Recent updates

Thank you everyone

An update for Original punk blues album by Bristol-based duo Husky Tones

Nov 1 2016

A huge thank you from Chris and I for all your kind donations they will make a huge difference to us in making the album. We had a fantastic meeting on Saturday at Platform Studios. We're very lucky to be working with an excellent producer the album should sound fantastic. We have some other great annoucements to make late this week as well. I also must thank people for all the  kind offerings of help to do with donating time and skills to help us out. Shed Lunt of Piski Films in particular for taking our album cover photo. We look forward to thanking you all in person and sharing the album and other rewards with you. Much Love from Chris and I. xx

Aid Box Convoy becomes Aid Box Community.

An update for Aid Box Convoy - vital supplies to refugee camps in France

Oct 31 2016

You are recieving this update because we know you care 

Right now we need your support as much as ever.

Regular donations will help sustain the work we are doing. With only grassroutes organisations like ourselves being the only people supplying life saving aid to displaced poeple in Europe we need your support as much as ever.

In late 2015, Aid Box Convoy embarked on a mission to help the many displaced people in the Dunkerque camp in Northern France. With your support, we provided comfort and necessities to thousands of people far from home, who were starving, cold and terrified. Together, we helped stave off illness, disease and starvation.

Since March 2016, when we felt various French and European aid organisations were supporting the basic needs of the Dunkerque camp, we have changed our focus to help refugees in Greece and, most recently, in Paris. It is estimated that around 1,000 people from the camps are now in Paris sleeping on the streets. A few volunteer groups are battling to keep these people alive and we have worked with them, giving what support we can. Closure of the camp in Calais will only make this situation worse and so our work must go on.

In September we joined forces with Building Support Through Shelter to create Aid Box Community, a new vehicle for our aid efforts. We have focused on creating a physical home for ABC, a centre from where we will offer a range of services to refugees in Bristol.

Sited in central Bristol, the ABC Hub will be the focus for our activities: a warehouse in which to collect and sort donated goods and a drop-in centre for destitute refugees. Here we can provide them with as much support as we can – whether that means providing a hot shower and clean clothes or sending aid boxes to Paris; or advice on how to gain work, where to learn English or navigate the asylum processing system.

Escaping the desperate conditions of the camps in northern France is just one step. They still face many barriers to regaining the quality of life they had in their homelands where the vast majority were skilled, professional people working hard for a living before a range of political, societal or environmental factors tore through their country, ruthlessly shattering lives. Our aim is to help them restore their position, and their dignity, in our society, through practical and pragmatic assistance, as we have done since ABC began.

Of course, setting this up incurs costs. We have achieved a great deal already and we are reaching out again for help in funding the rent of the ABC Hub. We have to find £700 each month to secure the warehouse so our amazing team of volunteers can continue the aid work and help even more people.

ABC runs on the generosity of our staff, who are all volunteers, and this is our only running cost. We do not plan to change this through ‘going professional’ so all money donated goes straight into funding aid services.

If all of you can give an hour of your wages, or even a day’s wages, each month, we can continue to work hard for people who face the most desperate situations any father or mother, son or daughter has to face.

Thank you for reading this and we hope you choose to help us continuing to help others.

Please follow this link to donate https://mydonate.bt.com/donation/start.html?charity=156187

Last Few Days

An update for Original punk blues album by Bristol-based duo Husky Tones

Oct 28 2016

A huge thank you to everyone for their wonderful support of our project. We've been editing all the demo tracks this week and the album is sounding great. Off to see our producer tomorrow stuart Dixon at Platform studios with all the demos to plan for the recording in Nov. We have some cracking gigs coming up as well. 

Lock cutting

An update for Lose the Locks: cut the Padlocks off Pero's Bridge

Oct 21 2016

As the end of the campaign is less than 10 days away, I want to say a huge thank you for your support. It's been featured in Bristol247 (twice), the Bristol Post and upvoted lots on Reddit.

The vast majority of comments have been in favour of chopping the locks off. In addition, I see the Love the Locks campaign still only has one solitary donor, so I think opinion is pretty clear.

However, please spread the word and help to get more donors on board. To be able to cut the 200+ locks off, we need several sets of boltcutters, plus a serious rebar cutter for the larger locks. Let's get to £250!

I believe that, if we do raise enough and cut the locks off, the news stories that result will make it clear to potential lockers that Pero's bridge is quite horny enough without their padlocks on it.

All the best,

@getyourlockout

Victoria Klewin & The TrueTones request the pleasure of your company...

An update for Victoria Klewin & The TrueTones debut album

Oct 19 2016

Hello everyone.

I hope you're all keeping well and that you recieved your download codes for the album? A few of you have been in touch to say how much you like it, which is brilliant! A fair few of you have been worringly quiet though...please do let me know if you have had any problems with the download. Your hard copies are being manufactured right now! Once they're ready I can either post them to you (with your other rewards if you have any) OR you can collect them in person at our PRIVATE ALBUM LAUNCH PARTY!

This launch party is a free event exclusively for you, our backers and some press. We will be giving a short performance on the night, shooting some footage for our next video, playing the album through a decent sound system, projecting photos and video from throughout the project, and will also get the chance to mingle and chat with you all. You'll also get a complimetary welcome drink and some nibbles, cos we're fancy like that! ;) We would be delighted if you could join us...

THURSDAY 24th NOVEMBER

7-11pm

BAR HUMBUG - http://www.barhumbug.co.uk/

89 Whiteladies Rd, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 2NT

Please save the date and RSVP as soon as possible!

Love,

Victoria and The TrueTones

x

Oh...and here's our official album cover! You're the first to see it...

Olympic Mascots and More

An update for El Gran Salto (The Jump)

Oct 18 2016

Hello!

Thanks again for your amazing support. This past week we made the drawing of Vinicius, the official Mascot of the olympics of Rio 2016. We did it through a Live video last friday in facebook. Congrats to the winner: Ilse Boneo!

So far we are close to $5000 dollars. Our goal starts to seem distant, specially since we are a little bit past the first half of our campaigns time. But we are confident that it is still totally achievable. That is why we won´t slow down a bit with our work, with only two weeks ahead of us. 

Now we have a new raffle of an even cooler perk, it will be: Tom, the official mascot of the paralympics. (Blue dude with crazy green hair / our team´s favorite). Tell your friends and everyone you know about it. Every new backer will participate. 

Thanks again wonderful people! Together we make this film. 

Jorge Porras

Director

Eco boat-glamping idea blocked, project dead

An update for Eco boat-glamping aboard historic sailing boat in Bristol Harbour

Oct 17 2016

Keen observers will have noticed that I gave this project a big push a few weeks ago and then it all went quiet.

As soon as it launched it quickly gained support and within days we had pledges totalling £1400. The campaign was doing what I wanted which was prove that there was demand for the product and support for my vision of how to achieve it. I emailed the Harbour Master to make him aware of the crowd funding campaign and that's when progress came to a hault.  

In essence, his response said that he is not prepared to discuss licensing with me until I purchase the boat. My stance is that I am not prepared to risk purchasing the boat until licensing has been discussed and I have some indication that permission is likely to be granted. And in that we've reached stalemate.

He describes my project as a "hotel" and explains that getting permission is "a case of the Harbour Authority and Bristol City Councils mooring policy and planning if this can go ahead". As soon as I hear someone in a position of authority using words like "Planning" and "Hotel" to describe an idea that needs to go through 3 authoritative bodies it just feels like I'm being set up to fail. Would you gamble your life savings on an application being granted for "a new hotel on Bristol Harbour"? 

So here we are, watching the young flames of an idea fizzle out so soon, suffocated by bureaucracy.  The only hope for Svanskar becoming an eco-glamping experience now would be for somebody who can afford to lose £30,000 stealing the idea and executing it themselves at the risk of permission being denied. Except that's not going to happen because the kind of people who can afford to lose £30k are not the kind of people willing to spend 6 months sawing, sanding, screwing and painting for no money, they are the kind of people who pay other people to do that, and if you are paying wages you need to cover that cost and you want the end product to be a profitable, scalable business, not a one-off historic vessel.

This idea was only ever viable in conjunction with my current personal search for a big life project. I'm bored of my recent career in the web industry and keen to re-ignite my craft skills to create something amazing. Converting Svankar was going to be my Grand Design but Bristol's not ready for it.

Thank you to those who pledged support, I'm sorry I couldn't make it happen. I will keep searching for my big project. 

Martin 

The Jump - Week 3

An update for El Gran Salto (The Jump)

Oct 10 2016

Hello wonderful backers! 

We are on our third week on campaign for El Gran Salto (The Jump). Thanks to your amazing support we´ve gathered so far $2450 dollars. As you can tell, this is not even 10% of our goal. We are confident that the contributions will keep coming, so we won´t stop working for that. To encourage new backers, this week we are making a raffle of Vinicius, the official mascot of the Rio 2016 Olympics, among all new backers that arrive.

Thanks for helping us share the news and for being the life of this campaign. Have an amazing week!

Jorge Porras

Director

Vouchers - Important

An update for Bristol's First Cat Cafe

Oct 4 2016

Dear Supporters,

We are moving forward !

After another follow up with the landlord we have mapped our action plan and builders will start their work on the safety part of the building next week.

For this reason I feel it's the right time to send the Vouchers you all have been waiting for. I will be sending them on next Monday, so PLEASE keep your eyes on your spam box (from info@youandmeow.co.uk, I would recommend to add this address to your email book, because if your Voucher lands in spam, some of the emails are deleted just after few days, depending on your email settings). Not taking care of this now may cause some problems along the way which I believe are not necessary. Please bare in mind that all of our Vouchers will be valid for 6 months starting from our Official Opening Date (which will be announced end of October/beginning of November) so please make sure you receive yours. I pay attention to this as I still have not received the details from some of you even after my 4 attempts, so those Vouchers will be kept on hold.

Again, if you have not received any of my ''Perk Instructions'' emails from which I need your details please contact me at info@youandmeow.co.uk as this is the last/best time to follow up on that.

Thank you very much for your understanding.

Ewa

Rewards

An update for Beyond the Stage Photography Exhibition

Oct 3 2016

Hi all

Just a quick update for veryone who requested a reward.  If you haven't received an email about this already you will do very shortly.  Thank you for your patience :-)

Ken