**MILTON KEYNES FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS**
## **ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS**
**For the Year Ending 30 June 2025**
## **LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION**
The Milton Keynes Festival of the Arts (The Festival) is an unincorporated Association registered with the Charity Commission (Registered Number 293601).
The Festival operates in accordance with a constitution dated June 1968. Under this constitution, the Trustees are the Officials for the time being, made up of a Chair, Vice Chair, Honorary Secretary and Honorary Treasurer. Management of the Festival is vested in the General Committee consisting of the Officials together with other members all being elected annually at an Annual General Meeting.
## **Trustees**
The trustees for the year under review have been:
## **Vice Presidents**
Adrian Boynton Jocelyn Lord (resigned November 2025)
**Chair** Pat Haig (resigned November 2025) **Secretary** Janice Hughes **Treasurer** Christine Taylor FCA
**Music and Drama Dance** Alistair Haig (resigned November 2025) Adam Scott Lewis Michael Guy (app’d November 2024) Keeva Buckley Gina Sharp (app’d November 2024) Kerry Bright (resigned November 2024) Michelle Okowa (app’d November 2024) Keeley Robertson Adrian (Ka Wing) Ho (app’d November 2024) Claire Wilson (app’d November 2024) Isabelle de Sousa (app’d November 2024) Nick Harper (app’d November 2024) Eloise Ferry Leanne Hughes (app’d November 2024)
Trustees are generally appointed from volunteers who have experience in the Festival movement. Briefing is provided by the section heads in their duties and they are given training in the Festival’s child protection policies.
## **Affiliation**
The Festival is a member festival of the British and International Federation of Festivals. The Dance section is also a qualifying event for the All England Dance competition, and regularly sponsors dancers to compete in the UK Young dancer competition.
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## **Auditors**
Formal audit is not required by virtue of the limited financial turnover. Independent examination of the financial accounts is carried out by:
Andrew Paul ACA 15 Parsons Close, Church Crookham, Fleet, Hampshire, GU52 6HL
## **Bankers**
Charities Aid Foundation, National Westminster Bank, 25 Kings Hill, 501 Silbury Boulevard, West Malling Saxon Gate East Kent Milton Keynes ME19 4JQ MK9 3ER
## **AIMS OF THE ORGANISATION**
The object of the festival, as set out in the constitution, is to advance the education of the public in the Arts and in particular the Arts of Music, Speech and Drama, and Dance in all their branches.
In furtherance of its objects it has powers to:
- 1 hold or promote annual competitive festivals;
- 2 present and promote public performances, concerts and recitals;
- 3 affiliate to the British and International Federation of Festivals and to further the objects of that Federation.
## **OBJECTIVES AND ACHIEVEMENTS**
The Festival takes place each year between February and March and consists of three separate section events, Dance, Music, and Speech and Drama in pursuit of the charity’s educational objective. The Festival is primarily structured around the needs of children and young people who account for over 90% of its entrants. It aims to develop an audience and support for the performing arts by encouraging parents, friends and the public to attend at its events. In addition, it may offer a number of classes for adult, amateur performers of any age.
The Festival may present workshops, to assist artistic development, and concerts, which severally promote the festival, give entrants a more structured performance opportunity and act as a showcase for their talents.
Within this structure, the committee seeks to provide an environment for performers which is supportive, encouraging, does not expose them to feelings of failure and, insofar as the festival is competitive, has rules necessary to ensure fairness and applies them. Opportunities for young people to by perform in public can be very limited. Artistic development cannot be fully satisfied only by taking examinations.
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## **FINANCIAL RESULTS**
Income was slightly down, but remains strong. Although dance suffered from the AED qualification cycle, entries were still healthy. Music and Drama sections are not profitable as such, but are supported by the success of the Dance section. A profit was made overall.
Catering costs continue to increase in all sections. The provision of reasonable catering is essential, given the long days worked by adjudicators and volunteers. In 2025 less of the offering was provided by volunteers and more bought in from a professional caterer.
Our use of technology is also critical. In Dance we use an on-line entry system provided by All England Dance, which offers the ability not only to manage entries but also to co-ordinate timetables and play music for the individual performances. In a qualifying year this also means that the clerical task of co-ordinating qualification information is removed. The system is paid for by a three-year licence fee (£850) and a levy per performance (2025 £805, 2024 £1,354). The Music and Drama sections use an online entry system provided by Mushrum Ltd and billed annually (2025 £568, 2024 £526).
AED kindly loan laptops and iPads for use with the Connect system, and in 2025 we also invested in a festival laptop for use with the Connect system.
All sections now have the use of SumUp card machines. These enable audience members to pay for tickets and other purchases electronically. This has had the unintentional side effect of encouraging more audience members to enter the auditorium, increasing footfall in the Music and Drama audiences, and of facilitating the purchase by parents of lanyards for solo dancers and of lanyards and medals for groups which are placed, which we do not provide for free.
## **RESERVES AND PUBLIC BENEFIT**
Our reserves remain healthy. Venues and adjudicators all have to be booked in advance and expect to be paid even if an event has to be cancelled. The reserves at the balance sheet date would enable us to meet these costs without any income arising. The Music section also needs to be able to cover the cost of piano hire and tuning if we were to lose our major sponsor, Kawai UK Ltd.
The Trustees are confident that sufficient reserves have been built up to enable them to meet any costs or lost revenue that may arise from a hiatus in their events.
In 2025 we again applied for and received the Body of Persons Approval (BOPA) which obviates the need for individual child licences in all three sections.
The committee has considered the guidance issued by the Charity Commission on the provision of public benefit. Charity law requires the use of the Festival’s funds to further the charitable objectives of the festival to be considered by the trustees each year. The Committee will continue each year to consider how best to use these surplus funds to achieve the charity’s objective in the future.
Dance has recently increased our place medals to the first four places. This differs from many Federation festivals, but does mean that a number of entrants who in past years would have
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ended outside the medal placings were able to take away a more significant souvenir. This is popular with participants, and we feet it to be a good use of our charitable funds.
We provide an annual Bursary intended to provide opportunities for talented performers to further develop their skills. We continued to provide this in the Dance section in 2025 and our adjudicator nominated Vivian McClean to receive the award, which was paid in October 2025, after our period end, when she began studying at Bird College. In 2025 we also awarded bursaries to four dancers enabling them to enter the All England Dance Young Dancer award. All four dancers made it through the audition stage to the knock out round and two dancers appeared in the final held at the Royal Opera House.
In the Drama section a small prize is awarded to an outstanding entry to the Drama section. Awards are also made to the first three places for musicians selected to appear in the YMoY.
## **RISK POLICY**
The principal risks affecting the festival centre around the need to provide a safe environment for our young participants to perform in, and the financial threat to an organisation which has always been self-funding. An annual risk assessment is carried out using the model provided by our umbrella organisation the British and International Federation of Festivals (BIFF). The financial risks have been dealt with above.
Our child protection policy is revisited in each financial year, following the guidelines developed by our umbrella organisation, and administered by the Honorary Secretary, Janice Hughes. Our policy is published on our website and in all syllabi and programmes issued by the Festival.
In addition to our general obligations to meet child protection standards the awards of Body of Persons Approval by Milton Keynes Council will depend on our continuing to meet those standards.
In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as a Festival, we are required to ensure processes are in place to ensure that all the personal data which we handle regularly through entry forms, volunteer details and sponsor or donor information are safeguarded. Names, addresses, dates of birth, email addresses are all personal data which processed as part of festival planning. Under the legislation we are required handle such data with care, and retain it only insofar as it is required for the purposes for which it is collected and that all subjects are aware of the data we hold and have the opportunity to request its deletion.
## **SECTION REPORTS**
## **Dance Report**
2025 was not an All England year, but as we are already operating near capacity we are obliged to limit new schools to those based in the Milton Keynes area. We have a growing interest from Asian dance schools, where the entry numbers are increasing each year. Total entry income, although reduced, was therefore still very healthy and box office money reflected this too.
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A small Gala is held as part of the main event, to celebrate the individual skills of our solo performers. This generates no additional income / costs, other than small cash prizes for the winners of each age group as chosen by the adjudicator.
As well as competitive entry sections which reflect the AED qualification process, we provide a Platform section for those who wish to perform in a non-competitive arena and an Own Choreography section for young dancers wishing to develop in that area.
Our volunteers provide their services for free and are supplemented by work experience students from a local performing arts college, Arts1.
## **Music, Ensembles, Choirs & Drama sections**
Our 2025 festival was our 57th annual festival event and we were thrilled to have a wonderful number of performers taking part and feedback from adjudicators, parents, teachers and performers was very positive, as always. Numbers were up across the board, (1,250 performances overall, 2024 – 1268), but we were particularly pleased with the large, increasing, entry in our piano sections, 493 performances in 2024. In all last year’s festival saw almost 4,000 individual performers in solo, ensemble and group presentations. Our adjudicators and audiences were highly complimentary about all the performances.
2025 was the first year that the new team of Gina Sharp (festival admin and reception), Isabel de Abreu (singing, speech and drama and Orchestras, Choirs and Barbershop Day), Michelle Okawa (multi-section support and catering), Adrian Ho (piano) and Mike Guy (instrumental and Young Musician) were in charge of the offering, so its success reflects great credit on them.
The festival offers both competitive and non-competitive classes in all genres, with each entrant receiving a graded certificate and a hand-written feedback sheet with constructive comments from one of our specialist professional adjudicators. There is also the opportunity to win a medal or trophy and possibly some prize money.
In music, up to 8 of the best performers of age 18 and under are invited back to showcase their talents once again in our Milton Keynes Young Musician of the Year competition. Each receives a special certificate, trophy and an amount of prize money and one will be named Milton Keynes Young Musician of the Year. Every performer in this year's showcase was highly praised by our judges Gill Johnston and Jena Pang, both acclaimed musicians, teachers and adjudicators. The winner of this year's title was violinist Sean Lau, with second and third places to pianists Adrian and Aaron Tai. The other finalists were pianist Yiding Wang, violinists Ezra Bail and Reeka Chanelle Manglicmot, flautist Georgia Haydon and clarinettist Theodora Colvin. Many congratulations to all of them. Two special guest performances by Milton Keynes Young Singer of the Year 2025 Rosie Freear and the Calliope Flute Quartet added an extra level of entertainment to the YMoY event, which was hosted by Festival Vice-President Mr Adrian Boynton.
## **PUBLICITY**
The website is kept up to date and we appear on Twitter and two Facebook pages which are used to promote the festival and advise entrants of any news or impending closing dates.
The Music and Drama organisers look out for new prospective entrants / drama schools / community choirs to approach about the festival. Over 200 syllabuses are sent out by mail to prospective Music and Drama entries and in addition section leaders message them via their
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social networking platform / email. Dance is already operating at capacity and entry is restricted to performers from those schools who are situated within a 15 mile radius of our venue, with a few exceptions for schools which have been regular participants for many years.
## **Thanks and Acknowledgements** .
We are privileged to have the continued sponsorship of Kawai Pianos who donate several of their beautiful concert grand and upright pianos to our music festival for our performers’ use and we are grateful for their generous support and for also agreeing to extend their patronage to the Milton Keynes Young Musician of the Year competition. Without their ongoing support the festival would not be able to accept as many piano entrants as we do, so we are ever grateful for their kindness and generosity and to their Milton Keynes retail partner, Bonners Music. Kawai have agreed to continue their support in 2026.
We are greatly indebted to members of the general and section committees who support the festival by their work throughout the year. In addition, we enjoy the support of a number of volunteers who help with the actual festival events; their help is always needed and very much appreciated.
Finally, we are most grateful to the management, staff and volunteers of The Venue at Walton High School for their help over the years and for their assistance with arrangements for the festival events.
Janice Hughes **Secretary**
Christine Taylor **Treasurer**
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## **Independent Examiner's Report to the Trustees of Milton Keynes Festival of the Arts**
I report to the charity trustees on my examination of the accounts of the charity for the year ended 30 June 2025 which are set out on pages 8 to 11.
## **Responsibilities and basis of report**
As the charity’s trustees you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’).
I report in respect of my examination of the charity’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the Act and in carrying out my examination I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.
## **Independent examiner's statement**
I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination giving me cause to believe that in any material respect:
1. accounting records were not kept in respect of the charity as required by section 130 of the Act; or
2. the accounts do not accord with those records.
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
_Signed_
_Andrew Paul ACA 15 Parsons Close, Church Crookham, Fleet, Hampshire, GU52 6HL_
_23 April 2026_
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## **Milton Keynes Festival of the Arts**
## **Receipts and Payments for the period ending 30 June 2025**
|**Incoming Resources**
**Festival Sections**
Festival Entries
Box Office - Admissions
Programme Sales
Other Income
**Note 1**
**Other Income**
**Note 2**
**Total income**
**Resources Expended**
**Festival sections**
Adjudicators fees and expense
Hire of halls and equipment
Medals and Prizes
Syllabus and Programme printing
Catering costs
Licence and copyright fees
**Note 1**
**General costs**
Annual General Meeting & Expenses
Bank Charges
BIFF Conference fees
BIFF costs
Other Admin costs
**Note 3**
**Total resources expended**
**Operating (deficit) / surplus for the year**
Young Musician of the Year net costs
**Anniversary Fund:**
**Dance Bursaries**
**Music Bursaries & Prizes**
**Note 4**
**Surplus for the year**
**Opening funds**
**Closing Funds**|21,402
16,020
1,020
5,086|**2024 - 2025**
43,528
1,212
**44,740**
38,643
2,603
**41,246**
**£3,494**
548
**2,946**
1,140
**1,806**
35,318
**37,124**|**2023 - 2024**
24,234
13,809
1,140
2,070|
|---|---|---|---|
||10,877
12,302
2,981
4,169
6,929
1,385||41,253
131|
||||**41,384**|
||||13,069
11,122
3,893
1,463
4,153
1,880|
||1,260
325
150
713
155||35,580
55
380
768
329|
||920
220||1,532|
|||||
||||**37,112**|
||||**£4,272**
621|
||||**3,651**
760
450|
||||1,210|
||||**2,441**
32,877|
||||**£35,318**|
8
## **Milton Keynes Festival of the Arts**
## **Funds Available for the period ending 30 June 2025**
**Bank Balances NatWest Current CAF Cash CAF Gold Unrestricted Funds**
Janice Hughes **Secretary**
**2024-2025 2023-2024** 21,297 25,255 8,892 5,268 6,935 4,795 **£37,124 £35,318**
Christine Taylor **Treasurer**
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## **Note 1 Section Surpluses and Deficits**
|**Incoming Resources**
**Festival Sections**
Festival Entries
Box Office - Admissions
Programme Sales
Other Income
**Resources Expended**
**Festival sections**
Adjudicators costs
Hire of halls and equipment
Medals and Prizes
Syllabus and Programme
Catering costs
Licence and copyright fees
Section (Deficit) / Surplus
General income
General costs
YMOY
Revenue Bursaries
(Net costs)
**(Deficit) / Surplus for**
**period**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|**Dance**
**Music**
**Drama**
**Music & Drama**
**Choir / Ensembles**
**_Total_**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**2024 - 25**||**_2024_**|**2024 - 25**||**2024 - 25**||**_2025_**|**_2024_**|**2024 - 25**||**2024**|**_2024 - 25_**|||**_2024_**|
||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||
||**11,301**||_13,272_|**7,264**||**2,263**||**9,527**|**_10,716_**|**574**||**_786_**|**21,402**|||**_24,234_**|
||**10,017**||_9,612_|**2,796**||**1,812**||**4,608**|**_2,769_**|**1,394**||**_1,428_**|**16,019**|||**_13,809_**|
||**1,020**||_1,140_|**0**||**0**||||**0**|||**1,020**|||**_1,140_**|
||**5,086**||_2,070_|**0**||**0**||||**0**|||**5,086**|||**_2,070_**|
|||**27,424**|_0_||**0**||**0**|**14,135**|**_12,945_**|**_0_**|**_1,968_**|**_2,214_**|||**43,527**|**_41,253_**|
||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||
||**3,905**||_4,072_|**4,791**||**1,721**||**6,512**|**_8,450_**|**459**||**_547_**|**10,876**|||**_13,069_**|
||**7,957**||_7,775_|**2,542**||**1,043**||**3,585**|**_2,934_**|**760**||**_413_**|**12,302**|||**_11,122_**|
||**1,165**||_2,312_|**1,334**||**412**||**1,746**|**_1,581_**|**70**|||**2,981**|||**_3,893_**|
||**2,138**||_1,259_|**1,748**||**200**||**1,948**|**_204_**|**83**|||**4,169**|||**_1,463_**|
||**3,737**||_2,563_|**1,739**||**1,034**||**2,773**|**_1,396_**|**419**||**_194_**|**6,929**|||**_4,153_**|
||**816**||_1,354_|**376**||**182**||**558**|**_526_**|**11**|||**1,385**|||**_1,880_**|
||**0**|**0**|_19,335_||**0**||**0**|**0**|**_15,091_**||**1,802**|**_1,154_**|**0**||**0**|**_35,580_**|
|||**7,706**|_6,759_||**-2,470**||**-517**|**-2,987**|**_-2,146_**||**166**|**_1,060_**|||**4,885**|**_5,673_**|
||||||||||||||**(1,212)**|||**_(131)_**|
||||||||||||||**2,603**|||**_1,532_**|
||||||||||||||**548**|||**_621_**|
||||||||||||||**1,140**|||**_1,210_**|
||||||||||||||||**3,079**|**_3,232_**|
|||||||||||||||**1,806**||**_£2,441_**|
10
## **Note 2**
## **General Income:**
|Bank interest
Hotel refunds re bookings in 2024
**Note 3**
**General Costs:**
Bank charges
General non-attributable costs
Equipment purchases
Insurance
Conference fees
Other costs
**Total non-section costs**
Young Musician of the Year||**2025**
**2024**
160
131
1,052
-|
|---|---|---|
|||1,212
131|
|||**2025**
**2024**
325
55
155
418
1,260
-
350
350
150
380
363
329|
|||£2,603
£1,532|
|||**2025**
**2024**
548
621
-
-|
|||548
£621|
The Young Musician of the Year event is held every year to celebrate outstanding performances from soloists in our Music festival.
## **Note 4 Bursaries and prizes**
The Festival regularly puts aside funds for bursaries intended to benefit talented performers in the Dance, Music and Speech sections of the Festival.
Funds were again set aside from reserves for a £500 bursary for a dancer going on to study full time in the Autumn (see Trustee report page 4). Bursaries were also awarded to fund four dancers to enter the UKYD national dance competition. Monetary prizes were also awarded to performers in the Dance Gala section, from the Speech section of the festival and to performers in the YMoY.
Actual payments in 2024 (2023) were as follows
|2025 YMoY awards
2025 Music & Vocal prizes
2024/25 UK Young dancer of the Year
2024 dance bursary|**2025**
**2024**
220
225
75
420
410
500
500|
|---|---|
||£1,140
£1,210|
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