[Square Chapel Centre for the Arts][]Mutton - Freshly Dressed!

News

Christmas Show, Evergreens, Caravans and Hosts

by Sally Martin, Director, 1st October 2009

It is the run-up to Christmas now and Square Chapel has an exciting Christmas show coming in, an adaptation of C S Lewis's THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE which is being created by Proper Job Theatre from Huddersfield. Square Chapel are supporting the producing of the show and involving 24 local children in the professional performance. We hope you will support this fantastic new initiative by making sure you book for one of the public performances between the 20th and 24th December... please bring all the family you can and help make this our biggest ever Christmas success!

On the subject of helping us...I know you are used to our requests at this time of year for loads of evergreen branches to decorate Square Chapel, hundreds of mince pies to be donated for selling with mulled wine, and extra volunteers to sell raffle tickets for the ever popular Christmas Raffle... Well we still need you to do all those things for us and please call Mat Firth or John Carter with all your offers on 01422 353073. However this year we also need something else which is the loan of TWO CARAVANS! from Sunday 13th to Thursday 24th December to act as extra changing areas for the boys and girls in the show. Each caravan will only need to house 6 children at a time and they will be supervised by an adult at all time. If you think you can help by lending us (or persuading someone you know to lend us) your/their caravan please call me on 01422 353073 and I will be immensely grateful!

Finally, can I ask those of you with spare bedrooms to consider joining our hosts scheme? We offer to put artists up overnight when they are performing here — and we rely on our wonderful Friends and Volunteers to do us an occasional B & B service free of charge. It doesn't matter if you live well out of Halifax as they always have transport. Anything from 1 bed upwards is welcome and you will be asked if you can help well in advance and can always say no if it doesn't suit you that particular evening! Please phone myself or Mat Firth on the number above if you would like to know more about the scheme before committing yourselves!

Thank you so much as ever for your ongoing generosity — without you Square Chapel would never be able to function as it does and we really are hugely grateful!

A Word about Artreach

by Michaela O’Sullivan, Schools Liaison Officer, 1st October 2009

Artreach, our community outreach programme, concluded at the end of September. Funded with an Arts Council grant, it enabled us to develop our outreach programme to work with a great range of organisations and individuals, who otherwise would not have had opportunities to access the arts.

One of the most successful projects was Opportunity Rocks — a "school of rock" project for young people with mild learning difficulties. The project spawned two bands, The Bash and Eccentrics on Holiday. Both bands performed to the public on numerous occasions and also visited professional recording studios to cut high-quality CDs. This was a great achievement for the participants, but more significant is the wider impact that participation in this project has had on the lads who took part. This is an excerpt from some feedback written by the case worker for one participant:

"Opportunity Rocks has had an immense impact on K. Prior to this, K had very low self-esteem – he once described himself as 'simply existing'. K has been on a journey of self discovery and I feel he has grown so much: he now speaks positively about himself, he will look at you when speaking to you, he laughs, he can take critique, he has started to go out socially, speak to people and make friends. In his job he has moved departments, which he would never have had the confidence to do before. He has never been into the canteen at work before because he always felt he was being persecuted, now he goes in and talks about the band – he has made friends at work and sees a future. Overall Opportunity Rocks has made K a happier, more confident and positive person."

I am still in touch with all the participants and will continue to support them to access other opportunities in the community.

Sustaining our outreach

by Michaela O’Sullivan, Schools Liaison Officer, 1st October 2009

A successful bid to the Arts Council's Sustain programme means that we are delighted to be able to continue to deliver outreach and audience development work at Square Chapel. I will take up the new post of Schools Liaison Officer at the beginning of October, primarily working with those schools that face barriers accessing professional performing arts. This is a new role and a new challenge and I'm really looking forward to it!

Michaela O'Sullivan