2014 – Year 17

Now that the company is focused on larger projects, our direction and aim is clearer and hopefully we can consolidate this position by building our relationships with our funders and looking for more partnerships. We managed to find and win three significant contracts in this period and secured the stability of the company for the next two years. These were:

Prevista Enterprise: similar to our last NEET project and will run for 2 years. This time however we do the long term mentoring with the students not just the workshops. This has involved a steep learning curve and has taken us more time and cost us more money that anticipated. However it will result in long term funding.

Camden Coding: this new project is for three years and is based on providing Lego and coding workshops for all of the Camden secondary schools. There was a pilot phase then the project started in full.

BFI film academy: we won the contract to deliver the pilot scheme then two years of network projects and residential projects. This is a significant accolade as only 5 organisations were awarded the residential which puts us in the top 2 organisations for running animation and VFX workshops in the UK.

The headline events this year were –

  • Commencing Prevista “enterprise”: £140,000 over 2 years
  • Awarded £120,000 from BFI to run two residential project, one a year.
  • Awarded £36,000 from BFI to run two film academy projects, one a year
  • Awarded £190,000 from Camden council to run three year coding project
  • Involving 10 volunteers in the running of the organisation.

Young peoples workshops.
We have instigated a new way or measuring our impact and have chosen “students days”. This is how many student multiplied by how many days that have happened as a direct result of our activity. So a class of 30 students working for a day will be 30 student days. However we have not yet found a way of identifying the number of staff running the training as a staff ratio of 30:1 results in a different experience to 3:1

Year Projects Young people Student days
Yr 16 Sept- Aug 13 41 940 1960
Yr 17 Sept- Aug 14 43 1046 2550

 This activity this year breaks down into the following;

  • 2 Primary animation workshops – 1 day – 58 young people
  • 2 Primary Lego workshops – 1 day – 58 young people
  • 6 Special school animation workshops – 8 days – 70 young people
  • 2 primary video projects – 3 days – 55 young people
  • 2 Secondary animation projects – 2 days – 60 young people
  • 1 primary after school club – 6 days – 20 young people
  • 18 secondary NEET projects and long term mentoring – 4 days plus monthly support – 160 young people
  • 1 residential project – 8 days – 40 young people
  • 1 animation project – 9 days – 18 young people
  • 1 secondary editing project – 1 day – 50 young people
  • 11 secondary Video Effects projects – 1 day – 385

We also ran holiday clubs and weekend projects;

  • 4 flash workshops – 1 day – 48 young people
  • 2 Lego workshops – 1 day – 24 young people

London International Animation Festival
The Festival at the Barbican is doing well; we are extending the touring provision and building on our partnerships with the Barbican and Picture House cinemas.

Nov 2013 Sept 2012 Sept 2011 Sept 2010 Sept 2009
Ticket sales 7200 6814 5971 £4979 £4841
Films shown 350 380 299 326 342
Audience 3100 2840 2634 1780 2650
Films received UK 110 97 80 326
Films received all 2300
Advertising/sponsorship £1220 £2918 £1875 £2825 £1900
Touring revenue £4120 £3070
London venues 15 8 8 2
Venues not in festival 45 40 21 2

Specific Project details

  • “Enterprise” funded by the SFA, ESF and run by Prevista. We are working in these boroughs: Brent, Camden, City of London, Croydon, Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Kensington & Chelsea, Kingston, Lambeth, Merton, Richmond, Southwark, Sutton, Wandsworth, Westminster. We deliver a workshop followed by mentoring for a year. The paperwork trail takes as much time as delivering the support to the students but we have put systems in place now to streamline the process.
  • BBC Children in need. This is a three-year project working with special schools. Each workshop takes around six days and we work with a class. The project finishes with a screening at the school.
  • BFI Film academy network. The project will be for 18 students and will run over the autumn half term. £18k. The aim is to attract talented young people from this area of London and work with them to develop their skills. We are also offering the silver arts award.
  • BFI Film academy residential. The project will be for 40 students and will run over the spring half term, £60k. The aim is to attract talented young people from across the UK and work with them to develop their skills and provide careers support.

Internal and External Factors
The trustees have made an assessment of any factors that may effect the company over the next few years. This is the resulting statement;

The current climate of reduced funding has continued to affect our sector as there are fewer projects to apply to and the competition is fiercer. We have been fortunate to secure several big contracts and so this will provide stability for the next two years. However the number of smaller project has all but dried up so our options are reduced and we are more dependent on bigger projects and more vulnerable as our customer base is smaller. However the narrowing of focus was a deliberate strategy so that we could concentrate our efforts on more significant projects. We now need to build our customer base slightly to spread the risk.

Objectives and strategies for the coming year

  1. Fulfil our commitments to our contracts– we will do this by:
    1. Working closely with our partners and by ensuring that enough management resources are in place to set up and organise the activity successfully.
    2. Ensure that our work is of a high quality and that we have documented our successes.
  2. Continue to stabilise the charity in the wake of the reduced funding – we will do this by:
    1. Continue to cut costs and keep tight control on spending.
    2. Look for opportunities to extend any existing work.
    3. Search for new projects and funding.
    4. Regularly assess finances and make proactive choices to protect company.
  3. Develop large scale projects and partnerships – we will do this by:
    1. Research new streams of funding at prime level (0.5 – 10 m.)
    2. Apply for new partnerships
    3. Research new markets and opportunities.
    4. Research new techniques and technology.
  4. Develop our marketing – we will do this by:
    1. Refocus our website and Adwords campaign.

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