OpenCharities

This text was generated using OCR and may contain errors. Check the original PDF to see the document submitted to the regulator.

2023-04-30-accounts

People’s Company Charity No. 1199022 Trustee Annual Report

Purpose of the charity

The advancement of the arts and the education of the public in the appreciation and understanding of performing arts in all their forms, through the operation, facilitation and management of People’s Company theatre for the public benefit.

Activities

The Company has continued to develop this year in its productions, its ethos of empowering and up-skilling members, its management structure and a most significant move was obtaining charitable status by becoming a CIO in May 2022. Achieving CIO status made us reconsider strengthening the management structure of People’s Company to ensure more involvement by its members and greater support for the Artistic Director. After much debate and consideration, the Trustees agreed to form an Operating Committee under the aegis of the Artistic Director, with members of the company appointed to the board with each position formalised by written job descriptions and an organisation chart. One Trustee will join the committee as Treasurer, with another appointed as the Safeguarding/Wellbeing member. This will give members more involvement in the running of People’s Company, which will enhance its structure, together with providing new skills for members on running such a company. It is anticipated that the new organisation will be in place by the late Autumn of 2023 and fully functional by the new year.

Arts-based activities are at the heart of People’s Company. We seek to provide a creative voice and platform for the people of Southwark utilising our rich cultural heritage to develop arts and drama-based community activities, produced and performed locally in Southwark. The three areas we worked on during the year were as follows (with Bermondsey Revolution and the Ada Salter celebration taking up most of the attention):

  1. People’s Company was fully involved in Bermondsey’s Ada Salter Centenary celebrations which took place throughout the year. Bermondsey Revolution, a play specifically written for the celebration, with music also written solely for this production, sold out 3 nights at the new Southwark Playhouse. Members of the cast were involved in all aspects of this multimedia musical, involving drama, music and filming and also as part of the other celebrations in and around Bermondsey. It was a huge task, involving many moving parts with people from outside the Company and it was an excellent learning process for many members, some of whom had never acted either on a stage or in the community before.

  2. A new move for PC is the Outreach project, where members of the Company have been trained as facilitators to run 6 differing groups from the community for an event to be staged at Southwark Playhouse. The training has just been undertaken and this project will be fully reported on in the next annual report, but it is hoped that the community groups will include people who have never considered acting before or indeed not considered writing and telling their stories.

  3. Also in progress is a series of short plays and monologues written, directed and performed by PC members. This is a continuation of an earlier project, to build on writing and directing skills for members and to encourage newcomers to consider whether they can write as well as being a cast member. Preparations began just prior to the end of the financial year and will be performed in August 2023.

We believe we obtained our objective by providing community theatre opportunities for people in Southwark. Bermondsey Revolution was, on its own, a big project to undertake, as it included writing, drama, music, filming plus interaction with a school, also to produce a film. The response from the audiences on 3 sell-out nights was extremely favourable, all of whom joined in the singing when instructed, and Southwark Playhouse management were also impressed by the sell-out performances. It is hoped that the Outreach project, which has just got into training mode, will reach people who “do not consider theatre as anything to do with them”. This is very much the intent of the project; to show how drama can help improve lives, build confidence, give people a voice and enjoy themselves whilst working hard. Several people from the Company moved on to work on their own projects and, whilst we were sorry to see them go, it is fantastic that they have gained in confidence and feel ready for new challenges. This allowed eight new members to join the company, many of whom had never acted before, and were pitched into rehearsals straight away, as Bermondsey Revolution was cast as they joined.

Finance

As usual, most of our income came from funders such as local charities or local community funds, but in this financial year we received our first funds from performances at Southwark Playhouse, which was tremendously exciting for a small community drama group, especially as it frees us up to promote more community drama work (as all our monies are spent on productions) since this income is not restricted by funders’ requirements. We have this year some restricted funds to carry over, as the Outreach project will not fully start until the Summer of 2023.

Trustees

Sadly one of our Trustees had to stand down due to other commitments. We are actively looking to recruit a replacement.

(People’s Company Trustees

Annual report to the Charity Commission 2022/2023)

AGM 2023, Chair’s report

The Company has continued to develop this year in its productions, its ethos of empowering and up-skilling members, its management structure and a most significant move was obtaining charitable status by becoming a CIO in May 2022.

The CIO status has led us to a great deal of reflection and work, over the past year, on formulating and formalising the structure of People’s Company. The original work was enhanced by feedback from an evening with the Trustees and members of the Committee and thoughts afterward. This was greatly appreciated and very much added to our perspective.

The Trustees have therefore agreed to form an Operating Committee, with job descriptions and reporting lines prepared for each role on the OpCom. John Whelan, our Artistic Director,has been appointed to the dual role of OpCom Chair and Artistic Director. In line with the Charity Commission requirements, one of our Trustees will join the OpCom as Treasurer and one will hold responsibility for all Safeguarding issues. The new structure will be issued to the full Company shortly after the AGM and all roles will be open to all members to apply. We hope to be fully reorganised by Autumn. We aim to use all members’ talents and experience to move the company forward, to continue to upskill members and allow ownership of our company, People’s Company.

We are very grateful to all our Committee members for their input into the new OpCom structure and also for the work done by Steve Lancashire, who very sadly had to stand down as a Trustee.

We had 8 new members join this year, as some people stood down to concentrate on their own projects. As the waiting list is quite extensive, we ran a workshop for 15 of those people, to give them a taste of a session. We encourage all on the list, to attend productions, particularly to gain an understanding of what it is like to work in an ensemble.

John will talk more fully about the year’s productions, so I will just mention some highlights:

● The three performances of Bermondsey Revolution were sold out in the new Southwark Playhouse, which pleased the Playhouse enormously, as it did us! The story of Ada and Alfred Salter - a multimedia musical - encompassing not just drama and music from PC, but input from a school and film clips from Lynn Morris, together with being the 2nd show in a new theatre, was a mixed blessing and we appreciate John steering the company very competently. We were also fortunate to be part of Bermondsey’s Ada Salter Centenary celebrations in the conducted animated walks around key sites.

● A very exciting new development for PC is the Outreach project, where PC members are working with 6 different groups in the community for 6 weeks to stage a showcase evening at the Playhouse. This project started prior to the end of our financial year and PC members have now been trained as group facilitators and will move into the next phase over the summer months.

● 10:59, a series of short plays and monologues written, directed and performed by PC members, also began just prior to the end of the financial year and will be performed in August.

So throughout the year, we continued to build on our success in upskilling members’ writing and directing talents, further develop street performance skills and added the new facilitation skills for the Outreach Project. We hope to be able to continue and evolve over the current year.

We were deeply saddened by the death of Jackie Kearns after a long illness and by the sudden recent death of Peter Wright. Both had enriched the life of the Company; Jackie by her acting, her writing of monologues and her play Bermondsey Summers; Peter by his imaginative sets, lighting and sound both within the theatre and on our animated walks. They are sorely missed.

I would like to express heartfelt thanks on behalf of the Committee and the Trustees to John Whelan, our Artistic Director, for all that he has done for the Company this year and the support he so generously gives to every member. Finally, I want to thank the Committee members for their enthusiasm, commitment and energy in the variety of tasks they have done to move People’s Company forward this year.

Mina Temple

26the June 2023

Chair’s report (Needs to include):

Treasurer’s report

(needs to include)

Policies required

People's Company Annual Accounts (22-23, year end 30 April 23)
b/f cash from year 21-22 149.37
Assets (Cash) 149.37
Assets, debts, liabilities, payroll, etc. 0.00
Total Assets 149.37
Income
Southwark Playhouse box office receipts for 9:59 1,027.50
Donation by N. Roche 100.00
United St. Saviours - Ada Salter Project 3,000.00
Arnold Clark 1,000.00
Animating the Community Elefest contribution 1,050.00
London Community Outreach project 9,905.00
Southwark Playhouse box office receipts for Bermondsey Revolution 2,615.55
Annual income 18,698.05 18,698.05
Repayments/payments inward
AS props advance excess 87.79
Friends of Pasley Park: 3 months share of zoom 32.50
Kaleidoscope: 6 months share of zoom 65.00
Total repayments/payments 185.29 185.29
External payments via PC
AS merchandising payment to Mr. & Mrs. Graham 369.75 (369.75)
Outgoings
PC Online Activities:
Voucher prizes payment 220.00
Total PC online 220.00 (220.00)
9:59
Rehearsal space 250.00
Comp Tickets 30.00
Props 10.00
Project Management 400.00
Total 9:59 690.00 (690.00)
Bermondsey Revolution:
Script development 180.00
Research documents/books 43.27
Rehearsal rooms, Cherry Gardens 300.00
rehearsal zoom 115.12
Props/costume 579.50
Props and filming transportation 248.65
Set design/manufacture 410.00
Technician at playhouse 900.00
Marketing 263.70
Project Development and direction 2,000.00
Total Bermondsey Revolution 5,040.24 (5,040.24)
Outreach Project
Flyer design 60.00
Rehearsal space 40.00
flyer printing 32.98 (132.98)
Admin/General
Annual insurance 191.94
zoom 205.41
Website 135.00
print supplies/bus. cards 35.93
Total Admin 568.28 (568.28)
Ada Salter merchandising payment (369.75)
PC online total outgoings (220.00)
Total 9:59 outgoings (690.00)
Bermondsey Revolution total outgoings (5,040.24)
Outreach project (132.98)
Admin outgoings (568.28)
Total outgoings YTD (7,021.25) (7,021.25)
Annual income 18,698.05
Repayments/payments 185.29
Total outgoings (7,021.25)
b/f cash from previous year 149.37
Cash on hand 12,011.46
Reserved funding (Outreach project) (9,772.02)
Unrestricted cash on hand 2,239.44
Approved at AGM on 5 July 2023
Chair (Mina Temple)
Treasurer (Shelagh Farren)