DIARY OF A FUNDRAISER


Lynne Moore, head of operations and business development at Furze Platt Senior School, shares the successes and challenges of her eventful autumn term


September Our new theatre – complete with audio visual equipment and retractable seating


– was completed in the summer of 2020, following a successful £34,000 crowdfunding campaign. However, due to Covid, we were unable to use it much as a performance venue, so instead we turned it into a Covid test centre for students when they returned to school! Last summer, we were finally able to use the theatre for leavers’ events, albeit with limited


30 SPRING 2022 FundEd


numbers, socially distanced, and with everyone wearing masks. As well as being a great asset,


one of the purposes of the theatre is to serve as a venue for local community arts and theatre groups to hire, thus generating income for the school. It was encouraging to see interest pick up at the beginning of term and we are now getting numerous enquiries from dance schools, drama groups, choirs and amateur dramatic groups. A number of organisations have already indicated they are interested in coming back for their annual events.


While this is really exciting, I


quickly discovered that showing people around, facilitating enquiries and theatre hire were taking up a lot of my time, as each organisation has different requirements and everything has to fit around school activities. So we are now advertising for a theatre manager to support us in the first year with promoting and establishing the theatre. I am confident that additional income raised from bookings will cover this individual’s salary and hopefully generate additional income. Depending on the hirer’s


requirements, we charge from £1,000 to £2,000 for a weekend of performance use, which includes the theatre and related changing rooms, main hall for a bar area and theatre technicians to operate the technical equipment. We’ve also restarted promoting our general lettings. We revamped our ‘facilities for hire’ webpage, with photos of the rooms for hire, and have set up a dedicated email for lettings enquiries. We hire out rooms from as little as £10 per hour, up to £35 per hour. Following the success of the


crowdfunding campaign for the theatre fit-out, we realised not only that parents and supporters were willing to donate, but also that an online platform was the way to go.


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