St James: ‘We’re thankful and we’re positive’
St James will be making sure that its educational programme continues now that its immediate future has been guaranteed by additional funding from the States.
But in order to make the funding stretch as far as possible, director Jon Bisson said it would hold off employing two new staff members, will remain closed from Sunday to Tuesday every week, and cut out community events it has hosted such as the bike show and the tattoo expo.
The charity held its annual general meeting this week and Mr Bisson said the atmosphere was rather better than it would have been had the funding not been forthcoming.
‘There’s a joke at our AGMs where the first comment made by the president is always about what a challenging year it’s been. At the end of 2023 we were still deep in a challenging year but the events of the last month have made it somewhat less challenging.’
One positive of the publicity of the funding issues was that it made a lot of people realise what went on at St James, he said.
‘People didn’t realise we were a charity and the things we do, like the educational programme.’
There was a trading loss of about £60,000 at the end of the year, he said, which was why matters had become so serious for the year ahead.
The charity was grateful for the funding it had been promised.
‘We’re thankful and we’re positive,’ he said. ‘We have to cut our cloth according to the resources we have. We’re going to push forward with the social side and a strong calendar of events.
‘But it’s going to be a bit of a muted 40th anniversary.’
While many of its events broke even, he said the need now was to focus on those which returned a profit.
Last month Mr Bisson was present at the annual Venues Day held by Music Venues Trust in London when all of the member venues were told that they had won the 2024 award for outstanding contribution to grass roots music, for what keynote speaker DJ Steve Lamacq said was their ‘passion, commitment, dedication and sheer bloody-minded determination to keep live music at the heart of our communities.’
He said that St James had been a member for about six years and often made use of information and advice from the trust. He sat on a panel where he spoke about how St James worked to keep its costs low.
‘This year they made the decision that all the venues have won an award, because everyone was struggling,’ he said.
