My first year as chair is now complete! Thank you and well done to everyone who has volunteered, helped and supported all the activities and productions we have put on throughout the year.

We attended the Carnival and had a stall on the field with a fun treasure map game which was brilliantly painted by Andrew Lawrence. The weather was kind to us and it is always a busy and lively event in the Harbury Village calendar.

Our November production was another fun comedy which the audience members embraced as the title of Knickers! I'm not sure what they expected! It was another theatre group triumph with the braveness of Wendy, Moira, Caroline and myself baring their backsides in the name of theatre! There were a lot of lines to learn but we pulled it off with the help of all involved — all the actors, the backstage crew, the front of house and of course Ali, our amazing Director.

We had our annual sing along at The Shakespeare in December. Thank you to Simon for leading the caterwauling — sorry, I mean singing — to all our favourite Christmas Carols.

The May Production is in full swing of rehearsals and I have no doubt the audience will enjoy this production as always. Thank you to Andrew and Sue for stepping in at the last minute to direct. Break a leg to all involved.

We have purchased new curtains for the stage and undertaken the clearing of the mezzanine in order to support the issues raised by the Village Hall Chair. We also treated ourselves to some new HTG T-shirts and Polo shirts to wear at rehearsals and events.

Looking into next year, our main priority alongside the productions will be to apply for upcoming grants for a portable lift to gain wheelchair access to the stage.

I am proud to be part of a Theatre Group that is an inclusive group and is welcoming to anyone who wishes to join our group in any capacity. I think it is important to maintain the fun and social element of being part of a theatre group — we introduced a bi-monthly social meeting which was enjoyed by all who attended and was a great opportunity for members to meet.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the other committee members Becci and Brittany for their support this year. Also a big thank you to Caroline who has stepped down as Secretary to be a mummy to baby Artemis. Congratulations Caroline. We wish you all the best.

Finally I would like to finish by thanking everyone who volunteers or steps in at the last minute to ensure the group can continue. It is all very much appreciated.

— Nikki Holt, Chair 2024–2025

Well done everyone for another fantastic year!

We kicked off the year by presenting a £1,000 cheque to the Church's Heat, Light & Stone appeal — raised from the profits of our May 2023 production "Ridiculous Allsorts".

Last November, we delighted audiences with our outstanding panto "Jack & the Beanstalk", directed by Ali Hodge, produced by Lynn MacWhinnie, with Simon Stenner returning as Musical Director. This production was a tremendous success, featuring fantastic performances, stunning special effects (the UV light scene!), and a rather impressive Giant's costume. The show was not only a crowd-pleaser but also highly profitable!

Our most recent production, "Murder Mystery and Mayhem", which wrapped up in May, marked the directorial debut of Celia Stockdale and Wendy Lewin, and Brittany Bain's first stint as Producer. The show featured a collection of fun performances, original work and a very funny one-act comedy, Murder in the Choir. We had fantastic feedback and it was highly enjoyable for all involved.

We welcomed several talented new members to the group this year, including Brittany Bain, Jo Lewin, Ben Milligan, Matt Beaton, Richard Morris & Paul Ayers-Hunt, and welcomed back Alisha Long — beautiful singers, back-stage whizzes, comedic geniuses — and we're so glad to have them on board!

We held several highly enjoyable social events — the carnival games, an Oddsocks theatre trip and the Christmas sing-a-long at the Shakespeare!

We invested a lot in our equipment this year — upgrading our sound with a new mixing desk, acquiring new microphone headsets and new card reader machines. We're looking into providing a lift onto the stage as our next big investment.

— Becci Denny, Chair 2022–2024

We have had yet another fantastic year!

The year got off to a cracking start with our fabulous and talented Caroline, Lara, Nikki & Sue H coming first in the ACT one-act festival!

Followed by not two, but three very successful productions — 'Life on the Lighter Side' (a collaboration with Second Thoughts theatre group in September), 'The Affairs at Meddler's Top' in November, and 'Ridiculous Allsorts' in May. A huge well done to everyone involved. Not only did we receive very positive feedback from our audiences, but we also all had a lot of fun doing it!

We also held a few social events throughout the year — trips to the theatre, the carnival games and vaguely-in-tune carols at the Shake!

Another big success has been seeing lots of people trying out new roles within the theatre group — sound, stage management, front of house, producing, writing the H&L news articles. It's been very encouraging to see everyone mucking in and learning new skills at the same time.

We have the carnival coming up on June 10th and will be starting work towards our 2023 panto. We will be working on developing & growing our social media presence, and looking at investing in our equipment (to improve sound, and accessibility among other things). We will also be looking for ways to use our resources to invest back in us — initial thoughts are to look at running some skills workshops if there's enough interest.

Thanks again to everyone for all of your hard work and enthusiasm and for making the theatre group such a lovely place to be.

— Becci Denny, Chair 2022–2024

It's certainly been an eventful couple of years since our last AGM! A global pandemic, a war, and enough scandals to shake a stick at… but despite all of that, we have still managed to put on 2 great shows — 'Aladdin' (helmed by Keith, in Nov 2021) and just a couple of weeks ago, 'Comedy, Music & Mayhem', which was my first foray into the world of directing.

The year of 2022 started with a big change of leadership. Geoff & Keith decided it was time to enjoy some well-earned rest, and stand down from their positions of Chair and Vice-Chair respectively. I'd like to thank them both for all of their hard work and boundless enthusiasm — yes, even Geoff! :)

At the business meeting in January, Geoff nominated me to take over as Chair, and I successfully press-ganged Natalie & Caroline into taking on the roles of Vice-Chair and Secretary. And we have been very busy ever since!

It started with a re-vamp of the Harbury Theatre Group branding, in which our very own Olli designed us a beautiful new logo featuring Chesterton Windmill. We also created a new website and re-invigorated our social media presence (Instagram and Facebook).

In February, we hosted a very successful Open Evening at the Tom Hauley room! This featured gorgeous designs made by our Costumiers, as well as short talks given by our resident experts in lots of different areas. It was well attended, and we gained some amazingly talented new members, including Lara & Nikki.

The May Production seemed to go very well — a selection of comedy sketches, songs & one-act plays, which we also took to the ACT Festival in July. We received a lot of positive feedback, and Natalie's glass-shattering top note in 'The Song That Goes Like This' and Geoff's 3-years-at-RADA Zombie were personal highlights.

We also sold tickets online and accepted card payments on the bar for the first time — both proved very popular and we'll keep doing this for future productions.

— Becci Denny, Chair 2022–2024

I think it's time for a change! I've been chairman of this amazing team since April 2014 and I've had a great time, but now it's time for someone else to take the lead. And I'm pretty sure that I'll be handing over to a real star!

So here are some reflections on the last four years:

One of the most exciting new initiatives for HTG has been the formation of a Junior section, led by Emily, Joy, Katie & Emma. The Tuesday evening sessions and their performances, have provided great fun and rich opportunities for many Harbury children to develop their skills and self-confidence. Their first performance of 'The Blank Pages' in June 2014 was a great success and has been followed by many others, including 'When Sasha Got Swept Up The Chimney' in Nov 2014, 'Christmas Creepy Crawlies' in Nov 2015, 'Olivia in Nov 2016 and appearances with the adults in two great pantomimes.

The village hall has been a great venue for HTG productions for many years, but the absence of a permanent stage has limited what could be done. However, the village hall committee has done a great job to raise the money and prepare plans for a new stage that was officially opened by the Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire in April 2016! We played an important part in this initiative by donating some of our own funds, buying curtains, sound and lighting equipment and through the work of our own Brian Wade, who acted as honorary Project Manager.

A particularly enjoyable experience for me, was the task of curating an exhibition of Harbury Theatre Group's productions since the 1950s for the official opening of the stage. This showed what a significant role amateur dramatics has played in the life of this vibrant local community for many years.

But what about our recent productions? We've put on at least two productions a year for many years now and we've been playing to full houses almost every time, and receiving great feedback from audiences. Each time we hear the comment "That's the best performance ever", so either people in Harbury have very short memories, or we really are putting on some great shows!

'Visitors from Chicago' by Neil Simon, 'All Balls & Ashes' by Mark Robberts (who turned up unannounced to watch us and then said it was the best production of it he'd ever seen), 'Stage Struck' by John & Yvonne Eddlestone, 'Sleeping Beauty' the pantomime (our first performance on the new stage!), 'Bags of Laughter' (lots of hilarious sketches and songs), 'All Exclusive' by Hugh Morrison, 'Only When I Laugh' (more very funny sketches), 'Merlin' (another pantomime) and now finally Alan Ayckbourn's 'Confusions'. It has been so much fun to direct and act in all of these.

In 2014, we performed 'Visitors from Chicago' at the South Warwickshire Amateur Community Theatre (ACT) Festival at Shipston-on-Stour and then in 2016 we hosted the festival here in Harbury, where we performed some of the sketches from 'Bags of Laughter'. Colleagues from the other drama groups all said how much they enjoyed performing on our new stage.

We've had some great social events as well: Skittles evenings at Snitterfield (organised by Malcolm Bloxham), garden barbeques, after-show parties, poetry readings, cameo performances at the Harbury Victorian street fairs, building and manning our floats for the Carnival (maybe one day we'll come higher than second in our class in the judging!) and entering a team called "Get Your Act Together" in the Heart of Harbury games.

And we've done lots of less glamorous activities to make things run smoothly: Designing job descriptions for the director, producer & front of house manager, carrying out risk assessments, designing and running a website, erecting and dismantling the stage blocks that we used before our new stage came along, painting scenery, making & sourcing costumes & props, erecting sound & lighting equipment & curtains, and the sterling work done by the front of house & backstage teams that are fundamental to the success of our shows!

We've attracted lots of new members in the last couple of years and, counting both adult & junior members, we have nearly a hundred people involved in our activities and (thanks to Lin's good house-keeping) we have a very healthy bank balance.

To finish, I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who has put so much energy & talent into our activities over the last four years - too many to mention by name, but I will just say a special thank you to Sue, who has been Secretary for the last three years and who is also going to take a break. We will, of course, both give the new chair & secretary our full support.

— Andrew Lawrence, Chair 2014–2018