In common with most schools - when the Main Hall at the Sir John Leman High School was built, it was fitted with a certain amount of ‘stage’ lighting to enable drama and performances.

Unfortunately, this was done in a era when the fittings were both very expensive and very inflexible in use.

For instance - to change the ‘projected’ colour of a fitting involved using a wheeled platform some 5 or 6 metres high and climbing up with a clear coloured sheet (with the wonderful name of “Cinemoid”) of the required colour and inserting it in front of the lamp and lens - NOT something which can be done during a performance - or indeed by the Pupils - it was “call the Janitor” time.

The performing arts as taught now, require a much more flexible approach to lighting and today’s technology involves both programmable controllers and LED lighting units. Each unit contains many red, green and blue LED’s with each of these colour ‘channels’ able to be seperately controlled instantly to change the light output to more-or-less any colour.

The Staff and Pupils at the school had been fund raising for some considerable time to enable the purchase of such modern equipment, but needed around £800 to enable the purchase.

Having listened and watched a presentation at one of our twice-monthly meetings, we Lions were unanimous in approving our support to enable this purchase.

We were delighted therefore to have the opportunity to visit the School and see the equipment in action. The system is impressive and will we hope, encourage the the Pupils to indulge their creativity and achieve even greater levels of production values and performance.

Presenting the cheque - OK - it is a “staged” event!

Beccles Lion President - Chris Lambert being shown the programmable controller.