Trustees' Annual Report 2022

Trustees’ Annual Report

for the Year ended 30 April 2022

Welcome to our 2021/2022 Annual Report, which captures how Shaper/Caper continues to shape the world through creative adventures in dance, from the beating heart of Dundee, Scotland. The board of trustees would like to commend the resilience yet again of the staff team and freelancers throughout another challenging year of the pandemic. We have been extremely proud of the range of education and outreach work, development of professional tours and laid the foundations for countless creative endeavours.

Shaper/Caper has had many highlights throughout the year. We have continued to work with NHS Tayside delivering smoking awareness programmes to 171 schools, developed the In/Out crowd for LGBTQ+ young people, Teeny Weeny outdoors performance tour for young children and their grown ups, successfully curated 64 events for OutFest across LGBTQ+ history month (which received a motion at the Scottish Parliament), received development bursaries for Small Town Boys and Right up your Street performance works and championed Respire - outings for carers. Our digital offering built on last years successes, touring digital versions of our performance works to audiences, and the Village Hall digital platform for dance and creativity grew from strength to strength.

We formed numerous new and maintained longstanding partnerships to allow us to creatively promote high quality dance performance, education, and engagement to participants. Without key funds these programmes would not be possible, and we are grateful to all funders who supported our work this year.

Engagement has remained high across our programmes with 1,100 in person and 10,634 digital attendances. Our presence online has received critical acclaim across all social media channels, and Shaper/Caper continues to pivot successfully to meet demand in this ever-shifting cultural and economic climate we live in.

Thank you to the Executive and Artistic Directors for steering the ship head on, meeting new demands with challenge and enthusiasm. We look into the new year with energy and commitment to the dance sector and our home city of Dundee.

Hayley Durward Chair

Chairperson’s Statement /

Trustees

• Jenny Rutter

• Janet Robertson, Resigned March 2022

• Hayley Durward, Chair

• Drew McCusker, Resigned August 2021

• Allan McIntyre

• Yolanda Aguilar

• Dr Tracey Connelly

• Dr Aleksandra Webb

• Thomas Small

• Linzi McLagan, Joined February 2022

• Victoria Simmons, Joined February 2022

Objectives & Activities

The company’s objects are:

The promotion and development of the arts and culture, with the focus on dance, as entertainment, a leisure pursuit or career; using creativity as a tool to connect communities and enhance social justice, encouraging appreciation and participation by all sections of society; and to provide and promote education and engagement of the public, both in dance and through dance, with a focus on creative learning.

The main activities of the company are touring dance-theatre productions and delivering participatory creative learning opportunities with people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds, with a focus on social justice.

The charity works in partnership with third sector organisations, as well as with the public sector’s education and health departments to achieve this. By networking with local associates such as Dundee Dance Partnership and with the wider Scottish cultural sector, we maximise our resources and the impact our programme has on our beneficiaries.

Our volunteers support the governance of the charity at Board and Youth Advisory groupThe Body, as well as the running of our day-to-day activities, such as the Dance for Parkinson’s dance classes. We value their contribution by investing in training and offering bespoke support within their chosen areas of professional interest.

“Tommy is an amazing talent. His skill and dynamism brings a whole new creative dimension to some of Radio 2’s most iconic output.”

“

Bob

Shennan Managing Director, BBC

Within This Dust

Photo: Mairi Fleck

Structure, Governance & Management

Description of the charity’s trusts:

1. Type of governing document: Constitution

2. How the charity is constituted: Limited Company

3. Trustee selection methods: elected by the Trustees and senior staff members, appointed by the Chair and Chief Executive. Directorship is open to all and no application for directorship will be refused, other than on reasonable grounds. There will be no discrimination on grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, gender, sexual orientation, political or other opinions.

4. Application for directorship:

• Any person who wishes to become a director must sign, and lodge with the company, a written application.

• The Board shall consider each application at the first board meeting which is held after receipt of the application and the Board will, within a reasonable time after the meeting, notify the applicant of their decision on the application.

• If an application has been refused, an appeal may be made in writing to the Board, who shall consider the appeal at its next meeting after the appeal is received, and who shall respond in writing to the applicant within 21 days of the meeting. The decision on such appeals is final.

5. The structure of the Company consists of the directors who are also the Company’s only members and comprise the Board.

The Board have important powers under the constitution, take decisions on changes to the constitution itself, hold regular meetings, and generally control the activities of the Company. Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, the Board is responsible for monitoring and controlling the financial position of the Company.

The individuals making up the Board are referred to in these articles as directors. Additional governance issues:

• There are policies and procedures adopted for the induction and training of trustees; these include the governance of our Youth Advisory Board, The Body.

• At the regular meetings and development days, the trustees consider all major risks and implement the system and procedures to manage them satisfactorily.

• The Company was formed in 2015 and incorporated as a limited company by guarantee, registered in Scotland, having no share capital and is governed by its Memorandum and Articles of Association. On the 25th of November 2016, we gained charitable status. We are confident in the constitution, relevance, and strength of our governing Board, although we are recognising that further work needs to be done to achieve inclusion with regards to race. At the moment, our Board excels in lived experience and representation of different socio-economic classes, cultures, ability and neurodiversity, gender, and sexuality, with a 78% lead from protected characteristics.

In line with our strategic planning for the next few years, we will continue to invest in a Board development scheme, providing its members with the skills to cultivate new opportunities that will attract income and develop knowledge, invaluable assets to the Company. Our Chair is Hayley Durward, diligently leading the trustees to ensure any gaps in Governance are addressed and staff and volunteers, upskilled. The organisation is currently reviewing its Strategic Plan, working with external facilitators to achieve a Theory of Change, Logic Model-based approach fit for purpose for the years ahead.

Right Up Your Street

Vision, Mission, and Values

Our Vision is:

“Shaping The World Through Creative Adventures”, referring to the power of creativity and the performing arts to foster civic agency and innovative social change.

Our Mission is:

“Dance for All”, working with people of all ages and abilities, facilitating dance shows and workshops to appreciate the art form and discussing many socially relevant issues such as inclusion, oppression, terrorism, and failure through creativity.

Our Values are:

Kindness, Respect, Collaboration, Humour.

Photo: James Murison

Achievements & Performance

The 2021-22 period was framed by the second year of the pandemic, generally a hard time for the performing arts still highly affected by the inability to engage in practice, with venues and public spaces still not open for in-person gatherings.

Yet, Shaper/Caper’s performance, rooted in a deep concern to serve the communities it engages with in a solidarity-based creative enterprise model, not only maintaining staff’s level of work but also increasing employment and developing the sector through bursaries to freelancers, soared to deliver a new flagship project, OutFest, a Dundeebased LGBTQ+ festival in partnership with Dundee Pride which received a motion at the Scottish Parliament by MSP Joe Fitzpatrick.

Still, with venues closed, the innovation and sector leadership on digital outputs, projects, and films to tour our work as theatres remained shut, has been extraordinary, with our Christmas 2021 film The Snow Queen at Lyth Arts booked by 19 schools in Caithness and Sutherland, reaching 1,984 audiences.

The Artistic Director Thomas Small, continued the autodidact leadership on digital skills in the organisation, engaging external trainers where possible, and upskilling staff and volunteers to competent levels on operational digitised new systems, and relevant audiovisual skills to improve our services.

For another year, we continued to work with counsellor James Alexander, a key person supporting staff through the challenges and changes in the team’s dynamics during the adaptation to new operating practices.

Following on the previous year’s incipient journey of both diving into the organisation’s purpose and reaching further outwards to the communities it serves, this year cements a solid growth, gratefully supported by organisations such as The Scottish Government, Creative Scotland, NHS Tayside, RS MacDonald, Foundation Scotland and The Rank Foundation among others, which have acknowledged the tremendous value of the work Shaper/Caper does, sustaining wellbeing activities and hope across staff, volunteers, and participants.

As the charity continues to research, evaluate, develop, and establish its new working methods across the many projects that intersect one or more of our three working pillars-Creativity, Health and Wellbeing, and Social Justice- this year marks the social capital growth in the form of new supporters, participants, partners, as well as the new knowledge and skills and future opportunities, all these generously supported by the funders that have trusted our journey, practice, and vision.

Period.

Photo: David Scott

Projects & Productions

Children’s Productions & Schools

Well Good, NHS Tayside Smoking Awareness Programme for P6 & P7s. Unable to visit schools, we developed a digital, light-touch shorter session in preparation for in-person outdoor delivery from the Summer Term. This model enhanced the digital reach from 115 schools to 171 schools per year or 7,695 direct participants.

Hopscotch, a project supported by Aberdeen City Council Creative Learning department for the creation of educational and entertaining films for lower primary-aged children, based on bugs.

A Day to Play, delivered digitally live-streamed sessions to Kingspark Additional School Needs school and in-person at The McManus picnic event for Home Start.

Teeny Weeny commission by Starcatchers. A new production for under 5s that delivered 5 shows in parks across Dundee, Fife, and Edinburgh.

Tiny Teeny Weeny commission for R&D at CityMoves. A spin-off of the above production for younger audiences, 0-2 years old.

Professor Bad Guy, professional dance shows at Slessor Gardens comprising a section with the children from the summer classes. Free to audiences.

Summer Capers, our free Summer dance camp access to classes leading to taking part at the Professor Bad Guy show with the professional dancers.

LGBTQ+ Arts

In/Out Crowd. Funded by Corra, our first LGBTQ+ project working with young people living with the challenges of being out through the lockdown. It also provided two new paid professional posts to increase young people’s experience.

OutFest, a partnership with Dundee Pride, delivered 64 events across February LGBTQ+ History Month, including politicians’ panels, arts and crafts, social cafes, and artists’ bursaries. Generated new temporary work posts through the artists’ bursaries (x9), the two internships as Marketing & Production assistants, and the 6 x Ambassadors, all paid positions.

Received a motion at the Scottish Parliament by MSP Joe Fitzpatrick. Currently looking to deliver this festival as a yearly or biennial event due to its success.

Small Town Boys development bursary at Dance Base with a digital sharing due to COVID-19, highlighted by the organisation as ‘one of the best digital works’ they have supported.

Projects & Productions

Internships & Young Creatives

The Body and Young Creatives. Funded by Women’s Fund for Scotland to enhance employability skills. A new programme for The Body led by the young participants who chose to curate and deliver a festival for and by young people in November 2022 called Creatiful.

Internships: a 6-month University of Dundee Community Education with Seonaid and a two-week placement with Annivas from Edinburgh College, Performing Arts Studio Scotland; plus some shorter ones with three students at Scottish School of Contemporary Dance, The Space, Dundee & Angus College.

Time to Shine programme by The Rank Foundation. A year-long paid internship for Iliana Parousi, who engaged as the Community Engagement Dance Artist. Iliana’s performance during this programme has been outstanding so she now works full-time with the organisation.

Health & Wellbeing

Dance for Parkinson’s Scotland. Funded by RS MacDonald, we continued working with the Dundee hub both in-person and via live-streamed digital sessions for those unable to attend, enabling the ongoing connection with the group. The Fife hub continued to engage through digital sessions only, as this is their preferred option.

Performances at Royal Victoria Hospital in Dundee. 4 shows delivered at the garden, watched by the older inpatients and staff through the large windows to keep them safe.

Respire. The outings for this project for carers funded by Short Breaks Fund, Shared Care Scotland were delivered in March 2022, with the group visiting V&A Dundee, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee Botanic Gardens, and Dundee Transport Museum among other venues. This was the last leg of a project that had been affected by deferrals during the previous year due to lockdowns.

Other Projects & Productions

Right Up Your Street, Aberdeen Performing Arts new commission. Envisioned as an outdoor event to celebrate dance and music through different eras from the 20s to the current days, the performance was deferred by the organisation onto the next financial year to ensure viability and the safety of its audiences.

Developed Village Hall, the digital on-demand platform for dance, creativity, and relaxation activities.

Photo: James Murison

Financial Performance

The financial growth from last year has been an astonishing 52.13% increase thanks to key support from The Scottish Government and Creative Scotland to support our capacity building. Utilising a couple of short-term financial backing for the recruitment of a parttime Producer and a part-time Marketing post, engaging Danielle Fentiman and Lucy Dewar were key actions to ensure the longer-term sustainability of the charity from a strategic perspective.

The income generation of the charity with regards to Touring activities has increased a 466.35% in the year, starting the goal to balance the earnings from the Touring and Creative Engagement activities as envisioned, although further efforts are still required to achieve this.

Total Income: £238,560 Total Expenditure: £212,455

Paper Moon

Photo: Laura Mumby

Statement of the charity’s policy on reserves

It is the aim of the Board to comply with OSCR and best practice, ensuring that the charity has at least 3 months of reserves to cover the costs of staff and overheads. The charity holds reserves for the following reasons:

1. Contingency: unexpected expenditure in the event of an emergency

2. Cash-flow: situations where a bill has to be paid before the money to cover it has been received

3. Commitment: a commitment to occasional significant expenditure which cannot be covered by the annual income

4. Conservation: funds which the trustees cannot spend immediately without compromising their legal responsibilities to ensure that their charity’s resources are used necessarily, reasonably, and incidentally in fulfilment of their charitable objects

5. Closure: the charity becomes financially unsustainable and must be wound up.

Reserves: £26,808

Current reserves level: £44,402

Reserves percentage increase: 152.37%

The exceptional increase on reserves to stabilise the charity’s minimum recommendations by OSCR reflects the strategic financial support received by Creative Scotland and The Scottish Government for capacity building in the organisation.

Donated facilities and services

We operate according to the Scottish Government Place Principle and establish numerous mutually beneficial partnerships with organisations resulting in various in-kind exchanges of services to maximise investment and social impact.

Funders and Partners

Funders and partners throughout the year were:

• The Scottish Government

• Creative Scotland

• NHS Tayside

• The Rank Foundation

• RS MacDonald

• The Corra Foundation

• The National Lottery

• Visit Scotland

• Aberdeen City Council

• Aberdeen Performing Arts

• Leisure and Culture Dundee

• Starcatchers

• Parkinson’s UK

• Foundation Scotland

• Scottish Ballet

• Dance Base

• Women’s Fund for Scotland

• CityMoves Dance Agency

• Lyth Arts

• V&A Dundee

• University of Dundee

• One Dance UK

• Leap Sports

• Shared Care Scotland

• First Port

• Bohemia Media Ltd

• Lady Eda Jardine Charitable Trust

‘There is such a broad scope to his work - it can span from mass participation events to high end performance at a major Arts festival. I was excited about spending time with Tommy on his amazing artistic journey throughout the year of events on BBC Radio 2.’

Claudia Winkleman, BBC Radio 2 Presenter

Period.

Photo: David Scott

Future Plans

Shaper/Caper is currently developing the new Strategic Plan with the support of external facilitators. This reflective and evaluative exercise will take the organisation into the next 5 years, integrating the key learning and pivotal changes executed during the challenging past years to establish a firm foundation for the charity to flourish as it serves its communities.

We continue to observe the needs of the charity Governance and are currently recruiting David Wright into our Board, as his skills working in English dance companies and organisations, including the Arts Council of England, are key to sustaining the new developments of the charity.

Through further successful fundraising, we continue to work with some of the artists originally supported through OutFest, therefore offering a mid to long-term sustainable professional pathway for LGBTQ+ artists and voices represented in the Scottish cultural sector. It is our ambition to establish a permanent strand of work that addresses LGBTQ+ artists, including the continuation of OutFest as a regular event to showcase the talent and concerns of the collective.

Additional Information

We would like to thank all the funders that have supported us during these challenging times, financially and otherwise, some of them new to our workings. The organisational support received from The Rank Foundation, First Port, The Scottish Government, The National Lottery, the Corra Foundation, and Creative Scotland meant that not only we did not furlough any of our employees but that we have since increased our staff capacity to deliver bigger and better services. We believe that this type of relational investment and its flexibility based on trust is key for small organisations like ours in the near future, as we have demonstrated a considerable social return on investment.

We would like to thank our staff, stakeholders, and volunteers, as none of this would have been able for a small charity with no core support without their continuous encouragement and assistance. Our young people from The Body, the Youth Advisory Board, have become assertive performers, art facilitators, and novel entrepreneurs, many of them currently successfully launching their own businesses and creative ventures.

Our Board has phenomenally supported our growth and continues to nurture, challenge, and direct the charity to achieve excellence from purpose. We wish to thank all past trustees that have supported the organisation, this being a year that has seen the resignation of Andrew McCusker and Jane Robertson. Likewise, we are thankful to open the doors to Victoria Simmons and Linzi McLagan, both joining the Board during this period with a fierce energy and expertise that fits the current growth state of the organisation.

Declaration

Signed on behalf of the charity trustees:

Print name: Yolanda Aguilar

Designation: Executive Director

Date: 11/01/2023

Shake, Rattle, and Stroll at V&A Dundee

Photo: Aiesha Duncan

Back Cover Within This Dust

Photo: Mairi Fleck

Cover Within This Dust

Photo: Maria Falconer