A Little Bit About Me I don’t have a long list of qualifications, I didn’t go to a fancy drama school, I don’t have an agent – I’ve just got myself and my passions.  This is my chance to give you a glimpse of who I am as a person, and why I have the audacity to say I can do all these things! And hopefully why it’s so important to me.
Despite singing in choirs throughout my school years, I’ve never done traditional music grades. At high school, I’d asked our music teacher if she would be willing to give me peripatetic singing lessons, as I didn’t much care for clarinet or violin and that’s what was available to free-school meals kids! Her answer: “Oh, I don’t think it’s worth it with you Charlotte.” Ouch! That stays with you!
However, you know how we all have that one teacher who changes everything for you? Along came Miss Sarah Alborn, who cast me in lead roles at Guthlaxton Performing Arts College in Wigston, such as; Narrator in Joseph, Anita in West Side Story and Mrs Johnstone in Blood Brothers. She believed in me when I didn’t and I will never be able to thank her enough. I started believe in myself. And I fell in love with it, all of it. Sarah also gave me opportunities to direct, allowing me into GCSE drama classes during my free periods and trusting me to lead the after-school drama club for 2 years when I finished Sixth Form. I stage managed the next two productions of Little Shop Of Horrors and Me & My Girl.
For someone who loves theatre so much, you might wonder why I didn’t go to drama school. Well, the short answer is – Money. I’m from a divorced family, we simply didn’t have the money, it didn’t seem worth even auditioning when I knew I couldn’t go. 
I began my working life as a ‘Saturday Girl’ at a well-known fashion chain that rhymes with Liver Diamond. I learned a lot about people working in customer services, the good and the bad! I learned patience, negotiation and teamwork – followed by leadership, as I worked my way up to middle management. I was really proud of what I achieved there but there was no room for creativity. Instructions came from head office, even in terms of visual merchandising and how to dress the mannequins. I was very unsatisfied, so as I had now earned my own money and supported myself, I thought now was the time to go to Uni. However, after 6 months at Hull College (Lincoln Uni) studying performing arts at a lower level than I had studied at college, unqualified tutors and fellow students, writing our first show and getting no extra credit for it – and then my flat getting burgled, I came home and had a kitchen-floor reset. No-one from the college made any attempt to get me back onto the course, they had my money, they didn’t care about me. 
So I walked away with nothing but a bit of debt and feeling like a failure. And what did I find waiting for me when I got home? Theatre! 
I started performing with local amateur societies, got a job at every theatre who were recruiting, had a few small contracts teaching drama groups or leading workshops. I also joined a 10-piece band as their lead singer, leaving with 15 years of experience singing live at a multitude of events and a Husband – I married our sax player – (he had sax appeal!)
After a few months of licking my wounds and wondering what on earth I was going to do for the rest of my life, I got a job at a Primary School and spent 5 wonderful years marvelling at how brilliant tiny people are – and how absolutely impossible it is to ‘save’ all of them. (but you never stop trying/hoping!)
 I began as a teaching assistant then became the after-school club co-ordinator and an SEN intervention officer, with a specialism in Autism. I was designing and delivering specialist classesto support students with areas they struggled with, including hand writing, maths, socialising and English as a Second Language. A new opportunity to become a Learning Mentor and Cover Supervisor at a rural college gave me even more strings to my bow, designing courses and workbooks for my own lessons as well as some of the tutors. More practice dealing with different kinds of people, compromise, how to motivate disengaged young people and also looking at them as whole humans, not just a student on a course. I realised how much I care about the wellbeing of the people I work with, not just of what I’m “paid” to be doing. 
I hope I was able to have as much impact on some of my students as my favourite teacher had on me. (But you don’t get them all!) 
At the end of this contract, an opportunity to be a receptionist at Attenborough Arts Centre came along and I snapped it up. 
Organisation?  Love it! Helping People? When can I start? New creative activities every single day? SOLD!
I still work there, and have worn MANY caps – duty manager, venue officer, senior administrator, team leader, audience engagement and development, social co-ordinator and oracle of where everything is and how most of it works! I also became the Director of Movers Theatre Company, which continues to be a challenge and an inspiration in equal measure. I found a second family with 14/48: The World’s Quickest Theatre Festival, which has given me 10 years of practice in producing theatre where you trust yourself and your collaborators
and you “make a damn play!” 14 of them in 48 hours, from scratch. My Musical Theatre home is Leicester Amateur Operatic Society and they are supporting me with even more opportunities to learn and grow after I joined their committee. And I’m now a full member of Leicester Drama Society at The Little Theatre. 
Which brings me to today….
Writing this blurb for my first ever website, still trying to figure out what on earth I’m going to do for the rest of my life – and wanting to do it all! So I am. I’m just going to do it. And I have lots of ideas of where to take this all,  but right now I’m just focusing on doing what I like to do and building this into a career – because then it doesn’t feel like work at all.
And I finish with a quote which I found when I was working at a Learning Mentor. I continue to try and spend each day making the world a nicer place to be, which sounds like a lofty ambition for an artist but seems like exactly what we all need. 
Now more than ever.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people
will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
– Maya Angelou
I will use this quote to guide my personal and professional life.