Opportunities

Support Us

Trestle is a charity with no regular public funding. There are five full-time members of staff who run our busy building in St Albans, Trestle Arts Base and enable innovative participatory work and unique educational resources to be delivered weekly across the UK and internationally.

We rely on the goodwill of our volunteers to help with local marketing, maintaining Trestle Arts Base and staffing events; we are actively looking for more people to help us as volunteers. Trestle is seeking fresh funding streams and partnership opportunities. We welcome donations to support our creative work to engage children, young people and adults. 

If you would like to find out more about our creative programmes, artistic legacy or community projects, please contact:

Clare Winter
Executive Director
T: +44 (0) 1727 850950
E: clare@trestle.org.uk

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Job Opportunities

Trestle Resident Artist / Company

Following the success of our previous Artist in Residence schemes supporting Divya Kasturi Dance (22/23) and Jenny Ayres (23/24) Trestle Theatre are pleased to announce that applications for their Artist / Company in residence for 2025 will open in November 2024.

About the Opportunity

Each year Trestle Theatre welcomes a Resident Artist / Company to Trestle Arts Base in St Albans to complement our education and outreach offer and support the development of other local artists. We are looking for performance-based artists in theatre, dance or multidisciplinary performance practice who are local to Hertfordshire or feel they represent a specific audience in Hertfordshire. This is a year-long residency running from the 1st January to the 31st December 2025. The exact details will be decided upon with the successful company / artist based on their proposal of what they want to achieve.

We can offer:

  • Free rehearsal space.

  • Creative Mentoring.

  • Dramaturgical support.

  • Support with Funding applications.

  • Opportunities to work with our Youth Theatre to test educational programmes.

  • Opportunities to work with our Community Groups.

  • Marketing support.

  • Budgeting assistance

  • The opportunity to present a work in progress performance of new work. (Please be aware this will usually take place during school holidays to work around the other commitments of the building)

Please note there is no financial sum offered through this opportunity but the option to ticket events can be agreed as part of the agreement.

To Express an Interest

Please email admin@trestle.org.uk with the following.

  • A C.V. and a description of your company. (Please include any filmed footage, portfolios or websites where appropriate)

  • A short biography of everyone that will be involved in the residency (if known).

  • A description of how you would like to use this opportunity. Please tell us about what you are working on, why you want to do this in St Albans

  • Hertfordshire and what you hope to achieve during the residency. This should be no more than 1 side of A4.

  • A description of how your work links in to education and outreach or wellbeing.

Terms and Conditions

You must be over 18
You must have public liability insurance
You must be DBS checked or willing to be DBS checked if you plan to work with any of our groups.

Trestle Gallery – Artist Residency

Next submissions open in May 2024 for residencies beginning in 2025

We’re inviting expressions of interest from local and county-wide artists for a new opportunity to exhibit their work at Trestle Arts Base.

We would offer an attractive 12-16 week slot in our Gallery, situated within our lively Café, with a generous amount of wall space using our new hanging system for no cost. You’d also be more than welcome to rotate your work throughout this time.

In return for the use of the Gallery space, we’re looking to hear from artists who are passionate about wellbeing and would be interested in running creative workshops for the community during your exhibition period. We’re happy to discuss what format these could take!

Artists would need to be DBS checked and have the appropriate insurances in place.

For more information about this opportunity and an informal chat about how this might work for you, do get in touch.

We would love to hear from you!

Please contact the Gallery Programmer (working day is a Friday) on gallery@trestle.org.uk

Work Placements

“Thank you for taking my daughter under your wing, she has truly grown in confidence in the past couple of weeks.”
— Duke of Edinburgh volunteer parent.

Trestle is occasionally able to offer work placements, including work experience and the Duke of Edinburgh award. These placements are between 1-12 weeks and are generally office-based and involve assisting in participation projects and/or marketing campaigns.

If you are interested, please email a copy of your CV to takingpart@trestle.org.uk, as well as a cover letter that explains to us:

  • When and for how long you would like your placement to be?

  • Which part of Trestle’s work you are particularly interested in and what experience do you have?

  • What do you hope to get out of your placement.

Volunteers

Trestle Arts Base is looking for volunteers to join its friendly team. From becoming a front of house usher to distributing posters, helping maintain our grounds and building, our volunteers play a much-valued role in the running of the Arts Base.

  • We are currently seeking volunteers to help us maintain the grounds at Trestle Arts Base and test our emergency lighting systems. If you are interested in either of these roles please email bob@trestle.org.uk

There are lots of ways you can help; however much of your time you can give, we would love to hear from you.

Team/Group Volunteering

Our beautiful Arts Base dearly needs a new lick of paint in certain areas inside. If you are looking for a team building or team volunteering activity for half a day, a day or more, in a lovely friendly environment, then please get in touch.  We will provide tea and cakes to keep you going and if you’d like to try out our Trestle Masks and also see how they are made, we can arrange a very fun short group session before you roll your sleeves up.

Leaflet Distributors

We have occasional work distributing leaflets in the area for our shows, events and projects. If you are able to spare a few hours from time to time to distribute leaflets in your area, we’d love to hear from you!  Any petrol expenses would be covered.

To find out more about volunteer opportunities at Trestle Arts Base please email takingpart@trestle.org.uk or contact us on 01727 850950.