It’s been another year of change and progress for Café Writers with several milestones to note.
Firstly, we moved venues from NewMu, where disabled access was poor and expected improvements did not occur, to our current location at Jurnets Bar, Wensum Lodge. Our present venue is a historic and very atmospheric location and we hope you’ll agree that is an improvement. The feedback we’ve received has been positive and we are hoping our residency will be long lasting.
This year also saw several changes to the funding and organisation of Café Writers. We consulted members and you overwhelmingly agreed to a voluntary £2 donation for meetings. It’s the first time in our six years that we’ve asked for any money. We’re grateful for the generosity you continue to show: That’s allowed us to bring a succession of very high quality readers to our events, it would be invidious to mention individual names. Special thanks needs to be given to Helen Ivory and Martin Figura who’ve worked hard putting together our schedule and booking the guests. I’m sure you Agree that they’ve done a fine job. Thank You.
This year we also received lottery funding, after a gruelling application process for Tom. This funding has enabled us to do several things which have been long overdue. The most noticeable of those is the purchase of a professional quality pa system which we are now using for all our meetings. We’ve also acquired proper insurance for the first time which I can assure you is a weight of the mind of committee members. Lottery funding, however, has to be used in very specific ways, we can’t just pay guests from it so your continued contributions will continue to be greatly appreciated!
Included in the lottery grant was funding for a one off event. Those of you who were at The Garage on 14th October will, I think, agree that it was a great success. We had a sell-out audience of 100 who heard Jackie Kay and Matthew Sweeney, along with local rappers Pascal and Parris. It was a memorable night and one which we will hope to repeat in future if and when Martin recovers from his exertions as producer/promoter/booker/ etc. We also ran a couple of workshops in conjunction with that event: one specifically for young people and one for all-comers and we’ll look to do more of that in the future.
Another experiment was the summer event in Chapelfield Gardens which was well-attended. It was an enjoyable afternoon. I think the general view was that we should aim to do the same again next year, though the format and venue are up for discussion.
Behind the scenes we’ve been trying to put Café Writers on a more professional footing. To That degree we have become a non-profit limited company: which basically means that we have a slightly more formal structure where the committee members become directors and don’t lose their houses if anything goes horribly wrong. Those changes shouldn’t really be noticeable to the wider membership but they help us in several areas, not least when we look for future funding as we soon will. It also means you won’t have to have an AGM each year!
Although it’s been a time of change the committee remains absolutely committed to the fundamental principles of Café Writers which are to encourage and promote new writing and new writers with the support of established writers in an atmosphere where all writers meet as equals. Where possible we remain eager to extend the possibilities for anyone interested to become involved in writing. We believe our future success will come from the solid foundations we’ve built together. Thank you for your time and your support.