Established in 1974, Fresh Futures is a regional charity that supports vulnerable and disadvantaged children and young people, and their families, within Kirklees and surrounding areas. Their vision is for all young people to have opportunities for a better life, now and in the future.
The aim is to ‘Improve lives and Inspire change’ through their four interwoven strands of work – Education, Health & Wellbeing, Employability & Skills, and Relationships – which all help to drive equality of opportunity and social justice forward – empowering individuals to make positive life choices and be the best they can be.
They provide early interventions and medium to longer-term support for children and those in a child’s circle of influence who are facing challenges with their social, emotional, and mental health – meaning Fresh Futures are experts in dealing with the difficult everyday issues they face.
They listen, they respect, they include, and they care. And through the work that they do, they aim to make a positive and lasting difference for the people they support.
https://www.freshfutures.org.uk/
Our first contact with Fresh Futures was back in February 2023 when they were still known as the Yorkshire Children’s Centre. The contact was initiated by one of the team that had heard of our work, searched us up online and then made direct contact.
With a change of staff, it was 5 months after our initial contact that we were contacted again, and this time we were informed that the Yorkshire Children’s Centre was due to be rebranded as Fresh Futures, and would be celebrating their 50th anniversary in 2024.
When they were established 50 years ago, their vision was simple: to support vulnerable and disadvantaged children in Kirklees. Over recent years, the remit has diversified, and they provide many more services. From their work with young people at their alternative education provision through to running alternative education provision, their services are more holistic today, than ever before.
The 50th anniversary, coupled with a rebranding and a redefining of their service offering, meant that this seemed to be the perfect time for us to get involved and help.
My initial meeting was on October 31st, 2023. Fresh Futures is located very close to Huddersfield train station, in fact the building is an old railway hangar that services the trains. It has a huge open area downstairs and then lots of rooms on the next few floors.
We viewed various areas but nothing really stood out as a natural room to install a cinema room into. However, and after some discussion, we agreed to work with a large room that was able to be split into two smaller rooms with the use of central dividers. With the screen being placed on the bottom wall it allowed for an audience of a few people up to over one hundred so allowed use for family film time or such things as large scale presentations and sporting events.
With over 20 different charity groups regularly visiting Fresh Futures we knew the room would be used almost every day so it was important that the room was flexible to suit the varying needs of the audience.
One of the challenges was the audio provision as the room had a high ceiling and hard walls but this was always going to be a solution to be found by the installer!
With the installation being in Huddersfield it was important to find a good local installer who could project manage the installation and of course offer the post installation back up as well.
With Matt Nimmons and Steve Carter at CEDIA ‘in our corner’ I approached them for any suggestions and as a result I was delighted to chat with Richard Chadwick of Audiovation. Richard has a retail outlet very close to Fresh Futures so it was a quick and easy decision for him to commit to help project manage this installation.
Richard first visited Fresh Futures in January 2024 and with his expertise and experience quickly had a vision of what could be created, and what would be needed to make it happen.
As with any Together For Cinema installation we are reliant on the goodwill and generosity of the industry, and this was no exception. There was however one large request that I feared we might not be able to satisfy…
With the room being quite large we needed some speakers that could deliver to a ‘comprehensive’ level whilst still maintaining the quality and detail required. Richard, the installer, asked if I might be able to get hold of a particular Bowers and Wilkins speaker package. As always I said I’d try…
After various communications with both the manufacturer and the distributor (AWE Europe) I’m delighted to say that Bowers and Wilkins were able to donate exactly what we were hoping to secure. A huge thank you to Paul Bartlett (B&W) and Stuart Tickle (AWE) for helping to make this happen.
Of course there are other companies that generously donated including Crestron, Epson, Peerless, Snap One and Sony, all contributing to help create a high quality cinema room that will be enjoyed by so many people for many years to come.
Tuesday 18th November, 2024.
Friday 28th November, 2024.
It was wonderful that Fresh Futures laid on a special opening event of the cinema room complete with drinks, hot dogs, popcorn and mince pies, along with about 25 children and their parents. This was at 4.30pm on Monday 9th December. Sadly, with the location, the timing and of course with December being such a busy month, it was only myself, Richard Chadwick and his colleague Matthew that were able to attend from the industry, though this didn’t dampen our spirits at all…
With a showing of the latest Grinch film scheduled Katie Shephard (from Fresh Futures) and myself said a few words to the excited audience. It was quickly very clear that ‘less is more’ and both Katie and I kept things very brief so that the film could start as soon as possible.
With popcorn at the ready and drinks carefully placed the film began and the noisy audience were soon immersed in what was a first time ‘home cinema’ type experience for most of them. I even heard one Mum say words to the effect of ‘this is incredible - I can’t believe this has been given to us to use anytime we want to. The kids are going to love it!’ Lovely words to hear and great to know that the combined efforts of the AV industry will be appreciated, and enjoyed.
”To come”
Richard Chadwick, Managing Director, Audiovation
”Fresh Futures is absolutely delighted with our new cinema installation. Many of the children, young people and families that we work with are disadvantaged and struggling with the cost of living crisis so luxuries such as cinema trips are not possible for them. Having a cinema onsite means we’ll be able to provide an amazing experience free of charge to them, creating memories that will last a lifetime. Huge thanks on behalf of Fresh Futues to everyone who was involved in the process for making it happen for our families”
Katie Shephard, Head of Income and Engagement, Fresh Futures
THANK YOU…, you have helped make a real difference at Fresh Futures, and in turn, will make a lasting difference to so many people’s lives.
One of the ‘challenges’ of having an excellent installer project managing our installations is that the kit list is generally comprehensive, and quite often, high value. This does of course end up giving the venue a wonderful room that is appreciated for many years to come, and this is our ultimate drive. The downside is that sometimes we have to work very hard to secure the right products!!
For Fresh Futures, with the equipment, the installation services of Audiovation and all the sub-contractor’s help, the end result was fantastic, and had a ‘had it been paid for’ value of in the region of £30,000. This is clearly not a luxury that many, if any, charities can afford so for our industry to enable this is a wonderful gift, and one that will keep on giving for many years to come.
This was Together for Cinema’s 51st good cause cinema room installation and helped take the Together for Cinema good cause community delivery to over £1.3m worth of installations, had they all been paid for.
For Richard Chadwick, to bring the cinema experience in house at Fresh Futures is a great gift that will be used and enjoyed by so many children and their families for many years to come, and, importantly, will help make many happy, and very treasured, memories… It’s made all the more special to Richard as Fresh Futures is only a few minutes walk away from his retail outlet in Huddersfield.
I hope the ‘feel good’ factor for all involved in such a project, and making a difference to so many lives, is worth more than any payment.
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For further details please contact Ian Morrish at:-
Work: 01372 454366 ♦ Mobile: 07768 398007 ♦ Email: ian@ad-con.uk
www.togetherforcinema.co.uk
Report Created by Ian Morrish. All quotes to be from Ian Morrish, unless otherwise stated.
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