18/08/2023
UNLESS SOMETHING PRETTY SPECTACULAR HAPPENS - LIKE SEVERAL PEOPLE VOLUNTEERING TO TAKE OVER RUNNING IT -OUR CLUB WILL HAVE TO CLOSE
We have just one more concert for you which is on September 8th and features the fantastic DOOLALLY TAP Traditional jazz band. Usual time, usual place!
A few words about us.
Our Club was formed in 1984 after a public meeting was held in the foyer of the Trinity Arts Centre. A Committee was chosen on the spot and the Club began organising concerts immediately. We chose to try to support the more Traditional Jazz though included Mainstream as well. Standard concerts were held in the Trinity Foyer bar and more important ones in the main auditorium. We were able to get some financial support from The Arts Council and soon had over 200 members. We were able, at that time, to put posters up in various locations around the town and get a mention for each concert in the Kent and Sussex Courier but more recently both of these things ceased to be possible so we now advertise on our website and Facebook and Twitter pages instead.
We soon also put concerts on at various other venues around the town such as The Spa Hotel, the Hotel du Vin (then the Calverley Hotel), The Corn Exchange (awful acoustics), King Charles Church Hall and St Barnabas Church Hall. After a disastrous failure at the Trinity Arts Centre auditorium when we lost about £900 we concluded that it would be unwise to continue using that venue which was becoming increasingly expensive and now included various extra charges. Eventually we decided to use only The Masonic Centre which is a nice venue with good parking etc.
We are a Registered Educational Charity and have always tried to encourage and support young musicians. At one time we ran our own “youth in jazz” orchestra comprising young musicians from local schools and supported the Kent Youth Jazz Orchestra by giving them concert opportunities at our Club.
Today we find that our audiences have dwindled to a level that causes us to lose money at every concert and find that all appeals to The Arts Council or The Lottery fund are rejected. We have received one or two good donations recently but nothing like enough to enable us to keep the Club going.
In addition to this all of our current Committee members are growing old – indeed one of them will be 90 before long – and feel that, much though we would like to Club to continue, it cannot be us doing it!
Appeals to our membership for new Committee members have produced no volunteers so we seem to have no choice but to close the Club.
See you on the 8th!
