Annual Report 2008

 

The Centre is fulfilling all its original aspirations and is busy with hustle and bustle of people of all age groups enjoying the Centre either socially or educationally. It has developed a reputation for innovative ideas, a "can do attitude‟ and good value activities.

 

Probably the year‟s highlight was our film project and associated 1950s-themed festival in Broadway Gardens in the summer. The film, directed by Hitchin film maker Mark O‟Sullivan, was inspired by the landmark 1958 film, We Are the Lambeth Boys, which featured the daily lives of south London teenagers. Fifty years later, Letchworth teenagers talked about their lives, likes, dislikes and hopes for the future as they explored the differences between teenage life in the 1950s and today.

 

The project brought together people of all ages from across the community as the teenagers conducted interviews about growing up in the fifties, tried out 1950s fashions, experienced a 1950s-style school assembly at Fearnhill, learnt to jive – and to waltz – and recreated a 1950s youth club. The film, You’ve Never Had it so Good, took over six months hard work by the young people with Mark, project manager Pat Walker and our chief executive Maria Iredale. Shot on a range of locations across the Garden City and in co-operation with the Fearnhill and Highfield schools, it was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, received generous help from the Garden City Heritage Foundation, and was greatly assisted by staff from the Garden City Heritage Museum.

 

The glittering première at the Broadway Cinema a few days after the end of the period covered by this report, was a great success. Guests included Cllr. Allison Ashley, chairman of North Herts. District Council, Cllr Nigel Brook, chairman of Herts. County Council, and Alan Scouller, chairman of Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation.

 

The cinema had never seen anything like it. They were jiving in the aisles and rocking ‟n rolling in front of the big screen as a capacity audience, many in glamorous evening wear from the 1950s, filled the flagship Screen One auditorium following a reception in the foyer. Earlier in the year, our 1950s summer festival attracted hundreds of people to Broadway Gardens for a day of live music and dance, and displays ranging from classic cars and motorcycles – fewer than we had hoped for – to 1950s memorabilia kindly loaned by local people, science and technology of the time, 1950s fashion and much more. Local museums, especially the Heritage Museum, again played a big part in making the day a huge success, and a big community event, despite threatening weather.

 

Over the period the Arts Centre held 16 young people‟s music events with an overall attendance of over 1,700 teenagers. Organised by two local promoters, they have been very successful without any problems. There were approximately 68 private hires for both parties and business uses over the same period. Some parties had the maximum attendance; at least one other had only five people. So measuring attendance numbers is difficult.

 

There were 14 Comedy nights, which developed our audience significantly as people travel from as far afield as St Albans for these shows. The same lastminute.comedy event is on at Hitchin the night before us but as they are only pay-on-the-door and we have pre-bookable tickets we tend to get the people who are travelling from outside the area as well as the Letchworth locals. The Comedy Clubs average around 95 people per show.

 

Our children‟s theatre shows have been really well received. The audience initially was slow, which had an impact on us as the shows we put on were top quality and expensive. We struggled to cover costs, but we now have performances that are not as costly and are aimed at the Foundation and Key Stage 1 age groups.

 

They do not generate significant income as the ticket cost is kept low, but they are what an Arts Centre should offer. Attendance is generally 60-80 parents and children per show. There were four shows in this period. We had five adult (not adult only) theatre shows in this period, two amateur productions and three professional touring companies with between 20 and 60 people for each performance.

 

The shows ranged from a top comedy duo fresh from the Edinburgh Fringe to an extremely well-received adaptation of Jane Austen‟s Pride and Prejudice. We held six music performances with a rock, blues or jazz theme, with attendances varying from six to 90 people. We held six children‟s discos for children up to 11. Again these were popular, with many parents attending every one.

 

The galleries have been full throughout the 12- month period, with in the region of 9,000 visits (including the café). As part of our plans to link with other bodies, exhibitions included a tie-up with the University of Hertfordshire and we are hoping for further collaboration with the University. The Open Studios event was varied though with not as many exhibits as we would have liked. The Christmas Craft Fair was a welcome boost for the gallery, with both exhibitors and customers very pleased with the exhibition. The work was of a very high quality and the event was repeated this year.

 

Our visitors are of all ages. We host more classes for children and young people than ever before and the number of classes for adults is also increasing, through our endeavours and as a host for the college courses for North Herts. College. There are some 25 classes a week, with an average of eight people on each. Courses have ranged from Cutting and Sticking for toddlers to Drama for both primary and secondary school age children to Life Drawing for adults.

 

The holiday education programmes saw good take-up, with some classes selling out within weeks of release. The summer programme lasted for the full six weeks of the holidays and we delivered the Youth Service Arts Programme for North Herts. Summer events for children, many in conjunction with the Youth Service, included themed mornings for 5- to 11-year olds based on Horrid Henry, Kung Fu Panda, Narnia and Wall-e, covering everything from story illustration, character masks and paper lanterns to masks and chainmail things for the body, myths and magic transforming pictures, solutions for lonely robots and space ships and rocket packs.

 

One of the highlights of the education programme was the Arts Award, a very prestigious national qualification sponsored by the Arts Council and accredited through Trinity College, London. We are the first body in this area to offer courses for the award, with nine students achieving Bronze. Our Family learning week was a success with parents taking part with the children. Latin and Ballroom was the most popular activity. There have been a number of „yummy mummy‟ type activities, with pre-natal yoga, baby massage and baby yoga.

 

We have previously highlighted schools workshops as an area for development. In the period we did six of these and we have been developing this, building on our previous experience. The Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation has been supporting us with marketing and has done a new leaflet to go direct to schools. We also work closely with the Children‟s Centres in the area to provide activities for pre-school children and their families. Over the period covered by this report we increased the number of pre-school classes from one per week to three.

 

A spare office in the Arts Centre was rented by the Lime Tree Children‟s Centre as its town centre base, though this arrangement has now come to an end. We continue to have a weekly toy library at the Arts Centre. Other community link-ups included a Battle of the Bands contest through the summer in conjunction with Letchworth Garden City Council.

 

We continue to provide placement opportunities for adults who need work experience. These placements come to us through North Herts. College and via the Job Centre. The placements often lack the basic skills that make them attractive to an employer and we work with them to build up their skills and confidence. Some provide a valuable service to us in return for our hosting, and stay with us as volunteers after they have left the college. We also offer schools work placements to four schools in the area.

 

We see ourselves as not just a Letchworth institution but as an Arts Centre for all of North Hertfordshire. So, for example, we linked with North Herts. Council‟s Southern Rural Area Committee to organise a series of children‟s activities in the southern part of the district to woo youngsters away from computer screens and games consoles and into more creative activities. We are also receiving requests to put on events and workshops outside the district. Feedback has been very positive.

 

For example this was the reaction we had to a workshop at Knebworth: ‘Dear Maria, Thank you for enquiring how your Letchworth Arts Centre group had done – in one word – FANTASTIC. The little people thoroughly enjoyed themselves and a number of the parents commented on this. It was kind of you to come along and help with the younger attendees as this is sometimes a problem.... Once again, many thanks and see you next time?‟

 

We hit problems at the end of calendar year 2007 with our licence relating to numbers allowable at events. Initially, after inspection by all relevant authorities, we were allowed up to 120 people at events on the second floor, but this was abruptly sharply reduced. Events, notably music nights, had to be curtailed while we negotiated with the licensing authorities, and changes were made to the emergency exit arrangements on the second floor, courtesy of the Garden City Heritage Foundation. After three months, the original limit was restored following further inspections.

 

The café, run by the charity Guideposts, which provides training opportunities for adults with learning difficulties, is flourishing. Guideposts pays an annual licence fee to run the café, which is an important element in drawing people in.

 

We have two full-time members of staff, Maria Iredale, chief executive, and Linda Carson, operations manager. Both have continued to be huge assets and tremendous thanks are due them. Tremendous thanks are also due to the volunteers, very much including members of the trustee board, who do so much for us, from manning the reception desk to humping furniture around and arranging seating for events to running the bar in the evenings and a host of other things. Particular thanks are due to Tony Maynard-Smith, who has taken on the arduous role of treasurer.

 

We were sorry to lose Sarah Needham as a trustee in April as a result of her move from the area. She had worked hard on our behalf. We need additional trustees and would welcome approaches from people who feel they have something to offer and have a little time to spare.

 

This is the second year since the reconstitution of the Arts Centre. We are now well-established, and it would be nice to think our future was assured. Financially, though, we are still not as secure as we would like, and we need to work on this. We are heavily dependent on grant income, and the pursuit of this is immensely time-consuming. We also have to face the fact that, as pressure on local authorities intensifies and some central funding for the arts is diverted to help pay for the planned London Olympics, finding funding is likely to become harder, especially in the current recession.

 

North Hertfordshire Council is due to reduce its contribution toward wage costs in its next financial year by another £5,000, and it is not yet known whether the further £12,500 discretionary grant from the council toward general running costs received in the last two financial years will be repeated. We are hugely grateful to both Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation and North Hertfordshire District Council for their support.

 

It is perhaps worth noting that other arts centres around the country tend to cost their local authorities considerably more than we do. We still have some way to go, too, in raising our profile across the town. We plan to build on the success of the film project with a festival this summer taking Letchworth‟s business and industrial past as its theme to tie in with the big changes that are coming to the town centre, and also to seek to establish a young person‟s film club, for which we have already received some outside funding.

 

There will be more community tie-ups, especially with local schools, and another full programme of exhibitions in the galleries and stage and musical events for both youngsters and older people, plus further development of educational activities.

 

This was the first full year of operation since the re-opening and re-launch of the Arts Centre in February 2007, and the financial performance still to some degree reflects that start-up position. For the 14 month period of this report the charity made a net surplus of £8,119 on a total turnover of £241,921. This turnover was up by £70,883 from a figure of £171,038 in the previous year, reflecting partly the fact that operations were dormant in the early part of the last financial year, and partly the fact that the current period is of 14 months compared with 12.

 

The net surplus for the period is very slightly down from the previous year when it was £8,171. At the end of last year the charity carried forward a deficit of £9,856 in the Letchworth Festival (2007) Fund, and a deficit of £1,961 in its General Fund. During the current year the deficit in the Festival Fund has been cleared, partly by attracting some additional income which had been promised but not paid last year, and partly by subsidising the remaining deficit of £4,346 from General Funds, since the Trustees decided that there was no realistic prospect of additional specific funding becoming available.

 

The deficit in the General Fund has also been cleared, and the Fund ended the year in surplus, by virtue of returns made on the charity‟s normal operations. The Charity ends the current period with reserves of £6,018 in its General Fund, and a total of £13,040 in its Restricted Funds. These latter are specifically for the completion of three projects for which grants have been received, but not fully spent.