The year of the Festival!
This report is in two parts. This page details the activities throughout the year,
and the second page tells the story of Terrington Village Festival in June 2007,
which was co-
ACTIVITIES 2006/7
1 SHOWS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Our year began with a fascinating after-
This was followed at the end of October by an 1812 theatre production of Not About
Heroes, a dramatisation of the relationship between Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred
Owen, with our own David Goodwin as Sassoon. Rarely has a Terrington audience been
so emotionally spell-
In total contrast, our first Rural Arts on Tour production of the year in November was Circus Berzercus, in which two actors combined physical talents with great humour. It was good to see families amongst the 120 strong audience in the evening. The actors ran a wonderfully active workshop in the afternoon for Terrington CE school, giving the children ideas for challenging playground games for weeks afterwards.
Our second On Tour production in March was RJC Dance from Leeds with their new show The Dancical. Around 100 people enjoyed their innovative and exciting dance movements, but they were unable to give the whole performance because, though they had brought their own surface, our floor was too hard. Luckily we had planned to launch the Festival after the interval, so we had time for some presentations about events planned for the summer.
We had an unexpected extra show when David Goodwin found himself double booked for his dress rehearsal of September in the Rain. He mentioned to us that he would not mind an audience, so we emailed the members at one day’s notice. 60 people turned up and thoroughly enjoyed the impromptu show!
Details of the Festival shows (Hatstand Opera, Ian McMillan and Waterson Carthy) and other Festival events mounted by Terrington Arts–are included in the Festival report attached.
Groups of members have been on 5 outings this year. These have been advertised by email, though we hope members have spread the word to others.
8 members went to the Northern Broadsides production of The Man with Two Gaffers at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough in November. 8 members went to the Oddsocks version Twelfth Night at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York in December.
18 people went by minibus to the West Yorkshire Playhouse to see the Wizard of Oz in January, and about 20 members went to the new Welburn village hall to see Chuck and Albert, the two men who had entertained us as part of Barachois some years back. Finally about 10 people went to Sheriff Hutton to see An Honorary Yorkshireman about James Herriott.
Thanks to Anita Barber and Janet Goodwill for help with these.
Film – sadly the subsidy ran out on the Rural Arts Onscreen programme, though we had a great film night in the Festival (see festival report) and are talking about setting up something locally in 2007/8.
2 CREATIVE ACTIVITIES
Textile and Craft Group
The group, which meets fortnightly on Thursdays, goes from strength to strength, with a membership of 20 and a waiting list. Unfortunately they lost their venue during the Autumn Term when the School was temporarily housed in the Village Hall during building work. The Group went on a variety of visits and held some sessions at Norton Trinity Church, moving back in December when they enjoyed another ‘Get to know your Sewing Machine’ session with Kathy Selwood, and Kate Smith’s Christmas Hanging workshop. Visits this year have included Temple Newsam, Bombay Stores, Ryedale Embroiderers Guild, Phillipa Naylor’s quilt demonstration at Thirsk and joining Ryedale U3A’s stained glass tour with Peter Gibson.
During the Spring Term they started the ‘Sliced Picture’ (see festival report), did some Seminole patchwork and ribbon work and amassed their archive of work done over 10 years for the exhibition on 28 June. It is good to note that there is now so much talent to share in the group that Elaine Hubery can sometimes hand over the leading of a session to others.
Digital Photography course
10 people enjoyed a one day course on Digital Photography in November, led by Lyn Roebuck of Rural Arts. After some tips on taking photos, the group spread out round the village, returning to upload and enhance images on laptop computers.
Hands On
The clay ‘hands’ were finally placed on the wall around The Plump in October, but so far the ‘key’ is yet to come.
Website www.terringtonarts.org
We have tried to keep this up to date, but the main attraction this year was www.terringtonfestival.org which kept people informed in advance of the Festival, and which now has some great photos of the events.
3 MUSIC, DRAMA AND SOUND
The Band – now in its third incarnation as Tiefrung Gleemen (i.e. musicians from Terrington in Old English) the band has had some changes in personnel and has recruited a Caller. This means they are available for Barn Dances as well as providing incidental music for weddings and other occasions. It was good to hear them in Terrington during the Festival. They were fortunate in gaining an Awards for All grant for amplification equipment and software for arranging music for the eclectic group of instruments. This is now spent and audited to the satisfaction of all.
Yorkshire Sounds
During the year there was a lot of activity recording the sounds of the village for
a CD to be produced by the Local Heritage Initiative funded Yorkshire Sounds project.
The resulting CD, on sale for the first time at the Choir Concert at the Festival,
is an evocative collection of sounds from the village. There are tracks from the
Village Choir, Tiefrung Gleemen, Terrington CE School children as they celebrated
their refurbished school, poems and readings from Terrington Players and music from
Terrington Hall School pupils and a minute and half of Ambient Sounds including chickens,
sheep, rooks etc and the late Jack the donkey. Harry Kingman, Paul Cussins and Gerry
Bradshaw all benefited from training in Dreamweaver, courtesy of this project, and
John Goodwill and John Hubery did a day course on Sound, before borrowing a mini-
The CD is on sale in Terrington Stores or from Lesley Bradshaw (01653 648328) price £8.
Membership
Membership remains strong, with 106 households paid up, representing 192 adults. We do appreciate your support which gives us basic income and the tax back for those who have signed the Gift Aid form.
With over 30% households in the Parish in membership we may have reached saturation, but we try to invite new residents to get involved as soon as we can! 32% of our members live outside the Parish mostly in surrounding villages, but also from as far away as Malton and York.
We can communicate easily with 75% of our members on email, but we still struggle to keep the 25% without up to date. Paper versions through the letter box seem the only answer but it does mean a lot of extra deliveries. Naturally we have to rely on members informing us of changes to their email address.
External links
We continue to benefit from Rural Arts North Yorkshire – our original inspiration 10 years ago. Not only do we enjoy the touring shows but they provide workshop leaders on request and are always on hand to answer questions. Lesley Bradshaw, our Secretary, is on their Executive Committee.
It may surprise members to know that Terrington Arts is sometimes used as an example of how arts should be in a rural area. Lesley was asked by Francois Matarasso, who did a case study of us a few years ago, to give a presentation about Terrington Arts to a group of professionals at an Arts Council East Midlands conference in November.
We have been very grateful for the support and advice of Yvette Turnbull, Ryedale District Council Arts Development Officer, and we were pleased to welcome Janet Waggott, Ryedale Chief Executive to meet the Working Group in May.
Thank you
Once again we would like to thank all our members for their support for all our activities in the past 14 months, and for supporting the Festival so enthusiastically. We are only able to mount such a varied programme because of the voluntary help you give us, for example with distributing leaflets, helping with shows, hosting meetings and workshops. The burden this year with the Festival was enormous – but it has given us the impetus to spend the extra two months restructuring our ways of working, and new people are coming forward to help. More of that at the Annual Meeting.
Lesley Bradshaw, Secretary September 2007
Terrington Arts is a Registered Charity 1080802
The charity’s objects are ‘to educate the public in the Parish of Terrington and surrounding areas to promote the improvement, development and maintenance of artistic knowledge and understanding and appreciation of the arts by providing facilities for the education of the public in the fields of art, craft, music and drama’.