OXFORD YOUTH CHOIRS ANNUAL REPORT OF TRUSTEES
For the academic year 2024/2025
To be presented to the AGM, 02/07/2026
Registered charity number 299109
## **Legal and Administrative information**
## **Trustees**
Lydia Vella Chair Geoff Sutton Treasurer Catherine Wearden Honorary Secretary
Matthew Brown Maria Finnis Jerome Finnis Rob Legg Arabella Saer Alex Silverman Sanjay Manohar
## **Music staff**
Benedict Goodall Musical Director Colin Danskin Junior and Senior Choir Teacher Margaret Lingas Junior and Senior Choir Teacher Lucia Boué Prep Choirs Teacher Helen Birch Accompanist (from May 2024) George Charman Accompanist (from Sep 2024)
## **Administrator**
Colin Danskin
## **Chair’s Report**
## **Trustees**
For 2024 - 2025, the committee of Trustees was chaired by Lydia Vella, with Geoff Sutton continuing as Treasurer and Catherine Wearden as the Honorary Secretary. Sanjay Manohar was elected as a new Trustee in July 2025. The committee included a further seven Trustees.
## **Staff Matters**
Benedict Goodall started his appointment as Musical Director for the choir, taking on the role from Richard Vendome.
We welcomed accompanists, Helen Birch and George Charman in May 2024 and September 2024, respectively. Izzy Mohan resigned as an accompanist in July 2024, and we thank her for her service to the choir.
## **The Year’s Events in Summary**
At the start of the academic year, we held two open rehearsals to support the recruitment of new members. The theme, _Under the Sea_ , inspired a wonderful selection of repertoire chosen by the teachers to engage the children and showcase the choir.
In December 2024, the choir performed a Christmas Concert at St Michael and All Angels Church, Summertown. It was a joyful occasion, featuring beautiful performances from all the choirs.
Our Spring Concert took place at Cherwell School in March 2025, followed by our Summer Concerts at St Michael and All Angels Church, Summertown, in July 2025. Owing to the growth in membership, two concerts were held in July: the first focused primarily on the Prep Choirs, while also giving younger singers the opportunity to hear the Junior and Senior Choirs perform; the second concert featured the Junior and Senior Choirs. This two-concert format was very well received, with positive feedback highlighting its success.
Also in July 2025, the Junior and Senior Choirs took part in a joint concert at Oxford Town Hall alongside The Man Choir and a visiting choir from Padova, Italy. The evening was a great success, with all three choirs enjoying one another’s performances and enthusiastic audience participation — including moments of phone-torch waving! The concert concluded with a powerful combined finale arrangement of Vasco Rossi’s _Albachiara_ .
To round off the year, the Senior Choir sang Evensong at New College, Oxford, giving the singers the opportunity to perform sacred music in a magnificent setting.
## **Looking Forward**
As we look ahead to the 2025–2026 year, the committee remains committed to supporting the teachers and children in enjoying a positive and enriching musical education through the choir. We also continue to focus on growing membership so that the opportunity to sing is available to as many young people as possible, ensuring the continued strength and sustainability of the choir.
Finally, I would like to thank all our singers, parents, teachers, trustees, and patrons for their invaluable support and contribution to the choir’s success over the past year, as well as for their continued enthusiasm and commitment as we look to the future.
Lydia Vella Chair of Trustees
AGM 02/07/2026
OXFORD YOUTH CHOIRS FINANCIAL REPORT For the Years 2024/2025
To be presented to the AGM, Thursday, 7.30pm, 2[nd] July 2026
The charity made a loss in the 2024-2025 financial year following two previous years of surplus. Membership fee income excluding donations increased by just over £3000 compared with the previous year to £28586. However overall income dropped roughly £3000 to £34590 as we received less donations and concert income than the year before.
Turning to costs, our teaching costs rose from £19131 to £23472 as teacher pay increases kicked in. Other non-teaching costs decreased from £17168 to £14289 mainly due to less expenditure on concerts. Thankfully rent costs remained stable due to no rent increase at Cherwell.
The final result was a loss, down from the 2023/2024 surplus of £1303 to -£ 3171 for 2024/2025.
Choir numbers remained stable for 2024/2025 but have grown substantially since, up about 50% in 2025/2026 as we received a big influx into the prep choirs. The decision to keep fees constant helped with recruitment but cost pressures mean that we need to continue to increase fees in line with inflation from now on.
Loveadmin continues to serve the choir well, reducing the administration load and administration overhead. My thanks go to the administrator, Colin Danskin, for his assistance in helping run the organization efficiently.
Looking ahead, the main risks still facing the charity are problems in recruiting sufficient members to keep the charity afloat and increasing costs. The good news is that membership of the younger choirs is holding up while the senior choir membership continues to remain smaller in size compared to pre-Covid numbers but is slowly building in numbers as children move through the years but stay with the organisation and progress up through the choirs. Fees increased for 2025/26 along with a long overdue increase in teacher hourly rates and the finances at the end of 25/26 are looking healthy.
In terms of future viability, I can confirm that the choir has the reserves to get through the next year to September 2026.
The choir has no employees in 2024/25 and had none in 2023/4 and 2022/23.
Expenses were reimbursed to the treasurer, for expenses incurred by credit card on three occasions, the largest being in December 2024, the total being £696 to pay for Making Music membership, PRS and programme printing. Our Chair, Dr Lydia Vella, received £87.50 in February 2025 for one session accompanying the prep choirs.
We continue to bank with CAF Bank, part of HSBC Group, but have now closed the account at Barclays Bank as we no longer needed that.
Geoff Sutton Treasurer AGM 2[nd] July 2026
**Oxford Youth Choirs**
## **299109**
## **Receipts and payments accounts**
**For the period** 9/16/2024 9/15/2025 **To from**
## **Section A Receipts and payments**
|**Section A Receipts and payments**|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|**A1 Receipts**
Subscriptions
**28,586**
Donations
**1,992**
Concerts and events
**3,110**
Gift aid
**655**
Bank interest
**247**
**-**
**34,590**
**-**
**-**
**_Sub total_ -**
**_Total receipts_ 34,590**
**A3 Payments**
Music tuition fees and expenses
**23,472**
Concert and event expenses
**980**
Administrator expenses
**3,040**
Rent and storage costs
**8,557**
Other runningcosts
**1,712**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**_Sub total_ 37,761**
**-**
**-**
**_Sub total_ -**
**_Total payments_ 37,761**
**_Net of receipts/(payments)_ - 3,171**
**A5 Transfers between funds**
**-**
**A6 Cash funds last year end**
**16,744**
**_Cash funds this year end_ 13,573**
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**to the nearest £**
**_Sub total_**_(Gross income for AR)_
**A2 Asset and investment sales,**
**(see table).**
**A4 Asset and investment**
**purchases, (see table)**|**to the nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Restricted**
**funds**|**to the nearest £**
**Endowment**
**funds**|**Total funds**
**to the nearest £**
**28,586**
**1,992**
**3,110**
**655**
**247**
**-**
**34,590**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**34,590**
**23,472**
**980**
**3,040**
**8,557**
**1,712**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**37,761**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**37,761**
**- 3,171**
**-**
**16,744**
**13,573**|**Last year**
**to the nearest £**|
|||**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**28,586**|**25,329**|
||||**1,992**|**5,493**|
||||**3,110**|**5,092**|
||||**655**|**1,418**|
||||**247**|**270**|
||||**-**|**-**|
||||**34,590**|**37,602**|
||||||
|||**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**||
||||**-**|**-**|
||||**-**|**-**|
||||||
|||**-**|**34,590**|**37,602**|
||||||
|||**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**23,472**|**19,131**|
||||**980**|**3,129**|
||||**3,040**|**4,263**|
||||**8,557**|**7,599**|
||||**1,712**|**2,177**|
||||**-**|**-**|
||||**-**|**-**|
||||**-**|**-**|
||||**37,761**|**36,299**|
||||||
|||**-**
**-**
**-**|**-**||
||||**-**||
||||**-**|**-**|
||||||
|||**-**|**37,761**|**36,299**|
||||||
||**-**|**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**|**- 3,171**|**1,303**|
||**-**||**-**|**-**|
||**-**||**16,744**|**15,441**|
||**-**||**13,573**|**16,744**|
## **Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period**
|**Categories**
**B1 Cash funds**
**B2 Other monetary assets**
**B3 Investment assets**
**B5 Liabilities**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees|**Details**
CAF Gold Account
CAF Cash Account
Barclays Bank
**Details**
Gift Aid (figure not yet available)
**Details**
**Details**
**Details**
Independent Examiner's fee
Signature
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))|**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**10,619**
**-**
**2,954**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**13,573**
**-**
OK
OK
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**Cost (optional)**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
Unrestricted
**150**
**-**
**-**
**-**
**-**
Print Name
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
**Fund to which**
**liability relates**
**Amount due**
**(optional)**|**to nearest £**
**Endowment**
**funds**|
|---|---|---|---|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||OK|
||||**to nearest £**
**Endowment**
**funds**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**Current value**
**(optional)**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**-**|
||||**When due**
**(optional)**|
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
|||||
||||Date of
approval|
|||||
|||||
CHARITY COMMISSION
FOR ENGLAND ANO WALES
Independent examinerfs
report on the accounts
Section A
Independent Examiner s Report
Report to the trusleesl
members of
Oxford Youth Choirs
On accounts lor the year
ended
1/2025
Charlty no
(rfanyl
299109
Set out on pages
1and2
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above
charity (Ihe Trusf) for the ended 1510912025.
Responsibilities and As the charity trustees of the Trust. you are responsible for the preparation
basis of report of the accounts in accordano with the requirements of the Charities Act
2011 {°the Acr).
I report in respect ol my exarnination of the Trust's accounts carried out
under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carying out my examination, I
have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charty Commission
under section 145(5){b) of the Act.
I have completed my examination. I confim) that no material matters have
come to my attention in connection wrth the examination which gives me
cause to believe that in. any material respect..
accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of
the Act or
the accounts do not accord with the accounting cOrdS
Independent
examiner's statement
I have no concems 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 reathed.
Signed:
2910612026
Name:
Peter J Stevenson
Relevant professional
qualification(sl or body
(If any):
Address:
Flat 25, Cherwell Court, Banbury Road,
Kidlington
OXS 28G
IER
October 2018