Little Theatre Guild: Northern Region Conference

NORTHERN REGION CONFERENCE at DONCASTER LITTLE THEATRE

19th to 21st November 2010

News has just come through about this event. The theme of the conference is Community, and is focussed on Doncaster’s recent receipt of a Lottery Grant to further community activity at the theatre.

The weekend starts on Friday evening with excerpts from a recent Youth Theatre production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle – Doncaster’s reputation for youth work is renowned. This is followed by supper and a light-hearted theatre quiz.

On Saturday and Sunday mornings there are workshops: on community development; Front of House; technical matters, especially lighting and video; and acting. Delegates will pick two out of the four.

   

Saturday afternoon is devoted to an open forum, followed by the regional AGM. The play in the evening will be The Changeling by Middleton & Rowley – a rare chance to see a Jacobean tragedy.

   

The conference closes with a lunch on Sunday, with a so far un-named guest speaker.

  

 This promises to be a lively and stimulating weekend. There will probably be two cars going from Bolton, so transport costs can be shared. The fixed minimum cost for conference fee and three meals (Sunday lunch is extra) is £29.50. The local hotels offer the usual range of accommodation at varied prices.

If you are interested in attending, please get in touch with Sandra Simpson quickly – she has full details. If you have not attended a Guild conference before, this might be the ideal introduction!

Vetting and Barring Scheme.

LTG PRESS RELEASE, 16th June 2010

The Little Theatre Guild (LTG) welcomes the government announcement, made on 15 June, that the Vetting and Barring scheme has been halted, so that the coalition government can review and remodel the scheme. The LTG has been a critic of the scheme because it has lead to member theatres ceasing to use children in their productions.

The LTG has a long history of youth groups and working with children in their productions, but the Vetting and Barring scheme was seen by some members as a step too far. LTG Chairman, Eddie Redfern, commented:

"The coalition government has recognised that for the voluntary sector the VBS is doing more harm than good and preventing youngsters following their ambitions either in sport or the performing arts because of the draconian measures placed upon volunteer organisations. We welcome the immediate halting of the VBS and look forward to a return to a sensible approach, where voluntary organisations will be able to encourage youngsters in their chosen hobby, without ludicrous and ill-thought-out policies. Our member theatres take the safety and security of youngsters taking part in Youth Workshop or productions seriously and have well established child protection procedures in place which was recognised by the Sarah Thane review that was published earlier this year." 

Sir lan McKellen writes:

“Many thanks for the timely press release. If common sense prevails, the Guild can be pleased with itself. All wishes from Australia, where I'm still waiting for Godot.” 

The Official Announcement 

The Vetting and Barring Scheme (due to start on 26 July) has been halted. This is to allow the government to remodel the scheme to what it calls 'common-sense levels'. However, the regulations that were introduced in October 2009 continue to apply.

The VBS aims to protect children and vulnerable adults by stopping those who pose a known risk from working with them. It was created following the 2002 Soham murders and was designed to help police and vetting organisations to share information.

However concerns had been raised that the scheme was becoming too much of a burden and infringed civil liberties. To allow the government to remodel the VBS to "common sense levels", registration with the scheme has now been halted.

Regulations that were introduced in October 2009 will remain in place. These include

• A person who is barred from working with children or vulnerable adults will be breaking the law if they work or volunteer, or try to work or volunteer with those groups. 
• An organisation which knowingly employs someone who is barred to work with those groups will also be breaking the law 
• If your organisation works with children or vulnerable adults and you dismiss a member of staff because they have harmed a child or vulnerable adult, or you would have done so if they had not left, you must tell the Independent Safeguarding Authority.

What are your views on the Vetting and Barring scheme and the impact such a scheme could have on amateur theatre productions? Let us know in the comments below.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to 'The Fourth Wall', the Bolton Little Theatre blog. You may be a lifelong member of the theatre, situated on Hannover Street in the friendly town of Bolton, or you may have stumbled upon this site purely by accident whilst browsing the internet for a new steam cleaner. Whatever brought you here we hope you will stay a while, browse the posts and maybe even join in. This blog is for everyone, not just those with an interest in Bolton Little Theatre but for anyone with an interest of theatre in general. You'll find news, reviews, thoughts and opinions on the many issues affecting amateur theatre locally and nationally and we will keep you up to date with the goings on behind the scenes here at BLT.

So thanks for visiting and we hope you enjoy. Feel free to comment on anything you want (but please make sure criticism is constructive, and of course bad language will not be tolerated... not that any of you lovely people would do so). If you want to shamelessly plug a blog or website or show in the comments, you can do that to. Hey who knows, maybe we'll get in touch and create a post just for your shameless plug if we think its relevant enough.

Oh and before we begin, one last thing to note...

"The views expressed by the authors on this website do not necessarily reflect the views of the Bolton Little Theatre (BLT) management, friends and family of the BLT management, the pets of the BLT management, the Little Theatre Guild (LTG), friends and family of the LTG or pets of the LTG. In fact there is a good chance some of the views expressed by the authors on this website wont necessarily reflect the views of the authors as some of them are pretty indecisive.

Any comments left on this website are the sole responsibility of their writers and if they happen to be complete nonsense or libelous then the writer of the comment takes all blame. Also if a commenter claims that they have found the secret to eternal life, have managed to invent time travel or have managed to cure hay-fever (or other such claims) then its your own fault if you believe them. Don't go dragging us into it.

This site may occasionally link to other sites and whilst all effort is taken to ensure the appropriateness of these links we may, occasionally, link to something offensive by accident, sometimes without even knowing it (such is the way of the internet). We are not responsible for the content of any external links and do not condone or endorse the content of these sites (unless, of course, we expressively say something like "we endorse this site" or something)."

If you want to get in touch with us via email you can certainly do so, but to prevent online chemists,  african billionaires who are in hiding and scantly clad Russian girls from filling our email inbox we are going to write it out like this: boltonlittletheatre at gmail dot com. Just replace the at with an @ and the dot with a .

Okay dokey. Lets get on with the show.