Welcome to the April edition of Ensemble. I hope you all had a lovely sunny Easter weekend.

We’re delighted to have moved into our new offices on Wolsey Walk in Woking town centre. Howard and I live in Surrey and have based our work here and in London for over two decades. When we founded ATG, the New Victoria Theatre at the Peacocks Centre and the Ambassadors Cinemas, became our very first regional venues. We later established our Head Office in the town centre.

When we started Trafalgar Entertainment in 2017, with so many new colleagues also based in Surrey, we always knew we’d love to have a presence in Woking again. Now of course, we’ve been joined by our colleagues from Stagecoach Performing Arts who were previously based in Walton-on-Thames. This is a really nice bonding development and so it feels like a homecoming for us all.

We now have two wonderful modern office spaces in London and Woking which are great platforms for our future growth. We’re truly delighted with our new home at Export House.

Thank you to Emily O’Dell who has worked tirelessly on the office move project over the past few months to ensure that the move went smoothly for everyone and to all those who worked over the weekend to get everything ready.

This month, I’d also like to give a special mention to Christina Horsepool, James Naish and Jim Bagnell from Trafalgar Studios who opened up the venue at very short notice on Mothering Sunday to accommodate nearly 300 Stagecoach students who were performing at Her Majesty’s Theatre, but needed somewhere to go for a couple of hours due to some licensing issues. Huge thanks to all three of you for changing your plans at the last minute and helping to accommodate the children.

For any Trafalgar Entertainment staff who are EEA or Swiss citizens, please note that on 30 March, the UK Government launched the EU Settlement Scheme, a simple and straightforward process for EEA and Swiss citizens and their family members who want to stay in the UK after it leaves the EU to get the UK immigration status they will need.

Applications to the Scheme are free and are made via a short online application process, with different options available for applicants to have their identity documents checked as part of their application. Further guidance is available on GOV.UK. In addition, our Group Head of HR, Emma Bennetts, can also offer advice.

Finally, we are pleased to announce that Vin Govender has joined us this week as Chief Information Officer. Vin was most recently Director of IT at the prestigious RAC Club and prior to that spent 16 years at Ambassador Theatre Group, latterly as Technology Director.  Vin will be responsible for technology, information and communication systems.  He will be based at The Strand office and will be meeting with everybody in the coming weeks. Please join us in welcoming Vin to the company.

Best wishes
Rosemary