P R E S S R E L E A S E
15th January 2019
ANDOVER FILM CLUB RE-DONATES GRANT AWARDED 10 YEARS AGO TO HELP OTHER GROUPS IN LOCAL COMMUNITY TO FLOURISH
Hampshire & Isle of Wight Community Foundation (HIWCF) attended Andover Film Club on Monday 14th January 2019, to receive a generous £5,000 donation from the organisation. The club which is all about bringing great films to Andover for its members has voted unanimously to re-donate funds that it received over ten years ago, which helped it to flourish into the successful and extremely popular organisation it has now become.
HIWCF originally made a grant award to Andover Film Club back in 2009, when the club applied for funding to cover equipment, venue hire and advertising from the Governments Grassroots Fund set up to give small organisations improved access to funding and more capacity to respond to local issues and needs. At that time, the people of Andover and surrounding villages had no opportunity, without travelling, to see films on the big screen other than highly commercial productions. The grant was awarded to enable the club to better communicate with the local community so that more people could benefit from the films shown and participate in the club’s educational and social activities.
Mark Grainger, Secretary of Andover Film Club said “In early 2009 when Andover Film Club was struggling to survive in its early months, we successfully applied for an HIWCF grassroots grant of £5,000. With the financial help provided by that grant we were able to increase our membership and we now regularly show films every month to audiences of over 100 people. This has led to the Club now being in a financial position as a not for profit organisation to return that initial funding to the Community Foundation as a donation, with the membership voting unanimously in support of HIWCF, as a thank you for the vital support we received a decade ago when we most needed it.”
Grant Cornwell MBE, Chief Executive at HIWCF said “We would like to thank Andover Film Club for their very kind and generous donation, this was a wonderful surprise and the first grantee organisation that has ever re-donated funding back to us. We are so pleased that the grant award has helped establish the film club so soundly in the local community and going forward the Foundation will look at how we can use this funding to support a project within the arts and culture sector. HIWCF is committed to helping disadvantaged people across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight and our funding is awarded through a grants programme supporting approximately 500 vital projects run by truly deserving charities and community groups working in our region every year.”
Andover Film Club meets once a month on a Monday evening at the Andover Odeon Cinema, why not come along.
