Last year was a great year for CreativeMornings Johannesburg. We have managed to grow our chapter by more than 50%. We fully sold out all our talks in 2 hours or less. We Not one person fell asleep in the crowd. To make this all happen a ton of work goes on behind the scenes to run a monthly talk series. From finding the speaker, convincing them to take part, finding a topic they love and a gap in their diary that suits. Hunting down a venue, convincing them to give it to us for nothing and to throw in AV. Building out all the online platforms, promoting the event, generating hype and issuing tickets. Wrangling the sponsors to be at the venue really early in the morning to give away their wares for nothing but a hug. Getting a team of volunteers to a venue in the city at 6:30 to set up a warm welcome, check people in and make sure the event runs smoothly. There is also filming and documenting the event. Curating, editing and uploading the pictures and video. Only to reset and start the whole process month after month. While you are in it, there are one or two moment when you think to yourself is this all worth it?
In order to bask in the warm glow of hindsight you need to look at some of the highlights of 2015:
- Roger Ballen saw beauty in Ugly
- John Huntwrote something down
- Mike Sharman had a bit of a brag
- Lebogang Rasethaba let us screen Future sounds of Mzansi at the Alexander Theatre
- The Trinity Session tried to insight a revolution at Moad
- We welcomed a new member of CreativeMornings HQ Vince Joy
- Garth Walker confessed to being a design thief at the SA book fair
- Pepe Maraistook action to change the way the creative word works
- CreativeMornings reached 130 cities worldwide
- We found a new home at the Market Theatre
- Gordon Cookmade us shed an empathetic tear at the Market Theatre
- We turned 2 years old in Johannesburg
- John Vlismas shocked us out of our bias’
- We hit 3000 likes on Facebook
- Craig Rodney taught reinvigorated us to start a personal project
- We ran out of time in 2015
It has been a pleasure to be part of. It seems like there is an infinite pool of people who are willing to give up their time and money to support an initiative like CreativeMornings. All we can offer them in repayment is to tell everyone about how awesome they are. If they are inn attendance we might even call them out from the stage while they sip a cup of coffee and eat a breakfast pastry. When you have a project that has no money involved, aimed at inspiring and bringing people together. With the lofty goal to build a tighter more colaborative creative community. You will get access to opportunities that otherwise would not have presented themselves to you. People are more open to participate and to forego their usual payments just to contribute their piece of the goal. My favourite thing about being an organiser is that you have a really solid excuse to phone up the most inspirational people in your city and have a conversation with them. It makes my city feel more connected and filled with amazing people willing to do amazing things. We could not have done it without the generosity of everyone who gave so freely. I am not smart enough to figure out how to make these alphabetical, or even in an order that makes sense. So this is just a stream of consciousness:
For all the free stuff we ate/drank/saw in 2015. The guys from Luna Water: Tyler, Nick, Chad. The Team from Doubleshot: Alon, Ori and Daniel. Sandra and the team from Vovo Telo 44 Stanley. Ben for letting me keep abusing Nicework; Lisa and the team from Cupped. Dino and the team from Molecular bars and the March Hare; and Rob and the team from Sound Stylists you rock my world!
We would not have had a roof over our heads or a projector for our eyes without Sam and the team from Jozi Hub; Sam, Eben and Ilan from the SA Book Fair; Ben, Georg, Greg for their wonderful office space; Adam, Candice, Nikki and Carl of the Alexander Theatre; Aaron and Batja of MoAD and Zama and Annabelle of the Market Theatre. Thanks for keeping us warm.
We would not have been able to re-live these moments without Brett Field, Louis Grobler, Chris Bezuidenhout, Alexis Schofield, Ross Maxwell, Jeremy Elwell and the Umuzi Photo club. We appreciate your eyes,
And a big shout out to the team the team who broke their backs: Kelly, Ben, Leigh-Anne, Thea, Alexa, Jess, Candice, Kyle, Luci, Conor, Jason, David, Rebecca, Naledi, Ajaka, Tessa and Tumi and the interns (no one can remember all the interns names). I am also leaving out the millions of people who gave insights, advice or a shoulder to cry on.
It takes a village to make an amazing year of CreativeMornings
Thanks for being part of our journey. Looking at the list of speakers and participants, I can say, for me, all the hard work and effort was worth it a million times over.
Thanks
Ross
