Pavilion Membership Doubles in Belper

Claire, Lynda and I attend the Belper Food Festival and double our Belper membership.

Belper became the latest town to flock to Matlock Bath’s Grand Pavilion campaign. At the Food Festival we took a stall and were inundated by interest. In total 45 people joined the Friends Group on the day. This doubled the Friends Group membership in the town. Overall membership has topped 1,500.

We will be submitting our £3.5m lottery fund bid in August. This will completely restore the building in Matlock Bath and to turn it back into a 400 seat theatre. After this work has been completed, it will be Belper’s local theatre.              

By the end of the day we were completely exhausted! We had been on since 9am in the searing heat. We spent seven hours talking to people interested in the project. This resulted in large numbers of them joining as supporters.

We will be putting our bid in to the Heritage Lottery Fund on the 8^th of August. All this local support proves to the HLF that there is a demand for theatre, music and arts events in the area.

Gregor