Loose Music not for profit organisation supporting and promoting music and music-makers in Halton.

THE QUEENS HALL STUDIO PROJECT
A community building, run by the community, for the community.
The people who use it, of all ages, will have regular opportunity to have their say in how it is run and what is needed and what is provided.
The building will be open to community use, and for people to put on their own events.
A music venue can be used for many other activities, but it is not satisfactory to use a general purpose building for live music performance and activities – and Halton needs a dedicated live music venue.
We aim to make this an excellent live music venue, for local musicians including U18s and for touring bands.
There will be lots of different kinds of music and live performance events, where people can dance and jump around or sit comfortably at tables with a drink.
Plans include:
repairing the building... roofs, walls, ceilings, floors, rewiring... refurbishing the toilets...
building a good new wheelchair accessible toilet in the Men’s wc with it’s own door to the Performance Hall
making a bookable raised area in the Performance Hall for wheelchair users and their friends – it’s no fun going to see a band and not getting to see the band,
turning an obsolete shower room into a rehearsal room, and removing a wall to turn 2 store-rooms into a good big rehearsal room (and live room when recording),
extending the bar so people can get served more easily, as well as serving tea/coffee/juice/snacks into the Meeting Room and we would love a local group to get involved to run a Healthy Eating cafe there.
Importantly, the project will provide:
A base for Feedback magazine, LOOSE (music), Split Ends Theatre Company and other local groups.
This will enable organisations to develop and grow, to collaborate, and to provide events and activities of a higher standard and that more people can participate in and benefit from.
There is great value in people getting creatively involved in things that interest them...
Our own building: there are grants available to run free and subsidised events to enable equal access for all – but there has been nowhere to run them, and now there will be.
Rehearsal, recording and film-making and editing facilities...
Regular and one-off workshops, training and learning opportunities, access to tuition and equipment.
Somewhere for local people to meet up and get together, maybe start keep fit dance classes, or a Scrabble club, or a Circus Skills group... whatever they choose to do...
Events and creative activities for young people where they have a say in the running and organisation, a place where they are welcome and where they feel they belong.
A brilliant live music venue – giving the artists and the audience what they need: a safe friendly atmosphere, appropriate comfortable facilities, great sound. We aim to build a good local and national reputation and for the venue to be part of the UK touring circuit – right here in Widnes.
Work experience and a wide range of volunteer opportunities... this can help with getting a job, getting onto a college course, or just getting out of the house and making new friends and doing something that matters.
Gradually, there will be a variety of paid employment – proper full-time and part-time jobs as well as casual paid work.

PARTICIPATION AND MANAGEMENT:
The building, the project, will be run by the LOOSE Trustees –
Greg Oldfield, Jaki Florek, Stuart Joynson. More may be added later.
There will also be a Committee – local residents, anyone of any age who uses the facilities or is based in the building, or is interested in any aspect of the project all are welcome to be part of this Committee.

Please contact us now or any time in the future if you are interested.
There will be regular publicised open meetings where anyone can have their say, put forward ideas, ask questions, identify problems, help find solutions.
Maybe other facilities will be needed in the future – there is the flexibility and opportunity for people to shape what goes on and what is provided.
There will also be a suggestion box in the building, maybe a suggestion board so people can add to it and comment on suggestions.
So long as it is safe and legal, it will be a place where the people who use it make the decisions.
There will be a massive up-grading of the website to give out information and to allow people to contribute online.

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW:
Spread The Word by telling anyone and everyone about the project!
Register your interest and supply a contact phone/email/postal address:
by
emailing jaki.florek@virgin.net
or
writing to LOOSE, P.O. Box 67, Runcorn WA7 4NL
or
phoning 01928 566261 1pm – 7pm
This needs to be done so we can have an organised and updated data base, to include people who may not have been included so far, and to ensure you know about meetings.
Even if you think we’ve got a contact for you – please still register cos it will make it easier to organise one proper data base. Email is best, but no worries if you don’t have email.
We need your help in setting up the data base, and also please
send in your ideas, observations and comments to be discussed when we have a general meeting.
Also needed: Suggestions comments and ideas on

WHAT WILL THE PLACE BE CALLED?
Do we go for something fresh, new ??
Do we keep some sort of historical reference?
A few possibilities which have been put forward include:

THE LACEY – cos it is on Lacey Street.

QUEENS – in memory of The Queens Hall,

also it might keep trouble makers out cos it doesn’t sound very butch...

THE SUNDAY SCHOOL – cos that is what the building was originally, also see above!

THE STUDIO – cos that is what it has been called since 1990

Also needed: Suggestions, comments and ideas on...

WHAT SHOULD THE PLACE LOOK LIKE INSIDE?

Here’s a few thoughts:
No plastic tat... solid wood, stainless steel, stylish posh vandal proof toilets,
Robust flooring so people can roller blade or skate board, or paint and make stuff, or just dance their socks off...

As well as tables & chairs in the Meeting Room and in the Performance Hall... comfy sofas...
Rich deep sumptuous colours like black and red and blue in the Performance Hall + toilets.... but maybe light and airy white and natural in the Meeting Room...

If you’ve seen a place that you think looks great – tell us about it!
If you see something that you think is a good idea – tell us about it!
One thing we don’t want is for it to look ... bland and anonymous and fake...

THE QUEENS HALL STUDIO, Lacey Steet, Widnes WA8 7RF
So, here it is! It isn’t a posh architect’s drawing yet but it gives a basic idea of the inside of the building:

Left Wing: L1, L2, L3 dressing rooms when needed. L2 with wc, wash basins + shower, L3 will be a rehearsal room, L1 a general purpose room. Men’s + Ladies toilets are in the Left Wing to be totally refurbished, a new wheelchair accessible wc to be built in Men’s toilet area with a separate door from the Performance hall.

(L2 – remove big old boiler, L3 remove old showers + make door to Hall).
Right Wing: R1 recording control/mix room with viewing panel to big live room/rehearsal room R2 (at present 2 derelict store-rooms.) New bar + new serving hatches to Performance Hall. Existing hatch serves from kitchen/bar to Meeting Room/cafe. Refurb. bar/kitchen.
We are looking at: Reduction of sound leakage, additional storage room, a way of sometimes closing off half of the hall for smaller cosier events (retaining access to bars + wcs), making a wheelchair viewing area in the performance hall against the wall of the Ladies wc.
Roof and brickwork repairs, improved front entrance, rewiring whole building, making good all floors + plaster.
Blimey, it’ll be as good as new... but with a history! And, importantly, a future.

A bit of QH history regarding our bid for the Queens Hall Studio: The Studio was built in 1879 originally as a Wesleyan Methodist Sunday School and as a meeting place for the community.

A group calling themselves ‘The Passive Resisters’ met there - they were refusing to pay a new local tax being levied to pay for non-denominational schools after the 1902 Education Act, and they stuck it out for 12 years.

At the side of the Sunday School on Victoria Road was the big Wesleyan Methodist church. Both buildings were bought by the council and in the 50s the Victoria Road church was renamed The Queens Hall, and was used for exhibitions, wrestling, and live music... notably The Beatles played there on 4 occasions in 1962. It was horribly ‘modernised’, what you see today bears little resemblance to the beautiful original stone building. A corridor was added on to link the two separate buildings.
Both buildings are still owned by Halton Borough council.
Lacey Street Sunday School was also put to many uses, including a small clothing factory, and later a sports hall. In 1990 The Queens Hall Studio became a licensed live music venue and community centre... so there will be no change of use.

2004: The Queens Hall and The Studio closed when the new Brindley Arts Centre opened in Runcorn.
‘The Final Curtain’ was the last event in The Studio, a LOOSE all-dayer on April 4 when 22 young local bands played to a capacity audience. The last event in the main Queens Hall was ‘Closing Time’ on April 24 organised by local musicians Greg Oldfield (LOOSE Vice-Chairperson) and Andy Rogerson. The gig featured many of Halton’s more established musicians who also played to a capacity audience. Go to www.nme.com/video/search/widnes to see video footage of the concert filmed by Keith Wood.

2004/5: Meetings were held, decisions made, and LOOSE (a not for profit music collective run by volunteers since 1997) plotted and planned to get the venue open again with the support of local people, signed petitions, and a great deal of unrelenting hard work.
Thanks go to all who turned up to the ‘Picnic In The Park’ May 05 for the above photo statement, and to volunteer Sara Glithro for putting together a professional business plan as we had to show the council that the project was sustainable and could generate money to pay for running costs.

2006 (06.06.06!) The council agreed to lease the building to LOOSE... IF we ran it with no subsidies from the council and IF funding was secured by LOOSE for all repairs...

2007: It was a significant achievement early in 2007 when a group of Halton’s young musicians made a video application and secured £120,000 from Youthbank for repairs to the roof. Many thanks to them, to the Young People on the Youthbank panel, and to volunteers George Bullock, and Mike Brookfield (from Noah’s Arcade) for filming and Jake from Stig for editing it all together.

More grants were coming in BUT we were then informed we were not allowed to start any work on the building until ALL funding was secured...
September 07 The last chance to secure the building came when LOOSE (partnered by Halton Council) applied to The Big Lottery Fund for a new Community Assets grant to get ALL the building work done in one go. After literally hundreds of hours working on the application, we heard in Dec. 07we had passed the first assessment.

2008:

Next came a Big Meeting with the grant officer from The Big Lottery Fund, on Jan. 22.

We invited people to represent various aspects of the project; there were 18 people sat round the table! Mention must be made of the Chief Executive of Halton Council David Parr, who spoke positively and eloquently at the meeting and showed he had a complete grasp of the proposed project.
As well as people from LOOSE, Feedback, and relevant Council Officers, Mike Pirks attended from Split Ends Theatre Co., Rob Jolliffe from Widnes Community Police, Alison Gleave and Matt Roberts from H.V.A., Rob Warburton from Connexions (Youth Services), and Frank Titley from Blue Orchid business consultancy. Many more people offered to attend.
Man, we got every angle covered!!
The funding officer also had to make a site visit. The weekend prior to the visit, volunteers met at The Studio to tidy it up a bit, as the building had been broken into and vandalised. But we then discovered it was beyond tidying; it had been broken into a second time and all the wiring had been ripped out, as well as all the washbasins being smashed and strewn everywhere. What a sad sight.
After this, more requests for information came from The Big Lottery Fund, more information was provided, then all we could do was wait...

We were very conscious that competition for this grant was very high, and there would also be organisations throughout the UK applying who had paid staff and proper grown-ups and everything... but, crikey, we got it!!!
Only 37 Community Assets grants have been approved in the whole of England.
A purpose of the Community Assets grant is to refurbish council owned buildings prior to transferring them to 3rd Sector groups for community benefit, and to strengthen links between local authorities and 3rd Sector groups. There is a lot of work ahead, and it will be 2009 before the building is up and running, but it will be worth the wait.
The Community Assets grant administrated by The big Lottery Fund is for £602,055 for building work, refurbishment, and professional fees – but not a penny of this goes to us, the volunteers working on the project. This project will be strictly monitored by The Big Lottery Fund, for the next ten years.
Thanks go to The Trusthouse Foundation, the Local Network Fund, and WREN for additional funding.
Local musicians of all ages make a statement in Victoria Park, May 2005
Big Thanks to local building contractor Jim Rawlinson and his team, who throughout 2007 patiently advised on, calculated costs for, and found lowest quotes for the work required. We couldn’t have got this far without Jim.
There has to be thanks to my family who have put up with me obsessively filling in forms, writing Options Appraisals, Projected Outcomes, Sustainability Plans, costing toilets, chairs and tables, swatting up on statistics, and putting into words what we all know: what the befits will be of re-opening the building.
Especially big thanks to LOOSE Treasurer Stuart Joynson for thoroughly checking all the sums and reading through the reams of information we had to provide, to check it made sense and make amendments...
not just for this grant but for all the applications we have made over the past couple of years.
Thanks to all at Halton Council who have (eventually!) come to support and understand the value of this project.
If David Parr had not agreed to the council partnering LOOSE we would not have the Big grant and the project would not be happening.
There has to be thanks to EVERYONE who has supported this crazy scheme over the past 4 years;
it simply would not have happened without your support.