Boldmere Futures continues to run the Boldmere Summer and Christmas festivals and other community based projects in the Boldmere area. Directors serving during 2024-25 were Paul Long, Sophie Wiggett and Lynette Richards and Gary Jones. Gary Jones resigned as a director on 22/11/24. In 2024-25, Boldmere Futures CIC took responsibility the following projects: - Christmas Festival 2024 - Summer Festival 2025 - Preparations for Christmas Festival 2025 (later cancelled due to funding error by Sutton Coldfield Town Council) - Large mural through the Shared Prosperity Fund - Taking on Where’s Ellie from March of the Elephants - Collaboration with Bulls in the City - Professional Development - Starting the Cultural Action Area - Provision of Defibrillators Christmas Festival 2024 This festival was only partially funded by Royal Sutton Coldfield Town Council with a grant of £7,000 which resulted in the festival making a loss of £4,797. It benefited the community in the following ways: - approximately 6,000 visitors to the festival with a peak of 4,000 (we normally receive around 10,000 visitors but this festival was negatively impacted by rain) - over 50 quality artisan stalls, 18 street food vendors, a children’s funfair and entertainment on the main stage - turning on of the Christmas lights and fireworks to celebrate - small startup businesses able to trade using our stalls, especially local businesses – including 17 stalls from Boldmere and New Oscott of which 4 were new attendees and a further 13 stalls from the wider Sutton Coldfield area - local Sutton Coldfield acts able to perform on the main stage in front of a large and varied audience - increased trade for local businesses (most of whom are small independents) - accessibility to all with no entrance fees but suggested nominal donations at the entrances - increased community spirit - putting Boldmere on the map - a strong sense of place for the community - opportunities for volunteers which reduces isolation and loneliness and enables them to contribute to the local community - repeat footfall to Boldmere from visitors who enjoyed the festival - improvement in social cohesion from an event which has an offering for all generations and sections of the community - Sutton Coldfield College students who were able to complete work experience by volunteering at the festival The loss was funded by public donations. Summer Festival 2025 This festival was partially funded by Sutton Coldfield Charitable Trust with a grant of £5,000 (we applied for £10,000). We also used capital funds that were carried over from 2024-25 to purchase 2 trailers for storage and delivery of equipment. In addition to the benefits listed for the Christmas 2024 festival, the Summer 2025 festival benefited the community in the following ways: The event provided several volunteer opportunities which volunteers are very grateful for and has created new friendships. Around 6,000 people from Sutton Coldfield and surrounding areas attended the event, bringing a boost to the local economy but most importantly providing a sense of community. This was a reduced number on previous events due to adverse weather conditions. A summary of the beneficiaries of the festival includes: - Members of the public attending the festival - Volunteers who help at the festival - Small businesses and startups in Sutton Coldfield - Businesses along Boldmere's high street The festival incurred a loss of £3,474 which was funded by public donations. We increased the suggested donations by 50% to anticipate covering the shortfall and sadly we received negative feedback about this despite the charge for a family of 5 being only £7.50, adults £3 and children £1.50. Preparations for Christmas Festival 2025 We applied for funding for the Christmas Festival 2025 from Sutton Coldfield Town Council, but an error was made by the Town Council in presenting the figures to the grants panel which meant we were only offered £3,000 despite requesting £10,000 and therefore we had to cancel the festival as we could not sustain a loss of £7,000+. Large Mural through the Shared Prosperity Fund Boldmere Futures received £8,151 of grant funding from Birmingham City Council’s Shared Prosperity Fund for the creation of a mural in the heart of Boldmere. This was created by Donna Newman and our involvement included liaison over designs, seeking planning permission, arranging for printing and installation and liaison with the landlord. The mural is now a centrepiece above Trilogy and Harvest Fruiterers and has received lots of positive feedback. Details are at www.boldmere.org/art/mural Taking on Where’s Ellie from March of the Elephants March of the Elephants was a trail of large and small elephant sculptures around Lichfield, Tamworth and Sutton Coldfield in summer 2024. Where’s Ellie was returned to Boldmere Neighbourhood Forum who asked Boldmere Futures to take responsibility for her. She now sits proudly outside Tesco Express. We arranged for her delivery, placement and graphic design of plinths to go around the base. Details are at www.boldmere.org/ellie/ Collaboration with Bulls in the City Bulls in the City was an art trail across Birmingham in summer 2025. Boldmere hosted 3 large elephants and 12 smaller elephants. We supported Birmingham Hospice and Wild in Art in planning the satellite trail in Boldmere (one of just 2 satellite trails across the whole of Birmingham) which resulted in much increased footfall throughout the summer. We made arrangements to purchase our own Bull that would remain with us after the event and not be part of the public auction. This Bull was called Goldmere. Details at www.boldmere.org/goldmere/bulls/ Professional Development We received the remainder of the funding from Enterprise Nation (£2,000 total) for professional development which one of the directors participated in. This will help us with our strategy for growth. - Professional Development - Starting the Cultural Action Area - Provision of Defibrillators Starting the Cultural Action Area Following a successful grant funding bid, Boldmere was designated a Cultural Action Area by Birmingham City Council and awarded funding of £60,995 which was paid during the next financial year. We incurred a small amount of project management costs of £690 towards the end of this financial year as part of the revenue funding for this project. A review of this project will be made in the 2025-26 report. Defibrillators Working with the government’s defibrillator scheme, we arranged for the installation of 3 defibrillators in Boldmere with match funding. These included Sutton Coldfield Training on Gate Lane (fully funded by Sutton Coldfield Training), Wylde Green URC (fully funded by Wylde Green URC) and Boldmere Methodist Church (purchase funded by Wylde Green URC and installation funded by Tesco New Oscott community fund). These now complement defibrillators already at Tesco Express and Co-Op funerals meaning that along Boldmere’s high street there is always a defibrillator within 200 metres. We plan to enhance these in the future by including bleed kits. Unsuccessful Grant Applications We were unsuccessful in 4 grant applications in 2024-25. One of these was for core funding from The Fore. We applied for £30,000 over a 2 year period but were unsuccessful. We submitted 2 applications for funding for a community hub. One was to the Lottery Awards for All fund for £20,000 and the other was to Locality’s Trail Blazers fund for £20,000. We were unsuccessful in both of these applications which would have run alongside each other. We applied for £5000 from Naturesave Trust for electrical vehicle charging based around shared business premises and public charging points but were unsuccessful. We receive lots of positive feedback regarding our applications. However, we are increasingly finding that we are rejected for grants because despite being a fully inclusive and diverse community, we are not ticking the boxes for deprivation and specific racial and gender characteristics which most funders tend to prioritise.

The CIC’s stakeholders are its members, residents, volunteers, local businesses, local organisations, funders and providers of services to the festivals. In 2024-25 stakeholders also included Birmingham Hospice (Bulls in the City) and Boldmere Neighbourhood Forum (March of the Elephants). Christmas Festival 2024 We ran a formal feedback process similar to Christmas 2023 and received very similar positive feedback. Summer Festival 2024 We had an attendance of around 10,000 people. Everybody who we spoke to on the day had a thoroughly enjoyable day. We received very similar responses to our formal survey as we did in Summer 2023. Mural Art We conducted a survey asking about people’s perception of the improved space before and after the installation of the mural. Ratings of the space before the installation included 2 x very poor, 6 x poor and 2 x OK. Ratings of the space after the installation included 1 x good and 9 x very good.

No remuneration was received

No transfer of assets other than for full consideration