Principal activities of the company

ARTISTIC PROGRAMME These accounts represent the sixteenth year of trading for Writing East Midlands and ninth period since converting to Community Interest Company status in support of the organisation's artistic aims and social values. We believe in an open society which for us means equality of access to the means of creativity, the arts, and expression. WEM works to build the region's reputation for the quality and diversity of its writers and as a place where writing is valued as an art and for its social impact. We run programmes that raise the skills and aspirations of writers connecting them to communities. We aim to be the place in the East Midlands, where people exchange ideas for working in the literature sector knowing we can connect them with partners among organisations, artists, producers, local authorities, schools, universities, museums, libraries, heritage organisations, and the health sector. 2024 - 25 saw the organisation move past the Covid crisis but accept that there have been fundamental changes to audience behaviours. Its operations have adjusted to cope with the new circumstances, and to acknowledge the additional effects of the squeeze in the standards of livings of many people in the last few years and knock on effects to health and wellbeing in the general population. We also became more conscious of the negative changes in social dynamics and difficulties between communities. This continued to inform our work during the period. After the successful fund raising on the previous period in which we moved away from seeking smaller grants in favour of fewer but larger grant funding projects with a high degree of diversity and inclusivity, much of our focus was directed at delivering against the £460,548 of new funds generated within the last period for activity between 2024 - 2027. These are for collaborating with autistic people in Beyond the Spectrum (£262,098 from ACE, £148,450 from The National Lottery Reaching Communities Fund, and £49,410 from Lincolnshire Shine Fund). The project has progressed to providing a national project bringing together many partners from arts, social service, and NHS sectors, in a new network for autistic creatives. It continued to move the organisation forward in its aim of becoming experts in the field of using arts for social benefit. We continued to contribute to ACE's Let's Create strategy as a National Portfolio Organisation through core activity which provides mentoring programmes, learning activities, workshops, conferences, residencies, and agency and publishing activities for emerging and established writers. NPO funding for this purpose from ACE was £198,000 reflecting an uplift of £70,000 on previous periods. Alongside these smaller grants were received from ALCS (£5,000) and Amazon (£7,000). We continued to lead and collaborate on projects which satisfied our aims to work with diverse groups of children and young people, particularly in areas of lesser provision. The reconnection with SlamJam in Lincolnshire led to new funding for this partnership enabling more engagement for spoken word in Lincolnshire schools. It replaces recent activity with young person's charity Eastside, which delivered Spoken Word Power and will continue to connect students with leading poets to encourage self-expression and confidence. Planning took place for our biennial Writers Conference to be held at the University of Lincoln on 12th April 2025. This included sponsorship from Troubadour Publishing and the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society. Our WEMterns programme, which supports 18-25-year-old writers taking the first steps in their writing careers, continued to grow. Members were provided with opportunities to shadow established writers, engage with work experience, The Youth Advisory Board was now playing an active role in guiding and initiating new youth focused activities, arts leadership and governance, including planning cultural events to celebrate South Asian Heritage Month. Once again, we worked with Serendipity in Leicester to deliver the Black Ink writing competition for writers from the African-Caribbean diaspora. WEM's annual writing competition, Aurora, ran for the ninth time again increasing applicants. Solstice the nature-themed, young writers' prize also grew. The organisation was pleased to collaborate with partners in the Bolsover District Cultural Corridor. The Directors look forward to these relationships developing into interesting heritage-based projects in the area. FINANCIAL SUMMARY The Director's recognise that as the organisation enters a period of growth there is the risk of strain on its resources which may detract from its core purpose of providing opportunities for writers. Care is needed to ensure full cost recovery from project funds, and there remains the need to strengthen core funding further to maintain the organisation's recent impetus. Towards this end the Directors have undertaken to convert the organisation into a CIO in the next period. This will support a more beneficial tax position and broaden opportunities for funding grant giving trusts and foundations. The organisation continues to benefit from strong support from Arts Council England through National Portfolio funding providing a core grant of £198,000 in the period. The Directors note that the direction of these activities correspond closely with Arts Council England's Let's Create 10-year strategy to support creative people, cultural communities, and a creative and a cultural country. They also note that the award period has been extended to 2028 because of government spending reviews and the possible effects on arts funding. The company improved its financial position despite the challenging environment. Turnover increased to £349,667 (£281,143). Administrative expenses were £195,348 (£194,806). After deductions for costs of sales £128,193 (£85,278) there was an operating surplus before tax of £28,747 (£4,354). The Board notes that reserves have therefore increased to £81,377 (£57,799). While this is in line with a previously stated policy of moving reserves to a minimum position equivalent to three months of operational costs, the current environment makes it prudent to raise expectations and requirements for holding a higher level of reserves at this time, measured against a proportion of turnover. By this measure we aim to increase reserves to 25% total turnover. This stands at 23.3% at the end of the period.

This report was approved by the board of directors on 2 October 2025
and signed on behalf of the board by:

Name: M J Molloy
Status: Director