Brunel Sinfonia

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Review of finances for the period from January 2005 to March 2008 

Incorporation

The Brunel Sinfonia was incorporated on 2 September 2005.  It commenced its activities in January 2005 and became a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity in September 2005. 

Legal and administration

The financial statements for the first two accounting periods (i.e. 15 months ended 31 March 2006 and year ended 2007) are filed at Companies House[1] and comply with current statutory requirements, the Memorandum and Articles of Association and the Statement of Recommended Practice – Accounting and Reporting by Charities (revised 2005).  The financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2008 are in the process of being finalised.

Objects of the Charity

The principal activity of the charity as stated in the Memorandum and Articles of Association is to advance the education of the general public in the arts, particularly music, by the provision of concerts and musical events; or through any other charitable activity that the Trustees at their absolute discretion may determine.

The key objectives of the Brunel Sinfonia are as follows:

• to promote, maintain, improve and advance musical education of the general public;
• to promote the arts and in particular music, within the city of Bristol;
• to support the work of local composers;
• to produce concerts of a high standard featuring challenging works. 

Organisation

The board of Trustees meet three to four times a year.  The Trustees manage the development and financial aspects of the charity.  The orchestral direction of the charity is overseen by Tom Gauterin.  Day to day management of the orchestra is the responsibility of Dave Sherwin who is assisted in this by a number of other volunteers involved in areas such as management of the music library, publicity and the Brunel Sinfonia’s website.  

Financial review

The Brunel Sinfonia performs three concerts a year.  These concerts take place in March, June and November each year and co-incide with the end of each academic term.  The activities of the Brunel Sinfonia are funded by ticket sales and orchestra members’ subscriptions.  These funds are used to defray the costs incurred in putting on the orchestra’s three concerts a year and to maintain its reserves policy in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act. 

Cost of a concert

The average cost of putting on a concert is currently approximately £3,500.  The single biggest item of expenditure is for the hire of rehearsal space and concert venue.  This alone amounts to some £1,350 per concert. 

Over the last year or so, ticket sales have met most of the cost leaving a shortfall of some £600 per concert to be covered by subscriptions.  Without subscriptions, the orchestra would have made a net loss of some £1,750 over the last three concerts.  With the help of subscriptions, the orchestra succeeded in achieving a net surplus of £1,700.  This net surplus is, however, not an enrichment of the orchestra but is a much needed contribution towards the orchestra’s future planned activities and its reserves/contingency fund.  The orchestra does not enjoy the benefit of any grant or other source of funding for this purpose.

Over the last few concerts, ticket sales have been declining (see attached graph).  This is a source of worry and efforts are being made to address this and its impact on the orchestra’s finances.

Future activities

The orchestra is planning to move the venue of its concerts from Clifton Cathedral to the Victoria Rooms.  This move will necessarily increase the cost of venue hire from £600 to £1,500 per concert.  The Victoria Rooms, although a more expensive venue, is a superior one in many respects.  Hire of the Victoria Rooms includes the use of a grand piano which will make the programming of piano concertos more cost effective.  It provides better acoustics, refreshment facilities and layout for audience seating.  It also provides the opportunity for more variable ticket pricing and the holding of pre-concert talks all of which are expected to increase the revenue from ticket sales.  The Victoria Rooms is also the venue for NBS concerts and by holding Brunel Sinfonia concerts at the same venue, concert date clashes between the two will be a thing of the past!       

The orchestra is planning to hold its summer 2009 concert at the Colston Hall.  This is an ambitious project involving a number of local schools.  There are cost implications to this for which the orchestra needs to plan.  It is expected that a reasonably large part of any accumulated surplus to date will be applied towards the cost of this project.  

Reserves

As a registered charity the Brunel Sinfonia is required to maintain a sensible reserves policy.  The orchestra’s reserves serve as a contingency fund.  They are therefore not to be used to fund the day to day activities of the orchestra.  These reserves (i.e. those funds not tied up in fixed assets, and designated and restricted funds) represent the amount which the charity will require to sustain its operations over the period when it is anticipated that income generation may be curtailed (e.g. circumstances may occur to force the cancellation of a concert at very short notice) or insufficient to cover the cost of planned activities.  Thus the Trustees have agreed to maintain a level of reserves to cover the cost of cancelling two concerts.  This currently amounts to some £7,000 in total.  The actual level of the orchestra’s reserves to date is some £7,500.  On the basis that the vast majority of this serves as a contingency fund, it leaves little for use towards the orchestra’s current and planned future activities.

Subscriptions

When the Brunel Sinfonia was formed, one of its operational objectives was to finance its activities without the need for subscriptions from members.  It became apparent very early on that this was not going to be achievable.  Revenue from sales of tickets, programmes and refreshments alone were insufficient to meet the cost of the orchestra’s activities.  The Trustees’ efforts to raise funds from other sources (e.g. Bristol City Council, the Arts Council, National Lottery and local businesses) met with very limited success.  The Trustees had no choice but to introduce subscriptions in April 2005.

Subscriptions were initially set at an adult rate of £15 per term and a student rate of £5 per term.  Mindful of increasing costs and the need to raise a minimum of £3,500 per concert to cover costs, it became necessary in September 2006 to increase each term’s subscriptions to £20 per adult and £10 per student.  In addition, each orchestra member was encouraged to sell six tickets per term to raise the necessary funds.  In this way, and with an average orchestra membership of 70, each member, through a combination of subscriptions and sales of allocated tickets, could be expected to raise some £50 per concert towards the orchestra’s funding requirements.

Following a survey of the orchestra members recently, a large number expressed their disapproval of the requirement to sell an allocated number of tickets.  A more than expected number stated a preference for increasing the level of subscriptions in order to do away with the requirement to sell tickets.

In response to this, the Trustees have agreed that from April 2008 onwards, no orchestra member will be required to sell any tickets.  Funding requirements will, in part, be met by increasing subscriptions per term to £40 each for adults in return for which they would receive two free tickets each which they were free to sell at a full price of £9 each.  This effectively means an increase in subscriptions of £2 per adult only.  Subscriptions for students remain at £10 each per term with no allocation of free tickets.  Orchestra members are still free to sell tickets, if they so wish.  To encourage advance sales, a discount of £1 off the full price ticket of £9 will be offered.

The Trustees will continue the policy of waiving subscriptions for any member experiencing financial difficulties. 

Prudent financial management

As an organisation in its infancy, the Brunel Sinfonia began with nothing in the way of reserves with which to finance its activities.  It is for this and all the reasons stated above that the orchestra has had, and continues, to monitor its cash flows closely and to maintain tight control over concert expenditure.  Any decisions to increase ticket prices and subscriptions have not been taken lightly.  Prudent financial management and the securing of subscriptions from the orchestra members is required to ensure that the charity achieves the degree of financial security necessary to enable it to carry out its activities and meet its charitable objectives in the medium term.    

Summary

The Brunel Sinfonia is not a rich orchestra.  The Trustees have worked hard over the years to set up and manage the affairs of the orchestra in such a way as to achieve a reasonably healthy current financial position.  This is to enable future activities to continue.  However, the orchestra’s future is by no means certain but is dependant upon the continued support and efforts of all orchestra members. 

Eileen Emmanuel

Treasurer & Trustee

2 May 2008