Chairman’s Report for 2022 - 2023
Generally, I feel that we’ve made a lot of progress over the past 12 months. Whether it’s because we were inactive during the Covid years and felt that we had a lot of making up to do, I don’t know, but we’ve certainly picked up the pace, achieved much and above all, made some great music together. Just to re-cap briefly on our concerts: In November 2022, we settled ourselves back into Holy Trinity Church, having Ann-Louise play the Glazunov Saxophone Concerto with us – not a well-known work by any means, but wasn’t it fun to play? The audience loved it and Ann-Louise played this demanding concerto with great panache. Our Christmas concert followed, with our newly appointed President, Jan Leeming compering the whole show. Helen Brookes’ enthusiastic primary school’s FESIC choir returned to sing with us and Flo’s Folkestone Young Strings group entertained us too, making it a lovely festive family concert. The fact that it was also in Holy Trinity Church made such a difference too. March saw the return of Vincent Barrella, this time playing the Grieg piano concerto. Such a popular piece, which was very well received. We then had an invitation from ‘Folkestone Music’ to take part in their ‘Music in May’ event, which presented an opportunity for us to expand into the wider Folkestone music scene and showcase ourselves to a different audience. This we did by welcoming players of all abilities to come and play alongside us, creating an open workshop and concert of music taken from the BBC Ten Pieces. Feedback on this, largely from parents of our younger players, was very encouraging and thanks must go to Flo for much of the organisation. It did mean, however, that we had to re-adjust concert dates for June/July which is not a good thing when holidays have long been booked, so apologies to those who were adversely affected by this, but many thanks to you all for being so understanding. As I’m writing this report prior to the last concert of this Season, I’m unable to say anything about it, but suffice to say that Flo has really excelled herself in learning the Lalo for us, which is such a difficult piece and I have every confidence in her that she’ll pull it off tremendously! We’ve all put a lot of work into RVW’s London Symphony too and it’s a mammoth piece to end our Season on. No doubt we’ll get all the feedback at the AGM.
Now that we are firmly back in Holy Trinity Church, it’s very pleasing to note that we’re enjoying a very good working relationship with them. They’ve been most accommodating, especially about us having Sunday afternoon concerts, even though we’re usually on a tight time schedule. Following an approach from local Councillor, Dylan Jeffrey after he attended last year’s Leas Cliff Hall concert, he paved the way for us in successfully obtaining Grant Funding from the Council. This was enough to pay for the hire cost of the Church for our three main concerts this Season, plus the cost of purchasing two additional sound screens, which was raised at last year’s
AGM. Parking problems around the Church do unfortunately remain, but this has been alleviated to some extent, now that we have an agreement with the Council to use the nearby Leas Cliff Hall car park, by keeping it open until 11pm on our concert days. The Church are still very much aware of our ongoing wish to have more rows of pews removed at the front, but unfortunately, that’s quite a thorny subject with them in trying to get this approved by the higher powers that be.
As mentioned in my report last year, we did explore the many options available for card reading machines and this has resulted in us purchasing a middle range machine, which operates very successfully when connected to the Church wi-fi. This has meant that our audience have had the option of paying by card at all of our concerts this Season and only a very small percentage of sales is taken by the provider. However, you’ll recall that we increased our ticket pricing last year, so this has very much been offset.
A lot of our non-musical success, which happens behind the scenes, is very much due to our pro-active members of the Committee i.e. our Trustees, to whom I would like to offer my sincere thanks. I’m issuing a separate document prior to the AGM, so that you know who they are and what they do. Belinda continues to be my ‘right arm’ and between us, I think we make a good team, making sure that everything which needs to be done, gets done in the best interests of the orchestra.
The financial accounts for the Year Ending 30[th] April 2023 are still with our Auditor, but we shall have figures available for the AGM, which Mary will comment upon. What I can say about these is that we’ve had a tremendously successful year. Brief pointers from this are as follows:
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We obtained Grant funding from the local Council, to cover the hire cost of Holy Trinity Church for our main three concerts this Season.
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We had a generous sponsor for two of our soloists.
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Hence, we made very good profits on our last three main concerts.
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We increased our member’s subscription last year, as well as increased ticket pricing – and we’ve enlisted more new members.
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We’ve been careful in selecting our repertoire in at least one of our Season’s concerts, which doesn’t need as many guest players.
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We have a much healthier Bank balance.
As a result of all this, I’m extremely pleased to report that we appear to have turned last year’s loss of £2,686 into a handsome profit of around £5,500!
With Belinda managing to increase sales of our 100 Club tickets, this made us a profit of £585 and I’ve no doubt that she’ll be trying very hard to sell all 100 tickets next Season.
Wendy also continues to successfully manage our social media pages on Facebook and Twitter, with our Facebook page now up to 490 followers. This is certainly the way forward in promoting the orchestra and our concerts.
What can I say about Rupert & Flo? They have both truly excelled themselves yet again this last year and our musical success is very much down to their expert direction and leadership. I’m sure I can speak for the whole orchestra in offering them our huge thanks and gratitude.
I mentioned last year that we were experiencing a concern over the storage of all our equipment, owing to our storage situation at that time. The outcome of this has been that we’ve managed to contain everything that was previously in the Metropole garage, in the storage cupboard in the Drama Hall at the Girls School. However, this has meant that we do have limited restrictions on space and it’s therefore imperative that we keep that space tidy, so everything does fit. I therefore urge you to bear this in mind whenever you’re putting things away after a rehearsal. Graham is doing a splendid job in maintaining our concert music stands, although we’ve found recently that spare parts are not so easy to come by, so please make sure that you do look after these stands and if you are using one at rehearsals, please ensure that it is placed back correctly on the stand trolley, with the appropriate screws tightened (but not over-tightened!). Graham has also very kindly stepped in to provide transportation of our equipment – and our hired timps – to/from concerts and we should all be extremely grateful to him for that.
We have another busy Season ahead of us, as you’ve seen from our proposed schedule (copy attached). As usual there will be challenges I’m quite sure of that, but when have we not risen to them? I’m quite certain that we’ll again produce our best efforts and will again enjoy another successful year of making music together.
A final reminder that our new Season will start on Monday 4[th] September.
Derek Kemp FHOS Chairman
July 2023
FOLKESTONE SYMPHONY – Concert Season 2023 2024
Saturday 11[th] November 2023 – 7:30 pm Holy Trinity Church, Folkestone
o Smetana Vltava (The Moldau)
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Bruch Scottish Fantasy
- Soloist: Joo Yeon Sir
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Sibelius Symphony No. 5
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Sunday 10[th] December 2023 – 3 pm
Holy Trinity Church, Folkestone
Family Christmas Concert with Carols
o Hopefully with FESI Choir
- Programme TBA
Saturday 2[nd] March 2024 – 7:30 pm Holy Trinity Church, Folkestone
o Mozart Overture to Cose Fan Tutti OR Don Giovanni o Schumann Piano Concerto in A minor Soloist: Adrian Oldland o Haydn Symphony No. 104
Saturday 15[th] June 2024 – 7:30 pm Holy Trinity Church, Folkestone o Delius The walk to the Paradise Garden (arr. Beecham) o Arutiunian Trumpet Concerto in Ab major Soloist: Sasha Canter o Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2
Saturday 20[th] July 2024 – 7:30 pm Leas Cliff Hall, Folkestone
Prom Concert – Programme TBA
Folkestone and Hythe Orchestral Society Income and Expenditure Account For the year ended 30th April 2023
Note for the sake of clarity and understanding, have included FHOP
| By Income receivable Members less refunds Friends/Patrons Donations Concerts Refreshment sales PayPal/Amazon Sundries 100 Club Add interest received Less Overhead Expenses Zoom Meetings Website costs Honorariums Chairman's Expenses Rent/Hire of School for rehearsals Insurance Music Hire/Replacement PayPal Refreshments 100 Club Concert expenditure total Sundries Sub-total Excess of Income over Expenditure |
6,531.00 £ 1,335.83 £ 1,504.00 £ 10,921.72 £ 146.97 £ 10.00 £ 3,877.97 £ 1,285.00 £ 101.93 £ - £ - £ - £ - £ 397.00 £ - £ 13.00 £ - £ 700.00 £ 1,356.00 £ 17,257.40 £ |
FHOS FHOP 16,600.00 £ 25,612.49 £ 16,600.00 £ 1.52 £ - £ 25,614.01 £ 16,600.00 £ 101.93 £ Companies House - £ Honoraria 7,308.00 £ 7,308.00 £ Travel 408.00 £ 408.00 £ Hire of School 1,750.00 £ 1,750.00 £ 397.00 £ Music Hire 293.50 £ 293.50 £ 13.00 £ - £ 700.00 £ Concerts 7,172.50 £ 8,528.50 £ 17,257.40 £ 19,825.33 £ 16,932.00 £ 5,788.68 £ 332.00 -£ |
Total 42,212.49 £ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.52 £ 42,214.01 £ 36,757.33 £ |
|||
| 5,456.68 £ |
Folkestone & Hythe Orchestral Society Balance sheet as at 30th April 2023
Current Assets
| NatWest Current account FHOS Nat West Reserve account Nat West Current account FHOP Current liabilities Creditors Represented by Balance as at 30th April 2022 Nat West Current account FHOS Nat West Reserve account Nat West Current account FHOP add excess of income over expenditure |
12,522.49 £ 347.19 £ 13.94 £ - £ 6,735.33 £ 345.67 £ 345.94 £ |
12,883.62 £ - £ 12,883.62 £ |
|---|---|---|
| 7,426.94 £ |
||
| 5,456.68 £ |
||
| 12,883.62 £ |
Accountants Report
The above Balance Sheet and attached Income and Expenditure Account have been prepared from the books, records and explainations given to me and is in accordance therewith.
Aldington, Kent 12th July 2023
Roger A Hughes Taxation Consultant