Play in a Week - Birminghams, BL IFC Project - 17th August 2014

17th to 21st August

Clients created their own piece of work from scratch. Working in a commercial theatre they then performed the piece to an invited audience. The project now has a valuable resource and some hugely talented young people to take their work further afield

 

White Horse Project - 26th June 2014

Two days of intense work on the White Horse Project, working at Rossendale High School

 

Four sessions with a year group at a time, each session consisted of a performance of OFS, volunteers were then taken away to rehearse their own scenarios, then brought back and performed in front of their fellow students. The remaining audience were taken through a budget exercise designed for new recruits at Catterick Garrison, we deliberately crash the budget to allow us to reinforce key messages.

8 Week Drama Project - 2nd June 2014

As part of the Middlesbrough KYM Keep Your Money, Big Lottery, Improving Financial Confidence project, we embarked on an 8 week drama project, finishing with the showcase days in July for stakeholders and clients.

Big Lottery Fund 'Improving Financial Confidence' - 1st December 2013

We have helped launch projects in Knowsley, Birmingham and Accrington this year, next year we look forward to working with projects in Hull, Middlesbrough and Wakefield.

A Play in a Week - 1st August 2013

This summer Shontal were priveleged to work with 17 young people aged between 14 and 20 who we will call the 'Stanley family from Accrington'.

Over 5 weeks, for 3 days a week and for at least 5 hours a day they devised, scripted and staged a piece of work called 'Family Misfortunes'.

Our thanks to all involved for the experience, we will shortly post V.T. footage and Photographs of the production, more background to the programme and the package that is now on offer to any other interested groups, which we have called 'A Play in a Week'.

Embedding Financial Literacy - Catterick Garrison - 1st March 2013

Embedding Financial Literacy into the basic training programme for nearly 4,000 infantry recruits at Catterick Garrison began in March this year and runs through to April 2014 We are in the process of securing further funding to extend the project.

Welfare Reforms - 14th September 2012

ISOS Housing have commissioned Shontal to help raise awareness of the forthcoming Welfare Reforms, through a series of performances and Q&A sessions across the North East, this will be supported by a short clip of our work on their website and a dedicated DVD.

We thank ISOS for the opportunity and look forward to working with them, we have agreed to adapt 'Bust' to add the key messages, whilst continuing not to take ourselves to seriously.

At the end of the day we aim to send our audience home with a smile on their faces and plenty to think about!

BLF 'Improving Financial Confidence Fund' - 1st September 2012

The successful bids have been announced and preliminary news is we are partners in 5 of them, until we have signed up to each partnership agreement, we wont count our chickens.

If all are good, this effectively keeps Shontal on the road for the next 5 years.

Huge thanks to successful bidders, gold medals all round for the hard work and dedication of the leads and their teams, look forward to helping you launch your projects in the very near future.

May we also thank those who included Shontal who were not successful, we will await the call, its only a matter of time !

Affinity Sutton - 27th October 2011

From the 26th September through to the 6th October it was our pleasure and priviledge to perform on 14 occassions to Affinity Sutton supported and sheltered schemes across England, we covered 2,400 miles in 9days, some of the gigs were outrageously good, the audience participation and feedback were brilliant, our thanks to all who attended and to Affinity Sutton for the opportunity.

catchupE 2 - 11th August 2011

The original IOAFQ 'Its only a few quid' script which looks at the issues surrounding the activities of loan sharks, has been recommissioned to give us a chance to finish the story. Our challenge is to show the journey from victim to survivor.

catchupE - 11th August 2011

Fast news in order of appearance. We would like to thank Housing Hartlepool for commissioning ' Ratrap' which looks at the financial pressures faced by first time tennants 

Shontal are proud to announce our partnership with National IMLT (Illegal Money Lending Team) to offer our services to lead organisations for the improving financial confidence fund accross England.

Affinity Sutton Housing Group have asked us to write a new script on financial abuse of vulnerable adults to be delivered to their sheltered and supported housing schemes.

We also recently had the pleasure to perform at Catterick Garrison, we hope this will lead to our involvement in financial literacy work with new recruits.

 

DVD coming soon - 17th May 2010

Thanks to Two Castles Housing Association for commissioning a dedicated DVD for their tenants.

The DVD will take the best bits of Shontals work, add in contributions from Stakeholders and signpost people to those who can help.

We finish with out takes, all our mistakes.

Shontal go international - 14th May 2010

It is with huge pride that we can announce Shontal have very kindly been invited to open a conference in Brussells, thats Belgium.

As part of the 2010 European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, the conference is hosted by Flanders Europe Liaison Agency and North East England Office.

Unfortunately due to the election taking longer than expected to form a government, this GIG has been put back to September 14th, my birthday, how did they know ?

Illegal Money Lending Team Funding - 5th March 2010

Our thanks to the IMLT funding future awareness raising using Its Only a Few Quid, we hope to make maiximum use of the money to raise awareness of the issues surrounding the activities of Loan Sharks.

We are proud to play a small part in what they do for communities in the North East.

New Show Coming Soon... - 7th April 2009

As reported towards the end of 2008, Shontal are working alongside Graham Brewis, Financial Inclusion Manager at Blyth Valley Housing. The new show deals with 'Affordable Credit' and will be show cased within the next month. If any of our friends and colleagues would like to be invited to the preview, please contact us.

Graham may even be playing a cameo role....

We're Back! - 31st March 2009

We've been very busy recently. We are thrilled to announce that our new show "It's Only A Few Quid.." was performed for the first time on 17th March at the Illegal Money Lending Team's conference at Wynyard Park, concerning the activities of loan sharks. Timed to coincide with the launch of the national help line for confidential assistance,. We were guests of Redcar / Cleveland Trading Standards, who originally commissioned the work in late 2008.

The Loan Shark help line number is

0300 555 2222.

 

Working in conjunction with the IMLT, we are able to offer the show to groups, and we are starting to take bookings.

The story concerns one central character, Gill. She loses her job and begins to struggle with the daily necessities of life. She battles with debt, and the people she owes. Then she turns to a certain individual for help....

We are hoping to have photographs of the show as soon as possible.

 

Keyring 'Tour' 2009 - 28th March 2009

Since February we have been working alongside Keyring, an organisation that provides support to people with varied abilities to be in control of their own lives, and live in their own homes. Their website is www.keyring.org and it's well worth a look!

We have so far performed and taken part in workshops in Newcastle, on 3rd Feb, and in Doncaster and Lincoln on 25th and 26th March. There has certainly been some lively debate, and it is a privilege to work with a forward thinking organisation such as Keyring. The issues raised by Keyring members for consideration, are Personal Safety, and Financial Abuse. Unfortunately some members of keyring, and many others besides, are sometimes exposed to abuse of various types. Working alongside Nikki and David from Keyring, we are very happy to help raise awareness of such abuses for the members. Our next sessions are in Manchester and Shrewsbury on 21st and 22nd April.

Our London session on 10th Feb was unfortunately snowed off, so we hope to visit the Keyring members in the capital in June. Watch this space.

Photographs were taken at the Newcastle session on 3rd Feb, and with the permission of the members included, we are happy to reproduce some of them here. See the gallery above.

The picture shown is from the Newcastle session, 3rd Feb this year. Keyring member Paddy is seen acting during the afternoon workshop.

North Tyneside Financial Inclusion. - 20th February 2009

On 24th February we commenced working with North Tyneside Financial Inclusion Team, with a performance of 'One Family's Story' at the Cedarwood Trust, in Meadowell, North Shields. We had a great time. Thanks to Margaret and the team at Cedarwood, and to Katheryn, Tony and Julie from North Tyneside. We'll be performing at six other venues in North Tyneside soon. Keep watching.

New Project Receives 'Go Ahead' - 12th November 2008

Shontal are delighted to announce the go-ahead of our new project, regarding 'Affordable Credit.' The script has been commissioned by Blyth Valley Housing, will be developed over the next 3 to 4 weeks and will be ready for preview in December. More news to follow.

Launch Event - 12th September 2008

We are delighted to be holding our official Launch event in association with Barclays Bank, at Washington Arts Centre, Biddick. Shontal would like to thank Gentoo for hosting our launch event, which is in addition to our partnership on financial literacy / inclusion work to date.

Further Work With Blyth Valley Housing - 13th August 2008

Following a meeting with Graham Brewis, Financial Inclusion Manager at Blyth Valley Housing, we are hoping to work on a new project soon, in relation to 'Affordable Credit.' Graham has been a close supporter of our work throughout 2008, and we are delighted to have the opportunity to pursue an ongoing working relationship.

Please contact us with any comments or suggestions in relation to 'Affordable Credit.'

New Photos In Gallery Section - 12th August 2008

Please see new pictures in our gallery section. Many thanks to Mark Wilkinson at markwilkinsonphotography.com for pictures 2, 3 and 4.