NEWS & EVENTS
Hot Off The Press
Fresh in the Harrogate Advertiser today, editorial covering the HOPS Centenary Masquerade Ball and what we are brewing up next for 2025!
Grab your copy today
Following the truly amazing response to our launch night for our next production ‘The Witches of Eastwick’ we have had to close the registrations for the parts of Alexandra, Jane & Suki (the Witches) due to the overwhelming interest in the parts.
So sorry if you have missed out. Registrations for all other parts is still open until 12 October.
If you have already registered then this does not affect you or your final choices to be made on your audition form.
HOPS Summer BBQ
What a glorious afternoon we had on Saturday 10th August 2024, with plenty of sunshine, games, food and great laughs.
Thank you Georgie and John Gladwyn for hosting, especially to John who was a master on the BBQ and even taught everyone how to play croquet.
Congratulations to Georgie Gladwyn for receiving her 20 years NODA medal and Toni Bedford for receiving her 5 years NODA medal.
Fresh On This Morning’s Print
Editorial out in the Harrogate Advertiser today all about the Centenary Celebrations Afternoon from a couple of weeks ago
Centenary Concert Performers
Thank you so much to our fantastic members who performed in Act One & Act Two of the Centenary Celebrations Afternoon Tea Concert The audience heard songs from past & present and they were also taken on a journey through 100 years of HOPS with narration from Chris Cowling & newspaper clippings which had been dug out of the archives.
Special thank you to the creative team who put this performance together:
Clare Pascall - Director of Act 1
Hannah Thomson - Chorus Master of Act 1
Lucy Thackwray - Choreographer of Act 1
Richard Lill - Wardrobe
Christine Littlewood - Director of Act 2
Huge thank you again and we hope you enjoyed the show!
Stand Up At The Cinema
Cast and crew had an exclusive viewing of the latest production ‘Made In Dagenham’ and it was held at the Everyman Cinema Harrogate. It was wonderful to be reunited again and to have the chance to reminisce over the memories of being back in Dagenham
NODA Medals Awarded
It has been an exciting couple of weeks handing out some NODA medals for expressing gratitude towards amateur theatre in any society.
Chairman Richard Lill & current member Ruth Graham were presented by the NODA President with their 30 years medal during show week of ‘Made In Dagenham’.
Yesterday during the celebrations - members were presented with 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years and 35 years was awarded to Pat Harrison, one of our life members.
Congratulations to you all and here is to many more years (and possibly more medals to add to the collection).
Centenary Celebrations - Tomorrow!
What have these 2 familiar faces discovered in this giant birthday present? The cast of the Centenary Celebrations Concert will be entertaining HOPS members from past, present and future tomorrow with songs from the shows.
We can not wait to show you what we have worked on and celebrate 100 years of success.
Centenary Celebrations - Movement
Last night the cast worked extremely hard, a lot of information and dance moves were thrown at them and they handled it all very well.
Clare & Lucy worked together to give everyone an idea on where everyone is standing, moving and singing.
Only 1 more rehearsal to go until the celebrations kick off on Sunday.
Last Week Of Rehearsals - 6 days to go!
Counting down the days to when we get to show off to our members, old and new, what we have put together to celebrate 100 years of HOPs! The cast have been working very hard in a short space of time and it will be well worth it on Sunday afternoon
4 rehearsals down, 2 to go!
Centenary Celebrations Halfway Point
The cast were certainly put through their paces last night with very tricky songs with high level harmonies but Hannah was full of praise and everyone should be proud of themselves on they have achieved so far.
Not long until we move onto movement setting with Lucy Thackwray, as our choreographer .
3 rehearsals down, only 3 more to go!
Centenary Celebrations Rehearsals
It was ladies night last night at rehearsal, they worked hard cracking down on some harmonies and Hannah is making sure they feel confident ready for the concert.
This is such a special way to celebrate 100 years and the excitement is building up in the rehearsal room.
2 rehearsals down, only 4 more to go!
Centenary Celebrations Rehearsals
Last night, members old and new gathered together for their first rehearsal for the Centenary Celebrations Concert.
It was lead by Director Clare Lucy who has written and produced a script for the concert which is full of history of our society and the vocals were put to the test with Chorus Master Hannah Thomson.
The next 3 weeks are going to be so much fun!
Thank You Everyone
We are officially closing down the Bed Race donations page that was raising money for our Charity of the Year - Reflect
We are proud to share with you that was have raised an incredible amount of £715! This is fantastic and thank you so much to those who donated over the last few weeks you are all amazing and we could not thank you enough!
Your money is going towards hiring rooms and providing services to families who need support throughout their baby loss trauma. This going to change a lot of people’s lives and it’s a fantastic feeling.
Thank you again!
HOPS Have Made The Press
Review by Deana Morgan
Photo credit - Stage Shots Photography
Grab your copy of the Harrogate Advertiser today!
Bed Race Tomorrow!
We wish the runners of Team HOPS the best of luck in tomorrow’s The Great Knaresborough Bed Race , bed number 79 and running in aid of Reflect we have raised £300 so far and our target is £500! Please donate to this amazing organisation, the money goes towards room hire and services for families who need support with baby loss trauma.
http://www.justgiving.com/page/teamhops2024-bedrace
Thank you to our life members Pat & Terry Harrison for this lovely good luck card.
If you’re there tomorrow, cheer us on and give all the support the team deserves.
Rita All About It!!
Check out our final newspaper interview for ‘Made In Dagenham’ season - Jordan Rhodes giving us the low down on playing the lead role of Rita O’ Grady & why our Charity of the year Reflect, is important to her.
Grab a copy of the Harrogate Advertiser today to read the full article.
Team HOPS are here!
Bed Number 79, fantastic parade float made by Stephen Graham and it’s the 1600E Ford Cortina
Come down to support us and please donate to Reflect today!
A Week Today!
This time next week Team HOPS will be racing around Knaresborough along side over 80 other teams and competing in The Great Knaresborough Bed Race
Running in aid of Reflect
Let’s use this week to send the team lots of support with words of encouragement, cheering and donating to the link below
Volunteering At Park Run
We are sad to announce that a HOPs Friend & Member - Mark Smith passed away yesterday in the early hours of the morning, after battling with Lymphoma.
He was an inspiration to us all with all his dedication to charity work and encouraging people to donate their organs for transplants and for those who needed it to survive. He walked the Yorkshire 3 Peaks in 2021 to raise money for our Charity of the Year 2021 - Saint Michael’s Hospice, he played the role of Uncle Bert in ‘Kipps’ in 2020 and he was prompt for several of our productions.
Our thoughts, love and prayers go out to his family and details of his funeral will be shared when the time is right.
RIP Mark Smith.
Read All About It
Interview with the ever so funny and talented Simon Marie , is out today in the Harrogate Advertiser , talking all things Harold Wilson and ‘Made In Dagenham’
Go grab your copy today to read the full article.
Team HOPs - Bed Race Training
This week the team embraced the spring sunshine with some bed race training, even before a MID rehearsal and also with the bed! How exciting!
The donations link is live, please give generously as the proceeds go to our charity of the year Reflect and you could really make a difference to woman and families who have or are going through pregnancy loss
http://www.justgiving.com/page/teamhops2024-bedrace
Read All About It
Interview with the charming gentleman that is Gavin Mills , is out today in the Harrogate Advertiser , talking all things Mr Tooley (boo hiss) and ‘Made In Dagenham’
He even met the original actor Steve Furst who played Tooley in the West End.
Steve took time out to speak to Gavin after a Christmas run of ‘Oliver’ at the Leeds West Yorkshire Playhouse.
Spring Coffee Morning - What A Success!
Coffee morning on the 4th May 2024 was a great success, we sold out of our sandwiches, soup and nearly the cakes!
Thank you to those who came along to support us and eat all our scrumptious food and drinking the tea & coffee .
Thank you to those who volunteered throughout the day, whether that was all day, an hour or a couple of hours.
Thank you to St Peter’s Church Harrogate for having us as well.
HOPs Centenary Celebration Notice
On the 5th March 2024, we sent out e-invitations for expressions of interest, to attend and/or perform at our HOPs Centenary Celebration. This is open to all past & present friends, members and helpers of HOPs over the past 100 glorious years.
The invitations have been sent via email, if you have not received yours, check your junk folder and if there is nothing, then we apologise, as you can imagine it has been a mammoth task compiling the guest list.
Don’t worry all you need to do is email us at hello@harrogateoperticplayers.co.uk letting us know your past involvement, then once verified we will be delighted to send you an invitation.
If you have unsubscribed from our mailing list in the past unfortunately due to GDPR regulations we are not allowed to contact you without you making a new request to be added.
We can not wait to celebrate with you all!
Visit To Reflect
On Friday 26th April, our head of Marketing Lucy, made a visit to our Charity of the Year - Reflect
She ventured over to Acomb which is their headquarters, to find out more about what the charity does and how we can help them make a difference to those who need it the most. Liz and Tanya took time out to speak about how they provide a free service to mothers and families who are grieving or need to talk about their loss through miscarriages or their children who were born sleeping. Counselling services and support are crucial for those who are going through this life stage, whether it’s recent or in the last 10 years. Our fundraising goes towards hiring out rooms for counselling sections and providing services for free. Please see the information below if you’re someone going through trouble and need someone to talk to. Don’t go through this alone, you’re amazing
They are celebrating their 10th Anniversary this year too and we would love to see them thriving for another 10 more!
Our bed race donations link is now live, your generosity would be fully appreciated
Hot Off The Press
Interview with the fabulous Lisa Kos in out today in the Harrogate Advertiser , talking all things Clare and ‘Made In Dagenham’
Go grab your copy today to read the full article.
Volunteering at a Willow Tree telling a children’s story
Thank you to Clare and her sister for acting out the story ‘The Lost Happy Endings’ to the pupils at Willow Tree Primary School.
Thank you for the show shout out too!
Behind The Scenes - Taking To The Floor
The half term break flew by and before we knew it, rehearsals were back on! Jim put the cast to the test with their vocals and it was the beginning of floor rehearsals with Director/Choreographer Mike Kirkby.
This show has so many comedy elements that you would not want to miss!
If you want to head out on strike with us in the summer - Book your tickets now!
Behind The Scenes - With The Lads
This week the girls made room for the men to rehearse their songs with Musical Director - Jim Lunt. The cast are on a break for half term and will be going full steam ahead afterwards with more singing rehearsals & eventually floor setting with Mike Kirkby.
If you want to head out on strike with us in the summer - Book your tickets now!
Hot Off The Press
First HOPs editorial for the Harrogate Advertiser in 2024 about our 100 year anniversary and our next production of ‘Made In Dagenham'. It is also available to read on The Stray Ferret & Your Harrogate.
First Behind The Scenes Exclusive
The cast of ‘Made In Dagenham’ commenced their 2024 show journey in the middle of January, by gathering around the piano for a singing rehearsal with our extremely talented Musical Director - Jim Lunt.
Here we are in the Harrogate Theatre Pantomime programme of ‘Dick Whittington’
Everybody Out! MID Photo Shoot
As someone said on the day, ‘HOPs can survive anything’ and they are not wrong! Waking up to a blanket of snow meant one thing and one thing only….. let’s go do a photo shoot!
What a fun and successful day for us all, stepping back in time to 1968 at The Harrogate Studio and going on strike for our ‘Made In Dagenham’ promotional photo shoot! It was a very cold and long day but so well worth it. The management team, creative team, wardrobe, make up and the cast all worked effortlessly hard to make the day be nothing but joyful!
Huge thank you to our pro fashion photographer David Dresser for returning to HOPs for this shoot and we can not wait to show you the results.
HOPs Charity of the Year 2023/2024
HOPs are delighted to exclusively announce our Charity of the Year 2023/2024 - Reflect It was discussed amongst our Trustees and members that it was important to stick to the theme of women, who are celebrated in our upcoming production 'Made In Dagenham'.
Reflect is a free support service in North Yorkshire for anyone facing a Pregnancy Choice and for those in need of support after experiencing Pregnancy or Neonatal Loss. They primarily provide free 1-1, or couples support, for anyone who has pregnancy or baby loss through their structured support programme ‘Reflections: Walking through loss’.
As they provide all of the support free of charge, your donations would primarily go towards enabling Reflect to keep all their services free to those who need support and help them to raise awareness of Reflect. Donations enable them to rent rooms so that they can see people in-person, fund the telephone helplines and website to be easily accessible to those in need and employ staff to enable the charity to function, by providing the training and assistance for the volunteers.
Please follow and like their social media pages and visit their website for more information about their services.
Reflect: Pregnancy Choice & Loss Support (reflectsupport.co.uk)
www.facebook.com/ReflectSupport
Reflect (@reflect.support)
We will keep you updated on any fundraising events we will be hosting to help raise money for this amazing organisation.
HOPs Winter Coffee Morning
What a great day hosting a coffee morning at Wesley Chapel and the team thorough enjoyed the day!
Thank you to our helpers who came to serve, make sandwiches, make hot drinks, clean up and help promote ‘Made In Dagenham’
Thank you to our bakers who made all the delicious cakes and sausage rolls.
Most of all, thank you to our customers who came along to say hello and support the society, we highly appreciate it.
Accent Workshop Part 2 With Michael Garside
One Tuesday night, the cast of ‘Made In Dagenham’ gathered together to refresh their brains on the accent they have to work through. Mike went into the finest of details to make sure certain words were pronounced correctly, not only in the Dagenham accent but he worked with the posh accent for the factory management and the American accent for the almighty Mr Tooley.
Huge thank you again for Mike Garside for giving us his time and putting a lot of effort to help our members.
‘Made In Dagenham’ Script Read Through
The cast gathered together to read through the script of our upcoming 2024 production of ‘Made In Dagenham’ and what a fun evening we had.
The members laughed, cried, cringed and built up all the excitement to bring the characters to life. Let’s ‘Stand Up’ and get this empowering show on the road.
Accent Workshop With Michael Garside
The cast of ‘Made In Dagenham’ gathered together to embark into a very educational workshop on a Dagenham accent. It was lead by the extraordinary talent- Michael Garside who went into the technical depth of how to speak like the characters would in the show.
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the evening and it was great for the team to be together after a testing audition process.
'Made In Dagenham' Launch Night
Thank you to everyone who attended the launch evening of ‘Made In Dagenham’ and wow! What a fun evening we had!
The evening was full of information, singing, laughter, warmth and smiles.
We hope you enjoyed it as well as we did and look forward to the audition workshop on Monday 16th October!
Read All About It
Editorial for this week's
Harrogate Advertiser , starting off our 100 year anniversary in 2024 and informing of our next production of 'Made In Dagenham'. Featuring words from our wonderful President
Christine Littlewood , Musical Director Jim Lunt and Director/Choreographer Mike Kirkby
Special Announcement
HOPs are proud to present to you, our show sponsor for ‘Made In Dagenham’…….
This amazing Bradford based business provides all aspects of international freight forwarding, end to end supply chain requirements and customs compliance for companies large and small. With over 70 years combined industry knowledge and expertise in imports, exports and customs compliance they provide a transparent, efficient, cost effective and customer centric way to help businesses with all their supply chain needs
For more information on the organisation please visit - https://buff.ly/46JqvQe
Or follow them on social media -
ARC Forwarding LTD | Facebook - Facebook https://buff.ly/46Jqw6K
Thank you from Young Carers
We are delighted to share with you the amazing difference we have made to our Charity of the Year - Carers' Resource - Harrogate Young Carers.
The Bed Race team managed to raise £470, all thanks to your donations and sponsors. 2 bed race team members Sancha and Lizzie visited the Young Carers Youth Club ‘Budz’ to see how the charity works and find out where the money is going to.
The money raised is going towards 30 tickets to this years Harrogate Theatre Pantomime of Dick Whittington at Christmas what a perfect treat for the young carers of various ages.
It’s heartwarming to know what a difference we can make so thank you.
Coming Together, Supporting Together
Local societies within Harrogate and Ripon are putting on some spectacular plays and musicals starting from October 2023- you would not want to miss out on these great productions during the community theatre season.
Come along to support your local theatre companies by booking tickets at the Harrogate Theatre and enter the wonderful world of performing arts.
HOPS are on Strike!
Firstly we would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who came to support us at the Harrogate premiere of ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’. Now it’s time to pack those Toot Sweets away and we are off out on strike for our 2024 Centenary production…..
We are delighted to share with you some news for our June 2024 show. We are so excited to be putting on ‘Made In Dagenham’!
HOPs can not wait to bring this female empowering musical, based on the true events of the 1968 Dagenham equal pay strikes, where the highly skilled ladies were underpaid at the Ford factory. It’s a strong and patriotic show and you couldn’t a ‘Ford’ to miss it!
Tickets are on sale at the box office at the Harrogate Theatre
11th - 15th June 2024
https://www.harrogatetheatre.co.uk/events/made-in-dagenham/
