As it is now just about November, I’m sure no one will object if we mention that Christmas is drawing near, and our December monthly meeting (7.30 p.m. on Wednesday 2 December at Greneway School) will effectively be our Christmas get-together. There will be the usual drinks and nibbles (do feel free to contribute!) and in addition you are invited to bring along a “star turn” – maybe a poem, or a short sketch, or a song, or a speech from a play you particularly like – to perform at the meeting. A Christmas theme would be nice, and if you want to dress up that’d be even nicer, but is by no means compulsory. You don’t have to learn your “piece” if you don’t have time or simply don’t want to: reading is perfectly acceptable, and there’s absolutely no competition involved. This isn’t X Factor, we just thought it’d be fun! We’ll aim to go round the room in no particular order and each do our thing (as I’m told they used to say in the 1960s – obviously, I don’t remember them myself). Everyone is welcome, whether or not you’re a full member, part-time member, occasional visitor or complete stranger and if you want to bring friends or family, that’s fine too. 

Phil’s Farndale follow-up

If you have become, as many of us have since the Arts Festival, a fan of Phoebe Reece, Thelma Greenwood and the other well-meaning but somewhat less than professional regulars of the Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society, you might like to know that our Treasurer, Phil Rowe, has recently invested in a complete set of all the available “Farndale” plays on behalf of the group, These include the Farndale…ahem… “Scottish play”  (apparently, I’m not allowed to say “Macbeth”), a ghost story set in Farndale Castle, and the wonderfully titled They Came from Mars and Landed Outside the Farndale Avenue Church Hall in Time for the Townswomen’s Guild Coffee Morning! Anyone interested in reading any of these titles, whether or not with a view to CADS performing them, please contact Phil directly on 01763 231749 or e-mail phil.rowe@dial.pipex.com

 

Springing into action?

At the time of writing, we’re still no further on with our plans for Spring 2010 – as a group we’ve agreed in principle to enter a one-act play for the Cambridge Drama Festival in April, but as yet no one has actually come forward to direct. The October monthly meeting looked at and read through two Noel Coward plays – Still life, which was the original source of the film Brief encounter, and Hands across the sea, a sophisticated variation on the classic drawing-room farce – and members agreed that either had possibilities provided someone was prepared to take one of them on. We don’t actually have to make any decision until the beginning of next year, and we don’t necessarily have to stick to the Noel Coward plan, so if you think you might like to have a go at putting something on, do please get in touch. One-acters are sometimes a good way to get into directing if you’ve never tried your hand before, and there are several CADS members who can give you tips and guidance if required.

 

Dosh for Josh!

You may recall that CADS regular Josh Hyde wrote to the group back in September seeking sponsorship for a worthy project. Well, for those who haven’t heard, here’s Josh’s report on his successes so far:

 

“Hello everybody.
I just wanted to send a massive thank you to everyone who sponsored me for my Cancer Research UK run last weekend. I finished more than respectably in under 39 minutes. Unfortunately I strained a tendon and have spent most of the week limping but getting better now. Currently my sponsorship stands at £800, which is excellent but still 200 notes short of my target. So anyone else who still wants to donate but never got round to it beforehand, you still have another five weeks or so before my website closes. Once again, it’s http://www.run10ksponsorme.org/joshuahyde

 

Thank you again everyone and sorry for all the harassment over the past few months. It was worth it.

Josh”

 

…and finally…

The anniversary went largely unmarked and is, in any case, hardly momentous, but for the record, the CADS website has just celebrated its first birthday! Its creation was the result of a committee member who shall remain nameless querying why the 2009 Royston Arts Festival website didn’t include a link to CADS, only to have it explained that this was probably because CADS didn’t have its own site… four days later a rough draft of the site was drawn up and two days after that, during the course of a slightly boozy dinner, our then Chair and Secretary, Joe and Emma Daintrey, approved and paid for it and the rest, as they say, is history. The site receives on average around 6,500 “hits” a month, with peaks in January and May of about 15,000 (presumably because we have shows on during those months) and continues to develop – during the year, for instance, we’ve added the Backstage area where fully paid-up members can access documents relating to the group such as committee minutes, policy statements, contact lists and so on. The Gallery of photographs from past productions continues to be a popular feature, and we’ve received at least a couple of dozen enquiries about the group directly via the site, many of which have led to the enquirers coming along to audition and subsequently becoming involved in productions. If you have any thoughts or suggestions about how we can improve the site, do please contact one of the committee (full details below) or use the Contact feature on site itself to send us your ideas…

Next newsletter

If anyone wants us to put information in the next newsletter, or you would like something discussed at the next committee meeting, please contact Michael Young on michaelyoung@hewitsons.com or call 01763 223805.  Deadline for sending stuff for inclusion in the newsletter (e-mail preferred) is 22 October.  Don’t forget, if you need to contact the club we have an e-mail address you can use -  cads_royston@yahoo.co.uk - or you can use our Contact page to send us a message.