Selection Headaches.

We're only a week away from Easter now which always marks the homeward stretch of the academic year and cranks up the work load a notch or two. The shows come thick and fast - four in the department this week - and suddenly the library is full of students trying desperately to knock off their assignments before the really nice weather kicks in.

I always enjoy this time of year when the timetable all but collapses and projects take over. It feels a bit more real and certainly a lot more fun. Like a mad sprint for the line after leisurely running laps round the track and then suddenly before we know it - it'll be over for this year and we'll be back to planning the next.

We're close to filling up the courses for next year now. Another well attended interview day last Friday and the quality of those auditioned remains refreshingly high, even this late in the process. It's going to be tough to find places for all the people we'd like to take - but it's great to be raising the bar again and those who do come here will only benefit from being surrounded by other high flying students.

We've also almost finished our workshop tour around the local schools looking for young writers to support the 110th Birthday project at Richmond Theatre and again have far too many strong candidates and intelligent applications to know what to reasonably do with. The Heritage Lottery fund are providing the grant support for this project and have stipulated a team of only ten so I've had to swiftly arrange a recall session for the best thirty or so we've met so far and we'll try and whittle down from there.

Meanwhile over at Ham we're getting close to being able to formally structure the 400th event in May - bringing in the various groups and tying up some sort of running order for the parade.
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