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2024-03-31-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 2024

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 years 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 (COS) for 2023-2024 stood at 118 members at our last AGM (26[th] June 2023) rising to 162 as we came to the end of the year. Our last AGM was

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attended by 34 members. Our youth section (CO2) had 47 members (an increase of 10 members from last year) but many more young people 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/July, 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
Max Woodward Secretary Up until 11thFebruary 2024
Natasha Gadenne Secretary From 11thFebruary 2024
Amy Wilson Business Manager Up until 26thJune 2023
Caroline Fritz Business Manager From 26thJune 2023
Laura Hicks Assistant Secretary
Charlotte Butcher Chair of CO2 (Colchester
Operatic Society Second
Edition: our Youth section)
Safeguarding Lead
Claudia Haswell Committee Member &
Inclusion Lead		 Inclusion lead up until
19thApril 2023,
Trustee for whole year
Andrew Hodgson Vice-Chair
Jessica Bailey Marketing & Events Lead
Rebecca Lee Committee Member &
Inclusion Lead		 Inclusion lead from 19thApril
2023, Trustee up until 11th
February 2024
Wayne Setford Funding Co-ordinator
Valentine Cavanagh-White Committee Member &
Inclusion Lead		 From 19thFebruary 2024

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

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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 99[th] year as Colchester Operatic Society saw us build on the success of last year, through continued 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 continued to see 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 continued support in coming to see our productions and their donations towards our work. Thanks to previous funding and a grant from the Harvey Benham Charitable Trust, we have been able to continue awarding bursaries, which this year included a show fee bursary to 3 applicants over 3 of our productions (My Fair Lady and upcoming productions of Legally Blonde and Some Enchanted Evening), which has enabled members to participate when otherwise they may not have been able to afford to. Thank you also goes to Ellisons Solicitors and The Harvey Benham Charitable Trust, whose generous donations contributed to captioned performances for our CO2 show, School of Rock, and our 2024 production of My Fair Lady. 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 continued 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. I am so pleased to have seen even more new volunteers keen to support our productions backstage over this last year, sharing their expertise and learning through the opportunities we have provided them. It is the continued contribution from our talented, diverse and passionate membership and volunteers along with support from our audiences that will keep our Society thriving into the future. Katie Cutmore Chair of Colchester Operatic Society

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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 “Iconic”, which ran at the Headgate theatre from 14[th] to 17[th] June 2023 with a cast of 21 members performing 98 songs, as part of a variety of medleys from a diverse range of Iconic artists, showcasing the Society’s strength in harmonies/chorus work. The concert concept was devised by Diane Emberton, a Society member, who put together the set list with a hired local creative, Phil Toms, as our Musical Director (MD). Our MD provided cast members 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 putting these together with movement/choreography, displaying fantastic team spirit and enjoyment which translated to the audiences. Unfortunately, due to personal circumstances, Diane was not able to continue as Director for this concert as planned. However, our Chair and concert cast member, Katie Cutmore was able to step in to take on this role part-way through the rehearsal process. She was supported by Society member, Zoe Farrelly, who choreographed some numbers alongside Katie. This concert therefore provided directing and choreography opportunities to these members to further their experience and skills in this area. The cast were all on stage for the majority of the concert as they (or a small group of them for some numbers) were involved in sections of every medley/song. Adding movement on to learning so many songs and harmonies provided our cast with a challenge, which they rose to and benefitted from stretching themselves to achieve a quality performance, which entertained our audiences. Our concert programme available to purchase for audience members, detailed the history of the featured Iconic artists and their songs.

In July we held pre-audition workshops for our production My Fair Lady, which were open to the public, followed by auditions for those interested in joining as members and performing in the show. We had a record attendance to auditions for this show, with 73 auditionees taking part, many of which were new to the Society but had seen recent shows that had inspired them to get involved.

Following auditions, we cast 45 members, which included 9 new members to the Society. Rehearsals began in September running through to the production in January 2024 (see later for more information).

In August we ran a stall at Colchester pride, 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,

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continuing our work on Inclusion, Equality and Diversity by increasing awareness of our work to our diverse local community.

We had 45 CO2 members (aged 9-18) participate in our CO2 production of School of Rock this year, with rehearsals running over a 6-month period from March 2023 through to the performances at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester from 5[th] to 8[th] October 2023. We hired local creatives (Ashton Moore as Musical Director with Laura Hicks and Leah Scott as co-directors) 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. In addition, this show gave 5 young people the unique opportunity to play live instruments on stage, one of which learnt their instrument (bass guitar) from scratch for this show. We had 3 volunteer musicians who supported our young people as instrument mentors, two of which went on to perform in the pit for the show, when we made the decision to move from using backing tracks to using a live band, to support the young people playing live on stage.

The one week run for this show was a success, with cast entertaining full houses for most performances, receiving standing ovations and the show selling 99% of tickets over the whole run (with only 25 seats unsold across the performances). 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 £973.49, which helped meet our production costs. We provided a captioned performance of the show increasing accessibility to our work for the public. The deputy mayor at the time, who is deaf, attended one of our captioned performances and showed great appreciation for the work we continue doing to make our productions more accessible for all. Many of our adult membership supported backstage during the show run of School of Rock, 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.

In October we advertised publicly for creatives to get involved in our next upcoming productions (The Little Mermaid and Legally Blonde), increasing awareness to all about the different roles involved in putting on a production and providing opportunities for local creatives to get involved. We received a number of responses from a variety of creatives, which the trustees then considered, shortlisted and voted on who to appoint in varying roles through a fair and transparent process. The applications received evidenced public awareness of the work we do.

In December, we organised a group of our members, including some of the cast of our production of My Fair Lady, 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 My Fair Lady to those who wanted to know more about our work. Additionally, a small group of our members also sang carols for patients at the stroke unit in our local hospital, facilitated by one of our members who works there.

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We produced “My Fair Lady”, which was performed by our cast of 42 members at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester from 25[th] January to 4[th] February 2024. The number of cast reduced during the rehearsal process as some cast members’ withdrew due to changes in personal circumstances. We hired local creatives (Geoff Osborne as Musical Director, Claire Carr as Director and Holly Bird 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. For this show, cast were used extensively for scene changes allowing for seamless transitions and a smooth-running show, commented on positively by many audience members. This was a steep learning curve for the cast involved, who rose to the challenge, and this provided insight and first-hand experience into the role of our backstage volunteers that support with scene changes.

Due to the period this show was set and the Director’s vision, this show required a lot of wigs and some facial hair pieces. We recruited a volunteer who had a degree in hair and make-up for media and performing arts and she was able to create her own facial hair pieces bespoke for the cast members who required them. She gave up her time and expertise for free to gain further experience in theatrical hair and make-up work. Several My Fair Lady auditionees who were not successful in being cast in the show supported as part of our backstage team, learning new skills and gaining an insight into other areas of musical theatre. In addition, we had a young volunteer ask to join our backstage team for this show only a week before we got into the theatre. By the start of the dress rehearsal he was stepping into the follow spot role, due to the original follow spot volunteer becoming injured outside of our activities. This is something he had not done before but guided by our experienced follow spot volunteer, he learnt a new skill and did a fantastic job.

We provided two captioned performances of the show, again increasing accessibility to our work for the public. Our talented cast performed to full audiences with 85% of tickets being sold across the production run, with some standing ovations and great audience reactions and reviews. 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 £1616.95, 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.

After My Fair Lady, we moved onto auditions for our centenary concert “Some Enchanted Evening”, which is set to take place at the Mercury Theatre 21[st] June 2024. This is a one night only gala concert celebrating 100 years of Colchester Operatic

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Society and features past COS/CO2 members as returning guest performers alongside our cast and a guest slot from the CO2 cast of Legally Blonde. This production is being coordinated by a select group of trustees, including Neil Somerville as our concert MD. In March 2024, we had a variety of current, new and returning members audition to be part of this concert, including some existing CO2 members. We cast 44 members following 4 audition dates. During these auditions our MD gave auditionees some notes for improving their audition performance and a second chance to perform their audition, taking on board these notes, using the auditions as a teaching and learning opportunity for these members. We saw evidence that our production of My Fair Lady had succeeded in raising awareness to the public, when new members joining our concert cast cited seeing our production of My Fair Lady as one of the reasons they got involved. We have also continued to receive emails from members of the public asking to get involved behind the scenes for future shows.

In March we had 132 young people (aged 11 to 23 years old) attend our singing, acting and dancing pre-audition workshops for our next CO2 production of Legally Blonde, set to be performed at the Mercury theatre, Colchester in October 2024. This resulted in 45 young people (aged 11 to 23 years old) being cast for the show, with rehearsals starting at the end of March, led by hired creatives, Rob Miles as Musical Director, Matt Jewson as Director and Sarah James as Choreographer. 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 centenary concert cast continue to rehearse leading up to the performances at the Mercury Theatre on 21[st] June. We are excited to be heading into our 100[th] year and will be unveiling new Society logos for the occasion. We are set to hold auditions for our next production, The Little Mermaid, on 7[th] July (with pre-auditions on 27[th] June). The audition panel will invite auditionees to audition for specific parts at the Principal auditions on 21[st] July (with a pre-audition rehearsal on 15[th] July). Invites will be based on ensemble auditions alongside requests to be considered for specific roles on audition forms. In addition, for this production we are looking for two children/young people to play Flounder (as we are dual-casting the role) with initial auditions for this on 17[th] July (pre-auditions on 4[th] July) followed by a call-back audition on 21st July. We have hired creatives to lead and support our future cast with Adam Woodhouse as Director, Laura Hicks as Assistant Director and Neil Somerville as Musical Director. Their vision for the show will involve flying Ariel and having some key characters working in Heelys on stage, providing additional learning opportunities for our cast and crew. It will run at the Mercury Theatre from 31[st] January to 9[th] February 2025. Our CO2 production, Legally Blonde will continue with rehearsals culminating in the show run at the Mercury Theatre from 24[th] to 27[th] October 2024. We hope to explore providing additional musical theatre opportunities for young people in our community in

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the future, after seeing just how many want to be involved in our work following the last two CO2 show audition numbers.

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, workshop/audition fees for our youth section 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 £116,396.77 , which included:

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Overall, this year we made a surplus of £17,357.36.

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/a surplus and accept that some productions will make losses

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whilst others will make profits/a surplus. 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 budget for a 2-week production at the Mercury Theatre, comes in around £90,000-£100,000 (depending on individual show costs/requirements). Whilst some costs relating to theatre hire are taken directly out of our show income by the theatre prior to the settlement payment being made to us, there are many costs being incurred before we receive any income from ticket sales.

On 31[st] March 2024, Colchester Operatic Society held £120,137.32 in reserve.

The Colchester Officers Club (another local organisation, who we previously had a close working relationship with) held £5000 of these financial assets, which was loaned to them in 2008. They have paid back £1000 of this loan this year on an agreed payment plan, so we expect to see further payments from them in the future until this is paid back to us. They now hold £4000 of our financial assets.

Our decision to run the CO2 show for one week was successful in ensuring we met our costs and ensured our young cast got to perform to nearly sold-out audiences. We plan to continue this structure for the short-term, whilst it proves successful and ensures the viability of producing shows at the Mercury Theatre for our youth group.

When we got into the theatre for our production of My Fair Lady, we were at 69% sales (not enough to meet our costs) but this rose to 74% on opening night and by the end of the show run we had 85% tickets sold, which according to our show budget meant our income would meet our production costs. Due to some costs being actually lower than expected in our budget, the show ended up making a surplus, going some way to cover previous losses during productions in previous financial years.

This year has seen a surplus, but the trustees recognise there is no guarantee this will continue show to show or year on year. However, this surplus goes straight back into the work we do, and if we continue gaining reserves in the future, these will be spent on areas of growth for the Society to be able to achieve more towards our charitable objectives.

The rising costs of staging such large high-quality productions means we need high % ticket sales to break-even so it’s vital we continue to adapt show budgets to spend on the areas that have the most impact for the specific show and our audiences and provide continued learning and performing experiences for all involved, whilst saving in other areas. Whilst we have previously committed to gaining external funding in order to

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provide accessible performances (e.g. captioning/signing), the trustees have reflected on the need for accessibility to continue, even if we are not able to gain extra funding, and have therefore decided that this will remain a fixed feature in our show budgets going forwards.

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 ticket prices, production choices, venues used and dates productions are planned for, adapting as necessary and as funds allow.

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COLCHESTER OPERATIC SOCIETY COLCHESTER OPERATIC SOCIETY 1198865
Receipts and payments accounts CC16a
For the period
from		 01/04/2023 To 31/03/2024
Section A Receipts and payments Section A Receipts and payments
Unrestricted
funds		 Restricted
funds		 Endowment
funds		 Total funds Last year
to the nearest
£		 to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
A1 Receipts
VoluntaryIncome 115,246 - - 115,246 111,928
Donations 137 - - 137 1,151
Bank Interest 1,013 - - 1,013 82
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
- - - - -
Sub total(Gross income for
AR)		 116,397 - - 116,397 113,161
A2 Asset and investment sales,
(see table).
- - - -
-
 - - - -
Section A Receipts and payments Section A Receipts and payments Section A Receipts and payments
A1 Receipts Unrestricted
funds
to the nearest
£
115,246
137
1,013
-
-
-
-
-

116,397		 Restricted
funds
to the nearest £
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-		 Endowment
funds
to the nearest £
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-		 Total funds
to the nearest £
115,246
137
1,013
-
-
-
-
-
116,397		 Last year
to the nearest £
VoluntaryIncome 115,246 111,928
Donations 137 1,151
Bank Interest 1,013 82
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
Sub total(Gross income for
AR)
116,397		 113,161
A2 Asset and investment sales,
(see table).		 -
-		 -
-		 -
-
- - - -
- - - - -
Sub total - - - - -
Total receipts
A3 Payments
113,161

Charitable Activities		 95,290 107,028
AccountancyCost 600 360
Insurance 890 606
Admin Costs 2,259 1,849
- -
- -
- -
- -
**Sub total ** 99,039 109,844
A4 Asset and investment
purchases, (see table)
-
-
**Sub total ** - -
Total payments
Net of receipts/(payments)
A5 Transfers between funds
A6 Cash funds last year end
Cash funds this year end
109,844
17,357 17,357 3,318
- - -
103,140 103,140 99,822
120,497 120,497 103,140

CCXX R1 accounts (SS)

30/12/2024

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Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
Categories
B1 Cash funds
B2 Other monetary assets
B4 Assets retained for the
charity’s own use
B5 Liabilities
B3 Investment assets		 Details
Details
Cash & Bank
Long Term Loan
Accrual
Details
Details
Total cash funds
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))
Details		 Unrestricted
funds
to nearest £
116,137
4,000
360
120,497
OK
Unrestricted
funds
to nearest £
-
-
-
-
-
-
Fund to which
asset belongs
Fund to which
asset belongs
Fund to which
liability relates		 Restricted
funds
to nearest £
-
-
-
-
OK
Restricted
funds
to nearest £
-
-
-
-
-
-
Cost (optional)
-
-
-
-
-
Cost (optional)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Amount due
(optional)
-
-
-
-
-		 Endowment
funds
to nearest £
-
-
-
-
OK
Endowment
funds
to nearest £
-
-
-
-
-
-
Current value
(optional)
-
-
-
-
-
Current value
(optional)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
When due
(optional)
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees		 Signature Print Name
Katie Cutmore
Neil Somerville		 Date of
approval
Katie Cutmore 25/11/2024
Neil Somerville 25/11/2024
CCXX R2 accounts (SS) 2 30/12/2024

CCXX R2 accounts (SS)

Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Report to the trustees/ Charity Name members of Colchester Operatic Society On accounts for the year 31[st] March 2024 Charity no 1198865 ended (if any) Set out on pages One and Two (remember to include the page numbers of additional sheets)

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 31 / 03 / 2024 .

I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examiner's statement come to my attention (other than that disclosed below *) in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

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

Signed: Date: 02/0 1 /2025 Name: Vincent Mellett Relevant professional FCCA qualification(s) or body (if any): Address: 122 Feering Hill, Feering Colchester, Essex CO5 9PY

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October 2018

IER

Section B Disclosure Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).

Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .

2

October 2018

IER