## **Open Word UK: Trustees Annual Report** ## **1. The objects of the Charitable Incorporated Organisation (“the CIO”) are:** _The advancement of the Christian religion for the public benefit, by the provision of accessible resources of religious content, with a particular focus on an audio Bible_ ## **Activities and achievements:** - The main project worked on is Her Audio Bible UK - 16 women from across the UK have given their time to record the New Testament of the NIV2011 (with rights granted by Biblica) translation of the Bible for the first time in women’s voices from a wide range of backgrounds and in a diverse range of accents. - For the first time, British women have heard the Bible read in voices that sound like them. Only 1% of the 1000s of audio Bibles recorded across the world have been voiced by women. - The work is continuing as we look to record the Old Testament. - The work is being uploaded to the Digital Bible Library, which means the work can be used by other charities and communities for free. For example, a charity that creates audio resources for those with visual impairment. Vineyard UK have requested to use the audio on their own app, reaching 25,000 people in the first year. Bible Society UK have requested to use the audio on their app to be released next year. - In communication with charities such as Restored UK, we know that there is a significant need for Christian audio resources in UK women’s voices. Both men and women who have experienced abuse benefit from a woman’s voice over a male voice reading Scripture. ## **Financial overview:** ## **OPEN WORD UK** ## **Financial Statement for the period ended 05 April 2024** ## Notes These financial statements have been prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, using a Receipts and Payments basis. November 2024 These financial statements were approved by the Trustees on 28[th] ## **Governance and management:** Trustees and key personnel. - Katherine Jane Partridge for 4 years - Susan Caroline Houston for 3 years - Peter Richard Vivian Houston for 2 years - Joanna Mary Swinney for 4 years ( **Treasurer:** Peter Houston **Chair:** Katherine Partridge **Changes in governance:** Joanna Swinney is stepping down and we will be appointing two more trustees – Laura Bechervaise and Ben Grist) ## **Future plans:** - Our priorities this year are to upload our audio of the New Testament to the Digital Bible Library and to collaborate with Biblica to sublicence the audio using the NIV 2011 translation to applicants. - The hope is that rather than being only accessible on our website, the audio recordings of Her Audio Bible UK will be made available to millions worldwide on the digital audio app YouVersion, but more importantly, available to specific charities and organisations in the UK. ## **Challenges:** - Those of us who are producing the content are volunteers with full time jobs, and so finding the time and energy to apply for funding and remaining consistent with the very time costly work of communication with volunteers and production of high-quality audio recordings is of course a challenge. - The future of AI may mean many human audio recordings of texts will be replaced by AI. We believe the Bible should be read with the true spiritual expression of humans and therefore our work, although costly and time consuming, is worth, and will always be worth it, and in demand. Indeed the trend for podcasts is becoming more and more towards, unfiltered, natural and authentic sound. Last minutes from Trustees meeting: Her Audio Bible UK trustees meeting 7.30pm Thursday 28 November 2025 Zoom Minutes Present: Katy, Peter, Anna, Laura, Sam, Susie Apologies: Ben 1. Opening prayer – Anna 2. Review of previous minutes - a. Katy met with Bible Society - b. Katy in touch with Biblica - c. Still need to re-record Acts - d. Charity commission - e. Registration certificate – LB to get or pass on login details - i. Update trustee details - f. Katy met with Bekah Legg- Director of Restored. V interested, personal circumstances meant it’s quiet, will reconnect when appropriate - g. Meeting happened with OT readers. V enthusiastic- Whatsapp group set up to connect the readers _3._ Bible Society- meeting with Stud. Bible Society creating their own digital app. David Suchet version and Her Bible version. Digital Bible library- we upload our stuff, then Bible Society can receive requests and will seek our permission to use the resource. Katy needs to ask permission whether Biblica need to license the… _Obviously before considering their generous offer, I need to check with you, whether you think it might be possible for us to sublicense the work to Bible Society UK, and would our licence agreement also allow for the work to be distributed to reputable charities/ organisations in the UK?_ _I recently reached out to the UK Bible Society, and they are really keen to collaborate with us in a couple of ways. They have offered to help upload our audio to the Digital Bible Library and because of their connections are really well suited to recommend to us which UK charities/ organisations would be suitable to share our audio with. But what is really exciting to us is that the UK Bible Society are in the process of creating their own audio Bible app, which, unlike You Version, would only contain UK voices and they would like Her Audio Bible UK to be the alternative to the David Suchet recording of the NIV._ Benefit is that there is an end point- Bible Society more expert in digital/advertising/social media etc ## **Are we happy for Katy to go ahead with Bible Society- yes!** ## 4. Funding opportunities to explore: Lectionary = Stuart https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charitysearch/?p_p_id=uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_Charit yDetailsPortlet&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=maximized&p_p_mode=view &_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortle t_regId=1168500&_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_Ch arityDetailsPortlet_subId=0 https://howgreatthouartofficial.com/ melanie@stuarthinetrust.com Go and meet them - they are in bridgewater https://missionassist.org.uk/services/grants/small-grants/ Up to 600 Evangelical alliance have a page on website. https://www.eauk.org/list-of-grant-making-trusts-and-organisationsthat-are-taking-applications-from-christian-charities justsow.org Katy to put together a covering letter to go to each charity (and then we can tweak where there’s time). ## 5. Recordings- Katy & Anna to meet in Jan to discuss recordings 6. Next trustee meeting in February