The Lorrie Gardner UNIMA Australia Biennial Scholarship

2023 Applications are now OPEN
To be eligible, an applicant must be a continuous financial member of UNIMA Australia for at least 2 years. To join, please visit our membership page.

Or contact our Membership Secretary, Katherine Hannaford, via our Contact form.

Application Information Guidelines

Closing date: Friday 31st March, 2023

Scholarship amount: Up to $2,500 AUD
Projects must start no earlier than 25th April, 2023.

Successful applicants will be notified by 14th April, 2023.

Please send your application to the General Secretary, Kay Yasugi at secretary@unima.org.au. She will forward them to the Scholarship Committee: Sue Wallace, Joanne Foley, and Murray Raine.

On that note, we welcome Murray Raine to the Scholarship Committee for UNIMA Australia. He is taking on the role from Philip Millar, who is now the President of UNIMA Australia.

We thank Philip for his many years serving on the Scholarship Committee, and we also thank Sue and Joanne for their continued work.

About the Scholarship
Lorrie Gardner of Gardner’s Puppet Theatre was a longstanding and active member of UNIMA Australia. She was President for 3 years until illness forced her to retire in 2004. In 2005 Lorrie Gardner bequeathed a substantial contribution to the fund and the renaming of the scholarship fund is to honour not only her financial contribution but her artistic contribution as an outstanding puppetry practitioner, teacher and colleague. The Scholarship Fund has been created through the individual contributions of members, and supported by further donations from the Gardner family. 
 
Purpose of the Scholarship
The purpose of the scholarship is to assist the development, evolution and growth of Australian puppetry arts & culture by benefiting UNIMA Australia Inc. members.  All activities, projects and situations must be puppetry oriented.
 
The Scholarship is offered to individual puppetry practitioners to further develop their puppetry practice.

Scholarship Guidelines
The scholarship can be used toward tuition costs or travel expenses to attend training institutions, workshops, appropriate festivals, etc. or to work with a specialist teacher.

It can also be used towards the costs of bringing a specialist teacher to work with an individual member or group of members or for any other activity that the scholarship committee deems worthy.

The grant can be for in-person or online training/projects.
 
It cannot be used for production costs or capital purchases.
 
Who is eligible?
Applicants must be Australian citizens or Permanent Residents.
 
Applicants must have been continual financial members of UNIMA Australia for a minimum of 2 years up to the closing date of the application. In the event of a group application, all members of the group must be UNIMA Australia Inc. members (with at least one participant being a continuous financial member for 2 years at the time of application).
 
Members of UNIMA Australia Inc. executive and scholarship committee members are not eligible to apply during their terms of office.
 
How to apply

  1. Check your eligibility. If in doubt about the length of your membership contact the UNIMA Australia Membership Secretary, Katherine Hannaford, by email to membership@unima.org.au
  2. Check that the proposed project meets the guidelines. If in doubt contact Sue Wallace from scholarship committee (spuppet@ozemail.com.au)
  3. Clearly articulate your proposal in writing in a maximum of 2 pages.
  4. If you are applying to attend a course or festival include source material about the course or festival e.g. festival program, web site link, course brochure etc.
  5. If you are applying to work with a specialist teacher/artist please check with the scholarship committee if you need to include a CV for that artist.
  6. Provide a 1 page CV for each member applying highlighting information relevant to this application.
  7. Provide a project budget detailing the Scholarship proponent.


 
Acquittal
Successful applicants must submit a report of their scholarship project no later than 6 weeks after completion of the project. Visual illustration should be attached, including photos, drawings &/or video .  This report will be published on-line and/or in print and also circulated to members. Reports must be sent by email to the General Secretary, Kay Yasugi at secretary@unima.org.au


Previous Recipients of the Lorrie Gardner Scholarship