Brisstyle Inc. Annual Report 2015- 2016
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BrisStyle Inc. Annual Report 2015- 2016 Contents President’s Report 3 Secretary & Membership Report 5 Program & Events Report 6 Treasurer's Report 15 Financial Statements 16 Supporters & Thank you 20 President’s Report On behalf of BrisStyle Inc. Committee In lieu of not having a nominated President this financial year, I thought I would take the opportunity to share not just the highs and lows of the past year for BrisStyle but my insights and thoughts about the coming year ahead. It is germane however to firstly thank – and no thanks is really enough – Belinda Harris and Kelly-Anne Mott for their unbelievable continuing dedication to BrisStyle. Without the dedication of our casual staff members, BrisStyle would struggle to remain a viable entity. I am sure you have seen the organisational emails sent very late at night or very early in the morning - testament to the incredible amount of unpaid hours they work to keep our community engagement and events running smoothly. I will also take the opportunity now to thank the other BrisStyle Committee members – Clare Collyer, Jenny Thor, Joanna (JoJo) Smith and Robyn Wood - for their time, effort, dedication and humour this year. It has been a pleasure to get to know you all and as the neophyte for 2016, your patience and help in educating me on all things BrisStyle has been invaluable and truly appreciated. Our treasurer, JoJo, has done an amazing job with Bel on moving our financials to the more efficient Xero accounting system and keeping everything checked and balanced. A special thanks to Robyn Wood who is leaving the Committee after 3+ years of involvement. Your advice and commitment have been truly invaluable and I personally have benefitted much from your insights and ways of approaching matters from different angles. Good luck with all your future endeavours Robyn and I hope we still get to see you at BrisStyle events. Turning to matters of the past financial year, it has without a doubt been a hectic year. Nonetheless, BrisStyle has continued to grow, learn and educate others while moving to Wynnum and adapting to a new community. I have sometimes thought it is lucky we all have a sense of humour and lots of wine at home! Regardless of these challenges, we have seen our engagement with the Brisbane City Council, Logan City Council and the State Library of Queensland prosper and in turn the markets available to our members grow. This year we also organised market and workshop events at the Green Heart Fairs, at the Big Day of Belonging and continued workshops with Westfields at North Lakes, Helensvale, Carindale, Chermside and Garden City. The move to our new office space at Wynnum has also produced some difficulties and the tyranny of distance seems to have affected participation numbers at social gatherings and workshops in particular. While we continue to hope that another more centralised space will become available in the future, for the meantime Wynnum is our home. It really is a lovely space and we hope more and more members will start to come and visit… once you get there you actually realise it isn’t that far and the smell of the ocean is tantalising. The opening of the new Wynnum Library has also produced collaborative opportunities for BrisStyle, including lovely get togethers with Pip Lincolne and Beci Orpin. This relationship will continue to grow over the coming year and we hope to engage further with the local Wynnum community as it continues to change and grow also. As volunteer coordinator this year it has been a struggle to get volunteers for our events. Promoting BrisStyle is the basis for growing our membership. Besides a core group of very dedicated people to whom we all owe huge thanks volunteer numbers are dwindling every year. This places an ever-growing burden on Belinda and Kelly-Anne and begs the question of “what do members see as their role in BrisStyle?” Given this, I want to finish with a call to action: what time, help and skills can you give to your BrisStyle organisation in 2017? Please take the time to think seriously about this challenge. As a not-for-profit community organisation, BrisStyle relies on member volunteers to keep running effectively and efficiently. I am continually inspired by the skills and artistic quality we as members collectively share. I am also humbled by the support and friendship we give to each other as a community. I ask that we all dig a little deeper in 2017 and give a little more of our time and skills to share BrisStyle with the wider community. Kathy Seton BrisStyle Committee Member On behalf of the BrisStyle Committee 2016 Secretary & Membership Report Belinda Harris As BrisStyle continued to grow this year, I stayed on the committee in the role of Secretary as we had no other members step forward to take on the role. With the support of the Brisbane City Council, BrisStyle moved into a fantastic new space within the refurbished Wynnum Community Centre (formally the Wynnum State School). The new HQ space at Wynnum continues to support our membership and offer a community space where our members have a place to ‘come, meet, learn and create’ in a supportive fun environment. The space allows us to have enough room for storage as our equipment and workshop supplies continue to grow and is close to the recently opened Wynnum Library. The committee continued to liaise through monthly management meetings and using a private Facebook group in between meetings and this has continued to work well for communication. Having a dedicated space at Wynnum also continued to work well for the committee as it gave us a place to meet and share ideas and plan for the future of the organisation. BrisStyle’s core values continue to be reflected in all that we do: Support – our creative community Create – opportunities for BrisStyle members Promote - handmade Activate – creativity Strengthen – our local community At the end of the 2015/16 financial year BrisStyle had 209 members, this number was down by nearly 100 members compared to the end of the previous financial year. The committee believes that this is due to the changed rulings on events to include non-members at a premium rate. We still feel this was a more inclusive way forward and gave non-members including those just starting out, a way to participate in our events without making a commitment upfront. We had a definite increase in non-members participating at our events and hope that through continued liaising and support they will go on to join BrisStyle at a later date. During the year, BrisStyle members were able to participate in an array of markets and events. As well as attend a number of creative development sessions to help boost their businesses. We continued to work on our marketing collateral this financial year working towards a full re- brand and overhaul for the start of the 2016/17 financial year. Once again the BrisStyler’s page on our website continues to receive excellent statistics and is one of our most clicked pages, with all financial members having the opportunity to create their own profiles linking back to their online shops and all the contact details for their online presence. Disappointingly a lot of members are not taking up this opportunity so we plan to raise awareness of this member benefit and help members who need to work on their profiles. Members also continued to have their Etsy shops promoted on the BrisStyle blog, website, Facebook page, Instagram and Etsy Teams Profile Page. As always I have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the committee and would like to thank our members, fellow committee members and BrisStyle staff for their support in seeing the organisation continue to grow. Belinda Harris Secretary of BrisStyle Inc. Program & Events Report Kelly-Anne Mott Introduction BrisStyle continues to engage and educate the local community through a program of Events, Creative Development Sessions and Workshops, and provides an opportunity for both members and non-members to participate in Markets and Events. BrisStyle has secured a 3-year contract with Brisbane City Council to continue facilitating the Brisbane Twilight Markets. Although a reduction in funding saw the event decreasing to 4 times per year, from 6, knowing that the event will be run for 3 years until 2018 enables BrisStyle to invest in additional infrastructure for the event. Westfield has again engaged BrisStyle this financial year to host a variety of free workshops across centres including Chermside, Helensvale, Garden City, North Lakes and Carindale. We facilitated both adults and children’s workshops across a variety of themes and activities. BrisStyle was also approached by other shopping centers this year including Brookside where we ran a series of Mother’s Day workshops throughout May 2016. BrisStyle continues to be involved with Etsy and hosted an Etsy Craft Party event in conjunction with the market we held at the state Library of Qld in June 2016. We engaged Magdalena Franco from Unleash Creative, who hosted her Himmeli Workshop especially created for Etsy AU. Brisbane City Libraries continues to be a great supporter of BrisStyle and has continued to engage BrisStyle to offer a series of Creative Development Sessions across their facilities, including the recently re-opened Wynnum Library. BrisStyle has hosted it’s own workshops within it’s new facility in Wynnum, engaging members to offer paid workshops as well as hosting free member catch up events. General Program Overview: WESTFIELDS BRISBANE TWILIGHT MARKET CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS SESSIONS