Board of Directors' report for the association year 2023/2024

I imagine that the rule for a festive speech must also apply to reports at a general meeting. The rule is that a speech should have an introduction and a conclusion and that there should not be too long a gap between the two points. So I will endeavour to do that, but of course you should know what has happened in the year under review and what we spend your membership fees on.

At the last general meeting, we explained how the board had taken over some of the administrative tasks that we previously bought in, and that this meant that we had more money to do what we want to do in the organisation: support choirs and orchestras.

We are pleased to announce that we have further refined this system for the benefit of the talented musicians and singers in the ensembles. We also have to recognise that for many, many years there has not been sufficient control over the actual number of members and thus what we had to spend, except that we have of course always been able to see how much we had in the coffers.

 

Historically, we have had an expensive auditing firm that is completely out of step with the financial activities of the association today. Most recently, we informed you that we had asked our auditing firm, Redmark, not to do the comprehensive audit that applies to large companies, but only to prepare the annual report for us. Now we have cancelled that connection completely.

From my life as a business journalist, I know that you should always be suspicious when a company changes auditing firms. But in this case, the decision was honestly due to Redmark not being on top of their work. Late and incorrect deliveries in relation to agreements etc. Etc. Stig will entertain you with his experiences in a moment. But it should already be said here that of course we need to have our annual reports audited. And Stig will inform you about the solution we have found when we get that far.

We are still in the favourable position of being able to award more grants to our musicians and singers from their Friends than before, and we have even been able to increase the amount to DKK 30,000 per portion. Those of us attending the general meeting this year can look forward to giving four portions, and this year there will be a musical acknowledgement after the formal part of the general meeting.

In addition to these scholarships, the Beckett Foundation pays a scholarship to a musician - the Peter Varming Memorial Scholarship. Peter was the Friends' first chairman. I have the pleasure of sitting on the scholarship committee of the foundation, where 1st violinist in the Symphony Orchestra Anders Fog-Nielsen was the latest recipient. In addition to the money, the scholarship consists of a portrait photo taken by one of our leading photographers - a portrait that will be used for "advertising" for the person portrayed.

The Beckett Foundation's representative on the committee is Julie Borgwardt-Stampe - yes, she is the daughter of Peter and Pia, who for many years were responsible for classical music programmes on DR.

 

The Friends have also supported several causes related to choirs and orchestras. We had a well-attended morning meeting for members who had bought tickets for the Malko competition. An event that we organised together with the Friends of the Danish National Concert Orchestra, where the head of the DR Malko School, conductor Ole Faurschou, together with DR's violinist Per Frimann and the Concert Orchestra's clarinet soloist Jonas Frølund talked about and answered questions about the collaboration between conductor and orchestra. Ole Faurschou's presentation was later published on our website, where you all could and can read it, even if you didn't turn up every day for the Malko competition.

We have also granted a deficit guarantee for teachers' salaries for a Nordic youth string players' meeting.

And we have given a grant to the Danish Timpani Academi. Timpani means timpani and this summer Nicola Carara from the Danish National Symphony Orchestra gathered timpani players from many countries for a seminar in Denmark with the aim that musicians on this instrument could improve themselves and each other.

Most recently, we have granted an amount so that children without much money at home can have their expenses partially covered in connection with the activities of the Children's Choir and the Spire Choir. It's not something we administer, but we give an amount to the choirs' administration, which then distributes the money as needed.

Our long-term goal is to recruit singers and other musicians who will be associated with "our" choir and orchestra at an early age.

We previously started a collaboration with DR's Big Band, which was a great success, and the board has been working to continue that track as well. We have been promised by DR that they will offer a concert with the band at the beginning of the new year. You will hear more about it.

In this regard, we can refer to our website, but we have to recognise that it does not always have all members as readers. Therefore, we have sent you an email from time to time. This has generated a lot of response, for example a debut concert with Malko Academy, which didn't catch on when it was advertised on the website, but where an email resulted in 267 tickets sold.

As you can see, we have also sent out emails when we - typically from DR - are offered tickets at favourable prices for the actual concerts, offers that usually come quite late in relation to the concert itself.

These are probably concerts where no tickets have been sold out, and I know from conversations with the orchestra's musicians that they love it when there is "meat on the shelves", meaning listeners in as many seats as possible.

We have an excellent co-operation with DR on their open rehearsal offerings. DR's programme planner, Tatjana Kandel, is responsible for that side of things, and she is very accommodating to our wishes. We can also look at DR's statistics to see how many people buy tickets for each test and see your preferences from there.

But as I've done several times before, I must emphasise that it's DR that sovereignly decides what tickets can be offered. And even though they may have their foot on the accelerator, there are many who step on the brake.

Some conductors don't want an audience at rehearsals, TV recordings can also be an obstacle. In any case, the conductor decides how much and which parts of the concerts to rehearse. Just as there are some concerts where the musicians, especially the wind players, decide how much they can handle if the rehearsals are on the same day as the concert, and they must be able to perform to the best of their ability at the concerts themselves.

We hope you are satisfied members of the organisation, but we always welcome feedback.

I can honestly say that we have a good working relationship on the board and that the individual members' qualifications complement each other very well. I know that everyone is willing to accept re-election.

I also think we have streamlined the organisation. We have 1102 members. This is a lower number than at many previous general meetings. On the other hand, we feel confident that the systems are working so that we can trust that this is the right number, which, as I mentioned, we have had to work hard to achieve in relation to old damage. In other words, the systems have counted more members than the real number, some members were double counted. Way back in time.

I realise that there are occasional problems with passwords, for example, but I also know from Stig, who has daily contact with you by phone and email, that these problems are solved when they occur.

Our finances are healthy, so healthy that we want to encourage choirs and orchestras and DR as a whole to apply for funding for projects worthy of support. If any of you have suggestions, we on the board are happy to listen. Even though we have a solid cash balance, we occasionally say no to applications if we do not believe they fulfil the statutes that apply to the Friends' Association.

With these words, I would like to open the debate on the report.