We began by discussing the projects that Arts Leaders have done at Derngate and what the strengths and weaknesses of our engagement was. After talking to many theatre makers and directors, we found out that we should question the legacy of outreach, the way we target groups that we engage with and how we can build a foundational experience to kick start that engagement.

Looking back at our projects we saw where the weaknesses in these areas were. We looked at the T-model of engagement and how outreach can be shallow but widespread, or deep but with a limited number of people and where the pros and cons of each type of project was. We also looked at what the barriers to entering the theatre were; financial status, cultural differences and preconceptions of the experience.

Specifically with the financial viewpoint, we evaluated whether the idea of "free" tickets was one that was good. This is because the idea of something free could be off putting to some people as it de-values the experience and whether subsidised tickets would be better. However, free tickets to schools can work as it can link to the syllabus of English and theatre studies and allows all students on those courses to have an engagement at no cost.

Then, with the target groups we looked at why we should target some groups. This involved asking for audience breakdowns in the future to see what the true audience is, looking at the definable audience for the theatre and what barriers there are to booking. a proposed solution was to broaden the methods of outreach and not use the word community to isolate groups, but look at specific people.

Finally, we looked at the foundational experience and the legacy of that experience. We discovered that parachuting was something that many projects are victim, where the engagement stops and the en of the project and can leave the participants feel like there involvement was wasted. To combat this we looked at continuing support for participants by giving participants access to bursary schemes and ticket offers. Then, we looked at how a one-off experience could still be engaging if it made a lasting impression and may not have been inside the theatre; the idea of a summer season at an outside space may be a good start as well as a theatre festival.

I think the lasting question from the group was, "Why are we engaging with these people?".