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Newsletter Archive

September 2011

Once again we have had a hectically busy time. As most of you probably know by now we heard in August that our application to Arts Council England for a Lottery Funded grant was successful. We had applied for funding to support a two year development project. What, in fact, we have been awarded is the money to cover the first year only of the project and we have been invited to reapply for the second year's funding in due course.

An essential part of the project is to establish a new part-time post of Artistic Director to lead us through these financially challenging times. So we have been busy preparing adverts and an information pack for prospective candidates. The closing date for applications is 14th September and the interviews will be in early October. If you'd like to see the information sent out to candidates it is elsewhere on our website

Meanwhile, we have made a start with another aspect of the development project - to increase the opportunities we provide for young people. We are starting a group for children 18 months to 4 years old with a parent or carer, led by Audrie Woodhouse, in the Telltale Tent....See more

She will also be leading a new branch of the 1812 Youth Theatre Tree, called The 1812 Tykes, for children 5 - 8 years old....See more

At the same time, alas, we say goodbye to the very successful Tiny Tocks group, at least during school term time. So our thanks to Lilibet McFetrich for the hours of creative fun she has brought to the Arts Centre on Friday mornings.The good news is that we have not lost her altogether. Tiny Tocks will return during school holidays, so look out for more information about that.

Another innovation is the creation of a Helmsley Arts Centre Youth Theatre Arts Card. Each season 12 seats will be made available to members of our Youth Theatre, our Arts Award group working at Ryedale School and to students in Ryedale's new sixth form drama 'A' Level course, at only £1 per ticket for theatre events. Only one ticket per cardholder, of course, and sold on a first come first served basis. We ran a pilot scheme in the summer season and were pleased with its success. Particularly pleasing was to see some cardholders bringing members of their family with them - but, of course, at the normal price.

And the change in pricing we introduced in the summer season has also been a success. Students and Under 25s can now come to almost all our shows at half price, which may be as low as £5.

So we're hoping more people will take advantage of these offers this season, which spreads before you, as you can see, a rich and varied feast.

A very encouraging development has been the re-creation of the Friends organisation, the inauguration of which was in May. Many Friends' activities have been planned. The first event was a Tea Party in August. A lot of work was put into it, with activities for all the family, including games and films, and delicious sandwiches and cakes. Alas, the response was very disappointing. However, the Committee has not been put off and are forging ahead with their next event : a Quiz Night in the Studio Bar on Friday 18th November at 7.30pm....See more

Do support us by coming. All profits made on these events will be going towards the equipment needed to convert our Cinema provision from 35mm film projection to fullscale digital. If the cinema is to continue to bring the latest films to Helmsley we shall have to convert because soon no films will be made on film stock. All will be digitally made.

We hope you enjoy our new season's programme.

Meanwhile, here's a copy of the narrative in the

Trustees Report for the year April 2010 - March 2011.

Achievements and Performance
Last year’s report described the year 2009/10 as “eventful ...with a full programme pushed and stretched by forces elemental and economic”, and predicted there would be “a lot more pushing and stretching to come...and some quick and firm adjustments” to be made. How true. 2010/11 has proved to be a rollercoaster of a year, with pushing and stretching a daily experience. But we have not only survived it, tiring though it has been for all involved, we have achieved a great deal that is positive and hopeful for the future, uncertain though the future may still be.

1. Events & Activities

1.1 Theatre

For the 1812 Theatre Company the year began with a locally written play, Beyond the Moor Gate, followed later in the year with another, by Martin Vander Weyer, Steak Frites, thus re-inforcing 1812’s practice of encouraging new writing and writers. The Youth Theatre followed suit with a production of Won’t Be Long, about evacuees in World War Two, written for them by Tom Needham & David Griffiths. All three productions were very well received by audiences and the latter played also in a village hall at Thorton-le-Dale.
The quality of 1812 productions remained high this year, as was confirmed by feedback from audiences : Shelagh Stephenson’s The Memory of Water, Helene Hanff’s 84 Charing Cross Road and a selection of Pinter’s short plays. The ambitious choice of play and the increasing demands of school activity hampered the YT’s next production, The Late Sleepers, which had to be postponed from November until March, when all the extra work paid off with successful performances. Both companies have been under pressure this year but continue to be strongly supported and committed.
Meanwhile, professional theatre was well represented by first-class performances by Rohan McCullough in Hugh Whitemore’s My Darling Clemmie; Hull Truck’s Me and Me Dad; Reform Theatre’s Thick as Thieves; and, especially, Sir Tom Courtenay in Pretending to Be. We continued to support popular Yorkshire theatre companies : North Country, Badapple, Ratatat and our associated company, Angus & Ross, all of whom produced excellent work, well received by audiences.

1.2 Music

Once again the mix was richly varied. International musicians like Nikolai Demidenko, Anna Tilbrook, the Fitzwilliam and Martinu Quartets headed our classical music programme. A highlight was the passionate performance of Schumann’s Piano Trio by The Bacchus Piano Trio.
Folk music featured internationally acclaimed Tom McConville with his Big Band while our Folk Weekend, packed with world-class musicians, justified our faith in it by increasing its audience and receipts. It still made a loss but much less than last year and we shall build on its growing success further in 2011/12. Meanwhile, Clive Carrol amazed us with the range and virtuosity of his jazz and classical guitar playing in the Studio Bar. He deserved a bigger audience.
Once again we backed musicians, young and older, with a show-case of Local Talent in the Autumn and concerts by Ryedale School’s award winning jazz and wind bands, The Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, the Vacation Chamber Orchestra, and Kirkbymoorside Brass Band, while the Ryedale Live evenings continued to grow in popularity.
An excellent programme of Kathak dance and music in Dancing the Ramayana, attracted only a small but appreciative audience , while the Russian Orthodox Choir was so popular we had to organise two performances.

1.3 Talks & other events

Again we had a range of talks and presentations by people like Michael Mansfield and John Pilkington, while Alexei Sayle, Attila the Stockbroker and Kill For a Seat Comedy Club headed our comedy offering. Sad to say the Club is not growing as well as hoped and so we shall reassess our investment in it.
We continued to mount Art Exhibitions throughout the year, which attracted a steady flow of visitors to the Centre. By far the most popular with our local population was an exhibition from the Helmsley Archive of photographs of school life in Ryedale over the past 120 years, bringing in many local people who had never visited the Centre before.
Cinema remains a reliable source of income, The King’s Speech attracting full houses for five performances (overlapping into 2011/12). We continued to offer a mix of good quality main stream films with the less well known and foreign films (eg the Italian I Am Love and the French My Afternoons with Marguerite). Movement towards conversion to digital projection and alternative have been slow but firm. Hopes are rising that it will happen during 2011/12.

1.4 Other Activities

Art classes and workshops have been fully booked (eg. Life Drawing - very popular - and Print Making).
Ballet classes have undergone a complete reorganisation and are now fewer and cost less. The deficit on their account has been much reduced and may even turn into a small profit by next year, while Tiny Tocks music for the under fives remains fully booked.
Non-arts but a surprisingly good source of income are the fully booked Bridge classes. Yoga and Tai Chi have also flourished.
We have had a small increase in bookings from other individuals & organisations, in addition to our regular NADFAS commitment.

2. Managerial

2.1 Governance

We have continued to reorganise our governance structure towards achieving a Board of Trustees free of members of the Management Committee. Of the Trustees whose term of office ends in 2011 two are also on the Management Committee and will be standing down. Two new people have been found willing to stand for election to the Board at the 2011 AGM, one of them being the new Head Teacher of Ryedale School, which has Specialist Status in the Performing Arts and with which we have a rapidly developing creative relationship.
Our programming and marketing has still relied heavily on the two people employed at the end of 2009/10 on an hourly basis, David Goodwin (1 day per week) and Umay Jones (2 days per week) . While the marketing has greatly improved and the arrangement has saved us money at a crucial time, the system is overstretched and the individuals underpaid. It cannot continue thus for much longer.

2.2 Organisational Review

Both of the above were considered in depth by NR Consultants who were engaged, with the substantial help of an ACE G4A grant of £5,000, in November to review the whole operation of the Arts Centre with, initially, a view to improving and updating the organisation in such a way as to better manage and build upon what we have achieved and to make the most of our potential for future development in a changing economic climate. The hope was that this would support a request for raising our RFO yearly grant and allow us to appoint an Executive Artistic Director, paid at an industry standard level, to lead us in that quest. In the event, by our first meeting with them, the end of RFO funding and the establishment of the National Portfolio had been announced. NR’s remit was adjusted for the provision of an interim report in time to help us with our NPO application, with the final report later completing the review. Not surprisingly this exercise took up a lot of our time and energy but, in spite of our disappointment at the failure of our NPO application at the end of this financial year, we felt it was well worth the effort.Though it may have upset some people, it achieved what it set out to do and gave us the focus and momentum needed to address the issues facing us. It will remain as relevant to our follow-up application for a G4A grant of £95,000 over two years to commence, we hope, in October 2011 – the application being a dominant feature of the early months of 2011/12.
In response to the Annual Review 2009/10 the Trustees agreed to have equality issues as a permanent item on its agenda, with a Board member appointed to maintain the Board’s awareness of them.

3. Financial & Marketing

3.1 Performances & Activities

The good news is that the losses of 2009/10 were not repeated this year. In cash terms, in spite of a loss of £1500 on the Folk Weekend, not only did music make a small profit but also the accounts as a whole broke even, while theatre made a profit of more than £7000.The overall loss recorded in the accounts is accounted for almost entirely by the notional figure of about £23,000 for depreciation.
Our bar and café takings have risen this year
On the other hand, we had to cancel some events for lack of audience (2 theatre and 1 music) or performers’ illness(Julian Curry, & KeithDrinkel), both theatre.
And stand-up comedy made a loss (apart from Alexei Sayle) including the three Kill for a Seat Comedy Club showings.

3.2 Main Entrance Project

More good news: after three attempts to find a grant to help us carry out much needed refurbishment of the main entrance and box office, at the end of 2010 North Yorkshire County Council offered us £9,000 towards the project, to be spent by the middle of March. The Trustees had agreed up to £10,000 match funding. In the event the estimated cost of £18,000 was exceeded by £2,000, as, inevitably, ongoing work uncovered a number of other defects that needed attention. The result is a brighter, more professional and welcoming introduction to the Centre, with new user-friendly automatic doors.

3.3 Partnerships

The Black Swan Hotel Theatre Packages partnership made a good start this year, bringing a few new customers to the Centre from other parts of the country, as has our arrangement with The Feathers Hotel next door to us to support conference and other bookings with catering services and discounted accommodation.
A gratifying number of local businesses made generous donations of prizes to our summer raffle, which raised nearly £2,500.
We began to carry advertisements for some local businesses in our brochure, while a few others sponsored a show, for which they received acknowledgment with their linked logos on our website.
We have this year established fruitful partnerships with a number of local arts and community organisations, most of which bear fruit in the financial year 2011/12
Sharing an exhibition with Ryedale Folk Museum Gallery of work inspired by the Museum (April)
Supporting Great Edstone Outdoor Music Festival with publicity
in our brochure and website, along with technical help and box office services (@ 7% per ticket.(June)
An evening with Lord Digby Jones jointly organised and profit split with Helmsley Sports Club (June)
A workshop with glass artist, Gill Hobson, in collaboration with North Yorkshire Open Studios ’11 (June)
An Exhibiton of Photographs by Sydney Smith of early 20th Century rural North Yorkshire especially mounted from the Beck Isle Museum of Rural Life as part of the Ryedale Festival (July)
The Ryedale Festival has hired the Arts Centre for the two weeks of the festival @ £1000 per week for rehearsal and social use and some afternoon performances(July)
Hosting a production by Theatre of the Dales of “Much Ado about Nothing” in Helmsley Walled Garden. (July)
A music concert for Ryedale Special Families Charity (September)
Performance of Armonico Consort in All Saints Church Helmsley (November)
Art Exhibition of Ryedale School students’ work (January 2012)

3.4 Marketing

Our freelance Marketing Manager has transformed the design of our printed publicity material and established continuity of style around a new logo. The distribution network has increased a little but needs more volunteers.
She has established a regular email newsletter and Facebook content. • Our website has increased its range of content and we are now well represented on various other websites (eg the new Welcome to Yorkshire site), leading to a further increase in online bookings.

3.5 Friends

A very welcome development this year was the establishment of a new Friends’ Committee, chaired by Katrina Lane, with the aim of recruiting more Friends and organising social and fund-raising events for 2011/12 and beyond - the first of them scheduled for May 2011.

Which is a good place to end the report for 2010-11.

David Powley
Director

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