Appleby Remote Cinema

“We struggled in the early days because we hadn't built up a buffer (of funds) and we're not a village hall, so we had to pay a rental to the public hall and at the time It was expensive. I negotiated it down. The town council supported us with a low rent because they saw we were providing a service to the town. and then that kind of stuck for the next five or six years. And this year I said to them, ‘Look, we can pay more’, which is a bizarre thing to say because you struggle to pay the bills and the heating costs are going up. They have to hire a caretaker who sets it all out. He goes in in for a couple of hours prior and a couple of hours afterwards."

"But we’ve now built up a core audience that seem to come no matter what we show, not just dependent on the popular films. We do get big audiences with the popular films such as Mrs. Harris, which was a real feel-good film, and the Tom Cruise Top Gun one of course - they both brought in big audiences but but we tend to get a good core audience of about probably around 50 to 60 people - that includes kind of volunteers as well. But it's enough to make it worthwhile pay our bills, the the licence fee and the rental. We've also got to make sure we've got funds in the bank for our insurance costs, which are huge and we've paid this year something like £650 insurance because our equipment is fixed in the hall."

"I personally fundraised and brought in £35,000 to pay for the big screen, the projector and the sound system. The downside is we have to pay buildings insurance. We pay the public liability anyway, but on top of that we pay buildings insurance in case our equipment sets the building alight."

"Our equipment is being used by other arts organisations with our support at a small premium for the rental cost. It used to be every event where we would have somebody from the group who was a freelancer who would go down and be paid a couple of hours of time to oversee the equipment. But we've now co-opted a member from the Art Society onto our committee and trained her up so that she can manage to do that. They still pay us a rental, which is going to help offset the cost of the service of the equipment this year. That's been around £500 because of various things that we've had to do so our annual costs for insurance and service are not insubstantial."

We also do a raffle and we have some really nice raffle prizes. The raffle helps to pay quite a lot of our costs as well and we also do our own bar as we have the permission of the licensee.

The majority of times we get a local shop, cafe or chef to do the catering.

"Perhaps once or twice a year, we as volunteers might do our own food and then we take the whole food ticket price and that helps again to boost our funds, which we really need at this time of the year, when we get a little bit low on funds. That way we put money back into our local economy. And and that is a really good boost to the businesses around and about. So, for example, there's a new chef up at the golf course, Andy Hodgson who started recently, and we got him to cook for one of the films. It went down really well and he's doing the next one - The Banshees of Inisherin - so Irish stew with dumplings. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris was French onion soup with Tarte Tatin."

"People always really appreciate the events. Shirley across the road who comes to every single film - she came to the Tom Cruise film and she said, “I'd rather stick pins in my eyes and watch Tom Cruise, but I'll come to anything you put on because it's such a good craic."I write some blurb for the Parish magazine, and that goes out every month. It's mainly online now, but they also do a print version that goes to all the churches in the area. And I do the same blurb that goes on the Appleby What's On. Apart from that really it's just the posters and we email a small email list and a Facebook page."

"We always try and get people out of their comfort zones. I would say the Tom Cruise film was a bit unusual. It’s a sort of a democratic process. We all sit, bring our favourites to the table, and then it's the films that get the most votes. Because we're quite a large committee, we're quite eclectic and there's quite a few people in in the committee who are really interested in arthouse and foreign language films so that often comes up."

"We had to close down the food bookings for Mrs. Harris. We could have sold another probably 20 food tickets if we had had the space, but because a lot of people couldn't get food tickets it boosted our film-only tickets."

"We have groups that come as friendship groups and that's their monthly meet up. It's also brilliant for the committee in terms of our wellbeing and feeling like we're contributing something really positive. There's nothing better than seeing the people's faces happily leaving the cinema and talking about the film and “wasn't that good or wasn't the food good? And thank you very much.”. That just keeps you going for the rest of the month”.

“I’ve been trying to persuade and train people up to be able to stand in - just in case. We’ve had close calls when I've not been able to turn up and that's really necessary. Karen has been running Appleby remote Cinema for a long time - ten years or something - and really Karen needs to stand down and somebody else needs to take it on and that's the problem."

"Another important thing is to have a broad range of films and we do always try and have an international film foreign language in there somewhere. There's usually one big blockbuster because it brings in lots of money. And even though there might be really awful films sometimes, (I thought the Tom Cruise one was dreadful) but people absolutely loved it."

"We were quite lucky with all the little cafes and restaurants that make food for us. We can be quite varied in what sort of food can be made.

Over the years we've noticed the majority of the same people coming and they're coming because they know it's once a month. It doesn't really matter what the film is going to be and I think it is just something to look forward to which is great, and they might be surprised by the film and certainly often surprised by the food because we've had Japanese food, Iranian food, we've got South Korean food coming up and they will all eat it. They will try it and they will eat it. Nobody really leaves anything. It's just good."

"As most of the administrative side of the events - planning, reports, finances - is done by me, making sure the events can run if I’m not available. On the night we couldn’t function if we didn’t have our volunteers to help with the event. We all put alot of effort in and I’m not sure if the event would run if we didn’t do that. In various ways, a few of us contribute a lot of volunteer hours behind the scenes and on the night."

"And the same with Chris - what he does with the projection - it’s quite technical. The equipment that we've got is straightforward, but it's digital and it's high-tech - out of a lot of people's comfort zone. So he needs to have 1 or 2 people that he can rely on (to take over when he’s not here).

Cine North is a really enjoyable thing. We enjoy doing it and think that's what shows. At events I make a point of saying we are all volunteers so please thank everybody for all their efforts. And we do really go to town. Everybody puts 100% effort in on the night and people who come see it and they appreciate it and they think this is a great thing to be a part of."