General Info
Keys
Quick list of all keys in use now :
Side Door Yale Side Door Mortice FoH Padlocks (Abus) Cleaning Cupboard Fringe Cupboard (Should NEVER be locked because the gas stopcock is in there) Box Office Cupboard Top Lock Box Office Cupboard Bottom Lock All these keys should be held by all committee members, in addition: Costume Cupboard Wardrobe Manager Kitchen FoH Manager Alcohol Padlocks (Large Abus) “ All four key holders should hold these keys and: Accountant's Office Door top Accountant's Office Door bottom Paint Cupboard Key safe Back Stage Exit yale (very useful during the fringe) Main Office yale (Shouldn’t get locked but there just in case) Crypt padlock All other abus padlocks
Then the Theatre Manager and Tech Manager should have: Lighting desk key Tech box cupboard Key Tech box keys
The Business Manager should have: Safe Key Business Manager’s cash box key Accountant's Office filing cabinet keys
It is also useful for as many people as possible to have keys to open the toilet roll holders, soap dispensers and outside bins. You make your life easier if you have spares of everything in the key safe so that if you forget the big bunch of keys you only need to carry a key safe key.
I tended to give mainterm stage managers both side door keys, the FoH padlock key and a key to the paint cupboard but made sure they gave a large deposit. The fringe Café Managers got the same key set as the FoH Manager and the fringe Box Office Managers got a basic set. During the fringe the Fringe Administrator becomes a key holder through the fringe and gets the Business Manager’s set. The term Theatre Manager must keep a set of keys through the fringe because you’re still the responsible manager.
Police - Key Holders
Key holder lists are kept at St Leonard’s Police Station and you need at least three names for them but we normally give four, the Tech Manager, Theatre Manager, Business Manager and President. You need to give full names, addresses and phone numbers. These are the people who’ll get phone calls if the police/fire need access for some reason in the middle of the night. The key holders should be able to get anywhere in the building.
Teviot Key
In the past side door keys were kept at Teviot House and this practice has recently been returned to. The procedure is that someone signs the key out and leaves their matric card, opens the door to let their cast in and then returns the key immediately. Seems simple you think but on the first day of having a key there a committee member (Who should have their own key anyway) waited at least 24 hours before returning the key and then returned his house key so that when the next person came to try and get in they called me to say the door was broken. I was slightly unimpressed when I found out what happened. Luckily I was on my way to the theatre when I got the phone call but was probably a bit too nasty to the poor people in Teviot House until I caught up with the key. Since then I made a really big key fob with Bedlam written on it to stop people doing this again but I’m sure it won’t work.
Fire measures
Bedlam has eight extinguishers, six water and two CO2 which are checked every so often by the university. The CO2 extinguishers can be found beside the fuse cupboard and on the wall of the tech box. The water extinguishers are 1. Stage left wall 2. Stage right wall 3. Stage right stairwell 4. In the café 5. in the toilet corridor 6. On the balcony beside the SL door. If you find someone’s played with one (Or actually had to use it on a fire) phone the university fire people and get it refilled immediately cos otherwise we’re in breach of our license.
The fire alarm should be replaced according to the university, and the want one linked to the fire brigade. So far they’ve done nothing about it but they really should get reminded. I’m not sure if I like the idea of being linked to the fire brigade, especially with what happens when I cook. The fire alarm should be tested weekly and the log book in the back of the Safety manual filled in. Break glass points can be found beside the side entrance, beside the back stage exit, in the café and beside the door to the toilet corridor. There should be some spare glass panels somewhere. The fire alarm is of little actual use because the only sounder is in the dressing room and most people don’t know what it means. There is a flashy red light in the auditorium and this is one of the main reasons for having an indoor hall keeper. The alarm panel sometimes shows a fault but you just reset it when you walk past. You test the fire alarm by first pushing the sound alarms button on the box, then you silence the alarm and press reset. Then you tell everyone in the building that you’re testing the alarms and see if they noticed the first test. Then you go round each break glass point in turn using the test key to set them off without breaking the glass. The alarm needs silenced and reset each time and it’s a but tedious unless you’ve got a friend who can turn it off for you. The fire inspector will check the log book when he comes round.
The maintained lighting lighting is the responsibility of the university buildings people and the do come in and change bulbs reasonably frequently. It is still a good idea to perform a “Simulated mains failure” before is happens in the license inspection just to be sure. To do this you just pull the big lever in the fuse cupboard and everything will go dark. Basically the emergency lights should allow any audience to leave by any of the fire exits with some illumination from any of the audience areas. There are no emergency lights in the dressing room although I am looking into this.
We buy flame proofing solution from Blacklight and it costs about £5 a litre, you will probably find that you need to buy it for mainterms and then charge however much they use to their budget.
