Community Engagement Case Study


As part of their community engagement, Theatr Clwyd have started a project which is currently called the ‘Flintshire Five’. The name may change as the project progresses. The aim is to go into certain communities that the theatre serves, to see how the theatre can help in that community and meet people who wouldn’t usually visit the theatre. As Theatr Clwyd are currently based in the centre of Mold at the moment due to the renovations, they thought this would be a good opportunity to connect with communities Flintshire wide. The hope is that eventually the people who get involved could programme events in their communities with the help of the theatre.

I thought I would follow this project as a case study, as an example of some of the work undertaken by the theatre and get a better understanding how the theatre helps enhance the well-being of the area the theatre serves. 


I have mainly been following the creative engagement associates tasked with reaching out to the people of Buckley. I am from Buckley, I grew up there and went to school there so I understand the community needs. I’m also a town councillor for Buckley and offered any assistance I could from that point of view. The associates started exploring the community, visiting the boxing club in town and the Refurbs cafe. After the initial visits, I organised meetings between the associates, the town centre manager and the Clerk of the council. The conclusions of those meetings were that the town has anti-social behaviour issues from kids at the moment and was there a possibility the theatre could help with this. 


After some discussions, the associates decided to help with the Christmas Light Switch On: which happens every year at the end of November. It is a community event organised by the town council. The hope with the theatre helping with the switch on is to encourage a relationship between all generations in Buckley to repair the damage done by a handful of kids; cross-generational support for a local event . The theatre planned to hire an artist to help produce puppets or something to add to the parade for the event. After meeting with the Clerk, the theatre were told to email the council to ask for space (use of the community room) and for some funds. The Clerk had advised that there was £300 available in the Arts budget which this project would definitely come under. 


The meeting rolled around and the Clerk failed to give the information to the councillors before the meeting so it was resolved to defer the item. This delayed the project for weeks. My experience with this project has reaffirmed how difficult it is to get anything done within the arts. There is far too much politics involved in getting anything achieved. Eventually, the Mayor and Chair of Finance were asked to sign off on the funding which left us with 5 weeks to produce something meaningful for the town’s light switch on. 


I reflected on my experience of the event and how people have previously been disappointed with the lack of decorations on the town’s Christmas tree and have taken it upon themselves to decorate it. I suggested that the theatre could facilitate this but work with people in Buckley to make decorations for it. We (the creative engagement associates and I) came up with a plan of action to create decorations with people out of recycled items, plastic bottles etc, and then decorate the tree as part of the light switch on event. The Creative Engagement team have sustainability pledges to follow so that is why we chose to make decorations out of found objects.


On Thursday last week, we set up a stall in the middle of Buckley and encouraged people of all ages to join us in making Christmas decorations. We had 54 people visit the stall who all made at least one decoration. It was a great start to the project. 




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