Hi all –

Coming to our Executive Board and wider member mailing list.

You’ll know that we’ve been in ongoing discussion with Government on the possibility of targeted financial support for UK cinema operators.

The ongoing challenges presented by successive regional and national lockdowns mean that we are in truth now unlikely to see any genuine recovery for the sector – aided we hope by the arrival of a nationwide vaccination programme – until early 2021.

This means that even those smaller operators who have been able to access funding through the Culture Recovery Fund and its counterparts in the devolved nations will most likely require further support, while the needs of larger operators – who have not received any such support to date – are if anything even more urgent.

To provide some additional impetus/leverage to that dialogue, we’ve today launched a lobbying campaign under the banner ‘Keep the Magic Alive’, the key aim of which is to encourage as many people to contact their MP to press our case.

Key to the campaign is an (hopefully!) engaging piece of a/v reminding everyone of what many cinemas mean to their local communities, and highlighting the contribution the sector makes to individual well-being as well as its direct and indirect support for jobs, the local high street and engagement with people from across the community. This can be seen here.

This will be supplemented by a series of shorter ‘stings’, focussing on individual elements of this narrative.

Given what will always be our limited budget, the key focus of the campaign will be on social media channels, on which the campaign went ‘live’ today. In order for it to achieve its full potential, we need everyone to ‘share’ and ‘retweet’ the campaign pieces please so that it reaches as many people (who in turn contact their MP) as possible.

We understand the point that members may also want to engage their MSPs, AMs or MLAs in the devolved administrations, but our initial primary focus is the Westminster Government, which has the ability to ‘unlock’ funding which is then delegated to the individual nations.

We also understand that some of the reference points here – such as the high street – may not be relevant to all, but hopefully you recognise, not least given the news of the last 48 hours, that these are the political buttons we need to press.

It would be great if you felt able to share the instructions below with your members please and they in turn felt able to support in a professional and/or personal capacity.

To do so, all we you need to do is share our campaign video(s) and suggested ‘copy’ on their social media channels, with more details here: https://bit.ly/cinemacampaign. 

• Twitter: If on Twitter, please just retweet the main campaign video from @Cinema_UK, and feel free to add your own supportive comment! 
• Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn: Any of our campaign videos can be downloaded and shared directly from your own account in just a few minutes – full instructions are at the link above. 

Whichever channel you post on, please include the campaign hashtag #KeepTheMagicAlive.

Thanks, 

Phil.

Phil Clapp  | Chief Executive
M+44 (0) 7917806887 E phil.clapp@cinemauk.org.uk

Have a look at our latest Executive Committee Members HERE!

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