The financial position of Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek has improved dramatically this year, from a £6k loss last year to a £6k gain this year.
Receipts for 2024-25 were £46k (excluding the Revive project) down from £58k last year. However, last year was favoured with a number of one-off off items – a £10k grant from Cornwall Council, generous one-off donations and some late receipts from previous years – without which receipts would have been £42k. So receipts for Kowethas core operations were £4k higher this year.
Book sales increased by 18% and revenue from both memberships and the Pennseythen by 33%. These are our main receipts as the left hand chart below shows.
Payments were £40k in 2024-25 (excluding Revive), down from £64k the previous year. We made some one-off payments last year totalling £12k, including £9.5k on consultancy. However, the remaining half of the reduction is genuine savings. We closed our shop, Kowsva, which cost £7.5k last year, replacing it with a storage unit costing £3k this year.
Although our book sales increased, the costs incurred decreased dramatically – down from £20k to £12k. This is in part due to reduced printing costs as we use Lulu Print on Demand for most of our new books, avoiding large, up-front printing bills and the need for more storage. We also cleared the historical debt for Kesva books. Our main expense, the payroll, remained much the same this year.
Assets Our funds at the bank have increased from £32,700 to £38,814 and our net assets (including stocks of books) from £36,685 to £41,936.
REVIVE Kowethas received a float of £90k from EU Horizon for the Revive project. This will be sufficient to cover at least two years of our Revive project work, after which funds will be topped up as necessary. This has increased the interest we receive. There will be further funds for the Kowethas from the Revive project after its completion in 2028.
Earnings These are our main sources of income in 2024-25 (receipts less direct payments). These have to cover shared payments such as payroll and insurance.
Last year our earnings from Sales were under £1k, this year they were over £11k. Membership and Pennseythen earnings were up over £1k each.
Next year the aim is to break even on Pennseythen 2026, given we will have to pay for accommodation. We expect to allocate some of our donations to Media micro-grants, encouraging the production of short Kernewek videos. But if we can keep Sales and Memberships up, and Donations continue, we will do better than break even again next year.