00:00Good afternoon. My name is Phil Hewitt, Greek Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers and also
00:06Chairman of the Festival of Chichester. Now, really lovely to meet and speak to Lois Howell
00:10this afternoon. Lois is the Chief Executive at St Wilfrid's Hospice. Now, Lois, you have a really
00:16exciting, interesting proposal for next year's Festival of Chichester, which is to use some
00:22of the spaces which you have, really attractive, interesting spaces that you have at the hospice,
00:27as event venues for next year's Festival. What are the spaces you're thinking of?
00:34Absolutely, Phil. We'd love to welcome people into the hospice. One of the most beautiful areas that
00:38we can offer as an event venue is our Courtyard Garden. It's a beautiful rectangular garden,
00:46beautiful planting and surrounded by our lovely modern purpose-built venue. It is calm, it's enclosed,
00:54it's peaceful. It will be a charming, charming venue for a recital or small musical performance or even
01:04poetry or other forms of verbal recital. We've also got our Living Well Centre, which is another
01:13opportunity for performance or exhibition, which would support, I would guess, about 100 people,
01:21probably in concert seating. We could probably fit about 100 people in the Courtyard as well.
01:26And our Living Well Centre opens out onto the Courtyard, so just in case of that dreadful downpour,
01:32we can all go inside. We've got some lovely corridor space around the Living Well Centre as well that
01:39would lend itself to further supporting exhibition space. And to complement it all, we have a lovely,
01:45large reception area, seating area and the cafe area which could be used in conjunction or separately
01:52from those other two areas to welcome people to an event or even to hold event space in there as well.
01:58It sounds a fantastic range of venues and a tiny part of this is the fact that you could potentially
02:04use this as a degree of fundraising. But overall, this is about demystifying the hospice, isn't it?
02:10Taking the fear out of the hospice. Tell me more. It is, absolutely. So many people think that hospices
02:16must be dark, depressing places, perhaps with a one-way door on the front. But we really want to
02:24encourage people to understand that our hospice is light, it's bright, it's welcoming. Many people come
02:30in for outpatient appointments, for short-term admissions and then go home again. It is a place that
02:36you will hear somebody laugh within two or three minutes of being in the building is very, very
02:42welcoming. And we want people to get over the threshold, to get over their fear so that they
02:47can understand that our service is about helping people live well to the end of their life.
02:52And events could potentially have a death, dying, grief connection. But equally,
02:57you're looking for events and exhibitions which are a celebration of life, which is equally your mission,
03:02isn't it? Absolutely. We have hosted a lovely photography exhibition here once before that was
03:09life-size print photographs of people who had died with the people who had loved them,
03:16also in the photograph with their arms around the big print cut on, talking about the person who had
03:21died and how much they loved them and how much their life had meant to them. And it was a beautiful
03:27celebratory way to think about people who are dying. And that's exactly the kind of way that we would
03:32encourage people to think here, celebrate. But equally, completely open-ended.
03:37Absolutely. Absolutely. We're open to anything.
03:39Yeah. And we will open registration for events for next year's Festival of Chichester, which will run
03:44mid-June to mid-July. We'll open registration early, probably November, running through to the end of
03:52January. So it's not too early to think about venues, and especially to start thinking about
03:58St Wilfrid's as a venue for next year's Festival. It sounds potentially a hugely lovely addition to the
04:04Festival. Thank you ever so much for making that suggestion. Anyone wanting to get in touch to
04:09discuss the possibilities for that commitment, but just to see what's possible, should get in touch at
04:16marketing at stwh.co.uk, and whenever you like. Absolutely. And we look forward to hearing,
04:24we're very welcome to show people around and talk to them more about the venue. We'll get some
04:28photographs and there's lots of walkthrough tours on our website already, actually. So people may want
04:33to go and have a look on the St Wilfrid's website. Make sure it's the St Wilfrid's in Chichester.
04:37There is another St Wilfrid's office out there and have a look at the information on there.
04:42Well, it would be lovely if you really did become very, very much part of the Festival of Chichester
04:46next year. Looking forward to it. Thank you so much for the suggestion. Let's hope something happens.
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