A wishlist of things […] it would be really good to have recommended makers or costume makers or physiotherapists or riggers […] so there’s something tangible to get stuck into" Katherine Arnold (aerialist and teacher)

During the second meeting of the Resource Centre Working Group, we ended up thinking about our task from two directions: top down, what might this look like when we’ve made it? Who’s going to run it? Who’s going to pay them?

But we also thought about it from the bottom up: where are we now? What practical action can we take this week? What might be the next step towards a centralised resource?

 Right now, the second question about what’s next seems a lot easier to answer than the first one!

 With that in mind, we agreed on two actions:

 We’ve set up a UK Circus Resource group on Facebook. Inspired by the successful Theatre Producers group on the site, we hope it will be a place where you can ask for the name of a good maker, find recommendations for reasonably priced puzzle mats or discuss Covid-19 clauses in contracts.

 If you’re on Facebook and work in the UK Circus sector, please do join it:.

 And we also thought about this question from our first meeting: “We need to take the conversation out of the room and into our community's heart to identify its most urgent needs in this area.”

With that in mind, Tina Koch put together this Milanote board (password: resource) that contains everything we brainstormed in our first session. 

It’s intended to be a utopian place where we collect ideas and suggestions for what a resource centre for the UK circus sector could include. Nothing is set in stone, including what format any final Resource Centre might be in or who might run it.

 Please have a browse and add your comments and suggestions. The more people join in to give their input, the better chance we have to get a sense of what people need. And then we can think about how to practically pull this all together!

Authored by Lissy Lovett