'How are you going to sustain it?' Francois Matarasso asked us May, when preparing a case study about us for a national project about the effect of the bringing arts activities to rural communities. Terrington Arts is now six years old and the Working Group all have other commitments. That so much has been achieved this year confirms the adage that if you want something done, ask someone who hasn't got time to do it!
Every year we find a new focus that lets us begin new ventures. This year it was the invitation from Rural Arts North Yorkshire (RANY) in February to be at the centre of a Rural Learning Community that was a turning point (see External Links below). The first courses and tasters are coming on stream, and co-ordinators are coming forward from other villages in the Howardian area. Many questionnaire returns featured arts related requests, showing that your enthusiasm for learning new skills has not diminished. We expect that the first phase will lead to further local groups being established.
All our activities across the area must meet the objectives of the Charity , but what we do will differ from year to year.. We need and want new members on the Working Group, especially those who would like to help to shape our future over the next few years. We would also like to hear from members who could take on specific jobs to relieve project leaders. Examples are attached.
So the answer to Francois is, that we need to extend our horizons and membership beyond our backyard. We need to make even greater use of our members' and friends' skills and enthusiasm, so that we are well placed to create or seize opportunities to promote and develop the arts over a wider area.

ACTIVITIES June 2002 - June 2003
Visiting Shows
· Magna Carta entertained a good audience, mostly members, after the AGM at the end of September. Chris and Linda have a special blend of music and humour, which gave us a wonderfully relaxed start to the year.
· In November The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain delighted a near-capacity audience with an amazing display of finger-plucking, superb musicality and a good many laughs. We are very lucky that we can mount shows like this through the Rural Arts on Tour scheme.
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The 'Ukes' acknowledge applause at the end of the show
· Annapurna Dance came to us in the same week, with their daytime workshop for children. Terrington CE school pupils, along with children from Slingsby and Foston, enjoyed Indian dancing and story-telling and a close look at the colourful costumes. The teachers were able to use the experience as part of the schools' multicultural education programme.

Primary school children join in with Annapurna Dance
· The spring was very busy. Firstly, on 3rd April we hosted a production of Last Tango in Little Grimley by Pickering Dramatic Club. We kept it informal, with a 'bring your own bottle' evening. The audience of around 80 people was the biggest on their tour, and they enjoyed playing to an appreciative audience in Terrington.
· Only a week later we had the Spike Theatre from Liverpool with BLT, which stood for Bizarre Love Triangle as well as the contents of a sandwich. In fact there was a ghost in the sandwich, and strange goings on in a café and a meat factory, which was not to everyone's taste, but the mime and physical acting were quite superb. One of the actors gave a workshop to the children at Terrington CE School in the afternoon.
· May was reserved for the Players production (see below), so in June we found ourselves putting on Batinka, an evening of Russian, Romanian and Klesma music on a warm summer evening in competition with a free music festival in Malton. The music was pleasant and those who joined in the dancing enjoyed learning something new, but the group did not earn the praise you gave to other groups, like Barachois and Loyko, who came to us through the Festival of Many Cultures.
For 2003/4 we intend to space out the programme, and to bring a variety of shows at times when people are looking for an evening out.
Luckily we are still attracting an audience from a wide area, thanks to our mailing list, advertising and word of mouth. It is the last few tickets sold which make the difference between loss and a small profit. Please encourage friends to come, so that we can continue to book with confidence.
Terrington Players
· Pam Broadbent, who had stepped in as director for the Jubilee Show, continued to work with Players, bringing in Dave Armour for a series of drama workshops in the Autumn. After a number of readings a production was put together for May entitled Are You Talking to Me?
A group of sketches around the theme of communication or lack of it, featured all the 'old hands' and some of the teenagers. The pieces, stimulating smiles of recognition rather than belly laughs, were appreciated by the largely village audience.

Marcia Wigham, Liz Cox and Neville Hornsey in
Are You Talking to Me?
· Terrington Arts, and Players in particular, benefit from the Awards for All grant from the Lottery given to the Village Hall for sound, light and staging. We contributed £1000 towards the upgrade, which provided a doubling of the staging, re-cabling and lighting bars and a sound system with wall-mounted speakers. Our thanks go to John Goodwill for his research and overseeing of the work.
Visual arts - led by Gerard (Nobby) Naughton
· A Painting Day was held on a sunny August day, with 16 participants. Many of the resulting paintings were submitted for the Terrington Stores painting competition, which attracted a wide range of superb entries.
· The Hands On project has occupied us all through the year. Over 80 people, babes in arms to pensioners, attended sessions in August, September and October to have their hands moulded in plaster. In workshops in November and January clay was worked into the moulds to create 'hands' which were placed on clay tiles. These took longer to dry out than expected, then had to be fired, ready for glazing.

Making clay hands from the moulds
When all the hands are ready and all permissions granted we will stage an unveiling ceremony..
Living History
· The Millennium Commission agreed that we could extend the project to include Hands On, as it will give a permanent record of the people in the village. This means that, as well as earlier work, costs for Hands On have been covered.
· The photograph albums destined for the Borthwick Institute as a permanent archive of the village, and containing Millennium year photos of residents, have been completed. Some additional work on group photographs and activities in the year 2000 is to be done.
· Some further interviews have been carried out with those with memories of the village. These are kept on disc and transcribed as a record of village history. This work continues.
· An offshoot of Living History has been the start of a Richard Spruce Society, to commemorate the Victorian plant hunter buried in Terrington churchyard. A small group, in conjunction with members of the Welburn Local History group, is working on the idea of a Spruce trail - a good example of partnership across a wider area.
· Nobby Naughton ran a series of workshops in the Autumn updating sections of the website, www.terrington.com. As a result, new pages were added for the Village Hall, the Church, the Village Choir and Terrington Arts.
Textile and Craft group - led by Elaine Hubery
There are now around 20 people on the books for this group, with an average fortnightly attendance of 10 to 12. The Autumn saw a 'White on White' challenge, a number of visits and an Internet day at The Barn Studio. Spring and Summer had a Stained Glass theme, set off by Patrick Nuttgens who described his family's work in this field. A variety of interpretations in textiles ensued. The programme of visiting artists and trips out, augmented by Elaine Hubery's tireless search for new techniques, gives each session interest. Members learn from each other, and enjoy the work and the chat.
Elaine has also been in touch with the Millennium Volunteers programme to try to find a young person willing to give a hand to those who need individual assistance.
Outings
Twelve people went to see Tosca at Leeds Grand. Group tickets and 3 cars was easy to set up and could be repeated. More difficult is to find a show that will appeal to 40 or so people to make a coach viable. The winter show at the West Yorkshire Playhouse was once again not suitable.
External links
We continue to link closely with Rural Arts North Yorkshire for touring productions, firing the Hands, etc. and RANY invited Terrington to be the centre of the Howardian Rural Learning Community because of our track record.
A consortium of colleges in North Yorkshire, together with RANY and the WEA, is setting up a network of 15 Rural Learning Communities across the County, and Terrington Arts was asked to take part. We suggested that to be sustainable it should cover the whole Howardian area. A pilot questionnaire was distributed in Terrington in May, and rolled out to other villages in time for the July Open Day. Though not all the requests were for arts related learning we believe this is a positive step forward for Terrington Arts as it brings in new blood, significant subsidy and opportunities to work with other villages in the Howardian Hills.
A RANY project, taking place across the Howardian Hills, had its launch in Terrington Village Hall in March. The exhibition Upshoots, containing photographs of people earning their living from the land by Tessa Bunney, and sound track and commentary by Pat Borthwick, was augmented by workshops in willow working and charcoal drawing. Terrington Arts provided refreshments.
Thank you
The Working Group would like to thank you for your continued support. Our membership was 115 - a record - and we hope you found it worthwhile. Our continuing policy over the year of at least £1 a ticket members' discount for shows, means that if you attended all of them you will have got your money back! We are grateful to all of you who have helped us to put on this varied programme over the past year - especially for help with leafleting, refreshments, bar etc. for shows, but thank you all too for coming along to support whatever we throw at you! Our 'have-a-go' culture in Terrington is envied by many other villages. Your support encourages us to continue to seek new opportunities for learning and enjoyment.

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