We now have a Studio!

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Sometime this afternoon, while my phone was switched off because I was watching the first act of Giselle, I received an email from Kirklees Active Leisure accepting my booking of the dance studio from at Huddersfield Leisure Centre from 15:00 to 16:30 on 26 May 2018.

As I said in We have a Teacher  on 5 April 2018, Jane Tucker of Northern Ballet Academy has kindly agreed to teach that class.  It will be very hard work from the start of the warm-up to the reverence but it will also be enormous fun.  The purpose of the class is to gauge support for an amateur ballet company in the North of England and that is why it will be free.   All that we ask is an expression of interest in forming such a company.

After the class there will be a short meeting in the café to elect a steering committee of 4 or 5 individuals to launch the project.  They will decide the legal format of the company, that is to say whether it will be incorporated or unincorporated and, if incorporated, whether it will be a company limited by guarantee, a community interest company or some other entity.  I shall seek tax, accounting and legal advice which I shall publish on this site as soon as possible. The committee will also draw up a business plan for the first year which will cover subscriptions,  sponsorship, grants and other income and invite applications for our first artistic director.

We will then contact you and anyone else who may show interest in the company and invite you to join it on the terms proposed by the steering committee.  If enough dancers sign up, there will be an inaugural meeting to elect officers who will take over the management of the company from the steering committee.  I hope that we shall stage our first performance early in the New Year.  The Nutcracker would be a good choice but that will be a matter for the artistic director and the company's management.

I have already written about our plans to the Royal Academy of Dance and mentioned them to the dance agencies for Yorkshire and Northwest England by telephone. Between now and 26 May 2018 I shall write to the chief executives and/or artistic directors of the leading companies in the United Kingdom  starting with Northern Ballet and Phoenix, dance schools at all levels in our region from professional schools like the Northern Ballet School and the Hammond to children's classes, independent teachers, dance wear retailers and every local radio station and regional newspaper.  I will approach all my business contacts for sponsorship or other assistance.  I will find out about grants from the Arts Council and Local Authorities.  I will even try my luck with George Osborne who coined the phrase "Northern Powerhouse" when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. After all he and I attended the same secondary school though not at the same time.   In short, I will do everything I can to make this project a howling success.  We may not get anywhere but, if we don't, it won't be for lack of trying.

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, send me a message through my contact form.   Let me wish you a very good evening.