As the country is continuing to adjust to the pandemic we had been hopeful to be able to provide a little bit of escapism from the chaos and put together a production. Sadly, our murder mystery and both of our productions this year have had to be abandoned, including Happiest Days of our Lives which we were hoping to perform in November
I wanted to update you all on what the committee’s suggestions are moving forwards.
Firstly, we are still very keen to be creative and sociable. We have a few suggestions and I’d be very keen to get your feedback on what you feel you’d like to be involved in. These are:

1. A number of one off group read throughs of various plays using either Zoom or TEAMS. This would need to involve plays either in the public domain that are easily accessible or for people to purchase plays for their own use. There would not be plans to record or publish these (for rights reasons if they’re not in the public domain). If there are any suggestions of plays you’d like to read, please let me know – these can be as many “handed” as you want  – allowing for availability of other members
2. For a “virtual variety performance”. This would involve members recording monologues, short plays, poems, sketches etc virtually. We would want these again to be free in the public domain as we would want to potentially publish these on Youtube or similar platforms to still give the group some exposure. If we get some decent interest for this, I’d be interested in speaking to anyone that has experience in video editing. I would be open for this to be combined with point 1 if anyone is brave enough to take ownership of the virtual recording and editing of a whole play, but I think asking people to record short clips and combine together is probably more reasonable!
3. One off, or a series of role playing games which I’ve got experience in running. These are very popular at the moment on Youtube and other mediums (see Critical Role, Geek and Sundry and Dicebreaker on Youtube as examples) and there are some options that have basic rules and equipment requirements.

We also want to continue issuing a regular newsletter. If you have any personal news you want to share, or if you’re creative in other ways please email me or Fran with any suggestions for the newsletter.
I’m also very open for any other ideas that group members have that we can do safely in the meantime. I will of course keep you updated on our position in light of government advice.
Finally, as we mentioned before, any subs already paid for members and friends as of August 2019 remain valid, and there will not be an AGM this year.