Shoebox Theatre's TagTamworth Project receives Heritage Lottery Fund support

Tamworth volunteer-led community company Shoebox Theatre has received £8,200 from the Heritage Lottery Fund for an exciting new project that will help a group of young people to learn more about Tamworth's heritage and to share creatively what they learn with others in the town and beyond.  Launching next week for the schools half-term with sessions at Tamworth Town library and the Torc Campus, Glascote, the TagTamworth project will be supported by Shoebox Theatre's heritage partners, the Tamworth staff of Staffordshire Library Services, together with their volunteers.  Staff from the Castle will also be adding their expertise to the project.  A group of 13 - 25 year-old participants will find out what they can about four iconic Tamworth buildings that have seen many changes over time: the Castle, the Castle Hotel and its Annexe, the Moat House and the building on Church Street which most recently has housed the Registrar's office.  As well as looking into earlier history, the young people will be hoping to talk to local residents of all ages who have their own stories about these buildings.  To share what they find as widely as possible, the young people will create short films, record interviews with older contributors, blog and post on social networking sites, take photos and create other images of their discoveries for uploading to the internet.  They will also be inviting local people to celebrate their project with open events in the spring and in July 2012 at the end of the project.

As well as offering creative heritage activities to a group of youngsters, the project, devised from ideas of the Torc Drama and Film-making group which has been meeting weekly since January, 2010, aims to give the participants useful skills which they can take with them into further education and employment; and the shared storytelling sessions will help break down barriers between different social and age groups in Tamworth.  The Heritage Lottery Fund grant will also enable the group to buy additional equipment to enhance their film and sound recordings.  As a centre for the ArtsAward qualifications (the creative equivalent of the Duke of Edinburgh award), Shoebox will be offering young participants the chance to register for, and work towards, the Bronze level ArtsAward, as image makers, writers, performers or technical crew .

Shoebox Theatre is a not-for-profit community interest company which uses free-lance creative practitioners to support its projects. If you want to join this project, or would like to share your story with the young people, then get in touch with Margaret on Tamworth 701844, or send an email to mail@shoeboxtheatre.co.uk or check out full session details on their website www.shoeboxtheatre.co.uk