Those who received our last newsletter might remember that we said we were going to let you know about some upcoming changes to Youth Theatre Arts Scotland membership scheme.  

Youth Theatre Arts Scotland has a distinctive role as a development body for Scotland’s youth theatre sector. We support, connect, and inspire, advocating for the vital work our sector delivers, championing the collective ambitions of our community, providing opportunities to develop practice, and supporting the sector to navigate an ever-expanding landscape of information, regulations, and processes. YTAS helps everyone move forward, together. 

Our membership scheme has always been central to this aim, but it hasn’t undergone a major update since the days before we even became YTAS, which is now much more than a decade ago. This means the structure reflects the needs of a sector from ten years ago – not the one we have today. For 2026, YTAS are refreshing our membership scheme to make it clearer, more valuable to members, easier to use, and a better fit for today’s youth theatre sector. You can see more details on the categories below. 

After more than a year of careful planning, we’ve developed a new scheme that aims to better serve all of the different types of individuals and organisations we work with. Members will continue to access the key benefits, events, and resources that they currently enjoy, together with enhanced offerings, and more streamlined membership admin.  

Where previously our categories were Individual, Registered Youth Theatre, Non-Registered Youth Theatre and Associate Member, we’re changing these to Individual, Organsation: Essentials and Organisation: Plus. This last one is broken down further based on organisation size, which will allow larger organisations to spread the benefits across more people within their team. The right membership category for you depends on how many features you’d like to access, the size of your organisation, or if you’d like to join as an individual member. 

Current members should look out for an email from our Membership Support Coordinator soon, which will tell them which type of membership they’ll transition onto. Members can change categories as their needs evolve. The updated payments will apply from your next renewal date.

We hope the changes to our membership scheme will better support the youth theatre sector, encourage active participation, foster a strong connection between members, and with our updated Membership Values, keep everyone in the sector moving forward together.