Rye Film Club is to be disbanded and membership of club members transferred to the Rye Community Centre Association. But the changes, made to maintain the club’s support for the community centre, do not mean an end to the movies. Indeed there will be benefits: more films for less money.
John Holbrook, chairman of the club, explained that the club’s raison d’être all along had been to support the community centre on Conduit Hill so that it continued to offer Rye residents a local hub. Bearing in mind that there would soon be a new cinema in town, changes needed to be made, he told the club’s annual meeting.
Holbrook said the club’s committee was in the process of obtaining a Public Video Screen Licence, that would allow it to show free films that it supplied itself. The licence would run from May 1 2014 to April 30 2015 at an annual cost of £107. “This will give us ample scope to show lesser known and foreign films to smaller audiences in conjunction with the mainstream films carefully selected for our Rye audience.” The club would not be constrained by the present cost of paying Filmbank a £99 fee for each film shown.
“The annual subscription for the transferred members of the club to the community centre association will be £24 payable in one transaction or four quarterly payments. One day membership for guests will remain at £5,” he said. “Membership will automatically change over to the community centre when current film club tickets expire. In essence this means that twice as many films could be seen at no extra cost.”
The full alcohol licence if granted will extend the hours of business giving the association scope to extend the hours of business for future events.