You could be forgiven for believing that Christmas for Kids is a purely seasonal enterprise. This is not quite true! Although, from March to May, we go relatively quiet as we reflect on the previous year's tour and start thinking about our outreach and content for the next December. The reality is that we are busy with all things C4K for 10 months of the year.
Here's how it works: January and February bring about the evaluation of the tour - what do we want to change, how may we improve and expand the following tour. There are reports to write and thank yous to give to our wonderful supporters and donators and the tying up of any loose ends from finance and admin.
May brings accounting joys, and our wonderful administrator - Katie Hecht - brings everything into clarity and focus with the help of our bookkeeper and we settle the year's accounts for external approval. These are then submitted to the Charities Commission for all to see, so we make sure they look nice and shiny! May and June also bring about the beginnings of budgeting for that December tour and reaching out to grant giving organisations and corporate donors to help us hit our fundraising target. We also are very importantly booking the TOUR at this time - 45 venues this year, which is HUGE!! Well done to our produce, the awesome Claire Sundin, who plans tours which flow easily and make sense on the map - no mean feat!
From this time, we are constantly looking out for fundraising opportunities, including this year's 'Parallel London Fun Run' (see News on our website) and bucket shaking in theatres whenever we can. We never charge the hospices or families to enjoy our show, so this is a huge part of our work every year. Marketing is also important as the more supporters we have, the better. This year we have had a whole new web design, we have introduced a regular newsletter (subscribe to this on our News page), and are increasing our social media following day by day. Please follow us on Twitter and FB - links are on the website.
August is also the time for tweaking the show, or putting final touches on a new show (we will be bringing a new show out in 2018), and making sure all props, costumes and gifts are on order and those we have are in good repair. We book our rehearsal space at this time and pin down our rehearsal schedule.
September brings all important casting breakdowns, and early October auditions - as we could not do this without our wonderful actors who are specifically chosen for their multi-skilled talent and their warm and friendly personalities. It takes a special type of performer to be able to handle the emotional content of what we do, and we feel very honoured to work with the fine actors we have to date.
November is rehearsal time, and from early December our tour hits the road..!
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From Sue, and all at C4K HQ! xx
