As you may have read in today's (10/11/2016) Tenbury Advertiser the Regal Tenbury now has a new manager.
As this is a job I loved doing for the last four years and because of some of the rumours circulating in town, I feel I should explain why I decided to leave.
During this year I increasingly found myself at odds with decisions being made by the Trustees and the direction they wanted the business to move.
We were also in disagreement over my contract renewal as they had declined to increase my paid hours from 30 a week to 35 as I had requested. For those who do not know I usually worked in excess of 48 hours a week and sometimes double that.
For the record: I was paid 18.75 hrs/week in 2013, 26.75 hrs/week in 2014, 30.75 hrs/week in 2015
I finally decided to leave when a Trustee, called me, amongst other things, lazy, incompetent, and responsible for putting the Regal "on it's arse" in a tirade of abuse after he had instructed me to do something that I considered unsafe and not in the best interest of either the Regal or its customers. Once this instruction was confirmed by other Trustees I felt my job had become untenable I had no option but to go.
Had I have been an employee rather than a contractor this would have been a constructive dismissal and I would have left immediately but I agreed that as I wanted the Regal to continue to thrive I would work my three months notice period to enable the trust to put a replacement management team in post, and to complete my 18th What's on brochure, which is due out at the end of this month.
In the last 12 months to the end of September we ran 49 live performances, 53 event cinema broadcasts, and 227 feature film screenings to an audience of over 21,500. In August we increased our audience numbers by 60% and our gross income by more than 70%. In October our gross turn-over exceeded £34,500 up £7,500 from the previous year.
Given these results I felt the comments about my performance where far from justified!
During my long notice period I have been overwhelmed by the good wishes from the volunteers and amazed at the number of people approaching me in the street to thank me and to wish me well. I had the opportunity tonight to thank many of the volunteers for their continued hard work and I would like to express my gratitude to all the customers who also made the job so enjoyable.
I will miss working at the Regal but I wish the Trust all the very best for the future, however I hope they don't lose sight of the good things that we have achieved.
Ian Little
General Manager
Regal Tenbury Trust
October 2012 - October 2016
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