Small-Scale Development Programme - DAY ONE

Rachel has been offered a bursary from Arts Council Wales to attend an AMA course to create a strategic plan. Avant was two years old this year and we are growing but we want to continue to grow so that we can sustain ourselves and be producing even higher quality work. We are passionate about our community and the stories it has to share and we want to be the leading theatre company creating these performances in the valleys.
The three day training is helping create time, space and assistance to get this plan in order. We have also signed up to Enterprise Solutions training to make sure we have as much advice as possible to create the best plan and we are always grateful to The Park and Dare and Angela Gould who is a constant support. It doesn't stop there, we also want to hear from you, our current and potential audiences, so please get in touch and offer your thoughts.
DAY ONE
So today we evaluated our mission and vision statements, this is something we wrote over a year ago and the message is very much the same, however we have fine tuned the sentences today and you can check these out on our website https://www.avant.cymru/about
It was really interesting to speak to the other dance and theatre companies in the room to reflect on how we are similar and how we differ. In reflection Avant's commitment to the valleys is our USP. The stories that come from the valleys are diverse and we are free to use all kinds of performance styles and educational experiences to share these stories, this is evident in our 2018 programme with 'Blue Scar' (a hip hop dance production) and 'Forget Me Not' (a semi immersive play). They are distinctive to our company as they reflect the valleys, however they are very different performance styles and we are proud of our versatility in being able to showcase these styles with talented Avant casts.
Today had reaffirmed that we are on track and the mission and vision statement have confidently been added to our business plan.
Word of today : Confidence, why because Avant are on mission and heading towards our vision. Looking forward to tomorrow when we can analyse how we can share this mission with more audiences and at a variety of venues.