Our next film - 'The Help' - Wed. 18th January

The Help is an uplifting and inspiring movie that shows what happens when a southern town's unspoken code of rules and behaviour is shattered by three courageous women who strike up an unlikely friendship.





Based on the best-selling phenomenon and one of the most talked about books in years, The Help is an uplifting must-see movie event. Starring Emma Stone (Golden Globe Nominee, Easy A) as Skeeter, Viola Davis (Academy Award® Nominee, Doubt) as Aibileen and break out sensation Octavia Spencer as Minnie, The Help is a funny, heart-warming and thought-provoking book about three very different, extraordinary women in Mississippi during the 1960s, who risk their jobs, reputations and lives when they embark on a secret writing project together. Deeply moving, filled with poignancy, humour and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the ability of a small group of people to shine a beacon of light in changing times.

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Invitation to a World Premiere

Easingwold Players' sister company "Gobbledigook Theatre" will be presenting the world premiere of "Our Night Out" at the Galtres Entertainment Centre in Easingwold on Wednesday 18 January 2012. The play has been written by Phil Grainger and Dave Jarman and stars Bromwyn Jennison and David Pike (of 1812 Theatre Company fame) and - fresh from playing Phileas Fogg for 1812 - John Lister also features as a dodgy policeman.

"Our Night Out" has been selected to be part of this year's ‘Theatre Live Initiative' which means that the performance will be broadcast live to dozens of theatres and picture houses throughout the county. Surely this will prove to be the pinnacle of Bromwyn's and David's illustrious careers. So, wouldn't it be unfortunate if some inmates from a local prison chose this night to tunnel out of their cells? And it would be even more unfortunate if they've got their calculations wrong and the tunnel comes up through the stage at the Galtres ....!

Performances take place at 7.30pm on 18, 19, 20 and 21 January and there is a matinee performance at 2pm on 21 January. Tickets are £7 (£5 for U16's) and are available from the Galtres Centre.

Cameron vs Independent Cinema

Riotous debate has exploded following David Cameron’s comments on the state of the UK film industry. During a visit to Pinewood Studios, West London, the prime minister has urged film-makers to produce more films with mainstream box office appeal, in order to better distribute National Lottery funding. This situation would provide successful film companies with extra support, whereas unproven film-makers would be put in an even less fortuitous situation than they already find themselves. Therein lies the problem with Cameron’s postulation; it is difficult to predict the success of a film, as the past few years have provided box-office surprises. However, it is believed that more funding will enable certain film companies to grow, and will therefore have more influence when it comes to marketing, thus ensuring a hit at the box office.

The King’s Speech and Slumdog Millionaire are two such examples of films that were surprisingly successful at the box office, critically acclaimed, and lauded with trophies come awards season. It was impossible to foresee the success of either of these films, despite the involvement of star Colin Firth and director Danny Boyle, themselves proven successes in their own right.

Read the whole article.

Yorkshire - top of the world again!

The campaign to promote Yorkshire as a tourist destination has beaten some of the best travel brands on the planet for the second year running, winning a prestigious World Travel Award for the World's Leading Marketing Campaign. It means in the past two years the county's destination management organisation has beaten a who's who of the travel industry to put Yorkshire on the global map.
 



Destinations and brands of the likes of Brazil, India, South Africa, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Etihad, Kuoni, Expedia, Visit London, Thomas Cook and Visit Scotland have all been beaten by the marketing campaign for Yorkshire which picked up the prestigious award at a ceremony in Doha last night.

Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: "Yorkshire is a world beater and winning this award for the second year running proves it. We have gone head-to-head with some of the best brands with bigger budgets than us and come out on top again.

"The award is testament to the 25,000 brilliant businesses that make up Yorkshire's tourism industry; their quality ensures we are able to compete on a global scale with the best in the world. It also shows how far we have come in three years since Welcome to Yorkshire launched, that we now judge ourselves against the world's best and not just our competitors in the UK."

The back-to-back wins come after an impressive 2011 for the county. It continued to outperform its peers in independent research backed by the award winning marketing campaign, "Welcome to a whole lot more going on". For example the value of international trips taken to Yorkshire are 22% UP compared with a rise of just 3% nationally (International Passenger Survey).

25m people have seen the Welcome to Yorkshire marketing campaigns, just one strand of the high-profile promotion of the county, which also includes innovative use of social media, development of the award-winning yorkshire.com and regional, national and international media interest.

WORLD'S LEADING MARKETING CAMPAIGN FINALISTS, IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER:

Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority; Egyptian Tourist Authority, Embatur Brazil, Incredible India, South Africa Tourism, Spanish Institute of Tourism, Welcome to Yorkshire.

Job opportunity with local artist

I am looking for a small-business manager/administrator for initially one day a week (from March/April 2012) to keep me and my accounts organised, look after visitors to my studio and help develop my growing business as part of a small team.

The ideal person will like organising, working with the public, getting detail right and developing creative ideas. You will need good IT skills for book-keeping and accounts (Excel), managing the mailing list (email), stock-keeping and ordering supplies.

The job is based in my open studio at Levisham Station, although some home-working on accounts and projects is possible by agreement. A typical day involves dealing with phone calls and post, meeting visitors, ensuring they enjoy their visit, and processing resulting sales of paintings, prints and cards. Heavy and pushy selling techniques are not required - visitors to the studio enjoy a no-pressure environment where they are enabled to buy pictures they like.

While in the studio you would invoice for work, update annual accounts and prepare them for submission to my accountant, log and manage weekly expenses, and manage and record all sales, including spreadsheets for limited edition prints.

There is potential for involvement in exhibitions, running projects such as group visits and painting expeditions, marketing the website and other initiatives as we seek to expand sales away from the studio.

You can visit my website here.

If interested, please email me at chris@warehouseart.com to arrange an informal discussion at this stage.

Profile: Celebrate North Yorkshire

North Yorkshire is the largest county in England with a rich history of arts and culture with many professional artists and hundreds of voluntary arts groups, societies and clubs, providing opportunities for thousands of people to take part in voluntary arts activity every week with exhibitions, choral evenings, pantomimes and plays, displays and demonstrations, festivals and outings.

People join these groups because they’re fun, they meet other people with similar interests, and get the opportunity to explore and express their creativity, and maybe learn some highly technical skills. They do it because they want to. In this predominately rural area the voluntary arts play a key part in allowing people access to the arts.

York & North Yorkshire Voluntary Arts Partnership has been set up to provide a connection between these groups, offering support through a website, newsletters, meetings, training events and through being an advocate for the sector.
 
To join the Celebrate North Yorkshire website database you must be a voluntary or amateur group or organisation based in York and North Yorkshire.

They will accept listings from individuals and organisations that provide services to voluntary and amateur artists and groups in York and North Yorkshire. These eligibility criteria may be reviewed on a case by case basis and the final decision remains with the steering group of the York & North Yorkshire Voluntary Arts Partnership.

Find out more.

Acoustic Music Night - Friday 13th

It’s time for another great night of live acoustic music this Friday 13th at Helmsley Arts Centre

We’ve another great line-up so hope to see you there.

Taking part will be:

Peter Reynolds
David Swann
Stan Graham
Lynn Sunley
Issy Zarb
Martin Heaton
J2Ali’s
Nick & Lynn Blair
Maggie Groom
Kyle Frazer

Special guest performer: the one and only Bluesbeaten Redshaw who you can see in the video below playing at the UK's first ever Cigar Box Guitar festival!



The evening starts at 7.30 and entry is only £3.00 payable on the door.

Review - 'Rocking Horse Winner'

Many thanks to Jean Richards, a Kirby resident and frequent HAC visitor, for the following review:

North Country Theatre returned to the Helmsley Arts Centre last night (Saturday) with their 2011 touring roduction of The Rocking Horse Winner.

Based on a short story of the same name by D.H. Lawrence, the play follows the fortunes of Paul, a child of uncaring spendthrift parents, whose rocking horse inexplicably gives him the names of winning horses. He makes a fortune, but loses his mind.

The story itself was not particularly gripping, though it may have more appeal if you fancy a flutter yourself. But Artistic Director Nobby Dimon brought his usual imagination and flair to a production which fairly raced along. In particular, he managed, with four actors, a sound track and a bit of projection, to create the excitement of a race meeting as we watched.

Veteran of seven previous North Country productions, Mark Cronfield, had the unenviable task of playing the boy Paul, which he did superbly, with support from other members of the company who have visited Helmsley before, Victoria Brazier (whom many will remember as the brilliant Princess Flavia in ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’) as his mother, Simon Kirk as his uncle, and Thomas Frere as the family gardener and placer of bets. Nobby himself made a welcome return to the stage as the psychiatrist who tried, unsuccessfully, to figure it all out.

In true NCT style, this was ‘a one night stand’, but you can still catch the production, which runs until December 10, at other theatres in the area. Dates and venues are on their website.

At the end of the performance, Nobby reminded the audience that the company had lost the whole of its Arts Council grant in the recent cuts, and so was more dependent than ever on ticket sales, and on supporters joining the Friends group, details of which can be found on the website. Please help to keep this great rural touring company in business.

Sneak preview: the 2012 production will be based on J.S. Fletcher’s Lighthouse on Shivering Sands. The story begins: “When Mordecai Chiddock came to join the lighthouse staff on Shivering Sand, Jezreel Cornish was taking his allowance of sleep, and Chiddock, being new to the place, did not know who it was he would meet when Cornish woke up. Otherwise, the boat which had brought him and a month's provisions over from the mainland would never have gone back without him……”.

Yorkshire arts groups lose lending service

A Yorkshire arts resource used by many amateur dramatic companies, choirs and orchestras has been earmarked for closure.

The Yorkshire Libraries and Information (YLI) Music and Drama Service on Balne Lane in Wakefield is due to close in March 2012.

The fate of its collection of scores and scripts will now be discussed at the YLI council meeting.

Critics fear many groups will close without the lending service.

Read more ..... (source).

Supporting Helmsley Library

Helmsley Arts Centre is keen to support Helmsley Library and Helmsley Town Council, which are seeking volunteers to help maintain library opening hours and develop new activities in the library space. NYCC Library Service's current proposal is to cut staffed opening hours at Helmsley from 19 hours to 15 per week.

Would you be willing to give a couple of hours per week of your time to help sustain this valuable and much loved amenity of the town?

There will be a meeting for potential library volunteers this Wednesday, 16 November, at 6pm at the Old Library Meeting Room in the Town Hall. Everyone is welcome.

You can register your interest in becoming a volunteer by email.

Welcome to our new Artistic Director!

In fact, welcome to Em Whitfield Brooks, the first holder of what is a new post, made possible by a Lottery Grant through Arts Council England. She begins her job later this month.

On Tuesday evening she met the Board of Trustees for the first time at their November meeting (seen here on the right with Margot Cairncross, Chairman of the Trustees)

Many of them she knew well, of course, because Em has been involved with the Centre for the last thirteen years, as a performer, theatre director and singer.

However, she brings to us a much wider experience of leading (and managing budgets for) arts projects large and small, in the north of England. She has particular expertise in working with community performance and arts education, involving people of all ages and abilities. For example, she is well known locally for her Community Opera productions for the Ryedale Festival. Elsewhere she has led and worked on projects in Durham, Scarborough, Leeds, Hull, Bridlington, York, Tyneside.....

Em is a freelance director, vocal teacher, workshop leader and published songwriter; she was a national trainer for the Sing Up Training Programme, running courses for teachers and singing leaders across the UK for four years; and has led corporate arts training courses internationally for organisations such as Marks & Spencer, HSBC, PwC and The Sage Gateshead. She recently returned from running workshops in Milan for the Map Consortium.

Em says, "I'm really looking forward to embarking on what will be a diverse and challenging role in a thriving organisation. I have particular areas to focus on, and will start planning for events and projects that will reach new audiences and participants, as well as continuing to entertain and nourish the Centre's core followers. There's lots that is already great about this place, and I am honoured to have been chosen to lead the artistic team. There never was a more important time for the arts to serve everyone in the community, and I cant wait to get started."

The appointment is initially for one year and is an important part of a two-year development project supported by Arts Council England. If we fulfill our first year objectives then we anticipate further lottery funding for the second. Thereafter, we'll be in a better position to sustain the post indefinitely.

The objectives are: to increase public involvement in the Centre through more effective marketing; to initiate and support Outreach projects and create new partnerships; to develop new activities and events for young people both at the Centre and in outlying areas; to support a programme that celebrates literature in all its forms; and to increase our income.

Quite a job! But Em is up for it, and has our full support.

'Doubt' at the Helmsley Arts Centre last night, an audience reaction

The Helmsley Arts Centre is very much Clap Trap Productions home theatre as several members of the company have acted and directed with the 1812 Theatre Company and members of the choir in 'Doubt' are in the youth theatre. As a result the audience was full of family and friends who thoroughly enjoyed their night out as these short vox pops illustrate:




Further information of the 'Doubt' tour, which ends at the Theatre Royal in York, can be found here.