Target reached!
Lets keep going.....we can't stop here! We are striving to reach our stretch target...
The 'Bodmin College Presents' Radio Mics Project
Bodmin, Cornwall, United Kingdom
Aim
Bodmin College Performing Arts are striving to purchase of a set of Radio Mics for their musicals, showcases, concerts and exam assessments.
Thank you for visiting our CrowdFunder Page.
Our Project...
Who Are We?
We are performing arts students at Bodmin College, a large secondary school on the edge of Bodmin Moor in rural Cornwall. We aspire to be the future stars of stage and screen.
What Are We Trying To Do?
We are striving to raise money to match fund a generous donation which will enable us to purchase a set of state of the art Sennheiser digital wireless headset microphones. We have just a few weeks to do this.
Why Are We Doing This?
Each year, Bodmin College stages a multitude of concerts, showcases, open evenings, talks/lectures and a whole school musical theatre production that is on an epic scale.
We currently hire radio mics to make these projects successful and to provide a professional performance as well the best learning experience possible. However, this can cost up to 1000 each time.
With hire fees escalating, this has a huge impact on us as a college and reduces funds that could be used for additional and wider educational experiences and opportunities for our students and our local, Cornish community.
What Impact Will It Have?
Achieving our mission will provide a plethora of opportunities:
- Our school will own state of the art equipment that is used in so many professional contexts; the mics can be used for a wide range of college activities, enhancing many events that the college currently host.
- It will allow us to aspire to bigger projects and lead to social mobility.
- You will be supporting life changing projects that allow us, the students, to grow in strength, confidence, resilience, personal development and that harbour inclusion, social and team skills.
- It will allow us to use funds, currently used for hiring the mics, to broaden our projects and educational experiences.
- It will create local links with world class businesses and industry including Sennheiser and Nub Sounds, not just for the performance pathway students but for those that aspire to be technicians or work behind the scenes.
- We will own a resource that could be hired or borrowed by local schools for a 'school budget friendly fee' allowing them to also save precious funds for other opportunities whilst allowing us to extend and enhance our resource.
- It will allow us to develop and create links with bridging agencies such as the local Music hub, Asone Music.
Want To Know More?
Read the bigger and finer details here and see some videos of us and past students in action...
What's Our Mission?
Please help us, the students of Bodmin College, raise at least 4,500 to match fund a donation made available to us that will allow us to fulfil a dream of being able to purchase a set of state of the art Sennheiser wireless headset radio mics.
Why Are We Doing This?
Every year, Bodmin College stages a host of drama, theatre, music and dance productions, in addition to a large-scale musical theatre production; these projects are fully inclusive and incorporate/encompass many aspects of the school curriculum and subject areas in one huge, massed project. We feel that the Bodmin College musicals are a highlight in the school calendar not just for us as students but for our parents/carers, as well as our staff and the wider community. The amazing performing arts faculty staff nurture us in ways that produce life changing opportunities and experiences.
Our previous musical productions have included: 'Disney's High School Musical', 'Sweeney Todd', 'Little Shop Of Horrors', 'Avenue Q (School Edition)', 'Disney's The Lion King Jnr', 'Disney's Aladdin Jnr', 'Chicago (Schools Edition)', 'Disney's Mary Poppins Jnr', 'Ghost The Musical' and most recently we performed 'Sister Act Jnr'.
Here is our teaser trailer for our 2019 production of 'Chicago'
The performing arts were hit hard by the pandemic, however, our teachers continued to inspire, being resilient and working tirelessly to offer a breadth of creative opportunities for us all at the college; for younger students in our feeder primary schools and for the local and wider community. Our first whole school project post-pandemic was our 2023 production of 'Sister Act Jnr.'
Here's a showreel video of our 2023 'Sister Act Jnr.' performance.
What Are We Doing Next?
We are VERY excited to announce that Bodmin College is one of the first schools in Cornwall, and the South West region, to have been awarded the rights to perform the new school's version of 'Disney's Frozen' in January 2024.
We already know that this will be a project of epic proportions with potential involvement from future college students in our feeder primary schools and the local and wider Cornish community.
Want to see more of our work?
Please check out our Facebook page ' Bodmin College Presents:' to see the high quality of our work: You'll see how our shows/projects have developed over the years and how it now goes to beyond a normal or expected 'school production'.
Bodmin College Presents Facebook Page
Educational And Personal Development Opportunties...
These creative opportunities have spring-boarded many students in to a career in performing arts; applying and training at some of the leading college and conservatoires in the UK such as Emil Dale, L.M.A., Trinity Laban, London Studio Centre, B.I.M.M and the Central School of Speech and Drama as well as many other university courses.
Maya, K.C. Cotton who played Mary Poppins production at the college is now training on the acclaimed Musical Theatre Degree Course at ArtsEd, London.
Watch Our 'Making Of Mary Poppins' Video (2020)
We Have Amazing Teachers...
Each year, our staff at the college strive to develop what they can offer and what we can do to make the next shows bigger and better; building on and driving forward our performance skills, subject knowledge, confidence and developing us as individuals. The staff are determined to offer the best opportunities for all students and this includes opportunities to work with visiting West End professionals and performers who come down to us at the college and run workshops and masterclasses.
With Cornwall being such a rural county and Bodmin being classed as large area of deprivation, we appreciate and love the fact that our teachers go the extra mile to want to open doors for inspiration, aspirations, and social mobility; what other school in Cornwall can say that this is offered to them?
Here is our 'Final Night Film' from our 2018 production of 'Disney's The Lion King'
What Are We Crowdfunding For?
To ensure that these creative projects provide us (and our audiences) with high quality performances and to give us, the students who are the cast and crew of the shows a 'professional experience', the college annually hires a set of 12 to 16 radio headset mics. These can cost approximately 1000 or more each time we need them, and can sometimes happen multiple times in a year. This massively eats into the projects self-funded budget/finances and sadly limits what can be offered to us as students and the community. This hire fee expense could go towards extra training for us or more opportunities to work with professionals, or, thinking bigger, us opening up these workshops days to the community and other youth or amateur dramatics/theatre companies in Cornwall.
Reflecting on what the college has paid over the last few years in hire fees we now want to raise funds to allow the college to invest in a set of microphones so they don't have such a large spend each year. Therefore, we are embarking on a fund-raising venture to try and raise funds to buy some of our own!
We have also discovered that these mics can then be used for our musicals as well as other college events including our: drama productions; arts showcases, concerts, public events such as awards & presentation evenings and aspirations evenings with our alumni in the lecture hall; sporting competitions and sports day, open evenings as well as our examined assessments that that we have to complete for our qualifications throughout the year. They would be such a valued resource for the entire college, and potentially local and wider, community.
What's The Vision? What Will We Get?
The colleges and students vision, in time, is to have purchased the college its own set of 16 head set mics; this will be an ideal amount for the size of the productions we stage, as well as being an amazing resource for future generations; for all of us that aspire to perform or be on stage whilst at the college or go on to HE or FE courses and potentially careers in the arts .
If we reach or exceed our Crowdfunder target of 4,500 we have been promised that we will be awarded match funding that will allow us to start with a purchase of 8 to 10 microphones, the associated equipment and the licensing that's initially needed. If we exceed our target we will use the funds to purchase more mics or continue our fundraising ventures to then allow us to add additional mics until we have purchased a set of 16 for the college.
Opportunities With Sennheiser and NUB Sounds...
The staff at the college have been in contact with Sennheiser, one of the worlds leading companies in Radio Mic technology. Sennheiser equipment is used in many theatres in London's West End and every theatre on Broadway!Sennheiser mics are also used and endorsed by Pop Music artists such as P!nk, Adele and Ed Sheeran. Our teachers have also been working with Nub Sounds in Plymouth in exploring opportunities and events that would open up for us. They have discussed our needs and they have matched us up with a terrific set of state-of-the-art Sennheiser EW-DX digital radio headset microphones that will fulfil every need we would ever have for our shows and last for many years to come.
What school can say that they are working with world class equipment that is also used in many of the West End shows in London or on tour?
We really hope that Bodmin College can.
Just like Sennheiser say, we are constantly pursuing excellence!
We too are wanting to aim higher!
More exciting news...potentially opening doors to Industry...
If we are successful in meeting our target, Sennheiser have promised us that they will visit us and our teachers at Bodmin College to talk to us all and our tech teams about their work and industry. They will see our facilities and help us develop them, and amazingly they will feature Bodmin College, the students and our musical theatre projects on their website and social medias that spread across the globe.
Plymouth based, Nub Sounds, our local Sennheiser approved dealers, will also bring in engineers to help us set up the resource and train our staff along with our theatre tech students, student sound engineers and student tech crews of the future to offer training in using this industry standard resource. This could potentially open doors to further industry links for us as students and the college, bring with it potential wider opportunities as we will have been able to show that we have recognition and backing from a World leading provider in theatre and arts technology.
Developing The Initial Resource...
Additionally, once purchased, these mics could also be hired out to other schools wishing to host an event or performance as we do and we would do this at a 'school friendly' affordable fee, knowing what we and other schools have to pay. It would allow us to generate future income for more mics to be purchased and for more amazing opportunities for our younger peers and future generations of students. This would be done in conjunction with Asone, our local music hub, again building and developing our links with bridging and arts organisations.
A photo montage of our 2022 upper school and 6th form production of 'Ghost The Musical'
Final Words...
Please support our mission, every donation, no matter how big or small will help us to purchase our own dream equipment, as well as develop our college's resources. This will, in turn, create more opportunities and enhance the work we do with our teachers, parents, community and future generations.
Please also share our Crowdfunder page and mission to all your friends, family, social and working networks or groups; share with your employers or to any businesses that can help us in any way, big or small.
Please make our dreams come true and let us achieve this! You never know, you could be supporting or inspiring a future West End lead, or a stage and screen star/icon of the future....
With hope and kindest regards,
The Performing Arts Students and Faculty.
For more information, please contact [email protected]
We have many bands and ensembles at the college. One of our wider and fully inclusive ensembles is the 'Sing and Sign Choir'- they would also benefit from the microphones...
Our 6th Form promotion video.
This project successfully funded on 26th April 2023