Latest News

Wednesday 12th March

Sally Martin

Good news for Square Chapel!

Many of you will have heard that Square Chapel has been awarded a substantial upgrade in funding from Calderdale MBC and Arts Council England. This is wonderful news and I thought I should take the opportunity to share with you all what it means for our future. Firstly – this increase has been negotiated to enable us to go forward confidently with the capital fundraising campaign, which will allow us to build the new building – and should be completed by 2011. This money from CMBC and ACEY is the year on year revenue investment which we needed to make our business plan stack up. Without it we couldn't have raised money for a new building because we wouldn't have had the resources to run it!

Secondly – it allows Square Chapel to continue running and putting on plenty of great performances while it is also fundraising. Without this uplift in funding, our resources would have been so overstretched that our future security as a viable organisation would have been in serious doubt.

Thirdly – it shows that both locally and regionally Square Chapel is recognised as a valuable cultural resource and that agencies are keen to support this very special success story, created and is sustained by the fantastic dedicated determination of literally hundreds of local people.

Of course it puts huge challenges upon us too – Square Chapel has never just been about taking handouts – we use every penny invested by funders to bring in more money. Each pound invested brings in at least two pounds from other sources, so we need to keep growing and bringing in more audiences – seeing that the building is even more well used than it already is. For this we will need to increase some of the hours people work and invest more in maintaining the building itself, which has been chronically under maintained for the last ten years whilst we have tried to survive on a shoestring!

So...whilst it is excellent news, and without it we would have been in serious trouble, we need to ensure that people understand that it will not have an immediate visible effect. Therefore if people ask you, it would be great if you could explain that this is not money directly towards the new building – nor does it mean Square Chapel suddenly has lots of money to spend – what it means is that we have a bright and hopeful future which we will now all work even harder to achieve! Still that's OK because we like the challenge – and together with all our wonderful Volunteers, Friends, customers and supporters we will make it all happen!

In November 2008 Square Chapel Trust is 20 years old. This is definitely the year that it begins a new lease of life and strides towards another fantastic 20 years of success. Thank you all so very much for helping to make it possible – and all of our thanks to CMBC and ACEY for believing in us – Now 2008 is just a new beginning!

Best wishes,

Sally Martin