When the BPL Bible first started out It was one man in a front bedroom spreading the good word about Blackpool hoping to make his life as a street promoter for a nightclub easier by reaching local people in their homes. For a short time we teamed up with Studio 3 on Back Reads Avenue in the town and we started running regular live streamed shows, showcasing upcoming local DJs and raising money for charities with 24 hour livestreams. It went well for a while but Facebook changed the way it was presenting live streams to people and after a while more and more of our streams were being shut down.
That studio is sadly no longer available to us but is being put to good use by the House of Wingz Skool of Street, and the BPL Bible is now being ran from a glorified garage come office. But it’s reach is bigger than ever – and our network of pages and groups is growing year on year.
We’ve so far managed to get by on hopes and dreams and the odd few quid of advertising revenue here and there but 8 years into building a community news and media outlet – it’s time we had a dedicated space.
Some recent developments have meant that the team now has access to a talented young social media executive who is looking for permanent employment. We see a need for someone like them on the team and are now looking for ways to make that happen. Along side our standard model of offering local exposure to small businesses for a relatively cheap price – we would also like to start and include this staff member in a regular podcast.
We are planning a pilot episode this week with a view to recording it within the fortnight – but once a format has been agreed for the show we would be looking to build on it for the benefit of the local community.
In order to set up a podcast studio come office we would need a sum of money to ensure it’s smooth running for at least one year whilst we formulate a model to fund this long term.
The cost of the rent would be £4200 for the year, Bills likely another £1000 at least, Renovating and decorating the space would likely be around £5000 if we do the work ourselves and then furnishing and kitting it out would be in the order of £10,000.
But asking a group of 20,000 people to raise £20,000 doesn’t seem that much really.
This would be a multi use space fit for office based media and online work, group filming – individual filming and photography.
It’s primary use would be for the filming of the podcast which at present is set to be a weekly show. The rest of the week we would use the space to run the portfolio of pages and groups we have been collaborating on for the past 8 years.
We would use the space to speak to local people about their stories and offer our platform to local businesses along with offering our social media and online skills for hire like a digital agency.
We’re all currently part time freelancers and we’re all trying to make some money working together for the greater good of the local area. We’re just asking for help to make a space to start it off properly and a bit of breathing room to organise the offerings.
The unit we’ve identified so far is a former salon in Layton. It’s in a good location and has some off street parking. It’s as close to the centre of the Fylde coast for the right price that we could find. It appears to have a forecourt that would allow for us to apply for permission to trade in the form of small market stalls on the front.. Imagine what we could do with a permanent drop off and pick up point for the community…
If you would like to help us set up this facility please find a link to our go fund me page HERE alternatively you can direct funds to our BPL Bible paypal account.
You can contact us about this podcast on our Facebook page or by sending an email to admin@blackpoolcommunitychat.co.uk.