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2023-03-31-annual-report

BEAT CARNIVAL Beat Carnival Centre 11-47 Boyd Street Belfast BT13 2GU

BEAT CARNIVAL ANNUAL REPORT

FOR THE 2022 - 23 YEAR TO 31 MARCH 2023

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BEAT
CARNIVAL
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Beat Carnival is constituted as a Company Limited by Guarantee Registered number: NI27789 Registered in Northern Ireland Registered charity number: NIC103347 Beat Carnival is governed by Articles of Association, updated in April 2015

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BEAT CARNIVAL Beat Carnival Centre 11-47 Boyd Street Belfast BT13 2GU

ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2022

REPORT INTRODUCTION

The Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2008 sets out a legal requirement that all organisations registered as a charity in Northern Ireland must have purposes that are for the public benefit. This Annual Report provides information on how the charity has met the public benefit requirement during the year: to ensure that the activities have helped to achieve the charity’s purposes and provide a benefit to the beneficiaries.

OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES

What The Organisation Does

Beat Carnival is Northern Ireland’s foremost and long-standing Carnival Arts company. We create carnival parades and outdoor arts performances. We encourage our city of Belfast and communities across the country to think big about celebrating our creative, community life in ways that are ambitious and welcoming to all. Beat’s specialisms include performance arts such as drumming, music, singing, street dance and puppetry. We provide training and free-of-charge participation programmes and we have extensive experience of work with community organisations. Beat’s first carnival parades were in 1995. There is no other carnival arts organisation of the scale, activity, history or influence in Northern Ireland, where Beat Carnival has introduced many of the artform techniques and trained many of the artists now working across the country.

Participants gain new skills, connections and support at weekly activity programmes that take place in the Carnival Centre plus extensive local outreach in Belfast postcode and across Northern Ireland. Carnival arts, outdoors in public spaces with people from diverse backgrounds, are experienced in ways that are culturally inclusive. Carnival arts bring new sources of creativity to Northern Ireland’s traditional experience of cultural parades and street music. The organisation’s involvement in a wide range of networks, locally and internationally, increases diversity of relationships and shared benefits. New and unique opportunities enable people and communities to increase skills; meet people from other areas, backgrounds and traditions; and gain positive experiences. Beat Carnival’s activity is provided free of charge to participants and audience so that barriers to access and engagement are as low as possible. Ease of access is one of the ways that the activity increases equality of opportunity.

The organisation operates Beat Carnival Centre. The Centre with its programme of arts creation, education, training, community outreach and events production, provides a focal point for anyone interested in the development of carnival arts. Artists design, create, rehearse, teach and train at the Centre. The Carnival Centre’s work makes a special contribution to festivals, community celebrations and civic events. Importantly, the premises and its activity provide an accessible, supportive and ‘safe space’, particularly for young people. Participants at Beat’s weekly programme of open-access workshops range in age from 4 to over 60 years. Workshops specialise in teaching carnival arts of drumming, dance, making (floats, puppets, props, costume), music, street theatre performance, children’s arts and crafts. Six or seven sessions operate over three to four nights a week at the Centre. Public audience at Beat’s free events gain enjoyment and an increased sense of community pride and connection. In 2022-2023 Beat Carnival provided 1,995 benefit activities (workshops, artist sessions, events) for 139,500 beneficiaries.

Vision For the Future, Mission Statement and Value Base

Vision

The vision for Beat Carnival’s work with artists, their audiences, the community, individual participants and young people is of a:

“vibrant, colourful, creative and welcoming society”.

Beat Carnival will aim to achieve this through their organisational vision of being:

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BEAT CARNIVAL Beat Carnival Centre 11-47 Boyd Street Belfast BT13 2GU

“the leaders in excellence of Carnival artforms”.

Mission

The Beat Carnival’s mission statement is to:

“Make accessible and spectacular Carnival, leaving a legacy of creative skills, collaboration, participation and celebration”.

Values

Beat Carnival operates to a set of core values.

PROVIDING PUBLIC BENEFIT

WHAT HAPPENED IN 2022-2023

Direct benefits provided by Beat Carnival’s activities in 22-23 included new awareness of, and participation in, creative activities for individuals, for groups and communities and for the general public. Free-access, collaborative, carnival arts activities fostered good relations and, when possible, animation of public and neighbourhood spaces, including spaces that have been or are contested or controlled by factions. The public spaces where arts activity took place were made more welcoming for all. Beat Carnival’s activity increased interest in arts in young people and under-engaged groups. The activity improved access to information and expertise about arts for excluded people and communities. In areas that are deemed ‘disadvantaged’ it inspired ambition and enabled personal achievement and pride. Beat created developmental partnerships with community groups and other arts companies, to increase representation, knowledge sharing, skills sharing, specialist support, capacity building and the promotion of shared values. Beat’s safe, imaginative and attractive arts and cultural activity resulted in people, many of them being children and young people, engaging with others. Pleasure and fun were gained through the programmes. Children and young people benefited from emotional growth, personal development and increased social skills. Participants, both individuals and groups, were better equipped to make positive changes in their lives. Social connections were enabled in a year of damaging isolation and more people took positive action on issues. An important benefit of Beat Carnival’s activity was increased support of young people, whose mental health issues were magnified by the Covid impacts in recent years. The impact of Covid curtailed activity in schools because of their internal Covid restrictions.

Activity development and performance highlights over the year:

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BEAT CARNIVAL Beat Carnival Centre 11-47 Boyd Street Belfast BT13 2GU

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BEAT CARNIVAL Beat Carnival Centre 11-47 Boyd Street Belfast BT13 2GU

Beat Carnival was able to ascertain the value and effectiveness of its activity because it monitored details of participation and outcomes; gathered feedback from participants and audience; used agreed performance indicators; produced reports and commissioned external consultation services. 2022-2023 numbers all increased from the 2021-2022 year.

Public Benefit Purposes

Programme Participation & Audience, Targets and Performance

Number of full-time equivalent staff 4
Number of short-term, contracted or freelance staff 131
Number of volunteers 76
Number of volunteer hours 602
Number of participant sessions 344
Number of individual participants 1,787
Number of Artists work / development sessions 1,620
Number of Performances / Events 31
Number of estimated audience-attendees 137,500
Number of visitors from outside NI 200
Number of online products (videos etc) 69
Number of known online audience-views 24,861

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BEAT CARNIVAL Beat Carnival Centre 11-47 Boyd Street Belfast BT13 2GU

CORE ANNUAL ARTS PROGRAMMES
1 BeatStyle Tiny Beat & Junior Beat
2 Carnival School – Arts Education Junior Carnival, What’s the Story? & SPOTing
3 Beat Carnival Music BEATnDRUM, Brass Ensemble, Samba de Roda,
Modern Rhythms Masterclasses & Community
Music
4 Social Engagement, Events,
Performances, Services		 WTS?, Neighbourhood Carnivals, Arts Services, St
Patricks Day & Events
ARTS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES
5 The Way Forward Partnerships,
Research,
Carnival
Centre
Development & Training
6 Networks Island-wide & International for inspirational
research, development and delivery

1 Beatstyle

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BEAT CARNIVAL Beat Carnival Centre 11-47 Boyd Street Belfast BT13 2GU

Percentage of total programme that included particular categories of participants, % groups and individuals identified as usually ‘missing out’, that engaged in Beat Carnival programmes:

Participation Engagement % of programme activity that involved
individuals in these categories
People with a physical or mental impairment 100
Newcomer or ethnic minority people and groups 100
People living in deprived neighbourhoods 100
LGBTQ+ people 100
Older people (aged 65+) 50
Children and young people (aged 0-24) 80
Unemployed People 100

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE & MANAGEMENT

Nature of the Governing Document and Constitution of the Charity

Beat Carnival is a registered Charity (NIC103347 and HMRC XR 82700) constituted as a Company limited by guarantee and is therefore governed by Articles of Association. The directors of the company are also trustees of the charity. Eligibility for membership of the charity, and membership of the board of trustees is governed by the Articles of Association.

Relationships Between the Charity and Related Parties, Including its Subsidiaries

The charity has a social enterprise subsidiary (Beat Trading Ltd) with which it has many transactions and a controlling interest. The only other related parties are trustees and there are no transactions with them.

Company Operations and Project Management

Beat has a long-term Strategic Plan and an annual Operational Plan. Its projects operate within that framework. Projects are managed through Project Plans with timelines and Project Teams. The project budget is monitored and adjusted as necessary to ensure that spend does not exceed the project income.

Beat produces detailed risk assessment for events.

Beat targets recruitment and publicity to ensure that a wide cross-section of people get involved in the company and its programmes.

Beat’s Director presents a monthly financial report to the company Board. Beat operates separate cost centres on SAGE.

Beat’s financial statements are subject to a full financial audit at the end of each financial year. Beat management and Board of Directors regularly review financial procedures. Beat operates procurement policy and has a select list of suppliers that is updated at the end of each financial year. Beat provides value for money by careful costing, recycling materials and having a high level of voluntary contribution.

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BEAT CARNIVAL Beat Carnival Centre 11-47 Boyd Street Belfast BT13 2GU

Beat Carnival complies with legislative regulations laid out in Equal Opportunities legislation, the Disability Discrimination Act and the Children’s Order, GDPR and other appropriate legislation. Beat Carnival Policies include: a Child Protection & Safeguarding Policy, a Health and Safety Policy, Community Relations Policy, Harassment Policy, Equal Opportunities Policy and Privacy Policy.

Staff Training

Beat’s youth programme manager completed an ILM Award Level 3 in Leadership and Management. This qualification is valuable for new, aspiring managers without formal training or qualifications that reflect their experience. Other staff training undertaken included: CO3 fundraising workshop; Recruit, Retrain, Reward; Managing Change; Discover your Leadership; Culture of Impact; Cultural Governance Conference.

Staff Changes

The Carnival School Worker post finished (funding ended). This team member was employed in the weekly programme on a freelance basis. This provides valuable youth work expertise in our youth programme and staff team.

Risk Statement

Further to the above management statements, the trustees identify the major risks to which the charity is exposed each financial year when preparing and updating a strategic plan, in particular those related to the operations and finances of the charity. The trustees then review any major risks that have been identified and establish systems to mitigate those risks. The charity is satisfied that the systems are in place to mitigate their exposure to the major risks that have been so identified and reviewed. The charity is open to the usual financial risks of any organisation, and the charity has introduced controls to minimise these risks, such as two signatures being required for payments from the bank account. In addition, the accounts are regularly explained to members of the charity and are open for member's inspection at any time. Identified risks include: Strategic, Financial, Governance, People, Reputation, IT and Data, Health & Safety, Assets.

The Beat Carnival Centre building

There were issues of concern with repairs needed to Beat Carnival Centre, Northern Ireland’s unique arts creation facility. We think the asset is an important, unique asset in the Northern Ireland and Belfast arts ‘ecosystem’ and should be safeguarded and developed for greater benefit. In this period we undertook further survey and assessment work including a drains survey of the site. Repairs were carried out to some of the widespread water ingress. The biggest improvement was in accessibility and inclusion, with creation of an automatic entrance from Gardener Street to the arts activity room and an adjacent disability accessible toilet.

FUTURE BUSINESS & PLANNING, ARTISTIC PLANNING & AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT

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BEAT CARNIVAL Beat Carnival Centre 11-47 Boyd Street Belfast BT13 2GU

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