Choir leaders: never forget this golden financial rule

I decided to write this article because I made a couple of rookie financial mistakes over the last few weeks and they reminded me how important it is to budget properly when we're managing our choirs. I hope that by reminding myself of a few financial truths, I can help others out too.

The Golden Rule - always budget for everything

If you're thinking 'well, duh', I remind you that I am, at the moment, a cautionary tale, and I like to think that most of the time, I'm pretty on-the-ball when it comes to money. We can all make mistakes and overlook things.

The first of my two recent transgressions was to fail to notice that we were making a loss on the sale of sweatshirts. Our contemporary choir wears branded t-shirts to perform in. We offer a basic printed t-shirt at a low price, but there are also other options for people who prefer a different fit, or something warmer. Our supplier put up the price of the sweatshirts, but I failed to notice and kept the retail price where it was, so once VAT (UK sales tax) was added, we were actually making a loss.

We don't make a fortune on selling choir t-shirts, but we do add a small mark-up to cover the costs of the admin time, delivery etc. Without that, we're subsidising the choir out of our own pockets.

Lesson re-learned: Costs change. Keep an eye on them!

My second error was potentially more financially damaging. My choir was recently invited to take part in quite a prestigious event. There's no money in it at all for us, not even expenses, but I want the choir to take part because it will be an amazing experience.

Because not everyone in the choir will be taking part, I decided that it would best to rehearse for this event separately, and I blithely arranged four extra rehearsals for those taking part.

In the excitement and the flurry of activity that followed the invitation, I overlooked something important. This project is going to cost money. Quite a bit of it, in fact. Even if I'm prepared to work for nothing to get this done (and I am up to a point - it's a fantastic opportunity), our extra rehearsals will incur the cost of the venue, our accompanist and refreshments. Plus, there's the printing and the extra admin, and the travel costs of getting to the event and back.

If I had been running a workshop series, I would have prepared a budget as a starting point. Anyone booking a place would pay a fee. Because this opportunity arose out of the blue, I worked my socks off to get things ready for the first rehearsal and never thought about money once! At the session, several of my singers asked what they should pay and when. Clang! I realised my mistake.

I just had to 'fess up and admit what I'd done. Everyone was very understanding and paid their share without demur, but I felt awful - unprofessional and scatty. It's not how I want my choir to see me.

Lesson re-learned: Always do a budget, even when something is super-exciting and you don't want to think about money.

So there you have it. A mea culpa from me that I hope might inspire a bit of financial reviewing in others. I will certainly be keeping a closer eye on the purse-strings in future.