2025-08-31-accounts - Fordingbridge Choral Society

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FORDINGBRIDGE CHORAL SOCIETY

Registered Charity Number 1199533

President: Chris Dowie

Trustees’ Annual Report for the Year ended 31[st] August, 2025

The Trustees of Fordingbridge Choral Society present their report for the year ended 31[st] August 2025.

The Society’s activities are governed by a committee of trustees, who are elected by the members at the Annual General Meeting. Trustees serve for three-year terms of office, and stand down by rotation at each Annual General Meeting. They are eligible for re-election.

Trustees during the year:

Rowena Padel (Chair, Soprano Rep and Digital Publicity) Ian Gates (Secretary) Peggy Jackson (Treasurer) Ian Turner Jane Calver (Publicity) Angela Cox (Librarian) Colin Burt (Tenor Rep and media publicity) Robert Gemmell (Bass Rep) Rose Heathcote (resigned 18 June 2025) Carol Larkins (Alto Rep)

Musical Director : Nigel Edwards

The trustees and Musical Director met seven times during the year, in order to organize the programme of activities, and monitor the Society’s progress towards its objectives.

Objectives

The objects of the Society are to advance, improve, develop and maintain public education in, and appreciation of, music in all its aspects. The trustees seek to do this chiefly through local concert performances of choral music from the classical repertoire, enhanced by the participation of professional musicians. The Society actively encourages local people to become involved, through ‘Come & Sing’ events, and the recruitment of new members. It raises funds chiefly through members’ subscriptions and the sale of concert tickets.

Activities and Achievements

The following events made up the programme for this year:

Winter Concert, including ‘The Messiah’, in St Mary’s Church, Fordingbridge
Carols at Salisbury Hospital, and Carol Concerts at Redlynch Church and,

with local schoolchildren, at the URC Church in Fordingbridge

Spring Concert, with music by Mozart and the Haydn brothers, in St Mary’s Fordingbridge
‘Come & Sing’, Jenkins ‘Stella Natalis and Rheinberger ‘Stabat Mater’, in the Victoria Rooms, Fordingbridge.

Registered Address: 14 Ashford Close, Fordingbridge, Hampshire. Sp6 1DH

The concerts were well-supported by local audiences, although the Society continues to have to work hard to recruit new members to make an active commitment to become involved.

In October 2024, the Society received a legacy gift of £28,834 from the estate of Pauline Umfreville, a well-known former member of the choir, which, after consultation with members, the trustees decided to use to support the continuing pattern of choir activity over the next few years. In gratitude, the Spring Concert was dedicated in Pauline’s memory.

For a second year, the Society was awarded grant funding from Chorali Fiscus, and was pleased to use those funds to commission a new carol ‘Yet One Voice Sings’ (music by Paul Carr, words by Stephen Feltham), which will be performed as a world premiere in November 2025.

In January 2025, the Society moved its weekly practices to the hall of the Fordingbridge Catholic Church, and in August purchased a portable keyboard, to enable more flexible and reliable accompaniment.

By popular decision, in January 2025, the Society was pleased to appoint Christopher Dowie as our President.

Financial Review

The accounts for the year reflected the exceptional receipt of the legacy from Pauline Umfreville’s estate, and the Chorali Fiscus grant award, in showing a surplus of receipts over payments, of £25,630.

The Committee has taken the decision to use the legacy to subsidise the regular life of the Society for the next few years, allowing also for an increase in fees paid to the Musical Director, and Accompanist. Members were reminded that the effect of this has been to postpone, and not eliminate, a future time when the Society’s finances will require substantial restructuring, unless substantial sources of additional income are found.

The accounts were examined By John Spalton, and there were no matters requiring exceptional report.

12 November 2025

Registered Address: 14 Ashford Close, Fordingbridge, Hampshire. Sp6 1DH

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