Friendly Street Poets financially strong despite COVID-19
I hope all members are keeping well during our suspension of monthly meetings. Remember that not all activities are suspended and, in particular, you can submit via the website HERE to have poems considered by the editors for inclusion in the FSP Anthology #45.
The shutdown is having an effect on FSP’s financial situation, but we remain strong. With no monthly First-Monday meetings, we are, of course, not collecting door entries. These add up to 15-20% of annual revenue, so they are important. We are likely to miss out on these for most of this year. Also, our membership subscriptions are quite low year-to-date: not much more than half of 2019 membership numbers. Membership payments comprise 20-25% of annual revenue. Please go on-line at the FSP web-site HERE and renew your membership to help us through the year. It is necessary to be a member in order for your web-site submission to be considered for Anthology #45, so there is a real benefit in keeping your membership current.
The other big source of revenue for FSP comes from book sales, which can account for more than 40% of total revenue. Anthology #44 has been printed and paid for, and is ready to go. We are just waiting for the opportunity to have a launch. New Poets 21 is on-track with judging of entries in progress, and we intend to proceed with this to the point of having the volume printed and also ready to go. So, hopefully, we will achieve book sales later in the year. When we launch these two volumes for 2020, please jump in and buy your copy, or even better, several copies! This will all help FSP come through the year in good financial shape. There are also other previously published books which you can buy on-line HERE.
We have achieved cash surplus for the past few of years. This means we are well funded just now (money in the bank!), which is just what we need at a time like this. It is quite possible that we will use up a little of this surplus in 2020, but we can be quite confident that we will still have a good cash position going into 2021. Members can help by keeping membership numbers up, and buying our Anthology #44 and New Poets 21 at launch time later in the year.
Best regards to all, Roger Higgins, Treasurer, June 2020.