Our new office is used for meetings and SDEA related workshops and rehearsals. At the moment, the office is manned by SDEA committee members and is opened on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2-4 pm.
Members and the public are free to drop by to have a chat or a coffee. We are looking into engaging a full time administrator so that the office can function more efficiently.
The following article on SDEA appeared in the November 2011 journal of Associations Forum, an Australian organisation for training and educating the not-for-profit sectors in Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
A Place to Call Our Own
SDEA, the Singapore Drama Educators Association, is an advocacy and profession driven organization run by volunteers. Since its inception in 2002, its committee members have been working and holding meetings out of their homes.
After 9 years and 3 van loads of dusty documents, colourful workshop materials and archived resources, SDEA managed to secure the temporary use of a small office in the civic centre of town near museums and performance spaces. The rent was a nominal sum, but having an office space stirred up a dire need for SDEA to have its own space to help propel the association’s to its next phase of work.
Then the call from the National Arts Council came – it was an offer for subsidised housing to artists and arts groups at Goodman Arts Centre. This centre would become like a village of artists with the Council in its midst for easy individual and town hall meetings. SDEA’s committee members had all their toes and fingers crossed in the hope to be considered for a space that was 3 times over subscribed!
We are delighted to announce that SDEA officially opened its doors to its members stakeholders and friends on 11th Sept 2011 and has an official address - Goodman Arts Centre, 90 Goodman Road, Block B, #04-02. Above that, we are extremely pleased that after 9 years, our work in the advocacy of drama and professional development of drama educators has been recognised to warrant a place in Goodman Arts Centre. Our new space is now used as SDEA’s office, a space for our workshops, and a resource centre for our drama educators.
If things go as planned, we hope to set up a full time secretariat by 2012 to do more good work in the area of generating awareness of quality practices, looking into establishing a code of conduct and guidelines for ethical practice; highlighting challenges and opportunities in developments for drama education and applied drama, and to provide the platform for the sharing of resources and expertise to the artistic, education and applied theatre/drama communities in Singapore and the region.