Contents
Chair's Report
This has been a year of plenty of work and commitment to develop, but there have some funding setbacks, particularly the loss of Active Communities funding which means pressure on staff to constantly generate income for the charity. The lack of Core funding that would provide the basis for stability and sustained development in a variety of excellent on-going projects is a constant issue.
The building in Wdig is in need of repair and the disputed ownership is causing a stalemate in terms of keeping up with maintenance. The wonderful spirit that exists amongst employees, freelancers and volunteers means that these issues exist in a atmosphere of creativity and optimism and the project work goes on.
Base 64 is developing with joker training, new groups and much more…BBC Children in Need funding has offered lots of great projects focusing on Fishguard and Wdig…plus so much more….
The Staff salary review has been a feature of this year, a complex process that has had some good outcomes with the commitment of long term staff being recognised.
Finally, a great big thank you for the Krazy Kats CPD at Stackpole late last year, what an enriching process for the chair and other trustees who attended alongside freelancers, staff and volunteers.
] Back to Contents List
Director's Report
Every year I begin the AGM report with the same inane statement about another year having flown by. However, some things seem to be fairly consistent in my life and two of those are that time definitely speeds up, and that change happens! So, yet again, much has happened in the last year, as is evident from the reports included.
We’ve had highlights and lowlights and lots of inbetween middle-of-the-road bits.
Highlights include the BBC Children in Need emotional literacy project with all the new artists on-board; developments with refugee and asylum seeker groups; training in Ukraine; doing the YPP emotional literacy work in Greenhill School; Extending Entitlement work in Rhondda Cynon Taf; ACW ESF capacity building funding; and last but not least employing Kathy our new admin co-ordinator.
Lowlights include continued short-term funding which makes planning and sustainability so impossible; uncertainty about our “home” here in Goodwick; and more recently the death of Karen’s husband – and Gianni and Maya’s dad – Richard. Our love goes out to them all.
Middle-of-the-road bits are probably all the rest, although if I stop and think further, I could probably put them into highlights and lowlights.
Enough! As always I am happier delivering the work than writing about it and so I must dash now and drive to Bangor for some mindfulness training!
Gill Dowsett
Director
Back to Contents List
The Year
This is a brief summary of some of the aspects of a challenging and rewarding year for Theatr Fforwm Cymru.
We have undertaken a number of training courses this year with disadvantaged groups, they include two groups of mental health service users in Cardiff, (one being an ethnic minority group), people with learning disabilities in Pembrokeshire, young mums in Swansea, sixth form school pupils in Aberystwyth, rurally isolated young people, elders and young people in Aberystwyth, Communities First areas in Ammanford and Swansea and local artists in Pembrokeshire.
The latter training was heavily subsidised by ACW and BBC Children in Need and has resulted in work opportunities for those artists involved through our Emotional Intelligence project with young in our local area..
The training events are usually conducted over three days and are a mixture of techniques including circle activities, image/forum theatre, Transactional Analysis and games etc. This work is designed to give people skills but it is also important for confidence building, increasing social networks, empowerment and of course active citizenship. All of the training is experiential and as such embraces the “do, review, learn and apply” approach to education, which has transferable applications to many areas of a person’s life.
An important and on-going aspect to our work is to support and mentor those who have already trained through previous initiatives. We frequently receive phone calls from previous trainees who are seeking advice, wanting to discuss ideas, and asking for some supervision or just simply seeking some support. Those that are actively involved in on-going forum theatre type projects are the ones that often do this. We have also maintained an on-going mentoring relationship with organisations including, Age Concern Ceredigion, The U.S. Network, Cardiff and Vale Mental Health Project, Clase and Caemawr Community First area, Ammanford Community First area, Swansea Sure Start, Powys Youth Service, Pembrokeshire MIND, The Point (youth project Fishguard), Penglais School Aberystwyth, etc.
Developing the young volunteer base at ThFfC is always an interesting and vital part of our work. We have an average of about 6 young volunteers at any one time, with opportunities for them to gain great amounts of experience working with the varied groups we work with. As always, we begin every Monday with a circle, which is designed to be supportive for all staff and volunteers. All volunteers have access to counselling from our counsellor (important because some of the work we do can be re-stimulating) and all volunteers have both managerial and non-managerial supervision.
This year they have carried out a lot of work with us on the “BBC Children in Need” emotional intelligence project plus they have had the opportunity to be involved in European training events/exchanges, big conferences and many projects throughout Wales.
We also had a very successful evaluation event for previous volunteers at the Stackpole Centre in South Pembs. Volunteers from as long ago as 1993 came together with current volunteers in order to identify the benefits and outcomes of their volunteering experience with ThFfC.
As is evident, the varieties of groups, ages and locations that we have worked in/with have been very satisfying. For example the Rhondda Cynon Taf Extending Entitlement project meant that we worked with many groups of young people including, young men in Parc Prison, looked after children, pupil referral units, young people with school phobia, Community First youth centres, young people with disabilities and young people in residential care homes. As can be seen, there is a lot of diversity in the groups. This keeps us on our toes and ensures that we continue to develop new techniques and approaches, suitable for the age, ability, context and issues of the various groups.
The Youth Agora is a long journey that is gathering momentum. After the very successful Base 64 youth exchange to Romania, we now have a Youth Connect exchange application in with the British Council. The Agora, which will focus on young peoples attitudes to participatory democracy, is planned for August and not only includes a European dimension; it is also proving to be popular with many Welsh youth groups.
As always we have attended and/or provided forum theatre at a number of conferences and indeed run a number of “Open Space” conferences ourselves. This work always results in further work with new groups or further requests for us to participate in other conferences. For example we provided some forum theatre at a Corporate Parenting conference for the Children First division of WAG. This has led onto two further requests, one in Rhondda Cynon Taf and a further one for Newport City Council, which we have just carried out. Another good example has been our involvement with the Praxis Action Learning Exchange in Cardiff. The level of interest in our work has been dramatic, as a direct result of delegates experiencing forum theatre in action.
Gill Dowsett
Back to Contents List
Treasurer's Report
This has been a better year from a financial perspective with some significant grants for specific pieces of work such as BBC Children in Need and the Arts Council of Wales, and a grant from the Baring Foundation for capacity building which enabled us to recruit a part-time administrator.
We have also started to rebuild our reserves to equate to three months running costs (you never know in the ever changing voluntary sector when you might hit a lean-period). Sadly we still do not have core funding to sustain the organisation through a difficult time. However, we have received ESF funding via the Arts Council for Wales for capacity building and projects in Objective 3 areas. This is a project which will be heavily evaluated, and we are hopeful that this will in time lead to increased funding for community arts across Wales, and core funding for ourselves.
Theatr Fforwm Cymru are unusual in the voluntary sector in the fact they generate a considerable amount of income by charging for the services provided and staff should be complimented for all their hard work. There have also been some changes to the way we operate in that there is now a smaller group of salaried staff with a greater use of sessional freelance workers.
The next major financial headache could be the need to find our own independent base because Pembrokeshire County Council has given us notice to vacate the community centre. Fortunately it has been possible to negotiate a temporary short –term lease for a further two years whilst work is completed on the vexed question has to who actually owns the building, the community or the County Council.
Overall this has been a busy and productive year and Theatr Fforwm Cymru are again moving to a more financially secure future.
Andrew Elliott
Back to Contents List
Volunteers Views
As a volunteer at Theatr Fforwm Cymru, I (of course) think it’s brilliant. I think it really helps kids and teachers raise their emotional awareness. I think it’s also extremely good for the volunteers. I, as a volunteer, have learnt loads of things, sometimes I feel that volunteering with fforwm helps me more than the kids and teachers. I have learnt how to deal with situations that I otherwise would not have known or even thought about how to deal with.
Working with fforwm has really raised my confidence and self-worth. It has helped me grows as a person and to be aware of people’s emotions and things that are happening around me.
EMMY O.C. BEIJDORFF
AGE CONCERN WORKSHOPS
Comment (Young Volunteer in a circle meeting)
“This week I’ve been looking at people I pass in the street. They are all beautiful”
Comment (Older woman’s remark at Age Concern/ThFfC Group Workshop
“If my husband was here I wouldn’t be able to take part in these dotty games, I’d be too shy and embarrassed”.
Working as a volunteer, especially working with Age Concern Workshops, has confirmed to me the need now for Society to return to wisdom, the wisdom lodged in the elders. The elders need to become again responsible and worthy to hold the wisdom.
They need to get back the courage to stand on their own beautiful identities so that the young will listen to them. But first the elders will quietly listen in silence and in humility to the young.
I think the hope and challenge offered by the work of ThFfC in this respect is VITAL in helping to bridge the modern (and false) divide between age and youth.
SHEILA KNAPP-FISHER
Back to Contents List
Freelance Worker's Views
I've been volunteering and now working with ThFfC for over a year now. I'm working currently on a wide range of different pieces of work, from writing a journal cataloging the Children in Need Arts and Emotional Intelligence project, working as a freelance artist within this project also (carving dragon's head, smiley seats, making clay footprints etc!), writing an Emotional Literacy pack and working in the Rhondda valleys with a variety of different youth groups. It's been a tremendous year in terms of the diversity of work I'm doing, every day is different and every day brings something new for me to learn from.
Aside from the interesting work, I've found ThFfC to be the most supportive organisation I have ever worked for. The Monday circles and the support from Gina the counseillor offer something unique in providing the kind of emotional and professional support that is vital in this work, but hardly ever provided. This combined with the relaxed, informal approaches of my other colleagues and fellow volunteers, whilst still maintaining high professional standards, provides an incredibly rich, enjoyable and exciting environment in which to work and play.
I hope to carry on working with ThFfC and thank them for the opportunities and experiences provided so far.
Josie Coggins
Back to Contents List
Project Worker's Report
Another year of change, challenge and growth for me at Theatr Fforwm Cymru – I am moving to more project work – a scary, exhilarating journey.
This report could easily just become a list of activities – which I am resisting – instead, here are just some of the highlights for me of 2005-2006:
- Llew and I led an exchange to Bucharest, Romania in August 2005 – taking 10 local young people, some of whom had never been outside of pembrokeshire before. A remarkable journey for us all – rural to urban; west to east – and a dynamic final forum theatre performance by the two groups, exploring cultural differences and similarities in front of a large audience of Romanian dignitaries – definitely where I first fell in love with “jokering”!
- Base – our young people‘s forum theatre group – has been a joy this year – we‘ve invited in guest facilitators who have worked, sometimes controversailly, on issues as diverse as rites of passage, sexuality issues; eating disorders and masks – and Base has developed its own reputation – we are increasingly asked to help out with projects, such as a workshop for traveller children; work with youth forums in pembroke Dock and Fishguard; and – in the future – the re-opening of Narberth Youth Club; a combined forum theatre and dodgeball evening in Manorbier; and a workshop at the Pembrokeshire Bands Festival. And everyone wants a “base” - we really hope to establish base groups in many areas over the coming year.
- For me, the BBC Children in Need project has been a heady (?) combination of unbelievable admin and scheduling – to date over 100 separate workshops – and particularly rewarding work with young people, with the luxury of having time to build up relationships with individual young people at Ysgol Geryllan, Letterston & Ysgol Glannau Gwaun, Fishguard.
- Equally, the diversity of projects such as working with Voices from Care at a conference (think on feet….develop forum theatre during a fag break….encourage Childrens Commissioner to join in Che Che Coolay…) and my first three-day training with Swansea Young Mums (a very small group of searingly honest and brave young women I was so privileged to work with) occasionally makes me long to scurry back to spreadsheets, but mostly makes me excited and humble in equal measure.
And the best of the rest? Well, working with Gill in Ukraine has to be up there! Joker Training with Cardboard Citizens….and crossing fingers, thumbs and toes that the funding or the Youth Agora comes off.
It’s been a real pleasure to have Kathy on board – I am amazed that she has coped with my sporadic filing and equally sporadic descriptions of how we do things….I have no memory of how we ever got by without her.
And finally – its been a challenging personal year for me – as will be 2006-2007. I need bigger words than “thank you” to express my gratitude, admiration and deep respect for Gill.
There is nowhere else I would rather be than here at Theatr Fforwm Cymru
Karen Chandler
Back to Contents List
Administrator's Report
FIRST FEW MONTHS WITH ThffC
Since commencing in January ’06 life has been one big turnaround personally. Working here at Theatr Fforwm Cymru has transformed my working week from an unhappy and relentless one to that of looking forward to each day enthusiastically,.
I have been allowed to work on my own initiative and given the trust to run the admin side of the office as I wish, two of the main reasons why I decided to change careers after 26 years, as working for the Bank gave no variety in the working day.
I have, since commencing work here, put many systems in place which I feel, appear to be working well and although there are still many other duties that need to be carried out (ie database system, update website,archive old records etc), for the short time I have worked here, I believe I have achieved as much as I could accomplish given the time allocated.
I feel I have settled in well and thoroughly enjoy working here – Oh what it is to get up in the morning and actually look forward to going into work!!!!
Kathy Powell
Administrative Co-Ordinator - (BEST JOB EVER!!!)
Back to Contents List
Who we are
STAFF 2005-2006
Director: Gill Dowsett
Administrator/Project Worker: Karen Chandler
Administrative Co-ordinator: Kathy Powell
Counsellor: Gina Wood
VOLUNTEERS 2005-2006
Llew Jones, Rea Rickard, Richard Clafton Kate Newton, Charlotte Stephens, Cristi Vasilescu Hanna Trapp, Anna Dowsett, Dean George, Angelika Trawnitschek, Kirsty Weedon, Rowan Davies, Emmy Beijdorff, Richard Blincoe, Bu Pratt, Susan Watts-Barnes, Susan Taylor, June Cooper Sheila Knapp Fisher, Katy Leese, Ellie Guiver, Maya Sonvico, Gail James, Dean Murphy, Harry Spencer, Rhodri Pugh-Dungey, Phil Morris, Becky Moore, Jamie Murphy, Gethin Morris, Eleri Griffiths, Ed Stockham.
SESSIONAL WORKERS 2005-2006
Deri Steele-Morgan, Llew Jones, Becky Hotchin, Josie Coggins, Heather Summers, Miranda Betts Daniel Backhouse, Hannah Rackham, Bethany Dowsett, Mel Lucking, Mike Hotson
TRUSTEES 2005-2006
Lorraine Sherman (Chair)
Andrew Elliott (Treasurer)
Libby Burn (Secretary)
Charlotte Stephens
Ron Woodall (Vice Chair)
Amanda Roberts
Caryl Stock
Hanna Trapp (volunteer rep)
Llew Jones (resigned)
Bubsy Steele-Morgan
Roland Williams
Deri Steele-Morgan (resigned)
IN 2005-2006 THEATR FFORWM CYMRU WAS REPRESENTED ON….
YPP Emotional Health Steering Group
Arts Training Wales Committee
Anti Poverty Network Cymru
Fishguard & Goodwick Young People’s Project Committee
PAVS Training Advisory Group
Back to Contents List
Thank You
To Our Funders – specifically The Welsh Assembly Government Active Communities Scheme, Children in Need, the Arts Council of Wales, the Baring Foundation, Millennium Volunteers, European funding via the British Council, Connect Youth & the Grundtvig Programme; to all those we have worked with in 2005-2006; and to our trustees and volunteers for unstinting support and work.
Back to Contents List
Theatr Fforwm Cymru
Registered Charity No. 1040812
Goodwick Community Centre
New Hill
Goodwick
Pembs SA64 0DR
Wales
Tel/Fax: +44(0)1348 873805
info@theatrfforwmcymru.org.uk
www.theatrfforwmcymru.org.uk |
