Your reports Find reports Butterfly Snippets Butterfly Snippets Take Back Control from the Funding Bodies! I noticed that in a great many of the discussions the subject of funding came up and there was a lot of anger and upset about the funding body, the way in which funding happens, how it affects the kind of theatre that is produced and the misery of filling in forms. It seems that funding is keeping us down, disempowered and sometimes disenfranchised. So it occurred to me that perhaps we should take that power back. Why don’t we find a way to fund and support each other? At the moment each company and project is fighting for the same small portion of the pot and this way we are often in competition with each other. The great inspiration of the open space this weekend is the incredible co-operation between us. Perhaps we could set up our own kind of bank, taking inspiration from microcredit schemes in the Third World. If each organisation put a small amount in the central pot each year we would have money to lend. Or if money is a bad idea, what about a bartering system like Bartercard. We could barter services such as space, technical expertise, performance skills etc. Obviously these ideas are unformed but I am interested in ways we can take the control away from the funding bodies and bring it back to ourselves as an industry, so that every idea is supported not just the ones that tick the right politically correct boxes! Peace As I was leaving the hall on Sunday evening the security guard one the door approached me wanting to speak about things he’d observed. He is from Pakistan and he asked why there had been no discussion on the subject of promoting peace through theatre. I was very aware at that moment that there hadn’t been, and this surprised me because it’s something I’m very interested in. His idea was that a play be produced on this theme and that it should be performed in every theatre in the country at the same time on the same day! That is Brilliant!! He also asked why we weren’t discussing the war in Iraq. Perhaps we feel that we already have?