Arty Party Limited
Financial Statements
For The Year Ended 31 March 2017
Trustees’ Report
Arty Party Limited
on the Accounts for the Year Ended 31 March 2017
The trustees present their annual report and financial statements of the charity for the year ended 31 March 2017. The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with section 396 of the Companies Act 2006 and with the methods and principles of the Statement of Recognised Practice: Accounting and Reporting of Charities.
Company Number 07162495
Charity Name
Arty Party Limited
Company Number
07162495
Charity Number
1142517
Trustees
Julia Dean-Richards
Gill Pitt
Linda Rix
Chad Addison
Anthony Woods
Accountant
Community Accounting Services Limited
5 Winterton Way
Shrewsbury
SY3 5PA
Registered office
5 Winterton Way
Shrewsbury
SY3 5PA
Structure, Governance and Management
The organisation is a charitable company limited by guarantee, incorporated on 18 February 2010 and registered as a charity on 21 June 2011.The company was established under a Memorandum of Association which establishes the objects and powers of the charitable company and is governed under its Articles of Association.
The Trustees are appointed by the board and elected by members.
Objectives and Activities
The objectives of the charity are to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities within Shropshire and its surrounding areas, by promoting education and the arts, and through this improving individual health, social wellbeing and economic stability. Also to promote social integration and community cohesion, building trust, confidence and communication between people with disabilities and the wider community through the medium of the arts.
We will review our aims, objectives and activities each year, considering our achievements and the outcomes of our work in the previous 12 months. We will refer to the guidance contained in the Charity Commission’s general guidance on public benefit when reviewing our aims and objectives and in planning future activities. In particular, the Trustees will consider how planned activities will contribute to the aims and objectives they have set.
Membership, Teams and Committees
Arty Party is a membership arts organisation that works with adults with learning disabilities to create art, performance, craft, writing, film and music. The Arty Party Able Events Team is a group trained to run art and social events, including the Nights Out that many of our members enjoy. Our Art Room is for people who wish to discover their own style and exhibit and sell their art. Our Physical Theatre group meets regularly, and makes stunning performance pieces and films. Our Movers Group writes stories, poetry and articles and reports on events for the Arty Party Newsletter. We work towards and take part in local carnivals. Our Members Committee makes decisions and we learn and work together.
We have over 100 members. 12 members are elected onto the members committee. This committee makes decisions about future activities and fundraising, and is chaired and minuted by its members. 2 committee members represent the committee at Board meetings.
Publicity and Marketing
Arty Party employs the following strands of marketing:
- Social media – Its own FB pages, Twitter feeds and the Arty Party website;
- Newsletters to our membership of 100+;
- Flyers and local media campaigns for specific projects;
- Listings from other disability and arts organisations;
- Word of mouth;
- Listings from venues where our work is shown.
During the year 2016-17 we increased focused marketing due to the realisation of the Four Solos in the Wild project. This involved:
- A higher level of coordination with exhibiting venues;
- A higher level of collaboration with community and arts organisations in the areas where we are showing work;
- A greater online presence, sharing streaming of the work on sites which have a high number of hits and a strong interest in the arts;
- A greater number of well publicised opening events to launch each exhibition;
- Using the power of high quality and surprising images to create a buzz about the project in all forms of media;
- Continuous communication between our project evaluator, project manager and the touring venues.
Achievements and Performance in the year
Four Solos in the Wild
Four Solos in the Wild is Arty Party’s latest film and photo exhibition, funded by Arts Council England. It began with a week-long residential involving seven of our members, in the beautiful Ty Canol woods, Wales. The residential was led by movement artist Simon Whitehead. A few weeks later, four of our performers, accompanied by a film crew, musicians Deuair, and director Ray Jacobs, as well as creative advocates and support staff, returned to the woods, to make four short films.
During 2016-17, the exhibition, which also featured photographs by Dance photographer, Chris Nash, and those of Ray Jacobs, toured seven galleries and exhibition spaces across the United Kingdom, including The Place, Oakengates, Telford, where the exhibition was launched with a fabulous event, attended by over seventy members, friends and colleagues. The exhibition was also shown at Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury, Projectability Gallery, Trongate, Glasgow, Solihull Courtyard Gallery, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton. The performers travelled to Glasgow to launch the exhibition at Projectability, and lead a movement residential to explore exhibition and gallery space. The residential was facilitated by Ray Jacobs and Rachel Liggitt, supported by Anna Belyavin. The artists/performers were joined by artists from Projectability and dancers with learning disabilities, from Glasgow based Indepen-dance.
The four short films featuring our talented performers, Graham Busby, Erika Juniper, Andrew Kelly and Mervyn Bradley, and directed by Ray Jacobs, are presently being shown at film festivals all around the globe and have already picked up awards. During 2016-17, the films won a Creation Award at the Fiver International Dance Film competition in Spain. Graham Busby’s solo “A Safe Place to Rest”, won ‘Best Film’ at the MITS festival in Barcelona, and Graham travelled to the festival to collect the prize, it was also shown at the Tiny Dance Film Festival in San Fransisco, and won an honourable mention at Picture This Film Festival, Calgary, Canada. Further information can be found at https://solointhewild.com/ .
In March 2017, we were invited by Carousel’s Oska Bright, to show our films at the Tate, London, so the performers, crew and supporters travelled by train, to London, for a sleepover. Oska Bright and Tate Modern hosted the event, Matthew Hellet and Becky Bruzas doing a great job of presenting our films. In an emotionally charged question and answer session, our members talked with the audience about loss, love, connection and living for now.
Physical Theatre
We continued to run weekly Physical Theatre sessions, on Fridays, at Trinity Centre, Meole Brace, Shrewsbury. The group produced some amazing work, and continue to be very focussed and creative. Talented photographer, Ewen Macintyre, joined the Friday Physical Theatre group to record the work of the group on a weekly basis. Photographs were shown on our facebook page. The Friday Physical Theatre group also made contact with Oska Bright, in Brighton, via Skype. This helped the group hone their ability to answer questions about their work and progress, put by an external audience.
The well-established Shrewsbury group attracted new members this year. Tragically, Dean Warburton, a talented member of this group, died in a car accident. The group spent time together, both grieving and celebrating Dean’s remarkable achievements, supported by Arty Party staff and the minister at Trinity Centre.
Moving On
We made the decision to close our market stalls, due to a down-turn in sales and impending cold winter weather. The Market Team reformed as The Movers, and took charge of producing copy for Arty Party’s newsletter. We looked for a place to base our journalistic operations. After a few weeks of meeting in cafes, the group moved to ‘In Good Hands’, a community cafe with a big heart, in Shrewsbury. In return for our members’ custom, Tessa and Sanya provide a warm and welcoming environment, with good food, as well as a space to write, read and produce the newsletter that is sent to all members and friends of Arty Party, advertising our activities and events and showcasing the writing and art work of our members.
Nights Out
Arty Party continued to run nights out at Castle Farm Community Centre, Hadley, Telford. We held Nights Out in July 2016 (our exhibition party), for Halloween, at Christmas and for Valentine’s Day. Arty Party Nights Out attract our wider membership, many of whom do not currently attend other Arty Party activities. The events are themed and include a disco and nibbles. We promoted our other events and activities at Nights Out, and the events were planned and organised by our Members Committee, led by Julie Watson and Chad Addison.
Shrewsbury Carnival 2016
Once again, in June 2016, our Karnival Krew prepared for and entered Shrewsbury Carnival. We worked in partnership with artists from Participate Art Space, Shrewsbury. Members and volunteers helped artist Phill Evans to build a Mad Max vehicle, and donned costumes made by talented artist Reubon Amarna. The Karnival Krew entered the ‘Group On Foot’ category, which involved pushing our non-motorised vehicle all around the streets of Shrewsbury. We had a great day you can see the photographs on our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/artypartytelford/
and are thankful to our partners and volunteers for helping us to spark new Arty Party interest in joining in with Carnivals.
Fundraising
We applied for and secured Arts Council England funding for the Four Solos project. Our Physical Theatre sessions enabled us to draw down funding through the Gateway Education and Arts Centre, Shrewsbury. As we were no longer at the Market, we were unfortunately no longer able to run the Arty Party lottery. We established a donation button on our facebook page. Members who attended events and activities contributed, to enable us to hire venues and storage, pay freelance facilitation and support staff, aswell as insurance and accounting costs. We subscribe to Give as You Live, which gives friends of the charity the opportunity to support us when they shop on-line, and the Everyday Shopping Card scheme run by Sainsburys. We are grateful to our funders and those who make donations to Arty Party. Any restricted funds are spent according to the grant requirements which assist the Charity in meeting its objectives.
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.
Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees.
Julia Dean-Richards
Chair of Trustees
Date 08/10/2017