· Catford Film Feedback.
We funded Catford Film’s first major venture into community cinema last year – hear all about the outcomes from funding ‘Grease on the Green’ and how Catford Film has developed and grown over the last year
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Corbett Estate Fireworks and Christmas
Market Feedback
Last year this local assembly funded these great local events. We hear from the Corbett Residents Association about the positive impact these event have had on the community and what else is coming up locally.
Minutes:
Catford Film Feedback – ‘Grease on the Green’
I am Keith Arnold an a year ago I was here at the local assembly to bid for some money to put on a local cinema event – ‘Grease on Culverley Green’
So much has happened since then!
Last year at the assembly meeting there was just me and an idea, no concept of Catford Film at all, We were lucky to get voted for, I was just lucky to get through as the last project funded on the night – it nearly didn’t happen.
The project needed £3300, we received £2500 from the assembly as seed funding. We planned to crowd fund the rest. We were able to use the Council’s crowdfunding website, and got enough money to fund the rest. As Lewisham would match fund we could expand our plans
.
We wanted to support film locally and benefit the community and give a sense of community and local cohesion, we really achieved it, all starting with Grease on the Green.
The money we got from the Assembly was mainly spent on the projector, the sound system and the marketing, we also spent it on some port-a-loos for the night.
We put something on Facebook to get some interest locally from people who might be like minded and want to get involved, to plan the event. We got some great people to develop some great branding and we all came up with the concept of Catford Film.
One of the ideas was to do a practice run at the Catford Constitutional Club in December, we screened ‘Cinema Paradiso’. We had a full house and great feedback so we started to keep doing that and now do it regularly every 6 weeks.
By the time we got to the Culverley Green event, we knew what we were doing, we had 200 people, a bar, hot food from Uptown Jerk a local business, a DJ, everyone was dancing in front of the screen – it was fantastic.
I also wanted to put a film festival together, once we had got all the equipment in, we started to develop the film festival which we were able to do after we raised enough through match funding from Lewisham.
We adopted the ‘free film festival’ model. Instead of screening independent cinema, which I wanted to do initially, we went down the road of screening more mainstream films. The Great Gastby was the film we chose to open the festival, we also had the NHS choir, over 300 people. The only festival event that wasn’t that well attended was The Life of Brian on the Broadway, it was a cold night though. We carried out some film making workshops that were really successful.
The plans for Catford film now, we have planned going forward, looking for a permanent venue, there are 2 possible locations. We are going to do more workshops, screen more independent films.
We are looking for more sponsorship, if you are a local business, please get in touch, we would be very interested in talking to people about sponsoring, I would really like to start getting film makers from abroad coming over, we would love hotels providing accommodation, local cafes restaurants to provide food and drinks and so on - whatever your business we can find something for you to sponsor.
I have a trailer we used during the film festival. Here is our 2 minute trailer - Thank you so much for the funding that started all of this off!
Q. what are the potential cinema venues?
Don’t think I am allowed to say yet as we are still in negotiation.
Corbett Estate Resident Association
Christmas Market - Natasha Clarkson Corbett RA
Last Christmas we held the annual Christmas market on Sandhurst parade, funded by this assembly. These were really successful and very well attended with activities for all ages. It is a really nice community event that everyone
can be involved with.
We couldn’t have done it without your support and for the assembly who funded us to lay on this party for everyone - so thank you very much
Fireworks event 2015 - Matt Conroy
As you can see we have been very busy since the event that was funded from last years assembly pot.
The firework event is the most popular event of the year, last year we had 1400 + visitors, mostly families with children. Many of those children wouldn’t have made it to a firework event elsewhere without us, it was an experience they wouldn’t have otherwise have had. Almost all people came by foot.
The £2500 funding from Catford South Assembly, we put an awful lot of time into organising the event, many volunteers unseen people doing lots in eh background. We gave in excess of 500 hours of volunteers so that is around £5000 worth of volunteering time.
With the surplus that the event generated we were able to buy some equipment that we can use at future events and paid towards a buggy park at the healthy lifestyle centre.
Thank you to everyone who voted for the project and came to the event
Questions.
Q. Are you doing it this year?
A. The fireworks event will be happen this year on Friday 4th November, as we raised a surplus last year, we were more confident about being able to fund this ourselves this year, between the surplus last year and other fundraising we have the confidence to continue.
Q Are we doing the Christmas market again this year?
A. The Corbett RA are not doing the Christmas market again this year, we are limited for volunteers and as we have been so busy focusing our energies on the new community library our focus is there.
The intention was that it would be set up and the traders would take it forward, we hope they will take on the lead providing that back to the community, our role was to facilitate, we do think that hopefully a trader will take that forward. There may be one at the library, we will let you know through the love Catford website