Stakeholders, Volunteers and Supporters Update: Christmas 2024
A message from JJ McGregor, Chair of Re:Source
I would like to share some important news, as we look ahead to 2025 and the exciting developments in store for The Exchange.
Over the last few years, The Exchange has been the venue for a diverse range of incredible events and activities. We have made lots of new friends and developed some important and long-lasting partnerships, testing out the iconic, amazing space that so many of local people love and cherish.
INCREDIBLE EVENTS!
Thanks to your support, we now understand more about the market. We know how different audiences would like to see the venue used. We have explored opportunities and overcome unforeseen challenges whilst delivering some successful, crowd-pleasing events which have brought thousands of people to Blackburn along the way. We are so grateful to everyone who got behind us by organising or being part of an event or festival here.
AMAZING VOLUNTEERS!
This culminated in engagement and evaluation programme which began in 2023 with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. This project enabled us to recruit and train a group of dedicated local people. We are now grateful to able to call on this team as our first bank of Exchange volunteer ambassadors and hosts. My thanks to every single one of those volunteers for stepping up and giving your time and skills to help us to deliver our dream.
MAKING HISTORY WITH OUR NEW BOOK
We were also able to research and produced our first history of the building with the publication of a book. “The Exchange, The Foundation Years.” This is an early history of the Exchange authored by volunteers, Howard Foy and Chris Walton and beautifully illustrated by local artist, Gosha Gibek. We held a book launch at Blackburn Museum in July and the book is soon available on Amazon or by contacting us direct, if you’re still looking for that perfect Christmas gift! Email info@exchangeblackburn.org.uk if you’d like to buy a copy.
EMBRACING THE PAST TO TRANSFORM THE FUTURE
We have also produced a short film with the help of filmmaker Rodrigo Guaderrama. This documentary follows The Exchange over the last 12 months and features local people sharing their memories of The Exchange as a cinema in the past and our hopes and dreams for the future. Watch here
BUILDING WORK
Of course, alongside all this community activity, we have not forgotten our main goal to see the Exchange brought back into sustainable use as vibrant and diverse venue to deliver activities which inspire hope, creativity and excellence for people and communities. This vision remains in our sight and is becoming an achievable dream as we aim to play a significant role in the fulfilment, wellbeing and transformation of Blackburn. So, we have also continued to invest and develop the physical structure and facilities in the building. We now have new offices, toilet facilities and improved access. And now, thanks to significant funding, we are about to see real transformation happening.
MAJOR FUNDING AND DEVELOPMENT
Over the next 12 months, the iconic octagon shaped tower will be repaired thanks to a £1.5m grant from Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, part of £20 million of new Government funding secured for the borough to support town centre priorities. We have always enjoyed a positive relationship with the local authority, and it is with their support that the next very visible phase of restoration of the Exchange Building will begin. However, with major building work underway, we are now unable to use the main Exchange Hall. We must temporally pause its use as a community venue and event space until the next stage of the restoration is complete.
STAFFING
Without the income the Exchange Hall generates, we have taken the difficult but very necessary steps to wind down the management and staff team that have been working closely with us over the last several years through the engagement period. For a small charity, the costs of an employed team are significant. With no event work in the pipeline, while the development of the tower is undertaken, it is simply not a cost we can bear without change and In October we were sad to say goodbye to Lisa Clarke, Julian Jarzebinski and Caer Butler (pictured below L-R).
On behalf of the trustees, I would like to express our special thanks to Caer, Director of Operations in leading the team.
We acknowledge Caer’s hard work and her dedication to the project in delivering the plan to date. Without the commitment of Caer and her team, we would not have achieved so much or have reached this exciting stage of our development.
Our friends and partners at Re:ignite church have employed Lisa to develop their own partnership connections. We have gratefully accepted their offer of Lisa’s support to the Re:Source Trustee Team as a point of contact and source of information for volunteers, during the building development works. We wish Julian well in his future career, having completed his business apprenticeship with us.
DEVELOPMENT TEAM
Buttress Architects Limited are now leading the next phase, with Grant Prescott as lead architect. Josh Chana from Chana Projects is Project Manager with specialist contractors engaged and ready to begin work.
Please keep your eyes on the tower and its development in the coming months, we look forward to welcoming you back into The Exchange to see our progress at the earliest opportunity and will be sharing photos as we go along.
HUGE THANKS
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all our supporters and stakeholders for all you have done to help us get to this point of what has been a remarkable journey. On behalf of all the Re:Source trustees, we wish you a happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year, as we look forward to what 2025 will bring for the Exchange, in what will be the building’s 160th year. Watch this space!
John James McGregor, Chair of Trustees, Re:Source Blackburn