Recent updates
The latest news from our projects
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We've been busy
An update for 'Sound of a City' - a documentary about live music in Bristol
Sep 14 2015
Hi all,
It's been a long time since we emailed - for that we can only apologise! It was a manic August but a productive one. We've been out shooting the city of Bristol from cars, bridges and pavements as well as interviewing some really interesting individuals. We had a great talk with Massive Attack's hugely amicable Neil Davidge, as well as record label owner Mike Darby and author Richard King (whose music knowledge was fairly humbling).
After talking to so many people now the film has evolved into more of a chronological history of Bristol music. The film will be bookended with the relatively unknown but hugely influential The Pop Group (look them up if you don't know them), who in the late 70s were a perfect example of Bristol's fusion of sounds. Their first album is a raucaus project filled with sounds of jazz, reggae and punk and influenced many artists from Nick Cave to Massive Attack.
From The Pop Group we will explore the post-punk scene, the jazz scene, soundsystem culture and landmark sounds up to the modern day. It sounds quite ambitious but this way we think it will be a nice way of exploring how different sounds and scenes evolve and influence each other, eventually moulding what we hear today.
Our main task now will be to collect a mountain of archive footage to put with the interviews. This will be the biggest challenge...
We'll let you know how that goes (it won't be so long this time promise).
SOAC x
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We are 300!
An update for Calais Refugee Solidarity Bristol
Sep 12 2015
We have hit 300 pledges totalling £6984!
Brilliant effort everyone.
Let's keep it going, please share the project with your five closest friends and ask them to pledge and share project with another five friends!
https://www.fundsurfer.com/project/calais-refugee-support-group-bristol
500 pledges is the next milestone target - THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
More updates and news to follow.
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National press interest, 20+ tonnes of supplies and nearly £6000 raised in cash donations!!!
An update for Calais Refugee Solidarity Bristol
Sep 9 2015
So the past week has been CRAZY! Lots of press interest about the support for the Calais Refugees from Bristol and the rest of the UK.
We still need donations via the crowdfunding project, so if all 277 supporters could please take a little time to write a short, direct email to your address book and send them this link -
https://www.fundsurfer.com/project/calais-refugee-support-group-bristol - asking them to donate and share with their friends and family. It really helps and email is a lot more effective than social media although it's great to keep sharing on facebook and twitter of course! THANK YOU ALL.
£5,869 raised (GBP)
277 backers!!!
Some news links
http://www.bristol247.com/channel/news-comment/daily/society/bristol-rises-up-to-support-refugees
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Big Thank you
An update for Direct Transitioning Help
Sep 8 2015
Thank you to everyone for their support - its needed, they are feeling it now :) xx
The link is my little video of their highlights to date
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£4,536 raised from 230 backers in less than a week!
An update for Calais Refugee Solidarity Bristol
Sep 4 2015
Something is happening! It feels as though this is about more than a charitable drive to help the Calais Refugees, the whole Country is mobilising to help.
There is a real sense of 'If the governments won't help, we will do it ourselves' gathering momentum and we are receiving emails from across the country to help, find out more.
There has also been national press interest from the Guardian and Independent with local press picking up the story as well.
http://www.bristol247.com/channel/news-comment/daily/society/bristol-rises-up-to-support-refugees
To keep going forward, please keep sharing the project link, if you can take the time to email your contact list with it that would be excellent as email is far more powerful than social media shares in generating interest and donations.
https://www.fundsurfer.com/project/calais-refugee-support-group-bristol
Drop us a line at office@calaisrefugeesolidaritybristol.co.uk with any questions or help needed.
You can contact the Fundsurfer team here to help with crowdfunding questions - info@fundsurfer.com
YOU all made this happen, Thank You.
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Nearly £1500 raised in two days! THANK YOU!
An update for Calais Refugee Solidarity Bristol
Sep 1 2015
Hi everyone,
Thank you so much for your support, nearly 96 supporters already and £1493 raised in barely 48 hours.
Please keep the momentum going by taking the time to share this project, the best method is to send an email to your friends and family network and ask them to donate and share this link https://www.fundsurfer.com/project/calais-refugee-support-group-bristol Social media is great for getting views but email marketing is the most powerful. Short, heartfelt, direct and with a strong call to action. We will add updates as the campaign develops.
Thanks again for your kind support for the Calais Refugees, a great response.
Calais Migrant Solidarity Group Bristol.
contact@calaisrefugeesolidaritybristol.co.uk
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We did it!
An update for Bristol Festival of Literature
Sep 1 2015
A massive THANK YOU to everyone who supported the crowdfund for Bristol Festival of Literature.
We didn't quite reach our £1,500 target but we got really close - the final tally coming in at £1,406 - just £94 short.
We should still be able to afford to do all of the things we want to do – fingers crossed we get some good ticket sales on the doors at the events to make up any shortfall.
The pledges will be coming out of your accounts in the coming days and the Bristol Festival of Literature team will be collating all of the pledges and sending out your rewards as soon as possible.
We’ll keep you updated here and individually where appropriate.
We're in the process of sorting out tickets with Bristol Ticket Shop and making final amendments on the brochures.
Once the money has transferred to us we can then get goody bags, brochures, tickets etc. printed.
For those of you who pledged for a T-Shirt we'll be in touch individually with styles and size options.
A sincere thank you for supporting us from all of the team.
Get creative. Get excited. Get involved.
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Extension & Good News!
An update for Please donate to save Hawkspring Drug and Alcohol Support Services
Aug 28 2015
We would like to sincerely thank the people who have donated so far to our campaign. Your donations are helping to keep this vital service going and provide help to some of the most vulnerable people in the Bristol area! We are pleased to announce an extension of two weeks to our campaign to help reach our target as much as possible, so please share this with your friends and colleagues!
We can now announce in our second Good News Update that we are working towards setting in stone a merger with The Matthew Tree Project; a well-established holistic support service that operates over 5 centres throughout Bristol. TMTP provides treatment and support to all people suffering from issues such self-esteem, homelessness and the most crisis-hit members of society. The potential merger will allow Hawkspring to be incorporated into the umbrella of TMTP and still remain independently funded and secure, providing rehabilitative, holistic support to whole-families and individuals who remain vulnerable in society.
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Backlash Event!
An update for Blacksmith & Carasel's Studio rebuild
Aug 26 2015
So Friday night was our Backlash fundraising event at the Thekla and it's still only just sinking in how well Bristol represented for us! We knew we'd put together a one off and pretty incredible line up but we honestly can't thank anyone who purchased a ticket for the event enough - to have such a big que outside the venue before doors opened at 10 was pretty special! Don't forget our raffle shall be drawn at the end of our campaing and there iss till plenty of time to support the cuase betwen now and the beginning of October, I'll leave it to Carasel below who summed up perfectly just how incredible Backlash was - Thanks again to all who purchased tickets through fundsurfer or through the Thekla and to those continuing to support, theres a reason why the Bristol Music Community is the Best..! Blacksmith
Man where do I start with this! I am so insanely thankful, honoured and humbled when I look back on Friday’s Backlash event. To think we were just 20 people away from selling out the ship, for an event we only pulled together in 4 weeks, in the height of festival season is just crazy. To think that we had the line up we had, with every single artist donating there time and playing for Free is so overwhelming positive and speaks volumes about the amazing community and drive to help each other we have in our scene.
We bought a veteran, Pioneer and Bristol legend back to the Thekla for the first time in over a decade as our special guest & Roni Size absolutely tore it down. We gave you a world exclusive B2B2B as Hospital Record’s Fred V & Grafix and S.P.Y tag teamed up for the first time ever. DC Breaks, Crissy Criss, Voltage, Gorgon Sound all absolutely shook the boat and I can’t tell you how happy I was to have people que up before we were open and flood in to witness the first set Dazee b2b Nicky Blackmarket. Massive love to Got Some, our super special guest on the top deck and every artist on the top floor, I couldn’t really get up there to witness many sets but have heard glowing reports about all of you. Thank you to all artists who repped, everyone that helped promote, the amazing staff at Thekla who donated the venue to us and were super on point, all the crew that helped on the night in so many ways, all the labels and local companies that donated money to the insane prize fund, everyone who bought raffle tickets and T-shirts & most importantly every single person that paid money to come party on the night, it was an amazing turn out and I can’t tell you how much this will help myself and brother Blacksmith take the steps to buy back our studio essentials and get back to work. Its was community spirit at its finest on Friday and I love you all for representing & bring such great vibes, you should all be very proud of yourselves. Thank you all so much - Carasel
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Join the flashmob
An update for Bristol Festival of Literature
Aug 25 2015
We've passed the £1,000 mark but there's still a way to go and 6 days left.
A big Thank You to Silverwood Books who've given us a big boost by agreeing to sponsor the festival.
Silverwood and our other sponsor, Tangent Books will be sharing some of their wisdom and advice in the publishing industry at the Bristol Book Bazaar event on 17th and 18th October, where you can also meet local authors and buy local books.
Please continue to spread the word.
If we beat our target we can pay for some advertising, we have a great opportunity to help out a fantastic charity by paying to advertise in a Literature Festival Special feature in The Big Issue
The Big Issue offers people who are homeless the opportunity to earn their own money; a livelihood. The Big Issue Foundation, as an independent charity for people who are homeless, offers vendors the opportunity of a life.
Homelessness is a growing issue and in our home city of Bristol it's getting worse. Help fund us and we can be part of the solution of our city.
You can also help us by joining the 'Virtual Flashmob' this week - Thunderclap
Follow this link: https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/30302-support-bristol-lit-fest
Select the Social Media platform you'd like to support us on and the message will simultaneously be sent out on 27th August, creating a big hit cross Social Media – Let’s see if we can get #Unputdownable2015 trending!