A Sinfonia Smith Square membership is a new membership scheme launched in June 2024 that sees the coming together of our two historic organisation membership schemes and Friends communities: St John’s Smith Square and Southbank Sinfonia.

Sinfonia Smith Square is a registered charity (Registered Charity No. 1092461). By taking out a membership with Sinfonia Smith Square, you are supporting the full core work of our charitable organisation, which includes our orchestra of emerging professional musicians and our artistic plans at Smith Square Hall.

Every membership has a ‘fee’ element which covers the cost of the benefits provided; this is not a donation and non-gift-aid-able. Every membership also has a voluntary ‘donation’ element, which supports the core work of Sinfonia Smith Square and is Gift-Aid-able.

The fee/donation elements will be split as follows:

FRIENDS MEMBERSHIPS

Sinfonia Smith Square Friend
£45 Annual Fee / £15 Annual Donation = Membership Total £60
Sinfonia Smith Square Supporting Friend
£70 Annual Fee / £80 Annual Donation = Membership Total £150
Sinfonia Smith Square Guiding Friend
£80 Annual Fee / £220 Annual Donation = Membership Total £300
Sinfonia Smith Square Leading Friend
£95 Annual Fee / £405 Annual Donation = Membership Total £500

PATRONS MEMBERSHIPS

Sinfonia Smith Square Patron
£125 Annual Fee / £875 Annual Donation = Membership Total £1,000
Sinfonia Smith Square Champion
£145 Annual Fee / £2,855 Annual Donation = Membership Total £3,000
Sinfonia Smith Square Beacon
£155 Annual Fee / £4,845 Annual Donation = Membership Total £5,000

Please note: we are obliged by HMRC to make it clear that the donation component paid by Friend, Supporting Friend, Guiding Friend, Leading Friend, Patron, Champion, and Beacon supporters is voluntary and that it is possible to purchase any of these memberships without making this donation, at a cost of £45, £70, £80, £95, £125, £145, or £155 respectively. If you wish to do this please contact Danielle Robson, Head of Memberships & Events. We strongly encourage you to make the additional voluntary donation alongside your membership payment to support the work of Sinfonia Smith Square.

You will not need to “sign up” under the new membership scheme if you already had an existing membership with Southbank Sinfonia or St John’s Smith Square; you will automatically become a member of the new scheme as explained above.

If you would like to fully switch over to the new membership scheme sooner than your next renewal date and help us take our first steps as Sinfonia Smith Square, you can do so by contacting Danielle, Head of Memberships & Events at danielle@southbanksinfonia.co.uk, who will happily walk you through the process. Many thanks to all who might offer this additional support.

All members with an existing Southbank Sinfonia or St John’s Smith Square membership at 20 June have now been moved over to their nearest equivalent membership level on the new scheme. The old Southbank Sinfonia and St John’s Smith Square schemes no longer exist, so you will now receive the benefits of your new membership level under the new scheme.

This will mean that from 20 June:

All SJSS Friends are now Sinfonia Smith Square Friends

All SJSS Patrons are now Sinfonia Smith Square Supporting Friends

All SBS Walking Bass Friends are now Sinfonia Smith Square Friends

All SBS Continuo Friends are now Sinfonia Smith Square Supporting Friends

All SBS Ripieno Friends are now Sinfonia Smith Square Guiding Friends

All SBS Obbligato Friends are now Sinfonia Smith Square Leading Friends

All SBS Maestro Friends are now Sinfonia Smith Square Patrons

When it’s time to renew your membership, we will write to you and ask that you renew under the new scheme and pay the new membership cost or choose the level at which you would like to renew.

This means that the full switchover to the new scheme will be an ongoing process over the next 12 months. i.e. If you had renewed or taken out a new membership with Southbank Sinfonia or St John’s Smith Square in the 12 months prior to 20 June 2024, we will simply switch this over to the new scheme as outlined above and you won’t need to pay anything additional until your annual renewal date.

We will continue to honour our treasured group of Life Friends. All Life Friends will receive the benefits of a Sinfonia Smith Square Supporting Friend.

Regrettably, we are no longer able to include free lunchtime concert tickets or discounted tickets as part of our new membership scheme, due to the need for our memberships to support us as a registered charity; unfortunately, the way the SJSS membership scheme was structured isn’t financially viable for us to maintain as we work to ensure the success of the venue & orchestra long into the future.

However, a busy and lively attendance at our lunchtime concerts is really important to us. And so, to mitigate the loss of free tickets to members, we are reducing the cost of lunchtime concerts from our Autumn 2024 season from £10 to £6 for everyone, which we hope will keep them accessible and ensure you can still come along to as many as you like. In addition, we are introducing a season long multi-buy offer across all Sinfonia Smith Square concerts (including all lunchtime concerts) giving 10% off bookings of 5 concerts or more, and 15% off bookings of 10 concerts or more.

Take a look at our What’s On page to find out more.

If you would like to pay by automatic rolling instalments (either monthly or annually) this will be done through Continuous Payment Authority (we will no longer be using Direct Debit or Standing Orders) using the membership page of our website above.

If you would like to pay by non-automatic annual instalments, you can do so via our new website, cheque, or bank transfer (as listed below).

A Continuous Payment Authority (CPA) is a type of recurring payment, similar to a standing order or direct debit. Like direct debits and standing orders, a CPA is taken only with the authorisation from you, the customer. However, instead of taking payment from bank account details (as is the case with direct debits and standing orders), CPAs take payment from credit or debit card details.

So, under this new system, if you choose to have an automatically renewing Sinfonia Smith Square membership, your membership will renew automatically as requested when it is due to expire. The payment for the renewal will be taken from a card stored on your Customer Record within our database, rather than from us contacting your bank to take the payment.

No actual card details are stored by us within our new database (Spektrix), or by Spektrix Payments (powered by Adyen) at any point. Your card details are securely stored and remembered through a secure system called Tokenization, which is common amongst payment collectors.

The Tokenization process replaces a credit card number with a reference number (the token). This reference number is stored in a secure vault by the payment collector (Adyen). The same token is also stored within our database (Spektrix) system, which means that when you go to make a payment with ‘stored card details’ through our new website, the payment collector uses the stored tokens within our database to make sure it charges the matching card.

One-off website payments can be made using our “Donate Now” button on the Support Us page of this website.

All cheques will be payable to Sinfonia Smith Square.

All bank transfers will be made to:
Account Name: Sinfonia Smith Square
Account Number: 90548170
Sort Code: 20-94-48

Please note that these account details are the same as the old Southbank Sinfonia bank account details; the only change is the Account Name. Transactions are processed using the account number and sort code, so if you send a transaction to this account with “Southbank Sinfonia” still listed as the account name, it will still reach us!

Yes – when you renew your membership under the new scheme you will need to cancel your direct debit or standing order and pay via our new recurring payment method (‘Continuous Payment Authority’), using the membership buttons above, by ticketing “Automatically Renew”. However, you will not need to do this immediately. We will ask you to do this when you come to renew over the next 12 months.

If you pay for your current membership by monthly direct debit or standing order, you can continue doing this up to the point that your full year is complete and your ‘new year’ starts.

When your membership is due to restart for another year, we will ask you to switch over your membership payment method. However, if you would like to switch sooner, you can do this at any time. Please contact Danielle, Head of Memberships & Events at danielle@southbanksinfonia.co.uk, to arrange this.

For the next 12 months, yes, you will still be a Friend under the new scheme, as we will be gradually switching people over to the new payment method in this time.

However, if you haven’t switched to Continuous Payment Authority at your next renewal, you will no longer have an active membership.

As Southbank Sinfonia (Registered Charity No. 1092461) is the parent charity of the organisation, renamed to Sinfonia Smith Square, if you have a current Southbank Sinfonia signed Gift Aid declaration, this will still be valid as a Sinfonia Smith Square (Registered Charity No. 1092461) supporter, and you will not need to sign another one in order for us to claim gift aid on your donations to Sinfonia Smith Square.

If you have a current St John’s Smith Square Gift Aid declaration, you will need to sign a new one in order for us to claim gift aid on your donations to Sinfonia Smith Square, as all donations will be processed through the Sinfonia Smith Square charity (Registered Charity No. 1092461). We will contact you with further details.

For clarity and ease of processing for the future, and for our own up-to-date record keeping, it is likely that we may ask everyone to sign an updated Gift Aid declaration, which you will be able to do online via our website.