LU Annual Report 2011-12

Lighting Up Annual Report 2011-12

1. Introduction

This Report falls into two main parts, which cover the services that Lighting Up delivers and how Lighting Up is governed. Our Mission and Aims are in Appendix 1, and for readers who are not familiar with Lighting Up, a summary of what we do and how we are special is in Appendix 4.

2 Summary

2.1 During the year there has been a continued increase in the number of participants attending Lighting Up sessions. This and other indicators continue to express a high level of satisfaction with our service. However, one of the important features of our service is a high ratio of artists to participants, and there has not been a corresponding increase in the number of practicing artists.

2.2 One of the items in the Strategy for this year (see Annual Report 2010-11) was to “formalise the existence of Lighting Up as a charity and its constitution”, and this has been achieved.

2.3 A further item in the Strategy for this year was “to open an additional Lighting Up venue towards the end of 2011”. This has not been achieved, though significant progress towards this had been made by the end of the year.

2.4 Income for the year exceeded expenditure by £120.

3 Participants – numbers and responses

3.1 The number of individual participants in Lighting Up sessions during the year was 72. The number of times that these individuals attended sessions (referred to as participations) gives the total extent of activity. During the year, the total number of participations was 371, an increase of 42 (12.8%) over the previous year. The figures for the past 3 years is shown in the table below.

April 11 –
March 12 / sessions / artists / participations / artist:
participant ratio
dementia / carers / total
Filton / 10 / 37 / 40 / 40 / 80 / 1:2.2
Westbury-on-Trym / 11 / 56 / 83 / 84 / 167 / 1:3.0
Withywood / 11 / 52 / 62 / 62 / 124 / 1:2.4
Total / 32 / 145 / 185 / 186 / 371 / 1:2.6
April 10 –
March 11 / sessions / artists / participations / artist:
participant ratio
dementia / carers / total
Filton / 11 / 58 / 40 / 40 / 80 / 1:1.4
Westbury-on-Trym / 11 / 54 / 64 / 64 / 128 / 1:4.0
Withywood / 12 / 60 / 57 / 64 / 121 / 1:2.0
Total / 34 / 172 / 161 / 168 / 329 / 1:1.9
April 09 –
March 10 / sessions / artists / participations / artist:
participant ratio
dementia / carers / total
Filton / 7 / 41 / 34 / 33 / 67 / 1:1.6
Westbury-on-Trym / 11 / 55 / 57 / 23 / 80 / 1:1.4
Whitchurch / 10 / 55 / 74 / 8 / 82 / 1:1.5
Total / 28 / 151 / 165 / 64 / 229 / 1:1.5

Definition: these figures give the number of attendances (participations), which may not necessarily be by the same individuals from session to session.

3.2 Each Lighting Up session takes place at a Drop-in for people living with dementia run by Alzheimer’s Society. Drop-ins run fortnightly, and Lighting Up artists come to alternate sessions, ie once every 4 weeks. People are invited to come to the Drop-ins by staff of Alzheimer’s Society, an arrangement that works well for both agencies, but it means that Lighting Up has no control over how many people come. Consequently the continuing increase in the number of people attending could be attributed to the popularity of the Drop-ins as much as to that of Lighting Up.

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3.4 A further indication of whether participants find the sessions helpful could be obtained from the attendance records of individual participants – for example a person who continues to attend over a sustained period would only do so if they found it enjoyable and/or helpful. Among the 34 individual participants who attended at least 6 sessions during 2011-12, 22 were also taking part during the previous year. Given that many older people, and especially older people living with dementia, find it difficult (for many reasons) to attend the same event consistently, this record of consistent attendances is likely to give an indication of participant satisfaction.

4. Artists and the artist:participant ratio

4.1 At the end of March 2012, 18 artists were active at our 3 venues. A further 7 artists remain involved in Lighting Up, but are not available because of other (mainly employment) commitments. The artistic abilities and inventiveness of Lighting Up artists continue to flourish, both in the media they offer and in their skill in sharing these with participants. Consequently each session gives enjoyment, support and indeed fun to people whose lives are often at a difficult stage. The artists too experience enjoyment, fun, and enormous satisfaction.

4.2 Each artist commits to one session per month, a commitment of up to 3 hours, which includes preparation and post-session evaluation, and many artists spend additional time buying or otherwise finding and preparing materials. Sessions are led by trustees in their roles as venue coordinators, but other artists support them, and at times stand in for them. In summary, artists are generous in their time, through donation of materials etc and through their overall commitment.

4.3 A feature of Lighting Up that distinguishes if from many other art-based projects in dementia care is the high ratio artists to participants. This enables artists to get to know the needs and preferences of each person, and to respond to each individual, even at times when participants are working together on a shared activity. The ratio of artists to participants in 2010-11 was one artist to 1.9 participants (1:1.9), but in 2011-12 it was 1:2.6. This means that in the current year each participant was likely to receive less individual attention than in the previous year, a trend that must not be allowed to continue.

4.5 At the beginning of 2012 the trustees agreed that more artists were needed, both to ensure a satisfactory artist:participant ratio at all session, and also to provide for the proposed additional venue (See Para 5.6 – 5.7). A campaign was launched to recruit a further 10 artists by the end of June 2012, which at the end of March was on course.

5. Governance

Constitution

5.1 Lighting Up started in 2007, an idea that developed into a project, but at the time did not have any formal structure. It was supported in many ways by the staff (and at that time the committee) of the Bristol office of Alzheimer’s Society. This support included safeguarding Lighting Up funds, providing formal processes for the appointment of volunteer artists, and enrolling all artists as volunteers with the Society, which gave them cover by the Society’s public liability insurance. This help made a major contribution to the development of Lighting Up, for which thanks have been expressed many times.

5.2 As the extent of Lighting Up’s activity increased, it became evident to both parties that it was time to develop Lighting Up into a separate organisation. In October 2011 Lighting Up adopted the formal status and constitution of a small charity. This is a status for charities with annual income of less that £5,000, which is governed by the same legislation as registered charities, but requires significantly less formalities.

5.3 Significant changes are:

-the management group (known as the Kitchen Cabinet) was replaced by a group of trustees governed by the Lighting Up Constitution. The first (and current) trustees are the same individuals as the former management group, but future trustees will be elected by Annual General Meetings. The positions of Chair, Secretary and Treasurer are appointed by the trustees.

-all active artists are members of Lighting Up, with the right to vote at AGMs. In addition, the status of member was extended to include any supporter of Lighting Up who agreed to become a member.

-funds held by Alzheimer’s Society on behalf of Lighting Up were transferred to a Lighting Up bank account. Lighting Up also took on full responsibility for selecting volunteer artists, and for public liability insurance.

5.4 The process of adopting charity status has included formalisation of working procedures, many of which were previously carried out informally. These procedures require greater administrative input, but bring greater security to operations that could previously have been subject to criticism.

Management

5.6 We were however unable to achieve the planned starting date of November 2011. This was partly because the process of identifying a partner agency took longer than expected, but more significantly the trustees are busy people who have little time to offer in addition to their existing commitments. Happily, good progress towards naming a start date was made in the first part of 2012.

5.7 The trustees govern the charity through monthly meetings. They also manage the sessions at our three venues and are involved in other activities, e.g. recruitment of artists and events to promote Lighting Up. At times this requires committing time and energies that they find difficult to fit into their already busy lives, and consequently we are having to focus on effective and safe management at the cost of innovation or longer-term planning. Some training for trustees, and separately for those trustees who are venue coordinators, will aim to strengthen management skills, but the recruitment of additional trustees would help to share the time commitments of this rewarding work.

5.8 Our management was given additional input by the appointment of Neil Pirie as treasurer. Neil has extensive experience in the voluntary sector, and in addition to steering the creation of the Lighting Up bank account he gave valuable advice about the mechanisms of forming a charity. It was Neil’s suggestion that he would not become a trustee, thereby retaining a greater element of independent oversight of the accounts.

6. Finance

6.1 During the year all our funds were transferred from the keeping of Alzheimer’s Society to the full control of the trustees.

6.2 Income for the year was £2925. We are especially grateful for donations from three individuals, listed in Appendix 3. As in the previous year we were in receipt of funding originating from NHS Bristol, channelled to Lighting Up by Alzheimer’s Society.

6.3 Expenditure for the year was £2805, the largest items being art materials and training. New expenditure was for public liability insurance, and an increase in travel expenditure for those artists who travel considerable distances, and who have been encouraged to claim. As in previous years there was no expenditure for hire of venues, which is arranged by Alzheimer’s Society for their Drop-ins.

6.4 Income exceeded expenditure by £120. An accumulated balance of £771 was brought forward from 2011-12, to which the current surplus of £120 is added giving a provisional reserve of £891.

6.5 During transfer of funds to Lighting Up from Alzheimer’s Society a difference of £21 was identified between the balance brought forward as calculated by Lighting Up and the actual sum transferred. It became evident that this was a historical amount that could not be identified, and after discussion between the two agencies the trustees agreed to write this amount off. The final sum accumulated for carry forward to 2012-13 is therefore:

surplus brought forward (as per Lighting Up accounts)£771

add excess of income over expenditure 2011-12£120

£891

deduct sum written off£ 21

balance carried forward to 2012-13£870

Details of the annual account are in Appendix 2.

7. Conclusion

The increasing number of participants, their continued expression of satisfaction, and the quality of input by artists all indicate that Lighting Up has and met its mission and aims during 2011-12. For the trustees it has been a year of satisfaction at transforming Lighting Up into a formal charity, but otherwise a year of ensuring safe and effective management at the cost of innovation or longer-term planning.

Applause all round at Withywood

Appendix 1

Lighting Up Mission and Aims

Our Mission Statement, which defines what we do, is:

• to support people who are living with dementia, helping them to maintain or improve the quality of their lives, through visual arts. By people living with dementia we mean people who have dementia and people who care for them
• having demonstrated that our work is successful, we will continue to reach out to support more participants, in more places, across a wide range of diversity in all its aspects
• we work in Bristol and the surrounding areas.

Our statement of Aims, or how we aim to achieve our Mission is:

For people who have dementia:

through visual arts to:

• create opportunities for expression, stimulation and achievement
• develop communication between people who have dementia and other people they are in contact with (individually and as groups)

For those who support people who have dementia (mainly family members, but also paid carers):

to enable:

• a period of respite and enjoyment
• the pleasure of seeing the people they support participating in the project (and achieving the outcomes described above)

For artists: enjoyment, a sense of doing something of value, satisfaction, and skill development

For all those taking part:

• to ensure that these processes have continuity and development from one session to the next (rather than being individual enjoyable events).

Appendix 2

Lighting Up unaudited accounts April 2011 – March 2012

INCOME

2 individual donations, anonymous £1150.00

Donation Huw Morgan £175.00

Donation Veale Washborough Charitable Trust

(through Huw Morgan) £100.00

total donations £1425.00

Allocation to Lighting Up by Alzheimer’s Society

for Peer Support funding, see note 2 £1500.00

Bank interest £0.50

total funding £2925.50£2925.50

EXPENDITURE

Materials £1122.18

Training £1097.52

Publicity and information including website £80.00

Travel £195.30

Management £310.47

Total expenditure £2805.47£2805.47

Excess income over expenditure £120.03

Fund reconciliation

Bank balance 31 March 2012£1002.20

Less unpresented cheques issued on/before 31 March £132.17

Adjusted bank balance £870.03 £870.03

Surplus brought forward from 2010-11 £771.18

Add excess income over expenditure 2011-12 £120.03

Book value of accumulated funds £891.21 £891.21

Balancing write-off to value of accumulated funds 21.18

to conform with actual bank balance, see note 3

Balance carried forward to 2012-13 £870.03

Notes

1. At the start of this financial year all Lighting Up funds were held and safeguarded by Alzheimer’s Society on behalf of Lighting Up. This was because Lighting Up, which was created as an informal group in 2007, did not have its own constitution or banking. In October 2011 Lighting Up adopted the formal status of a Small Charity (see main text Section 5), and an account in the name of Lighting Up was opened with the Cooperative Bank. This annual account therefore records transactions up to October 2011 that were handled by Alzheimer’s Society, and subsequent transactions that were handled by Lighting Up. Funds held by Alzheimer’s Society on behalf of Lighting Up were transferred to the Lighting Up account during the last months of 2011.

2. During 2010-11 Alzheimer’s Society made a bid to NHS Bristol for funding to support a number of projects under a 2-year national small-grant scheme known as Peer Support. Lighting Up was one of the projects included in the bid, which was successful. Some of the grant was apportioned to expenditure that was incurred by the Society (eg rental of venues). The amount shown here is the amount apportioned to expenditure incurred directly by Lighting Up.

3. In the process of reconciling the respective accounts of Alzheimer’s Society and Lighting Up, dating back to the formation of Lighting Up in 2007, a discrepancy was identified that could not be reconciled with the account records. This adjustment, which represents a write-off agreed by the trustees, nominally reduces the value of Lighting Up funds to make the book value the same as the value of actual funds in the bank account.

Appendix 3

Grateful Thanks

Lighting Up has a hard-working group of trustees, who also form the management group. They are Janet Clarke, Jan Connett, Louella Frankel Jones, Alison Scott and Chris Sherratt. In turn they would like to express thanks to all the helpers and supporters of Lighting Up, and especially to:

• our participants, who have made our work so rewarding and enjoyable, and
• our artists, who individually and in their teams make immense and generous contributions to the success of the sessions in which they participate, and to the overall character of Lighting Up.

Grateful thanks are also expressed to generous donors:

• two individuals who have made donations adding up to £1150 and have asked not to be named
• Huw Morgan for a donation of £175
• Veale Washborough Charitable Trust for a donation of £100, kindly arranged by Huw Morgan

We are also grateful to the staff of Alzheimer’s Society for their continuing advice and encouragement, and to North Bristol Artist, which supports us as a group, and many of whose members are also artists with Lighting Up.

Appendix 4

What Lighting Up does

Excerpts from Lighting Up Annual report 2010-11 (updated)

Lighting Up was formed in 2007 with the help of the Alzheimer’s Society (Bristol office) and North Bristol Artists. Lighting Up sessions are held monthly at the Drop-ins run by the Alzheimer’s Society in Filton, Withywood and Westbury-on-Trym.

At each session a variety of art- and craft-based activities are offered to people living with dementia (ie people who have dementia, and people who look after them, who are usually a close family member). The activities are a tool for communication between artists and participants, and often stimulate people who have dementia to demonstrate creative abilities that have not been seen previously or since the onset of dementia. At the end of some sessions the works created are seen by all participants, who are able to share a sense of satisfaction that many people living with dementia do not often experience.

The Lighting Up factor

We have identified three elements that we believe make Lighting Up different from the majority of art-based projects working with people living with dementia. Together we refer to these elements as the Lighting Up Factor. The three elements are:

• working alongside: in our earliest sessions we were concerned about the best balance between making suggestions to participants about possible activities (which could be seen as leading) and asking participants what they would like to do (which can present choices to people who have difficulty choosing). More recently artists have developed confidence in the technique of working alongside participants – this involves an element of making suggestions (at times a specific activity is proposed for the full group) but carefully observing how each participant reacts, as this can be a reliable indicator of whether they are comfortable with the activity that has been suggested. Even when the majority of participants are taking part in a joint activity, there are likely to be a small number who have expressed (not necessarily verbally) a preference for a more individualised activity. Given an average artist:participant ratio of 1:1.9, it is not difficult to provide individual attention to those participants who need it
• involvement of carers: the second factor is our work with carers: a small number of carers prefer to work apart from the family member they support, evidently enjoying the opportunity to work on their own. However, the majority of carers prefer to work closely with the person they care for, and are evidently getting pleasure from (and are often surprised by) that person’s abilities and achievements
• structure: there can be few similar art-based projects, in which a specific aim is to contribute to the quality of the lives of people living with dementia, that are run entirely by volunteers.

Lighting Up Annual Report 2011-12 1