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2024-03-31-accounts

ANNUAL REPORT

03-Jan-2023 to 31-Mar-2024 Date of Report: January 2025

Charity Name: The Olibob Arts Foundation

Charity Number:

Email address: Registered Address: info@olibob.org.uk 18 Hawkley Drive, Tadley, 1201475 Website: Hants, RG26 3YH, UK www.olibob.org.uk

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Summary ________ 3 Background the Charity and its Purpose _____ 3 Fundraising Highlights _______ 3 Running Costs ________ 4 Grants_____________ 4 Olibob Awards ________ 5 Trustees __________ 5 Charity Website ________ 6 Looking Ahead _________ 6 FINANCIAL SUMMARY_______ 7 Fundraising ________ 7 Grants_________ 7 Running Costs ________ 8 FINANCIAL STATEMENTS ______ 9 Statement of Financial Position ______ 9 INDEPENDENT EXAMINER’S REPORT ____ 10 Respective responsibilities of the trustees and examiner _____ 10 Basis of independent examiner's statement _____ 10 Independent examiner's statement _____ 10 Examiners Comments ___________ 10

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SUMMARY

This is the first official report for The Olibob Arts Foundation , which covers the period from 3[rd] January 2023 through to the 31[st ] of March 2024 (15 months).

Background the Charity and its Purpose

We announced creation of The Olibob Arts Foundation (TOAF) at the memorial service for Oli Williams on 4[th] October 2021, a year after he died, and when it was finally possible to get people together to celebrate his life during the covid pandemic. The trustees were pleased when the Charity Commission granted the Foundation charity status on 3[rd] January 2023.

Oli’s life and career benefitted enormously from his involvement in the performing arts, and he used his life skills and experiences to give back to the arts so that others would benefit. The trustees felt it fitting to continue Oli’s legacy in supporting other young people to benefit from the performing arts. Indeed, performing arts, such as drama, dance, and music benefit young people in many ways, such as providing them with confidence, resilience, and improved communication skills as they prepare for entering the workplace and participating in society.

Our mission is to “ Help Young People to Develop Key Life Skills through the Performing Arts .” We aim to achieve this by filling the vital gap in arts education funding by ensuring that access to the performing arts does not become a luxury only for young people whose parents can afford it. We accomplish this by:

  1. Providing grants or bursaries for drama or theatre projects in England and Wales, with a particular focus on those aged 11-21.

  2. Providing “Olibob Awards” in recognition of young people aged 13-21 who have demonstrated personal growth from drama or music groups, and shown inclusiveness, kindness, care, and support of others.

Fundraising Highlights

The Foundation raised £28,408 in this accounting period, primarily through private donations. Over £6,300 of generous donations were received from several organisations and friends from fundraising activities. We want to thank them again for their valuable support. In addition, we raised £1,960 from the sale of raffle tickets (to win a week’s stay in a holiday cottage), though further donations received during the raffle increased this to £2,500. A special thanks go to the benefactor for the gift of her holiday home for this purpose. The prize winner, a keen amateur

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actor and stage director, was pleased to win the prize and enjoyed his stay in the cottage with his family in September 2024.

Running Costs

None of the trustees take an income, and although the charity’s constitution allows trustees to claim reimbursement of expenses, the running costs in this accounting period were limited to just £200 (primarily website fees and cashless payment fees).

Grants

As the trustees established the charity, their goal was to identify and work with national (England and Wales) and local youth performing arts groups and charities to ensure that grants we award are aligned to our purpose and our grant making policy.

The trustees currently only provide grants to youth performing arts groups and schools, rather than provide their own performing arts services. This allows:

Prior to setting up the charity, the trustees had raised c. £25,000 in Oli’s memory to support two large youth drama projects (London, England and Port Talbot, Wales) that were orchestrated and run by the National Youth Arts Trust (NYAT).

The charity’s purpose is to ensure that the grants we provide support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to develop key skills through access to performing arts classes. They can then put these new skills on their CV and demonstrate them during job interviews etc. This is different from the core purpose of NYAT, which is primarily to help talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds to train in dance, music, and drama. Therefore, we award grants under the condition that the young people are made aware of the importance of

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learning and developing new life skills in the drama groups and that they should feel comfortable in discussing these at an interview etc.

In this accounting period, the Foundation awarded three grants totalling £5,000, all to the Corn Exchange Trust in Newbury to fund different youth performing arts activities.

In addition, £10,500 was accrued in restricted funds to support further grants agreed for the Corn Exchange Trust and NYAT. These funds had been approved by the trustees in this accounting period and are planned to be awarded as part of the grant programme in the next accounting period (March 2024 to March 2025).

Olibob Awards

The Trustees are proud to have awarded four “Olibob Awards” in this accounting period. Each award included an engraved glass trophy and a financial award of £500. Most of the recipients planned to use the financial award to fund performing arts lessons.

At the Trustee meeting on 19[th] December 2023, it was agreed that the £500 monetary award was too high and will be reduced to £250. That said, it was also agreed that an additional discretionary award of an extra £250 could be provided where the recipient has a deserving need, e.g. performing arts school or college fees.

One of the Olibob Award winners

Trustees

Four trustees run the charity. These are:

Mrs Susan Williams – Chair

Mr Joseph Williams – Deputy Chair

Mr Simon Williams – Secretary

Dr Matthew Williams – Treasurer

All four are involved in fundraising and the management of grant allocations, changes, or cost approvals. We meet formally when there are key decisions to be made, and all meetings are minuted.

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New trustees are welcome from those involved closely in youth theatre or performing arts to ensure that our purpose remains fresh and that critical decisions in following our grant making policy are made.

Charity Website

Our website has been a fundamental enabler for TOAF. Following a tender in May 2023, we transitioned our original legacy and static website onto a dynamic and easily editable web platform run by “Charity Hive” in October 2023. This organisation hosts charity websites free of charge, thus saving the c. £300 annual charge made by our previous hosting company (whose charge was paid by one of the trustees). Many thanks go to the software company director, for volunteering his time to manage the tender, shortlisting the preferred suppliers, and managing the transition to the new supplier.

The only charges made by the new website provider are 2% on website donations, and 4% on raffle entries or ticket sales (plus credit card fees on the STRIPE platform).

Looking Ahead

Fundraising is key to the charity’s viability. We counted at least ten key people who have volunteered their time to support us, and the trustees are indebted to them. We are always looking for new and innovative fundraising ideas and need more volunteers to assist.

Moving forward, we plan to try different methods of fund raising. The raffle was extraordinarily successful thanks to the raffle functionality of our website, and the donation of the prize. We will likely repeat this. We will also experiment by running stalls at local summer fetes.

In addition, we have yet to claim gift aid from HMRC on the donations made in this accounting period, and it is estimated that we can claim over £4,000 gift aid on these donations.

We are keen to establish new relationships with local youth performing arts groups. Whilst we have built a great relationship with the trustees of the Corn Exchange Trust in Newbury, to benefit some of the most disadvantaged young people in the West Berkshire area, we plan to spend time approaching other groups in the South of England, so that local donors see the benefit of our charity goals in the local communities.

Simon Williams - Co-Founder and Charity Secretary

Susan Williams - Co-Founder and Charity Chair

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FINANCIAL SUMMARY

Fundraising

We raised £28,408 in this accounting period, primarily through private donations.

Over £6,300 of generous donations were received from several organisations and friends from fund raising activities. We want to thank them for their valuable support, and they include:

Other fundraising activities included

The sale of Raffle tickets to win a stay in a holiday cottage raised £1,960, though further donations received during the raffle increased this to £2,500. A lottery Licence (£40 cost) was required from the local borough council to allow this raffle to take place.

Grants

Three separate grants totalling £5,000 were awarded from the charity funds in this accounting period, all to the Corn Exchange Trust in Newbury, Berkshire. These grants were:

  1. £3,000 to fund youth theatre bursaries (pictured below). As of April 2024, 30 recipients had received full or part bursaries. Feedback from the youth theatre organisers is that the young people attending have benefitted from new friendship groups, increased confidence, increased ability to “fend for themselves” (resilience) and the development of new social skills.

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  1. £1,000 to part fund the “Panto Pay it Forward” scheme. This grant funded 100 places to allow disadvantaged young people to attend the theatre’s Christmas Panto. Indeed, the grant also allowed 25 young carers to attend the performances in December 2023.

  2. £1,000 to allow disadvantaged young people to be able to see two separate theatre productions at the Corn Exchange Theatre for school educational trips. Two more educational shows are planned. This grant allows young people whose parents could not afford the school theatre trip, to attend.

One of the Youth Theatre Productions at The Corn Exchange Theatre, Newbury

Running Costs

Running costs of the charity in this accounting period amounted to just £200, with £160 for the cost of cashless donations (SUMUP service) and website donations (STRIPE service), and £40 for the Borough Council Lottery licence.

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FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

Statement of Financial Position

The table below shows the financial position as of 31[st] March 2024. The bank balance is £23,208 (current account and savings account), but with the accrual to protect committed (restricted) funds, the available balance is £12,708.

DESCRIPTION INCOME OUTGOINGS BALANCE
Donations £26,194
Charitable Activities £1,960
Investments (Interest) £225
Other £29
Grants £5,000
Running Costs £200
TOTAL £28,408 £5,200 £23,208
Accrued funds for grants in next period £10,500
Available funds £12,708

The charity holds no debts or liabilities.

Charity funds are held in :

  1. METRO BANK Community Current Account.

  2. METRO BANK Community Instant Access Account (Interest Paid)

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INDEPENDENT EXAMINER’S REPORT

Respective responsibilities of the trustees and examiner

The charity's trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. It is the independent examiner's responsibility to:

Basis of independent examiner's statement

An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and the comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts and seeking explanations from the trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit, and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a 'true and fair' view, and the report is limited to those matters set out in the statement below.

Independent examiner's statement

In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention (other than that disclosed below*):

Examiners Comments

Details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose are shown below.

The full accounts were examined in Jan 2025 and no comments or problems were disclosed.

----- Start of picture text -----
The Olibob Arts Foundation - Summary of Accounts for Charity Commission Report
Accounting Period: 03-Jan-2023 through to 31-Mar-2024
Balance brought forward £ -
Income Expenditure
Accrued
Unrestricted Restricted Expenditure
Description Funds Funds Description Expenditure (Restricted)
Donations Grants
Bucket Collections £ 1,110.89
Facebook Fundraisers £ 280.31 The Corn Exchange (Newbury) Trust £ 5,000.00
Donations (including those during raffle) £ 24,302.85 Accrued for grant commitments £ 10,500.00
Donations to restricted funds £ 500.00
Charitable Activities
Raffle Tickets - Olibob Website (Stripe) £ 1,960.00 Fees
Cost of Donations (Website & Cashless fees) £ 160.03
Investments Lottery Licence (Local Govt) £ 40.00
Savings Account Interest (Metro Bank) £ 225.90
Other £ -
Gift Aid - Facebook - Gift Aid for donations with PPGF £ 28.75
Income in this period £ 27,908.70 £ 500.00 Total Expenditure £ 5,200.03 £ 10,500.00
Total income during this period £ 28,408.70 All Running costs (Fees) £ 200.03
Balance of Income - This year plus previous periods £ 28,408.70
Less Costs £ 200.03
Less Grants Awarded £ 5,000.00
Net Balance on 31-Mar-2024 to take forward in FY24-25 £ 23,208.67
Available Funds (all less commitments/accruals) £ 12,708.67
Amount in Current Account on 31-Mar-2024 £ 83.17
Amount in Savings Account on 31-Mar-2024 £ 23,125.50
----- End of picture text -----

INDEPENDENT EXAMINER'S REPORT

Independent examiners report to the trustees of The Olibob Arts Foundation

For the Period from 03-Jan-2023 through to 31-Mar-2024

Respective responsibilities of committee and examiner

The charity's committee is responsible for the preparation of the accounts. It is the independent examiner's responsibility to:

a) examine the accounts,

Basis of independent examiner's statement

An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and the comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking explanations from the trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit, and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a 'true and fair' view and the report is limited to those matters set out in the statement below. .

Independent examiner's statement

----- Start of picture text -----
In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention (other than that disclosed below):
a. which gives me reasonable cause to believe that, in any material respect, the requirements:
- to keep accounting records and / or
- to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records have not been met; or
b. to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
 Please delete the words in brackets if they do not apply.
None
Give here brief details of any items that
the examiner wishes to disclose.
Only complete if the examiner needs to
highlight material problems (use a
separate sheet as necessary)
Signed H Fletcher (electronic signature) Date 27/01/2025
Name Mrs Hayley Fletcher
Relevant professional qualification(s) Treasurer for 2403 Air Cadet Squadron from 2015 to present.
or body (if any)
Old Kents Coach House
Baughurst Road Baughurst
Address
Hamphire
Postcode RG26 5LL
----- End of picture text -----

Notes:

An independent examiner is an independent person who is reasonably believed by the trustees of the account to have the requisite ability and practical experience to carry out a competent examination of the accounts.