2012

22 Dec 2024

WIMBORNE COMMUNITY THEATRE  AGM THURSDAY 18th APRIL 2013 AT ALLENDALE HOUSE, WIMBORNE CHAIR’S REPORT Review of WCT activities in 2012  This report covers activities between October 2011 and September 2012. This year followed the success of The Great Rinsing in July 2011 and was largely a year of consolidation and forward planning. As reported in the last Annual Report, we also had a financial shortfall and thus had to start fundraising in a serious way. The Year’s Activities:

  • The Quarter Jack’s Challenge  During this year we staged a production of The Quarter Jack’s Challenge with two performances at Allendale House on Saturday June 23rd. This took place as part of the Jubilee weekend, Wimborne through the Ages, with events throughout the town reflecting the history of the town. We held a creative workshop on 26th April to work on developing the play and were able to put it together with 4 subsequent rehearsals. The production was successful on several counts:
×        performances were well attended and the production well received ×        we were able to adapt a previous script and relate it to Wimborne today ×        we devised a format that could be easily repeated for different events and venues
  • Workshops and Open Meetings
On 14th October 2011 the group met to view the DVD of The Great Rinsing and to talk about ideas for future projects. This was followed by a workshop on 26th November 2011 led by Tony on the theme of looking back over the last 60 years to tie in with the Queen’s Jubilee. We also held a creative workshop on 18th February 2012 led by Tony Horitz and Sharon Muiruri which looked at ways of performing as a whole group or crowd.
  • Attendance at Ages and Stages Conference, Bubble Theatre, LondonFive members of the group spent a day in London in January 2012 at the London Bubble’s conference on community theatre. Tony and Paul ably represented WCT as practitioner and participant panellists and the conference was both illuminating and useful in putting forward both academics’ and experts’ views.
  • Archive Project
Meetings were held to prepare a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund to provide us with funding needed to create a website and archive. Members met twice to sort materials currently stored at Allendale House. Gill Horitz and Dunja Wood attended a meeting on 19th February 2012 with Dorset History Centre to discuss working in partnership when the project gets underway.   Meanwhile Gill worked extremely hard to prepare the bid to the HLF. It was disappointing to learn in July that we had been unsuccessful, although following some rewriting and rescaling of the bid, Gill is to be congratulated on WCT being awarded funding later in the year.
  • Reminiscences Project/Wimborne at War Project
It was originally planned that WCT would collaborate with the DEED project We Were Here about the experiences and attitudes of the local community to the presence of African –American soldiers in Dorset in 1944. This took place in October 2012. However, time and funding constraints prevented WCT being involved. We have since applied for and been successful in obtaining a grant from East Dorset District Council to collect reminiscences and undertake research about the War, leading to a production in 2014, subject to further funding. The ideas and materials from the workshops and planning meetings held this year will all help with this project.
  • Fundraising
On fundraising, this year was highly successful and the shortfall with which we started the year has now been addressed. ×        We held a Skittles evening at the Coach and Horses pub on December 2nd 2011 which was well attended and a pleasurable evening for all. ×        We also held a Quiz Evening on 22nd February 2012 at the Colehill Sports and Social Club which generated £317.00. We are grateful to John Billington for hosting both of these events. ×        We joined the Local Giving scheme and took advantage of their Grow a Tenner scheme to double donations, funds raised and some subscriptions during the period this scheme ran. ×        Bric-a-brac and items that had been stored at Dunja’s were sold at the Wimborne Market Auction in February and raised an additional £50.00 ×        WCT was one of the community causes in Waitrose’s green token scheme in August 2012. £359.00 was raised through donations from the public.
  • Mayor’s Service
Jeff and Barbara Hart and Ken Horitz represented the group at the Mayor’s Civic Service at the Minster on 13th May 2012.
  • Christmas Party
An enjoyable Christmas party was held at Jeff & Barbara Hart’s house on 16th December 2011 which also raised some funding.
  • Newsletter
The WCT monthly newsletter was started in January 2012 to keep members, supporters and friends of the group informed of the latest events. Thus 2012 has been a successful year for the group in terms of fundraising and continuing the work of the group through staging a small production, while moving forward with plans for larger projects, in particular the Archives and Reminiscences projects. However, this year has also shown that we need to continue our efforts with fundraising in order to maintain a contingency fund and to pay our running costs, such as insurance of around £700.00 a year. There is also a need for more volunteers to take on vital roles in the group, such as organising and maintaining our costume store, particularly for specific productions. Gill Horitz has done a wonderful job in promoting the group’s work and also in the application she successfully made on our behalf to HLF.   We continue to be extremely grateful to Tuppy Hill for her sterling work as our secretary and to Adrian Williams for taking on the Treasurer’s role so well Jeff Hart Chair WCT   17.03.2013