in creating our productions and events.

I am very grateful to our audiences for their support in coming to see our productions and their donations towards our work. I would also like to thank PROVIDE CIC for their £2000 grant that supported us in setting up a members show fee bursary this year and contributed to rehearsal costs and captioned performance costs for our CO2 show, FAME. Thanks to this funding we have been able to award a Show fee bursary to 6 applicants over 3 of our productions (Shrek, School of Rock and Iconic) this year, which has enabled members to participate when otherwise they may not have been able to afford to. Thank you also goes to our sponsors, Ellisons Solicitors and Arc Legal Services, whose donations contributed to further captioned performances for our CO2 show, FAME, and our 2023 production of Shrek the Musical. This funding enabled us to continue to provide inclusive performances through captioning to improve access for the public to our productions.

I personally thank all trustees serving on the Executive Committee for their support, dedication, time and hard work throughout the year. We have worked hard as a team to continue to move the Society forwards, so our members and members of the future can enjoy and learn from being part of our musical theatre productions and the public can benefit from the work we create. I would also like to thank all our members for their continued support through paying membership subscriptions, taking part in our shows and events and volunteering in essential roles backstage and on all of our subcommittees. It is the continued contribution from our talented, diverse and passionate membership along with support from our audiences that will keep our Society thriving into the future.

Katie Cutmore Chair of Colchester Operatic Society

Our purpose and activities

Our charitable purpose is to promote and improve general education in relation to all aspects of the art of drama and musical theatrical performance for the public benefit.

This year we have met this purpose though the following activities:

We produced a summer concert called “From Page to Stage”, which ran at the Headgate theatre from 8[th] to 11[th] June 2022 with a cast of 33 members performing to full houses, with audiences enjoying a varied programme of musical songs inspired by literature, which showcased the cast’s singing and dancing skills. Our concert programme available to purchase for audience members, detailed the literature which inspired each song.

This concert provided the opportunity for two of our members (Amanda Powell and Holly Bird) to direct and choreograph the show, gaining experience in these skills. They included a higher proportion of dance in this concert than we have traditionally had in previous summer concerts, which meant many cast members participating were able to develop and enhance their dance skills. We hired a local creative (Phil Toms) to musically direct the show, who provided cast members further learning opportunities as he shared his musical skills and expertise when teaching them the harmonies and music. Cast members rehearsed over a 4 month period leading up to the concert, learning songs, harmonies and choreography ready for the public to experience as audience members.

In July 2022, we held a backstage meet and greet open to the public, advertised through social media, our website and e-mailshots, to recruit more volunteers to help with and learn about the vital backstage roles we need to continue producing shows. We had members who have been part of our backstage crews before and new members of the public attending. Those new to the Society who attended took up the opportunity to volunteer backstage in productions this year and gained experience and education in what is involved behind the scenes in creating musical theatre productions.

In July we also held pre-audition workshops for our production Shrek the Musical, which were open to the public, followed by auditions for those interested in joining as members and performing in the show. The casting needs of the show meant we advertised for children to audition and held specific workshops for children aged 8-14 years old to learn a song and dance from the show and prepare for auditions, learning performing and auditioning skills. Following auditions, we cast 44 members, which included 8 new members to the Society and 4 children (aged 8-10 years old). Rehearsals began in September running through to the production in January (see later for more information).

In August we ran a stall, and a small group of members performed a small set of songs on the main stage, at Colchester pride for the first time, promoting our Society and the work we do to members of the public attending the event (which comprised of a high proportion of the local LGBTQ+ community), making links with other community

organisations and making further progress on our Inclusion, Equality and Diversity strategy by increasing awareness of our work to a more diverse community.

We had 38 CO2 members (aged 11-23) participate in our CO2 production of FAME this year, with rehearsals running over a 6-month period from March 2022 through to the performances at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester from 8[th] to 18[th] September 2022. We hired local creatives (Richard Harrison as musical director and Charlie Morgan as director) who supported and educated our young members throughout the rehearsal and production process, giving them the opportunity to develop skills in acting, singing and dancing. Audiences were then able to enjoy their performances, with the show selling 53% over the whole run. Programmes with more information about the show and our Society were available to purchase for audience members. One of our cast members spoke to the audiences at the end of each show to raise awareness of the work we do, future work we have coming up and ways they can support us through donations, raising £2062.83, which helped meet our production costs. We provided two captioned performances of the show increasing accessibility to our work for the public. Many of our adult membership supported backstage during the show run of FAME, joining some of our newer volunteers, all developing skills and gaining experience in the hidden elements of musical theatre that go on behind the scenes to make the magic happen on stage for audiences.

On Saturday 17th September we held a COS sing-along in the bar at the Mercury Theatre after a performance of FAME, as part of the Mercury Lates programme. This was free to members of the public to attend and participate in and comprised of singing freely along with a variety of musical theatre songs, accompanied on the piano by our Treasurer, Neil Somerville, a skilled musical director who provided this service for free.

In December, we organised a group of our members, including some of the cast of our production of Shrek the Musical, to participate and lead carol singing outside of the Mercury Theatre and at a local pub, the Swan in Chappell. Members of the public watched and were encouraged to join in with the singing and we were able to promote our upcoming production of Shrek the Musical to those who wanted to know more about our work.

We produced “Shrek the Musical”, which was performed by our cast of 44 members at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester from 26[th] January to 4[th] February 2023. We hired local creatives (Neil Somerville as musical director, Adam Woodhouse as director and Laura Hicks as assistant director) who directed and supported our talented cast throughout the 6-month rehearsal and production process as they utilised and developed their singing, acting and dancing skills. Many cast members had never been in a musical theatre production before so along with learning performance skills, they learnt about all aspects of what it takes to put on a large-scale musical theatre production. This show required fairy-tale costumes and make up including prosthetics for some of the characters including the main character, Shrek. We recruited a volunteer who had a degree in theatrical make-up and was able to create her own prosthetics. She did so for free to gain the experience of getting back into theatrical make-up/prosthetic work, following a break in her career due to the pandemic. She was also able to provide learning opportunities and experience for a team of volunteers supporting her, including

some of our members, during the production run. Including our make-up/prosthetics team, we had one of the largest backstage teams we’ve had for one of our shows, with 54 people (in addition to the cast) volunteering at varying times during the run, including many of our CO2 members. Those volunteering backstage reported how much they had enjoyed the experience and learnt from it. For example, one CO2 member told us “Having that new insight into how a show works—it’s really eye-opening and it’s important as a young performer to not only be aware of the things that happen on stage, but also have a knowledge and appreciation of what’s going on behind the scenes.”

We provided two captioned performances of the show, again increasing accessibility to our work for the public. Our talented cast performed to nearly full houses with 98% of tickets being sold across the production run, with standing ovations every night and great audience reactions and reviews. This included reviews that recognised our continued inclusive approach to producing and casting our shows: “ Tonight I saw a brilliantly talented performer who uses a motorised wheelchair, cast in a role they excelled in. This is something you just wouldn’t see in a professional musical (outside of the National Theatre).” Mickey-Jo, Twitter. Recognition of the public benefit of this production was noted in the North Essex Theatre Guild review (NETG) of the show: “ Your talent and hard work ensured that there were hundreds of people that experienced fun and laughter and were totally entertained” which also sums up the production beautifully. One of our cast members spoke to audiences at the end of each performance to continue to raise awareness of the work we do as a charity and ways they can support us through donations, raising £1004.53, which helped meet our production costs. In addition to this we included information on how we work and how members of the public can support us, on our promotional fliers and in our programmes on sale to audience members during the show. Our programmes also contained information about the show, the cast and our Society.

On Saturday 28th January, we held a further COS sing-along in the bar at the Mercury Theatre after a performance of Shrek, as part of the Mercury Lates programme. This was free to members of the public to attend and participate in and comprised of singing freely along with a variety of musical theatre songs, accompanied on the piano by our Treasurer, Neil Somerville, a skilled musical director who provided this service for free.

We also provided a further free benefit to the public by holding a Shrek cast meet and greet for audiences on our Sunday matinee (29[th] January 2023), with cast in costume and in character, talking to audiences/members of the public in the bar after the show and this was well attended by young children (and their parents) who had watched the show. We witnessed several children and adults with additional learning needs participating in this experience getting enormous benefit from it which was in turn rewarding for our members taking part.

After Shrek, we moved onto auditions for our next summer concert “Iconic”, which is set to take place at the Headgate Theatre 14[th] to 17[th] June 2023. We saw evidence that our production of Shrek had succeeded in raising awareness to the public, when new members joining our concert cast, cited seeing our production of Shrek as one of the reasons they got involved. We also received emails from members of the public asking

to get involved behind the scenes and through this we have recruited a new costume lead for the next CO2 production (see information below).

In March we had 122 young people (aged 9 to 23 years old) attend our singing, acting and dancing pre-audition workshops for our next CO2 production of School Of Rock, set for October 2023. This resulted in 45 young people (aged 9 to 19 years old) being cast for the show, with rehearsals starting at the end of March, led by hired creatives, Ashton Moore as musical director and Laura Hicks and Leah Scott as co-directors. We had correspondence from the parents of some of the young people who attended the workshops but did not get cast, thanking us for the experience during the workshops, evidencing how much they learnt from it.

Plans for the future

Looking forwards, our summer concert cast continue to rehearse leading up to the performances at the Headgate Theatre from 14[th] to 17[th] June. We are set to hold auditions for our next production, My Fair Lady on the 16th July (with pre-auditions on 3[rd] and 10[th] July). We have hired creatives to lead and support our future cast with Claire Carr as director, Holly Bird as assistant director and Geoff Osborne as musical director. It will run at the Mercury Theatre from 25[th] January to 4[th] February 2024. Our CO2 production, School of Rock will continue with rehearsals culminating in the show run at the Mercury Theatre from 5[th] to 8[th] October 2023.

Financial report

Colchester Operatic Society’s principal source of funding is ticket sales from our productions and events. In addition to this we receive income from membership subscriptions and show fees for members who are cast in a production. We fundraise for donations throughout the year and apply for funding/grants and sponsorship, adhering to our ethical fundraising policy and ensuring any funds raised will be used for the public benefit and do not compromise the independent status of Colchester Operatic Society. This year our income was £113,161.43 , which included:

This year our total Expenditure was £109,843.85 . This has been spent on activities and work to meet our charitable purpose as described above and detailed below.

responsibly and transparently. These audited accounts are reported in detail to members annually. This has cost £360.00 this financial year.

Overall, this year we made a surplus of £3317.58.

As our predominant income is from ticket sales, we do always see a fluctuation from year to year on surplus/deficit. Our aim is to continue to provide local musical theatre experiences for the public to participate in, watch and learn from and therefore we are not driven to make profit and accept that some productions will make losses whilst others will make profits. This balances out across the years and the trustees work hard to ensure we maintain sufficient reserves to continue our work into the future.

We hold reserves so we are able to pay upfront for future production and event costs and meet ongoing annual costs such as public liability insurance, administration costs, costs to maintain an online presence and costs to securely store and maintain (including repair and replace as necessary) our physical assets. We produce several shows throughout the year, with costs being incurred concurrently and in advance. For example, a 2-week production at the Mercury Theatre, costs around £90,000, with many of these costs being incurred before we receive any income from ticket sales.

On 31[st] March 2023, Colchester Operatic Society held £103,139.96 in reserve.

The Colchester Officers Club (another local organisation, who we had a close working relationship with) hold £5000 of these financial assets, which was loaned to them in 2008. We have recently called in this loan and are negotiating a repayment plan.

Unfortunately, ticket sales for FAME at 53% meant we did not meet our costs for this show, despite raising £2062.83 in audience donations and having some funding from the PROVIDE CIC grant and previous sponsorship for captioned performances. Whilst the pandemic and costs of living crisis has contributed to the current challenges in achieving the required % ticket sales for any production, the Executive Committee had noted that CO2 shows over many years have not always managed to meet costs, especially since they have run for 2 weeks and earlier in the year in September. This led to some challenging discussions around future shows for CO2 and where/when they might take place. Following investigation into different venues and frank discussions with The Mercury Theatre, we were able to secure dates for October 2023, making the decision to produce the next CO2 show “ School of Rock” for one week rather than two.

When we got into the theatre for our production of Shrek, we were at 77% sales (not quite enough to meet our costs) but this rose to 83% on opening night and by the end of the show run we had 98% tickets sold with many performances being sold out. This was a fantastic achievement and meant we met our costs and made a small surplus, going some way to cover previous losses during productions in our previous financial year and

FAME. However, despite such great sales, £500 sponsorship for our captioned performances from Arc Legal Services, programme sales, increased show fees for cast members taking part and £1004.53 in audience donations, the surplus is small and although we ended the year with a small surplus overall, this was not enough to cover the deficit from the previous financial year. The rising costs of staging such large highquality productions means we need high % ticket sales to break-even so it’s vital we have continued support through other funding avenues such as sponsorship, grants and donations and this applies to any production going forwards. In particular to continue providing inclusive performances (for example, captioned and/or signed performances), which come at a cost, extra funding through sponsorship, donations and/or grants is needed.

The trustees will continue to monitor the charity’s finances and adapt the activities we carry out accordingly to secure its continued running, even through challenging financial climates. If the required ticket sales for large-scale productions continue to be difficult to achieve we will reflect on production choices, venues used and dates productions are planned for, adapting as necessary and as funds allow.

----- Start of picture text -----
COLCHESTER OPERATIC SOCIETY 1198865
Receipts and payments accounts CC16a
For the period 01/04/2022 31/03/2023
To
from
Section A Receipts and payments
Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
Total funds Last year
funds funds funds
to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
A1 Receipts
Voluntary Income 111,928 - - 111,928 50,682
Donations 1,151 - - 1,151 -
Bank Interest 82 - - 82 10
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
Sub total (Gross income for
AR) [ 113,161 ] - - 113,161 50,692
A2 Asset and investment sales,
(see table).
- - - -
- - - - -
Sub total - - - - -
Total receipts 113,161 - - 113,161 50,692
A3 Payments
Charitable Activities 107,028 - - 107,028 61,328
Accountancy Cost 360 - - 360 360
Insurance 606 - - 606 606
Admin Costs 1,849 - - 1,849 3,857
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
Sub total [ 109,844 ] - - 109,844 66,151
A4 Asset and investment
purchases, (see table)
- - - -
- - - -
Sub total [ - ] - - - -
Total payments 109,844 - - 109,844 66,151
Net of receipts/(payments) 3,318 - - 3,318 - 15,459
A5 Transfers between funds - - - - -
A6 Cash funds last year end 99,822 - - 99,822 115,281
Cash funds this year end 103,140 - - 103,140 99,823
----- End of picture text -----

CCXX R1 accounts (SS)

01/12/2023

1

----- Start of picture text -----
Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
Categories Details funds funds funds
to nearest £ to nearest £ to nearest £
B1 Cash funds Cash & Bank 97,780 - -
Long Term Loan 5,000 - -
Accrual 360 - -
Total cash funds 103,140 - -
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s)) OK OK OK
Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
funds funds funds
Details to nearest £ to nearest £ to nearest £
B2 Other monetary assets - - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
Fund to which Current value
Details asset belongs Cost (optional) (optional)
B3 Investment assets - -
- -
- -
- -
- -
Fund to which Current value
Details asset belongs Cost (optional) (optional)
B4 Assets retained for the - -
charity’s own use - -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
Fund to which Amount due When due
Details liability relates (optional) (optional)
B5 Liabilities -
-
-
-
-
Signed by one or two trustees on Date of
Signature Print Name
behalf of all the trustees approval
Katie Cutmore 11/11/2023
Neil Somerville
13/11/2023
----- End of picture text -----

CCXX R2 accounts (SS)

01/12/2023

2

CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examinerfs report on the accounts ••• Section A Independent Examiner's Report ' Report to the trusteesl members of Colchester Operatic Sooety On xcounts for the year ended 31st March 2023 Charlty no (If any) 1198865 Set out on pays one -f6L o I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (Ihe Trust.) for the year ended 31103 12023. Responslbllitles and As the charity truste88 of the Trust. you are responsible for th8 preparation basis of report of the accounts in accordance with th8 requiremènts of the Charities Act 2011 ('the Acr). I report in respect of my examination of the Trust's accounts carrfed out under section 145 ofthe 2011 Act and in carying out my examinatlon, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 14515)(b) of th8 Ad. I have completed my examination. I confimi that no material matters have come to my attention (other than that disclosed below ') in connection with the examination which gNes me cause to believe that in, any material respect.. accounting records were not kept in accordance with Section 130 of the Act or the accounts do nol acu)rd with the accounting records Independent examinerfs Statement I have no COn￿mS and have ¢(xne across no other matter8 in connection with the examination to which attention shoukj be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the aGcounts to be reached. . Please delete the words in the brackets rfthey do not apply. Slgn•d: Date: /z-az Name: Relevant professlonal quallflcatlon(s} or body (If any): cc(¥ Address: 122 Feering Hill, Feering, Colchester, Essex C05 9PY IER October 2018

Section B Disclosure Only complete rf the examiner needs to highlight matters of con￿rn (see CC32, Independent examination of chanty accounts: directions and guidan￿ for examiners). Glve here brlef detall8 of any itsms that the examiner wishes to disc105e. IER October 2018