Well, since I last wrote, the weather has perked up rather; it’s been positively balmy. I was lucky to have a week staying in a beach hut down in Dorset. No computer, no phone, no car or TV for a week.

It was very relaxing indeed. When I came back, I had 449 emails waiting for me, ominous in their bold ‘unread’ font colour. Once I got started on them it wasn’t too bad, but it did bring into stark relief just how bound to email so many people’s work is now.

A couple of months ago I listened with admiration to Tamara Rojo, new artistic director and lead principal dancer of the English National Ballet. She was talking on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row about the challenges of combining her job as a major dance artist with running the business side of the company.

With consternation she relayed her shock at how you get an email, you answer an email and you get two back. Then you answer two and you get four back. “It’s never ending,” she said. It made me laugh in sympathy and feel a little better that even such a high profile person at the top of her tree was finding it a little overpowering. While I am by no means a world class ballet dancer (some issues with balance!) or indeed a performer myself, at Cornerstone we combine programming and developing artistically with the prosaic side of running a business catering for people coming into a public building day in day out. That’s a lot of paperwork which takes us a lot of time.

And while email is so fast, I always try to make sure that what we do is meet people and talk face to face. Obviously, we talk to our super customers every day but making the time to go out and see colleagues in the industry, performers, the media and potential customers reaps more rewards than anything else. It’s only by meeting the editor at a county cultural forum that this column came about.

By going to a networking event of theatre makers keen to work in Oxfordshire, I met a company based at Battersea Arts Centre who are going to perform their theatre piece in our ladies loos on our special birthday event (I hope you are intrigued – more in another column). And it is only by meeting and seeing performers work over the years that we are able to book our fantastic season’s programmes.

And we have got an amazing season coming up for autumn. I’ll tell you more later, but suffice to say it includes The Reduced Shakespeare Company, a specially commissioned Arts Council-funded As You Like It, Georgie Fame, Jacqui Dankworth, Mark Thomas, Gyles Brandreth, Clare Teal and loads more.

It starts booking from July 20 so don’t miss out – log on to cornerstone-arts.org to see it in all its glory or call us on 01235 515144 and we’ll post you a lovely brochure.