Bridgwater Arts Centre - Project revamp

Aim: £2,300 for our ground floor & garden furnishings - providing a creative & welcoming space for our community to Enjoy, Create & Participate

OUR STORY AT 70 YEARS OLD

1946

On October 10th, local arts patron Gwen Pollard opened Bridgwater Arts Centre in two Grade 1 listed Town houses. It was the first Arts Centre in Britain to open with Arts Council support and one of the oldest Arts Centres in the UK.

2011

After the cut of regular local Council funding of £100, 000 a year, all 5 staff members at BAC were made redundant.

2012

We stayed open as a totally voluntary run Arts Centre. This inevitably had consequences on audience numbers and degradation on the building.

2013

The Town Council offered financial support towards a staff member – Kate Goodale, now the Artistic Director. From this point the Arts Centre has continued to grow in staff numbers, audience numbers and confidence.

2015

We celebrated this growth with a successful street party 'Bridgwater's Big Bash' raising our profile significantly in the town and proving to key town Council members and our community we were moving in the right direction of growth

2016

This year we are celebrating our 70th anniversary and were successful in gaining funding to renovate the ground floor of the Arts Centre from it's current tired state. We are crowd funding for the interiors for the ground floor and a refreshment area.

WHAT WE ARE DELIVERING

At 70 years we are waving goodbye to our time of crisis and saying hello to the developing future of BAC with a fresh face to serve our ever growing communities needs and to continue to provide a space to Enjoy, create and participate!

We have successfully gained funding from Viridor to make the desperatley needed renovations to our ground floor areas but need to buy the interiors for BAC's tired entrance ways, gallery, kelting room, garden and a fully furbished refreshment area with self service coffee machine and homemade cake offering. We will deliver this with our hard working team of dedicated volunteers!

WHAT REACHING OUR TARGET WILL GET US

Gallery - seating areas to enjoy art and relax with a coffee:

Self service coffee machine

Chalk board Cake stands

X1 Statement armchair

x2 Statement lamp

x6 Georgian chairs

x3 Stand up/ or table lamps

x1 Georgian rectangular pouf

x2 Stand up plants

x3 Scafolding shelves

x1 Large kilner tap jar

x20 Mixed small picture frames to upcycle

x4 Tins chalk paint & wax

x2 Pairs curtains

x2 Curtain poles

Entrance:

Feature chandelier materials for DIY

x1Light shade

Vinyl wall mural

x1 Large blackboard

x6 Poster Holders

x1 Donations box

MDF for signage

Wooden beading and glues

Garden - Introducing comftable and welcoming seating areas into our ever complimented and well used 'secret' garden courtyard:

x8 Waterproof cushions

x3 Waterproof rectangular bench cushions

x5 Chairs  

x2 Small tables

x3 Tins chalk paint + wax

x3 Canope cover sails

Kelting Room - making our traditional georgian kelting room fully functionable for a variety of community groups:

x12 medium modern georgian style chairs with wooden arms

x1 small table

x1 modern Georgian style table to match chairs

x1 bookcase

x1 noticeboard

Including all crowdfunder fees that occur from the funder

This project successfully funded on 2nd August 2016