Oblong has money!

In the last two weeks, Oblong has been given two grants, £60,000 from the Tudor Trust and £150,000 from the National Lottery. We are saved! Although this sounds like a lot of money, it's actually only 70% of what we need to keep the centre running, so we need to keep working on finding new funds. All the same, this will give us some much-needed stability and a chance to move Oblong forward and make it bigger and better than it ever has been.

Being skint has been difficult for Oblong and incredibly stressful for the 'paid' staff, but I think it's also had an upside. Volunteers have taken on more responsibilities, often looking after the centre and making it possible for us to keep the place open - we would have often had to shut the doors without them. We've also moved into other areas of work, partly because we needed the money but also because they fitted in with what we wanted to do. Two mental health projects, the Vision youth volunteering project, the working groups, the assembly and the Can Do fund are all new areas for Oblong.

I think it's amazing that at the time when we were most under pressure, people found the energy and inspiration to keep Oblong going forward and actually create new things. If we can keep moving like this, Oblong will get the kind of stability that we've always lacked and - more importantly - bring hundreds or even thousands of people together to change their lives and their communities for the better.