Recent updates

The latest news from our projects

  • It's Day 3, Let's Talk About Poetry

    An update for Empower Youth Voices

    Apr 14 2017

    It's day 3 of crowdfunding and now the total is up to £117!  

    Thank you again to all of the wonderful people who have made a pledge, you're making a genuine difference in the lives of a number of young people.

    One of the ways you're making a difference is by allowing us to continue to put on monthly poetry nights, which give young poets and spoken word artists the opportunity to showcase their talents while speaking their mind.  The nights are always a special experience, filled with inspiring poetry and amazing young talent.

    Don't just take my word for it though.  Have a look at some of the best bits from our first poetry night of 2017.

  • On to Day 2

    An update for Empower Youth Voices

    Apr 13 2017

    Hello there,

    Day 1 of our crowdfunding campaign ended with £28 being pledged.  Thank you to our first backers, we couldn't do this without you.  

    We're now on to Day 2 and we're excited to say that we've been mentioned in the Tooting Daily Prss!  It would be great if you could take a little time to read it and share if you like it.  Every little bit of support helps.

    Enjoy the rest of your day and speak to you again soon.

    Shaniqua

     

  • Half way there!

    An update for St George's Bristol Crowdfund

    Apr 13 2017

    Just to say firstly an enormous Easter THANKS to all you.. our 271 crowdfund backers to date.. In just over four months since we launched we are about to reach the half way point of this, the final campaign to complete our Building a Sound Future capital appeal. That alone makes this one of the largest crowdfund campaigns in Bristol, and certainly the largest arts crowdfund appeal outside of London by a mile!

    We set ourselves a target of reaching the halfway point by Easter, and we are so close..! With 100% matched funding and gift aid, we need to attract further donations totalling £1,200 to get us there. Anything you can do as our signed up supporters to encourage others to join will really help, so if you can share the campaign again for us over the Easter break, we would be so grateful.

    We have some exciting project updates and visuals of the building works which are now underway to share with you all, which we will do in the week after the Easter break, when we hope to be over that all important half way point! Remember that this is the final campaign of our overall appeal, and we are determined to reach that final target. We have now raised over £6.1M for our project overall, and completing the crowdfund target of £200,000 will ensure we reach the final appeal target of £6.3M. 

    Wishing you all the best for a Happy and relaxed Easter break, and please do keep sharing our campaign.. together we can crack the £100,000 total and bring new supporters in to join the campaign!

    Thank you again for all your support.

    Simon

  • Thanks for supporting Upfest

    An update for Upfest 2016 - Europe's largest street art & graffiti festival

    Apr 12 2017

    Hey folks,

    So it's been almost a year since you lovely people helped us reach our 2016 crowd funding target!

    After the huge success of 2016 with over 35,000 visitors our costs to host 350+ artists for 2017 have grown further, so we're at it again and would love your support!

    As always there are some great rewards for supporting the festival from sticker packs, festival prints to home or office murals...

    Check out this years rewards HERE

    BigUP for your support!

    The Upfest Crew

  • URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT PLEASE READ CAREFULLY

    An update for Outdoor Cinema in Teignmouth

    Mar 31 2017

    URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT

    PLEASE READ CAREFULLY

    DUE TO UNFORSEEN CIRCUMSTANCES THE DATE OF THE OUTDOOR CINEMA HAS CHANGED TO

    FRIDAY 7TH JULY AND SATURDAY 8TH JULY 2017.

    I would apologise for any inconvenience caused and should anyone require a refund of their pledge please contact me via the pledge site www.fundsurfer.com/outdoorcinema

    ALL OTHER DETAILS REMAIN THE SAME and TO AVOID DOUBT THE REASON FOR THIS DECISION WAS DUE TO AN UNFORSEEN AND UNKNOWN CIRCUMSTANCE WHICH ONLY CAME TO LIGHT IN THE LAST FEW DAYS

    If you have any questions, please PM on Facebook or telephone 01626 775700

    Regards and thank you for your understanding

    Paul Burgess

    PS: We will shortly announce a competition for budding film makers and details of the screen!

  • Thank you for your support! We raised £3405 for Syrians in need

    An update for Stories and Songs for Syrians

    Mar 11 2017

    Dear friends and supporters of Stories and Songs for Syrians,

    Thank you so much for your generous donation to our fundraising appeal for Hands Up Foundation's urgent humanitarian and medical support to Syrian victims of war.

    We’re delighted to announce that we raised £3504 between our 8-week online fundraiser and the weekend of Stories and Songs for Syrians events with Nadine Kaadan and Babel Babies. Over 120 people from several countries gave donations and got involved with the project, which is just amazing.

    We have so many people to thank: The Suffolk Anthology Bookshop, Cheltenham, and The Friendship Café, Gloucester for hosting our Stories + Songs for Syrians events in February, and writer and illustrator Nadine Kaadan, and Cate Hamilton of Babel Babies for entertaining us, and for donating CDs and books. Baker & Graze café in Cheltenham for the tray of delicious rose and pistachio donuts and Rowena for the cat biscuits! Sheila Hoeman, Saqi Books, Penguin Random House and Lantana Publishing for donating books, and Zaytoun for donating dates, as rewards for pledges (we hope they have arrived safely in the post to those who requested a gift. We have a couple more to send out, but mostly they should have arrived by now!). Kareem for offering to cover the postage of said gifts, and Caroline, Gemma, Pleuni, Vera, Hilary and everyone else who helped out at the events and gave lifts to the Syrian families. The Gloucestershire Echo for publicising the events and the fundraising appeal, Roma Widger of Bristol Community FM for coming to interview Nadine and Cate and BBC Bristol for featuring it as part of weekly best-of programme! Journalist Marcia Lynx Qualey for championing the project at every possible venue, including in Germany’s Qantara magazine and on Bookriot.com (see below).

    And thank you, you guys, for donating your hard earned cash to help Syrian victims of war.

     

    George, Louisa, Johnnie & Rose of The Hands Up Foundation sent out some incredible news this week: so far, Singing For Syrians projects have raised £105,500 to send to aid projects to help Syrians in need. But it’s not over! Sadly, Syria and the people caught in the crisis still need our help, and Singing for Syrians events are continuing across the UK in 2017. If you would like to hold an event, you can register early for your free pack on the website www.singingforsyrians.com. If you’re involved in a choir or music group, please do consider holding your own Singing for Syrians event to raise money for Syrian refugees and displaced people in need. And do get in touch if you’re interested in running an event for kids and would like some advice on how to go about it.

    Thank you again, shukran jazeelan,

    Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp, Nadine Kaadan, Cate Hamilton and Hanan - coordinators of Stories and Songs for Syrians fundraising appeal for the Hands Up Foundation #SingingForSyrians

  • Building our Sound Future is underway!

    An update for St George's Bristol Crowdfund

    Mar 10 2017

    We are delighted to confirm to all of our project backers that St George's Bristol's Sound Future is now officially being built!

    Our once green and tranquil East garden has transformed over the last two weeks into a hive of activity (as well as a river of red mud when it rains!), with a technicolour array of yellow diggers and hard hats of Midas, our main construction partner, as the groundworks begin ahead of laying the foundations for our new extension.

    Here is how the Bristol Post covered this much anticipated start date for our project: http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/builders-move-in-at-st-george-s-hall-for-6-million-revamp/story-30169668-detail/story.html 

    and here is a record of the all important site cabins arriving on site one wet morning last week:

    With thanks to the generous support of Icon Films we are now in the process of installing a timelapse camera in a fixed position on site, so we will be able to update you with regular high quality images of progress throughout the next twelve months of the construction programme.

    With the crowdfund appeal now having surpassed £50,000, we are excited to announce that with further confirmed investment to our matched fund we are able to raise the match on all new donations to 100% from next week! This will ensure we reach our next milestone target of £100,000, and ultimately our final total of £200,000 all the faster!

    Do please continue to share our crowdfund campaign as widely as possible, and help us to promote this second phase of this campaign, with all donations being matched pound for pound from Tuesday March 14th onwards. Together with gift aid adding a futher 25% to the value of the orginal donation, a £50 donation instantly becomes a gift to our appeal of £112.50, and a £200 donation turns into a gift of £450.

    Completing our £200,000 crowdfund target will secure our overall capital appeal target (in excess of £6,000,000), meeting the complete costs of our Building a Sound Future project, and securing St George's long term future as a world class concert hall for future generations here in Bristol and througout the South West. 

    Do remember that our spring concert season continues through to the end of May, and we will be open again from October to December for a busy Autumn season. With our building works completing in early 2018, we will then have a very exciting spring 2018 relaunch season ahead of us. 

    We look forward to seeing you here throughout the year ahead, whether through taking up your rewards (rest assured you will have full details of how to claim each reward very shortly if you haven't already), as well as by booking tickets directly at http://www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk

    Thank you so much for all your support, and please do keep sharing our campaign to everyone you know who loves Bristol and who loves world class live music wherever they may be. Together we are sure to complete this landmark appeal for St George's Bristol, as well as one of the largest arts crowdfund campaigns the UK has ever seen! 

     

  • Last Chance - text or call

    An update for Outdoor Cinema in Teignmouth

    Mar 10 2017

    We are in the last two days of the crowd fund project and I would like to make one last request please .

    Could you please phone or text just 1 friend and ask them to make a family /friends pledge  for just £20 please. This will help secure the target and by all going as a group you will have a fantastic time !

    This event will be happening in just 3 months and will be a first for Teignmouth .... you can say you were there when history was made !

    For people who have made a pledge , we also have been working on an opportunity towards the end of the year that supporters will have first entitlement too! This is top secret but if it happens (which we think it will)  as a big thank you,  we will give people who have made a pledge priority to all tickets ... you will not want to miss this believe me ... this is another reason to ask just 1 friend to join you.

    A big thanks

    Paul

    PS: DISABLED CAR ACCESS

    We need to know if anyone needs disabled vehicle access for this event? Numbers are limited so please can you message me ASAP if you need to secure a place. Please supply name/car type/registration number  Thank you

  • We could not have got this far without you

    An update for Safer off the Streets - Help Bristol's homeless night shelters

    Mar 7 2017

    Thank you again to everyone for all of your support of the SOS Bristol campaign, helping people to be safer off the streets. With over 651 people supporting us we have almost raised £37,000 – thank you – we would not have got this far without you.

    The campaign aimed to finish after three months, at the end of February 2017. Whilst we haven’t reached our £100,000 goal - which illustrated the cost of running all of the shelters for three months - we feel immensely grateful and proud of what you have helped us to achieve. With your support the cost of 2,174 bed spaces has been covered and this means that you have directly helped people to be safer off the streets of Bristol.

    We have decided that we will be keeping the SOS Bristol Fundsurfer page open so that people can continue to make donations to help the night shelters. We have a few exciting things in the pipeline and we will be updating you in the coming weeks on how the SOS Bristol campaign will enable us to do this.

    We will also be sending out your rewards in the next week or two. For those of you who have requested a reward keep an eye on your inbox. We hope that you will proudly share these rewards on your social media pages.

    Thank you once again for your help in supporting our work providing emergency services to people sleeping rough in Bristol.

    The SOS Bristol Team
     

  • We are pleased to announce the films to be shown at the Teignmouth outdoor cinema project are

    An update for Outdoor Cinema in Teignmouth

    Mar 3 2017

    We are pleased to announce the films to be shown at the Teignmouth outdoor cinema project are

    FRIDAY NIGHT - THE BFG

    This film tells the tale of a young girl, the Queen of England and a benevolent giant known as the BFG, who set out on an adventure to capture the evil, man-eating giants who have been invading the human world Certification: PG

    SATURDAY NIGHT - DIRTY DANCING

    In the summer of 1963, innocent 17-year-old Baby vacations with her parents at a Catskill's resort. One evening she is drawn to the staff quarters by stirring music. There she meets Johnny, the hotel dance instructor, who is as experienced as Baby is naive. Baby soon becomes Johnny's pupil in dance and love. Certification: 12