2023-03-31-annual-report - Down Community Arts

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Annual Report and Public Benefit of the Trustees of Down Community Arts for the period 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022

About the charity ......................................................................................................................... 2 Registration, registered office and correspondence address ............................................................. 2 Trustees who served during year ending 31 March 2020 were: ........................................................ 2 Governance ......................................................................................................................................... 2 Purpose ............................................................................................................................................... 2 Financial review ........................................................................................................................... 3 Public benefit report .................................................................................................................... 4 Our activities ....................................................................................................................................... 4 Our beneficiaries ................................................................................................................................. 8 Our achievements ............................................................................................................................... 8 Our impact .......................................................................................................................................... 9 Ensuring access to the public ............................................................................................................ 11 Ensuring that private benefit is incidental ........................................................................................ 11 Signed by Trustee .............................................................................................................................. 11 Our thanks ................................................................................................................................. 12

About the charity

Registration, registered office and correspondence address

CCNI registration number 103607

Company registration number NI 027833 Address and registered office 2-6 Irish Street Downpatrick Co Down BT30 6BP

Trustees who served during year ending 31 March 202 were:

Claire-Rose Canavan (Secretary) Anne Hanna Brenda Kent (Chair) Bill Osborne (Acting treasurer) Margaret Ritchie Emma Whjtehead Vera Woods

We employ one, full time, member of staff, our Project Manager Philip Campbell.

Governance

Down Community Arts is incorporated under our governing documents, a Memorandum and Articles of Association, which set out its purpose and powers. This was last updated and approved by the members and Trustees in October 2017.

The trustees are appointed by the members of the charity. No other body or individual has the power to nominate or appointment trustees.

Purpose

The charity’s purpose is to promote, maintain and improve the arts for the benefit of the inhabitants of County Down and its wider communities, without distinction of sex, race or of political, religious or other opinions and to develop public appreciation of such art by associating together the inhabitants, the local authorities and other organisations in a common effort to advance the education of such inhabitants.

Financial review

This is a summary review of the charity’s financial position at the end of the year. Details are in our annual accounts, prepared by an independent examiner and filed with CCNI.

We grew income by 49% over last year. This enabled significant expansion in programming and direct arts expenditure rose by 146%. Admin costs increased by under 1%; these cover staff costs, office rent and operation, marketing, accountancy, insurance, volunteers and depreciation.

We made a small operating surplus (£3,803) which added to our unrestricted reserves to sustain activities without having to put up barriers to participation by charging profit making fees. We also increased our ability to sustain the creation of public benefit by diversifying our income sources and increased the proportion we earned from 7% to almost a quarter (24%). See page 10 for our funders.

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Expenditure 2022/23 and 2021/22 £'s
120
100
45
80
12.2
Earnings
60 15.7 16
Other Grants
40 Arts Council NI
54 52
20
0
2021/22 2022/23
Thousnds
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Expendiure 2019/20 and 2018/19 £'s

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120
100
49
80
58
60 Administrative
Direct
40
65
20 41
0
2020/21 2021/22
Thousands
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Public benefit report

In setting our objectives and annual programme of activities for the year past, the trustees of Down Community Arts took the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland’s statutory guidance on public benefit into full account, so that the activities delivered should contribute to achieving the charity’s purposes and provide a benefit to the beneficiaries. Our report for 2019/20 shows that the charity created considerable public benefit in furtherance of its charitable purposes.

Our activities

Over the year to 31 March 2023 we engaged 510 people in arts and the community through 148 participatory activities across 16 towns and villages in Newry Mourne and Down.

We tailored some of our programmes to engage particular communities, specifically rural towns, marginalised children and young people and isolated older people. And we worked with others to add arts elements to festivals and other events as a way to bring the arts to a wider audience.

Overview of programmes delivered DCA programming Draw My Life projects play a crucial role in fostering creativity, inclusivity, and personal development providing a supportive and enriching environment for children, to express themselves through digital art mediums. By promoting that arts skills are not essential to participation the project empowers young individuals to explore their talents, build confidence, and develop essential social skills. Children and Young People Our artist Graham Ginty openly admits from the outset of every project that he has no drawing skills which immediately puts participants at ease. This year we successfully delivered 2 Draw My Life projects to young people in Newry and Moneydarragh. Another highlight of the year occurred when we had the opportunity to work with Youth Initiatives on a series of print workshops with Kiera Arnold. Kiera was a new artist brought on by DCA for

2022 and delivered workshops exploring various print making techniques . Through hands-on experiences, these workshops provide a unique avenue for self-expression, skill development, and the exploration of diverse artistic techniques. Person, Place, Possession Jamie Harper and Niamh Clarke delivered our Person, Place, Possession project in Strangford and Killyleagh. We wanted to deliver a project that explored the relationship between artists and the communities they work with. The project was unique for DCA in that we wanted to present artists not as facilitators of but as equal contributors to the creative process. Through this symbiotic relationship artists were presented with an opportunity to understand the impact their work has on the community and participants could understand the practices of an artist. Rebalancing the relationship between artist and community led to some very interesting results with participants commenting Community ‘ Niamh was a brilliant teacher and we learned so much about her work and how she works as an artist. I’ve learned so much and have an understanding of how to do portraits, Finally! Thank you for giving me the opportunity, can we have more please’ Diane Eakin ,Killyleagh, Person Place Possession participant St Patrick’s Day 2023 We are building year on year the community participation in the St Patricks Day Parade and we are so proud of our achievements this year as we had 371 children and young people involved.. We extending our reach beyond Downpatrick to bring in groups from Drumaness and Killyleagh as we look to make St Patricks Day one of the biggest community events in Ireland.

Our work with older people focused on delivering a number of intergenerational workshops with local school children helping participants to combat isolation and loneliness. In Killyleagh we provided workshops that were facilitated by Niamh Clarke and, explored drawing techniques with the children and older people exploring portraiture workshops working in pencil and charcoal. At Cumran primary in Clough we provided digital arts workshops with Helen Walls. Using procreate on tablets to introduce older people to digital art forms and teaching young children basic drawing skills. The group drew each others portraits in a range of artistic styles over the 6 week period producing short animation telling stories between children and older people. In partnership with Moneydarragh Older People Community Hub we also enabled people to access silversmithing and textiles workshops. Our participants told us ‘ I really enjoy Thursday afternoons, socialising and learning new skills. I have made a bookmark which is very useful. The jewellery making was fascinating.’ ‘I enjoyed the craft and dressmaking sessions. It opened up a creative world for me to explore. The tea and chats afterwards was a highlight too.’ ‘The whole experience was worth coming to, Claire is definitely a great instructor. I particularly enjoyed the jewellery pendant last week. The craic was brilliant. Making new friends is another lovely experience.’ ‘I enjoyed each week learning new things and meeting new friends’

A snap shot of our outputs

806 participants 162 community arts workshops, performances, events 16 Locations worked in 24 artists employed 14 community partners

Moneydarragh Downpatrick Killyleagh Dundrum Newry Annalong Newcastle Strangford Clough Drumaness

We delivered 162 activities tailored for:

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Older
Children
people
and young
29% people
42%
Local
Communities
21%
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We engaged 806 people
Older
Children
People
and
33%
young
people
49%
Adults
Umder 65
18%
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(We redistribute ‘all ages events’ according to the age make-up of the NI population)

Locations of projects in relation to NI Multiple Deprivation Measure

1 – Most deprived	2
2	2
3	2
4	4
5	1
6	1
7	0
8	1
9	3
10 – Least deprived	0

Our beneficiaries

To remove barriers to the benefits of community arts for individuals and communities, we chose to provide specific programmes for older people and children, particularly those facing the disabilities our society creates for people who are different.

Four of our youth targeted projects provided 28 sessions to 190 disabled or marginalised children.

Three of our projects were open only to older people. These engaged 90 people in 36 sessions over an extended period of time which enabled them to create their own art to express themselves.

Our achievements

We succeeded in increasing access to the benefits of community arts by

Producing high quality artistic outcomes
Maintaining programming in hard to reach areas across Newry Mourne and Down
Working in partnership with new community organisations and groups
Engaging with of children living with disability and young people pushed to the margins
engaging in more festivals and with partners to bring arts more people than last year
keeping to zero or nominal fees across all projects
developing new ways of working and sourcing funds to sustain access into future years

Feedback shows that people who took part in our programmes benefited by

gaining education and learning in relation to a specific art form, their own talents and tastes or their community
building their confidence to create something, to work with others, or to speak out about their own experience or aspirations
meeting new people and came together with others around a common interest

Our work benefitted the arts by

providing experience, income and connections to 24 artists
making over a dozen different art forms accessible to local communities
providing positive experiences of arts to 806 people of all ages
demonstrating the value of the arts to local public, private and third sector non-arts organisations

Our impact

Our outcomes during the year made important contributions to long term goals for individuals, communities and the arts in society.

Inclusion for all in the arts

We are proud that over a quarter (26%) of all participants across all of our youth projects were disabled or marginalised in some way and more than half of the places we worked in were villages or small towns often remote from arts and community activity. By running groups in which older people were welcome we made a contribution to tackling loneliness and social exclusion.

Wellbeing

We enabled individuals to learning new things, explore their talents, notice the world about them and meet other people. As well as the direct benefits of education, enjoyment and social engagement, all these effects are also known to promote physical, mental and social wellbeing.

Effective communities

We brought people together and contributed to them gaining insight, confidence, connections and understanding that can support them to make change in their lives and communities. Through our projects particularly through our engagement in the St Patricks Day Parade we helped people find something positive in their local community. By working with partner organisations and contributing to community pride we built local assets and added to the capacity for community development.

A society that values the arts

We gave people a positive experience of the arts, especially young people who are still forming their attitudes to the world. This makes a contribution to building a society that values the arts because people are more likely to value and support something of which they have had a good experience. We also worked with non-arts partners and demonstrated to them the value of the arts in making positive change in communities.

Ensuring access to the public

We strive to ensure that no body and no group of people are excluded from the benefits of our work. The majority of our activities are free and a few have a nominal charge in the interests of administration and sustainability. We use accessible premises wherever possible and adapt our work as we need to each person’s requirements. We purposefully choose to work with communities in rural areas, that have little access to arts activities or are excluded from other arts or which, through age, disability, identity or income, have limited access to mainstream art or community provision.

Ensuring that private benefit is incidental

We created paid work for 24 individual artists during the year, each of whom benefited from a fee and possibly by gaining skills, experience and an improved cv. Such benefit to individual artists is essential to delivering out public benefit and entirely incidental to it.

Signed by Trustee

Name Brenda Kent

Date 30 January 2023

Signature

Our thanks

We are grateful to the following Down Community Arts artists, partners, funders and collaborators

Artists who worked with us

Leontia Haldenby Caroline Shimmons Dermot McConaughey Aine Mckenna Elaine Callen Eoin McGinn Marion Noone Gerry Norman Heather McDermott Jenna Finnegan Kieron Black Olivia Murphy Rob Galbraith Ray Bonner Fang Zhao Lisa Murray Vincent McDonell Alison McGrenaghan Peter Surginor Trudy Burke Graham Ginty Judith O’Neill

Community partners who commissioned and collaborated to make art happen

Downpatrick Community Collective Dowpatrick Town Committee YMCA Newcastle Murlough Community Association Moneydarragh Hub Education Authority NI Youth Action NI Strangford Community Association County Down Rural Community Network Newry Mourne and Down District Council South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust SEHSCT Disability Services

Funders

Arts Council of Northern Ireland Newry Mourne & Down District Council Halifax Foundation