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2022-12-31-accounts

The Academy Choir Wimbledon Report and Accounts

for the year ended 31 December 2022

Registered Charity No. 299069 Give As You Earn Registration No. 012910

Trustees’ Report 2022

The Academy was founded in 1980 and became a charity pursuant to a meeting of its members held on 13 March 1988 (number 299069). The committee members (who acted as the trustees) during 2022 were:

The address to which any correspondence regarding the Academy should be sent is 13 Haydon Park Road, Wimbledon SW19 8JQ.

Report on Activities

2022 had the feeling of a celebration. The country had struggled through nearly two years of openings and closings and returned to a semblance of normality only late in 2021. In February 2022 all isolation laws were dropped. Doubts about the willingness of audiences to return to concerts were swiftly dispelled by a near sell-out of our performance of Bach’s St John Passion in March. We were joined for this by our wonderful Academy Baroque Players, led by Alison Bury, and by a group of soloists of very high quality. Nick Pritchard was our Evangelist, Edward Grint sang Jesus and the returning James Newby sang Pilate. The soprano Rowan Pierce (also returning to us), Hugh Cutting (fresh from being the \irst countertenor ever to win the Kathleen Ferrier Award) and tenor Ed Lyon completed the impressive line-up. The concert itself was rightly very well received and was independently reviewed by Andrew Benson-Wilson, who considered that we had given “a performance of considerable power, both acoustic and emotional … one of the best I have heard.”

Our March performance was made possible through a generous £10,000 bequest from the estate of the late Lord Moore whose family indicated that their father had particularly enjoyed the works of JS Bach. This bequest is shown in our accounts as a restricted fund. We allocated three-quarters of the amount to this concert, reserving the remainder for a future performance. We were very pleased to be joined by a number of Lord Moore’s family for the concert and to be able to express our gratitude to him and them on the evening, and I wish to repeat that here. This great generosity really does make a very signi\icant difference to our ability to give high quality concerts. Through doing so we enable people who might not otherwise do so to experience this music in the heart of the community at a price per ticket (from £15 for an adult or just £5 for students and under 18s) that would not otherwise be possible. Thank you.

In contrast to this (and to the world’s emergence from Covid) war broke out on the European continent. To acknowledge this and express our solidarity with the people of Ukraine the choir opened our March concert with a performance of Mykola Lysenko’s Prayer for Ukraine . This emotionally charged moment – which segued straight into the opening of the St John Passion - was posted to our YouTube channel where it has been seen many thousands of times and helped to raise awareness of our choir. For our June concert we invited Aliya Aralbaeva – who has established a group to deliver aid-\illed ambulances to Ukraine – to attend with an ambulance. This very much helped to raise the pro\ile of her excellent work and my wife and I delivered that ambulance to Ukraine in August.

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Our lune concert was given in Sacred Heart Church and was a greatly delayed performance of Monteverdi's Vespers of1610. We were joined by His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts (HMSC - with whom we had performed the same work some 10 years previously). soprano soloists Grace David50n and julia Doyle and tenors Hugo Hymas and Nick Pritchard (for a second time in quick succession). We were deligh*d to perform for a very large audience for a second time in the year and the concert was very well received. Working so successfully with HMSC has opened up the possibility of further collaboratlons which is certainly something thal we will consider in future seasons. Our performance in this year's Wirnbledon International Music Festival was of Berlioz's L'en[ance du Christ and Poulenc's Litonies a la Vierge Noire for which we were joined by the London Mozart Players and soloists Millie Forrest (who stepped brilliantly into the role on zero notice when our originally booked soprano was forced to wlthdraw), Alessandro Fisher. Julian van Mellaerts and lames Platt The concert was another greatsuccess. Although we continue to lose money on each collaboration with the Festival (something thatwe mustlook to reduce) the collaboration remains a posltlve one and enables us to pei'form a thlrd concert on a large scale whilst sustaining a smaller loss than would otherwise be the case. The choir has continued to benefit from the generous supportofour Friends and ofmarcus Beale Architects, without whlch we could not perfoi'm the concerts thatwe do. The attached income and expendi￿re account shows an inci'ease in our deficit on concerts from £14,964 (2021) to £20,131 (2022). Thi5 increase 15 due partly to the fact that in 2022 we returned ￿ our regular pattern 0f￿VIng three concerts peryear (rather than the two that were possible In 2021 because ofcovid) and partly to the Scale ofthe March concert thal was enabled by the generosity ofLord Moore's family. Every concei't we put on Incurs a deficit, whlch is funded by our Frlends and supporters. It is therefore critically important to build the breadth and 5ti'ength ol the Frlends to en5uI'e our choir's long-term survival. The cholr's financlal positlon remains hea]thy, but a continued focus on developing a varlety of sources of funding for comlng seasons remains essential. I would Ilke to record my slncere thank5 to Matthew Best and to each mernber ofthe committee for the unstintlng hard work ofevery single one ofthem. Much ofthls work goes unseen but it mustnever go unthanked. We share the vision ofmaklng ourchoir the very bestthat Itcan be and through that tt) sustain a love of high quality choral muslc In gur existing audience as well as to develop that same appreciatlon in those who haveyetto dlscoverlust how enjoyable and rewarding itcan be. This cannothappen withoutexemplary commltmentand focus. Thankyou. nlel Whltehead Cha an 12 August 2023

Income and Expenditure Account for the year ended 31 December 2022 Income and Expenditure Account for the year ended 31 December 2022 Income and Expenditure Account for the year ended 31 December 2022 Income and Expenditure Account for the year ended 31 December 2022 Income and Expenditure Account for the year ended 31 December 2022
2022 2021
CONCERT INCOME £ £
Box Office and related income 12,551 4,830
Sponsorship 500 500
Donations 1,037 850
14,088 6,180
CONCERT DIRECT COSTS
Professional costs
(1)		 8,500 6,800
Soloists 7,650 3,850
Orchestra/Organist/Orch. Mgmt 9,531 5,595
Accompanists 1,560 1,000
Instrument and Music Hire 1,920 1,355
Venue hire(rehearsals and concerts) 2,420 1,303
Posters,Programmes,Publicity 2,638 1,174
Travel expenses 0 67
34,219 21,144
DEFICIT ON CONCERTS
(2)		 -20,131 -14,964
OTHER INCOME / -EXPENSE
Choir subscriptions 4,300 3,750
Friends' contributions 10,640 10,940
Income Tax repayment 3,214 2,595
Donations received
(3)		 269 2,377
Interest received 19 3
Website -72 -89
Auditions -501 0
MakingMusic subscription -440 -344
Singingtogether(director, pianist,hire costs)
(4)		 0 -1,734
Purchase of recordingequipment
(3)		 0 -548
OVERALL SURPLUS / -DEFICIT for theyear -2,701 1,988
SURPLUS brought forward 50,299 48,311
ACCUMULATED SURPLUS 47,598 50,299
Statement of Assets and Liabilities at 31 December 2022
Assets:
Cash at bank 12,598 9,696
Bank deposit 35,000 40,000
Prepayments for March and June 2022 concerts 0 702
Liabilities:
Fees to bepaid 0 -100
ACCUMULATED SURPLUS 47,598 50,299
Of which Restricted Fund
(5)		 2,500 10,000

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Notes to the Accounts

These accounts are prepared on the Receipts and Payments basis under Sec6on 133 of the Chari6es Act 2011.

During the year the Choir had two own promo6on concerts and one concert for which a fee was received from the Wimbledon Interna6onal Music Fes6val. Our present financial posi6on is healthy, but the Choir con6nues to depend dispropor6onately upon a small number of large one-off dona6ons, including a restricted bequest of £10,000 received in 2020, of which £7,500 has been used in 2022 to reduce the deficit on the March concert. Our reserves are considered adequate to allow us 6me to reduce this dependence, in par6cular by further developing our Friends scheme.

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Independent examiner’s report

Report to the trustees of The Academy Choir Wimbledon (charity number 299069) on accounts for the year ended 31 December 2022, set out on pages .

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 31 December 2022.

Responsibilities and basis of report

As the charity trustees of the Trust, 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 Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed 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 which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

AM Brougham

FCA, ICAEW

101 Pepys Road, West Wimbledon, London SW20 8NW