2013 – Year 16

This year saw the end of our NEET workshops that have dominated our activity for the past 5 years or so. The last set ran from September to Christmas. We have been looking to find similar work and have been in two consortiums but so far no success. There has been some significant replacement projects come in and that has gone some way to keep the company active however more need to be done to build up the work.

The other key event was that we stopped running adult courses. This was a decision not taken lightly however the company was spending too much time and resources for too little return. We felt that we had tried to improve the marketing however for a number of reasons we felt that it would never run at a profit or break even.

Finally this year saw the biggest change in our sector for the past 20 years – the BFI, having for the first time control of all youth filmmaking finance, sort to merge Film Club with Film Education and First Light. This collapsed and a tender of £28m was announced. We became one of the three partners to create a rival bid to Film Club and First Light. Our partnership contained Film Education, Cine Club and us. We lost the bid and Film Education has now ceased operating. The newly emerged Film Nation has since been awarded the money.

The headline events this year were –

  • Successfully completing “Create your future” £140,000 over 2 years
  • Awarded £30,000 from BBC Children In Need to run special school workshops.
  • Awarded £18,000 from BFI to run talent programme.
  • Awarded £25,000 from Creative Skillset to run Skills Fusion workshops.
  • Involving 12 volunteers in the running of the organisation.
  • Running children’s bursary scheme.

Young peoples workshops.
We completed 41 youth projects and worked with 940 young people providing a variety of moving image workshops. Last years figures were 47 projects working with 937 young people. This year breaks down into the following;

  •  6 Primary animation workshop – 1.5 days – 180 young people
  •  11 Primary animation workshops – 1 day – 330 young people
  •  2 Primary video workshops – 6 days – 50 young people
  •  1 Special school animation workshops – 8 days – 20 young people
  •  8 Secondary animation workshops – 4 days – 120 young people
  •  2 Secondary animation projects – 2 days – 60 young people
  •  2 secondary editing projects – 2 days – 30 young people

We also ran holiday clubs and weekend projects;

  • 2 animation bursary schemes – 4 days – 35 young people
  • 2 Saturday clubs – 6 sessions – 12 young people
  • 2 flash master classes – 1 day – 28 young people

In addition we ran a variety of other projects;

  • Launch of a Disney film workshop – 20 young people
  • Hungerford leaver’s dvd – 8 days – 55 children

London International Animation Festival
The Festival at the Barbican is doing well; we didn’t manage to get a grant from the BFI, which would have helped. It was the 10th anniversary of the festival and it felt like it had cemented it’s position into London’s calendar

Sept 2012 Sept 2011 Sept 2010 Sept 2009  Sept 2008
Ticket sales 6814 5971 £4979 £4841 £4476
Films shown 380 299 326 342 240
Audience 2840 2634 1780 2650 2550
Films received UK 97 80 326
Films received all 2300 2150
Advertising/sponsorship £2918 £1875 £2825 £1900 £500
Touring revenue 3070
London venues 8 8 2
Venues not in festival 40 21 2

Adult Learning
We do not receive any funding for our courses and provide entry-level tuition for filmmakers and animators as well as some higher-level courses. We also subsidise some introduction courses. The aim is to provide a cheap way for people to get started.

Term Courses Students

Conc

% full

Cancelled

Profit
Autumn 12

17

122

60

48%

3

2610
Spring 12

15

107

52

55%

5

2557
Summer 13

–

–

–

–

–

–
Totals Yr 15

53

391

171

51%

17

7649
Totals Yr 14

53

376

146

51%

10

9162
Totals Yr 13

50

402

109

53%

19

5315
Totals Yr 12

58

267

101

43%

14

6732

Membership
We have stopped the membership scheme.

Specific Project details

1)    “Create your future” funded by the SFA, ESF and YPLS and run by Armstrong Learning. Their area is east London. We were one of two delivery partners recruiting schools and running workshops. We have completed all their targets for us and our part in the project has now finished.

2)    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.

3)    “Skills Fusion”. We have been allocated £25K to run 10 workshops in secondary schools to build interest in young people who might want to enter the special effect industry. This is a reaction to a skills gap and a government focus on the VFX industry. We are working with First Light on this as well. We have invited 700 secondary schools to apply in 7 areas of England.

4)    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.

Fundraising Activities
We did not extend our fundraisers contract and have reduced the amount of applications we have put in. However we have been more successful with the smaller number. We applied for five projects and were successful with four of them. Total funds raised – £199,000

Staffing
These are the details as of 31/8/13.

Name Status Role Days per week Days per week pd
Simon Oatley Paid Management

4
Tatiana Renneberg Paid Management

3.5
Denise Savage Paid Finance

1
Nag Vladermersky Paid Fund raising

1.5
Mandy Smith Paid Marketing

1
Jenna Mitcell Volunteer Admin

3
Sophie Leen Volunteer Technical support

3
Theo Burley Volunteer Technical support

3
Totals

9

11
Yr 15

12

11
Yr 14

6

11.5
Yr 13

8

15

Internal and External Factors
The trustees have made a full assessment of any factors that may effect these financial statements and do not deem any factors material enough to have an impact, apart from the following:

The current climate of reduced funding has continued to seriously affect our sector; this has increased, as there seems to be a two to three year delay as budgets run their course. This means that current budget conditions will continue to get worse as there is no increase in funding in this sector. This will cause the company difficulties in securing funding. We will have enough work and funding for the coming year however Y18 will prove difficult and we will not be able to continue in the same format without new large scale projects. We will therefor look for this type of project whilst planning a plan B for reduced funding.

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.
  1. 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 exiting work.
    3. Search for new projects and funding.
    4. Assess finances and make proactive choices to protect company.
  1. Develop the programme of workshops and school activities – we will do this by:
    1. Research new markets and opportunities.
    2. Research new techniques and technology.
    3. Work with new tutors..
    4. Refocus our website and Adwords campaign.

 

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