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When Gerry Robinson, Chair of the Arts Council of England, wrote to us in September 1999 after he had paid an official visit to our new base, he described the building as ?probably one of the best examples of a Lottery-funded building I have seen?.That was perhaps the first time we realised exactly how far we had come since we dispatched our application to the Arts Council in early 1998, writes Claudia Leaf.
Channel Theatre Company is one of the south east?s leading community theatre organisations, which specialises in touring to non-theatre venues such as village halls, schools and open air locations. In 1998 the company was awarded £301,000 from the National Lottery, matched with £150,000 from the European Regional Development Fund, towards the purchase of a new base in Thanet, Kent.We opted to purchase and refurbish Central Hall, an old community hall complex in Margate, as it offered potential for the development of offices and rehearsal rooms as well as a much-needed space for building and storing sets.To make it habitable, however, the building required a massive refurbishment programme.

Nine months after we had first viewed Central Hall we moved into our new headquarters (re-named Central Studios), lovingly refurbished with all the facilities we needed, including full disability access. Our Lottery Assessor had promised ?an embarrassment of riches? once we had settled in, and although we had been sceptical at the time, the benefits of having a home such as this became apparent almost immediately. For several years we had struggled to exist in makeshift offices at the back of a local theatre.The low rent had been an inducement to stay on...and on, although latterly we had no access to the theatre itself and were forced to rehearse in a succession of church halls, where sets had to be taken down at the end of each day and a procession of church volunteers trudged through rehearsals on their way to the kitchen.

The most noticeable and immediate benefit was, therefore, the luxury of having rehearsal, set building and storage areas under one roof, with better facilities for artists and fantastic spaces to entertain guests, including potential clients and funders. Because of the improved access for people with disabilities we found we could now open our doors to everyone: and we were quickly approached by a local charity for adults with learning difficulties, looking for a venue to hold weekly meetings. Our meeting facilities quickly became used by a variety of high profile organisations, including the DCMS, South East Arts, Common Purpose and the Children?s Society.As more influential people came into contact with Channel through the building, so our profile as an organisation developed.

We also began to explore ways in which the community could be brought into the Central Studios and found that the building could be used to improve and augment our work: for example, coming into ?Central? has become the highlight of a programme we currently run, in partnership with a local school, to improve confidence and communication skills for children with low self esteem.The building has also been used as in-kind funding for projects and has provided a focus for a three-year Regional Arts Lottery Programme promoting, amongst other things, the development of a playwrights? group serving aspiring writers in East Kent.

The pluses have certainly outweighed the minuses, but on the down side we are still coming to terms with the problems associated with running a large public building. Despite pleas to the construction team during the refurbishment we nevertheless ended up with increased overheads.Maintenance contracts (for the lift, the automatic doors, the alarm systems) are ridiculously overpriced; consumables such as light bulbs) are expensive to replace and the future cost of repainting the building will be horrendous.

However, we all unanimously agree that we would rather worry about overheads in a pleasant environment than return to our former working conditions!


Claudia Leaf is Associate Director of Channel Theatre Company t: 01843 280077 e: info@channel-theatre.co.uk