2000-2009

Radical Revival

Shifting funds away from community centres and towards 'Millenium Projects' coupled with a series of financial problems, forced Trinity to close once again in 2000, shutting its doors fo what seemed to be the last time.

Following their formation in 2001, Trinity Community Arts (TCA) set out to develop the Trinity Centre as a creative hub for East Bristol. A "Save Trinity" Campaign was launched and The Trinity Centre was re-opened by TCA in 2004.

With a strong focus on training and outreach, TCA worked with national and international promoters, film-makers, theatre producers, gardeners, and many other creative professionals, to provide a lively and varied cultural programme.

2009

We developed the building, expanded our team and took on a larger training contract for young people, as well as beginning our heritage project, What's Your Trinity Story?

2009 was truly a year of transition for Trinity.

There was a large amount of change in the board and governance, with a new board of five members elected in September.

Centre Administrators Rhiannon Jones and Karina Castro were appointed, as well as Outreach Worker Edson Burton, Research Assistant Annie Berrie and five young people taking on part-time roles as part of the Future Jobs Fund.

Improvements and renovations were made to the facilities - including redecorating the main hall space and building an additional training room upstairs - thanks to the support of volunteers from Leyhill HMP.

Some of the most notable gigs from national promoters included Animal Collective, with their album launch in March and a compelling performance from Daniel Johnston supported by Laura Marling in December.

We continued to work with local promoters, with a regular programme of dub reggae nights led by Teachings in Dub. Patchwork also grew substantially this year - with their Dubstep nights - providing an opportunity for up-and-coming Dub DJs and MCs and run in accordance with their motto “for the music, not the money” - becoming more and more popular.

The year was rounded off with a New Year's Eve Masked Ball - a skiffle-dub soundclash featuring The Rinky Dinks and Smith and Mighty feat. MC Kelz.

2008

Among a great lineup of events, Trinity expands its training facilities and courses and hosts the amazing Bristol Sound Project

2008 was a year of rapid growth for the organisation.

The building of the long awaited Recording Studio was finalised, part funded by a grant from Bristol Objective 2.

We played host to 49 live music events - notable performances of the year included Travis, Glasvegas, The Kills and Laura Marling.

Our staff numbers grew from one full time member to three key posts - Project Coordinator, Nick Young and Training Coordinator Katie Pearce, joining Emma Harvey the Activities Coordinator for the Centre.

We ran over 200 workshops and training sessions, either as part of our training programme or through our various projects such as the Bristol Sound Project, First Light Movies Project and Project Respect. We also developed our own IT Linux distribution Trubuntu.

In September, Bristol City Council acknowledged Trinity as one of twenty Key Arts Providers within the city.

In December, following a series of workshops for young people based on the history of the Trinity Centre funded by Heritage Lottery Fund, we delivered our first ever site-specific performance, At Tether's End.

2007

Ongoing development works for the Access to Training Project, a grant from Heritage Lottery Fund and live music performances throughout the year, including The Good, The Bad, The Queen

2007 saw our music calender growing, with performances from The Good the Bad and the Queen and Willy Mason.

Kieran Doswell resigned as Centre Manager in May, after four years as a volunteer and seven years work to re-establish Trinity as one of Bristol’s best loved music venues and community centres.

New Centre Manager Matthew Hewitt worked on the ongoing Access to Training Project, supported by funds from Bristol Objective 2 and YANSEC. The works brought the upper floor of the Centre back into use. Works included the installation of a wheelchair-accessible lift, toilet facilities for disabled users upstairs and installation of training spaces, as the first phase of a wider renovation process.

Our website was redesigned and relaunched thanks to a grant from the Quartet Community Foundation.

July saw the arrival of new Activities Coordinator Emma Harvey and the sad passing of founding member Nick Fyfe in November.

In November 2007 Trinity was granted £25,000 from Heritage Lottery Fund to begin the year long Bristol Sound Project.

2006

The establishment of a training programme for young people and the securing of funding to begin the development of the upstairs hall spaces as part of the Access to Training Project

A wealth of national and international acts performed live, including Zion Train, Paolo Nutini, Alabama 3, Babyhead, Four Tet, Aba Shanti-i, and The Easy Star All Stars.

The ongoing development of our training programme for young people was supported by a £28,000 grant to fund the year long Passion for Music Project funded by the Neighbourhood Renewal Programme. This also led to several youth-lef events, including Big Up, funded by the Lottery's Big Boost fund.

At the end of 2006 Trinity was granted £50,000 by Bristol Objective 2 to support the development of facilities for the Access to Training Project. In addition, £7,500 was offered by YANSEC, and £7,000 from Bristol City Council's Equalities Unit in support of the project.

2005

Performances from Anthony and The Johnsons and the cementing of ideas to develop the upstairs hall spaces into training spaces for local young people

Trinity hosted a total of 53 public entertainments events including Joanna Newsom, Anthony and The Johnsons, Eat Static, Devendra Banhart, Four Tet and The Proclaimers.

Centre Administrator Mel West was joined by Training Coordinator Ines Hughes on a twelve month contract to expand Trinity's training programme for young people.

In the 2005 annual report, commenting on the potential for the upstairs hall space, Ines said:

"enormous stained glass windows, a ceiling height of over 10 metres, an arresting graffiti art partition wall and an echo to die for! It was floundering under the weight of too much junk, stored in a cavernous space which couldn’t be easily heated, had a bare concrete floor, no proper lighting, desperately needed some building work - and so for all of these reasons, wasn’t properly used."

And so began the ideas to develop the upstairs hall spaces to create usable training spaces and improve access for all Centre users.

2004

The Trinity Centre is re-opened by Trinity Community Arts

After laying dormant for almost three years, Trinity was reopened for community use in April, using internal revenue and a grant of £30,000 from Easton and Lawrence Hill Neighborhood Renewal Fund.

The arrival of Administrator Melanie West saw Trinity focusing on developing the Centre as a community resource, delivering several community fêtes, fundraisers and a visit from The London Philharmonia, who travelled to the Centre October to produce original music with young people from the Remix Project.

Refurbished, rewired and reinstated, the downstairs hall of the Trinity Centre hosted its official relaunch gig on 1 October. The opening night was attended by many of the musical luminaries of Bristol. After years of closure, the re-opening of Trinity was an emotional event, a night which will long be remembered - and many of those present will attest the general feeling that a landmark of the Bristol scene had been restored to its rightful place in the hearts and minds of the people.

The relaunch was overshowed in the media by the tradgic shooting of two women who were dumped outside a Trinity Road Police Station, after being shot in a car in St George in the early hours of 2 October.

2003

The Trinity Centre comes back into the hands of the community and the firming up of Trinity's policies and plan for the coming years

Trinity Community Arts Ltd secured use of the Trinity Centre on 1 September 2003. The board was led by a team of community activists, most notibly Kieran Doswell and Nick Fyfe who also worked previously establishing other community projects such as the St Werburghs Community Farm.

2002

Trinity Community Arts Ltd was officially constituted in November

Nick Fyfe leads the newly formed Trinity Community Arts Limited in developing policies, bidding for Neighbourhood Renewal funding and negotiating with Bristol City Council to secure a lease to reopen the Trinity Centre.

2001

The Save Trinity campaign is launched to reopen the centre

Much community campaigning occurred, including the launch of a save-trinity.co.uk webpage. Following the closure of the Centre, there were several interested parties vying for a lease for the space, including Scout Enterprises and Avon and Somerset Constabulary. There was much community feeling around the space and it was clear that a company had to be formed that was reflective of these interests.

2000