Funding the Gay Centre
1975
“We got people to sign up to monthly standing orders of two or three pounds. Over a year that was quite a lot of money. I think one or two people lent some money and the lease had been on the market for quite along time, it was a depressed period (economically), so we persuaded the landlords to let us have it at a fairly low rent. It was not derelict; it had an enormous warehouse at the side, which we sublet to Friends of the Earth to start their wholefood warehouse, they are still there. We had a committee who gave a clear policy that we would only ask people to give donations, so the coffee bar, which was quite nice, we never priced and still made quite a good amount of money from. People felt connected so they gave more generously. In the first year we had a fantastic treasurer who was very, very assiduous about retaining a sink fund and we built up quite a lot of savings.”
Contributed by: Malcolm Gibb, 58