A feast of forties fun filled Letchworth town centre with our VE celebration on July 3 and 4, with a weekend of music, fun and living history organised by Letchworth Arts Centre, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, to commemorate the part Letchworth and its residents played in the allies’ victory in World War Two.
A great one-woman show dramatising a key night in the life of Katherine Parr, the last of Henry VIII's wives and the only one to survive him. Alison Neil began her professional acting career in 1978 and has appeared in many West End plays. This is the first in a series of appearances at the Arts Centre.
A week of wonderful 2009 Summer Festival events across Letchworth reached its grand finale on Saturday and Sunday August 1 and 2 with our 50s and 60s Festival in Broadway Gardens and on Broadway Walk.
It may have poured with rain, but nothing daunts Arts Centre volunteer fund-raisers. And those who took part in the FSI Challenge sponsored walk on our behalf in Derbyshire on June 6 2009 all had a wonderful time, as the pictures below show.
The walk ended at the lovely home of Secret Millionaire Emma Harrison, with its glorious gardens. Emma is the founder of the Foundation for Social Improvement, which organised the walk for small charities across the country. On the Sunday, many of those participating enjoyed a visit to Chatsworth House.
Click thumbnails for larger images. Photos by Malcolm King.
Click on the thumbnails below to see the Willow workshop staged by the Arts Centre for Thorley Hill Primary School, Bishop's Stortford. The magnificent windmill was the work of the juniors, the willow and tissue bugs the work of budding 6- and 7-year old artists in Year 2, and the willow tunnel with little bugs inside brought in the nursery class.
Our adult learners Mosaic Workshop in May 2009 was a huge success. Part of Adult Learners Week, which embraced a wide range of activities in schools and colleges across North Herts and Stevenage, it was funded by the Extended Schools programme.
North Herts and Stevenage Learning Partnership's appraisal of what we did, based on evaluation forms filled in by participants, was: "Letchworth Arts Centre ran a very successful taster ’Creating Outdoor Mosaics’. This taster had 8 attendees in total and gained very good feedback."
Comments on our students' appraisal forms included "Excellent" and "Had a very good time".
Here is some of the work that was produced. (Click thumbnails for larger images)
The Arts Centre linked with the Garden City’s Broadway Cinema to being a cheer to teenagers on gloomy winter nights with special under-18s evenings of films from a list chosen by pupils at Fearnhill and Highfield Schools.