Recent updates

£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.

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

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.

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.

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

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!

Book gone to print

An update for Catacombs of Terror! by Stanley Donwood

Aug 24 2015

Hi everyone,

Once again, thanks for your support. Catacombs of Terror! has been sent to print and will be back in early October, when we will send out all rewards. We'll also announce details of a launch event when the rewards are sent out.

Half way there and a few days to go....

An update for Bristol Festival of Literature

Aug 20 2015

We're halfway there!

Thanks to everyone who's pledged so far

A big thank you to Tangent Books for coming on board as a sponsor for the festival.

It's exciting to be working with a great local publisher!

The publicity for the event is really coming together too with Natalie Burns and the rest of our publicity team putting together some great images and graphics. There's a sneak preview of the lovely graphics on her Twitter

A big chunk of our funding is needed to get postcards, brochures, leaflets etc. printed so visitors to the festival can see what's going on and where everything is. The rest of it will go on venue hire and sundries associated with putting on a great show. None of the organisers of the festival are paid to do this, we're all volunteers.

Here's a couple of examples of random small costs that are not immediately obvious:

Please spread the word and encourage your friends and family to support Bristol Festival of Literature

#Unputdownable2015

Thank you!

2015 Events Announced

An update for Bristol Festival of Literature

Aug 11 2015

A big thank you to everyone who has pledged so far and please pass the link on to your networks, we only have until the end of the month to reach our target.

Don't forget to use the hashtag: #unputdownable2015

The Festival team have been hard at work scheduling in some fantastic events and are delighted to announce this years line up. Find details on the website at this link:

http://unputdownable.org/news-updates/2015-events-announced