Hurry to save the Odeon

St Albans Arts fully supports the campaign to restore the Odeon in London Road and prints this message on behalf the St Albans Civic Society:

As some of you will know from the Herts Advertiser of 28 January, there is a serious shortfall on the funding needed for James Hannaway to acquire The Odeon from its current owner, and a matter of days before exchange and completion.

It is still worth pursuing this project – much more worthwhile than simply shrugging our shoulders and giving up. We need to forget any previous assumptions we may have had about what money was available: we are where we are.

If you attended that packed meeting  at The Rex on 29 November, and made an offer of financial help, which you have still to send, please get that offer in now – immediately.  Full details are available at www.allaboutstalbans.com – the website James is using, as well as that of The Rex, for regular updates.  And if you were thinking of contributing in some way, think no more: act!

Here, in no particular order, are the reasons why The Odeon matters.

1  It’s a landmark building on a gateway route.   Restoration here would mean regeneration for the whole area – which sorely needs it.

2   St Albans has  few examples of Art Deco architecture: this is one of them.

3   It’s built on the site of The Alpha Picture Palace, the county’s first purpose-built cinema opened in 1908 by Arthur Melbourne –Cooper,  the UK film pioneer, whose importance to St Albans’ heritage is recognised on the continent – if not by  our own District Council.  And in an elegant compliment to this  local celebrity, The Alpha it may very well become …

4   We need a cinema – and a cinema for everyone with a wide-ranging programme, like The Rex.  And why not a beautiful cinema too?

James Hannaway is almost certainly our last hope of saving and restoring this building.  Let’s support him.

To find out how to support the project go to www.allaboutstalbans.com

Creative Writing Evening Class

Writing memoirs, short stories or novels – exercises in Plot, Structure, Character and Setting with local agented writer, Clare Hobba.

Contact Carole Heselton at the BeauSandVer Consortium    01207 – 754 113 or email carole.heselton@verulam.herts.sch.uk

The BeauSandVer consortium is a combination of the three large comprehensives Beaumont, Sandringham and Verulam.  It exists initially to enhance the children’s opportunities within the schools, most noticeably in the sixth form where more subjects can be offered at a higher level of expertise.  It also combines to offer some teacher training.  The community programme….is a series of non-assessed community classes, offered using the facilities of the schools to the local community, often in accordance with their subject specialisms (e.g. language classes at Beaumont).  Charges are very reasonable and are used in the first place to pay the tutors.  Facilities are often offered free of charge.

Proposal for new Arts Forum

There is a proposal to create a forum which will ‘speak with one voice’ for the arts in St. Albans. The process of forum creation is supported by the council but mediated by Leisure Connection. However, the message is very much that once the body is formed it will be self-governing. There is the offer of a relatively small amount of start-up money from the council but thereafter the forum  will have to raise its own finance. There will, it seems, be no office and no secretariat unless new funding can be obtained.

Preliminary meetings have been held and a volunteer steering group has emerged. There is as yet no name for the body nor a constitution but it has been proposed that the new forum should focus on the big picture for arts in St Albans and address gaps in provision.

As might be anticipated, ideas as to what the new organisation might do are not in short supply. Improvements in communication, overall organisation of arts provision, extension of social and geographical spread, increased availability of studio space are amongst proposals which have been mooted.

A Facebook group (‘Create one voice for the arts in St. Albans’) has been formed.  Anyone registered with Facebook will be able to access this group and keep an eye on progress. There is to be another meeting of the embryonic steering group on the 20^th of January (ie too late for the outcomes to be reported in this newsletter).

What, understandably, remains unclear is how the new forum will relate to STARTS. Most of the ambitions are shared between the two organisations. Indeed we feel that STARTS has made some progress but we have also discovered that the lack of a paid person whose job it is to drive the organisation forward is a very considerable handicap. It is difficult to recruit and retain volunteers and those who do remain sometimes struggle to keep energy levels up. There is also a difficulty with creating a base; offices eat up money.

An obvious answer is to raise money, and it seems that the new forum might have at least one good prospect of doing so, but fund-raising is itself a very demanding process. STARTS has been reasonably successful in gaining finance for one-off projects but not in securing core funding for running the organisation.

As reported in previous editions of this newsletter, the STARTS trustees are part way through a process of considering the fundamental role of the organisation. We will, of course, keep a close eye on developments concerning the new forum and adjust our plans where it seems appropriate.

Vision of St Albans as primary regional focus for the arts

The two proposals arising from the City Vision process have now been merged into one which is still in draft form but which is very likely to become the definitive version. We are delighted that the notion of the development of our city as a primary regional focus for the arts is still very much on the agenda. The document says:

‘The city’s active cultural life will be enhanced and diversified to help meet the needs of residents and visitors as lifestyles shift and priorities change, establishing St Albans as a cultural hub within the region.’

It also says that the Civic Centre South site ‘…represents a valuable opportunity to transform the city centre and create an engaging and attractive centre that works, in terms of movement. This will be considered in terms of redevelopment or refurbishment potential to create a cultural hub…

Amongst the many arts-related proposals are the ones to:

• Redevelop a larger art gallery in the city centre, perhaps using an architectural competition to create an iconic contemporary building for the city.
• Refurbish or redevelop the Alban Arena with larger capacity to attract national and international acts, and marketing a combined offer of theatre and heritage.
• Create a piazza on to which the Alban Arena can front

Overall, the city vision document seems gratifyingly  in tune with the STARTS aims.
Richard Brown, Chairman

St Albans Symphony Orchestra contact details

St Albans Symphony Orchestra -
chairman@saso.org.uk
www.saso.org.uk
01727 834326

Rooftop Theatre Company announce next production

Rooftop Theatre Company are returning in July 2010 with a production of The Winter’s Tale. Previous popular and acclaimed productions have taken at Inn on the Park (Love’s Labour’s Lost in 2007 and Taming of the Shrew in 2008) and at the Old Town Hall St Albans (Twelfth Night). Details of the venue and dates of The Winter’s Tale to follow, see www.rooftoptheatre.co.uk.