Wednesday 21 March 2012

CREATIVECOFFEE CLUB, 21 MARCH 2012


At Phoenix Square Film and Digital Media Centre this morning for CreativeCoffee Club. Between one thing and another, I haven’t been for some time: since 25 January to be precise. That’s three in a row … I don’t think I’ve missed that many consecutively before in what's been almost five years of attending CreativeCoffee Club.

This is a good day to come back and make a fresh start as it's Naw-Rúz - Bahá'í New Year - today.

Not so many here today as the last time I came. There are a dozen or so, but that includes a couple of new faces, as is always the case. The cafe bar is busy in is own right, with several small knots of people working on laptops in twos and threes. There are also (what I assume are) auditions or rehearsals for something called Under the Influence with How Bizarre Productions - a student performing arts company based at De Montfort University. A large group of young people are gathereD there; after a while they're ushered into one of the screening rooms.

There have been a few changes to CreativeCoffee Club since I was last here. Since funding and support from De Montfort University ended last year, CreativeCoffee Club has been stop-start. No one has really taken it on and run it with the same kind of devoted attention. From now on it will be overseen by Leicester Creative Business (LCB) Depot. From April 2012, a new dedicated website will be launched for CreativeCoffee Club (Thanks to Cheryl Gill, Enterprise Support Officer, LCB Depot & Phoenix Square Workspaces for providing more info.)

On the way to CreativeCoffee Club this morning, I bump into someone who was a mainstay of the event for a while. While chatting, I hear for the first time about Business Biscotti, which meets in another city centre venue, same day same time. My first reaction is to make a joke about the two groups getting together, since it sounds like they're made for each other (biscotti, coffee - get it?). On further online investigation though, it looks like there would a reversal of the natural order and they'd swallow up CreativeCoffee Club! There are Business Biscotti groups in Cambridge, Dundee, Liverpool, Slough, South West London, Wentworth, Weybridge, Windsor - and Leicester, of course.

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