The Rising Sun Arts Centre is starting to reopen after over a year of lockdowns, false-starts and a huge amount of uncertainty. We look forward to being able to welcome old and new faces back into the centre as we take our steps back to what life was like before Covid.

But one thing that the pandemic has taught us is that there are big changes we need to make before things can go back to running events at full capacity when the building - especially the main room - isn’t very well ventilated. This was something we were always aware of pre-Covid, but now it is something we absolutely need to implement to help keep our volunteers, our community and our artistes safe.

We’d also love to be able to make further improvements to enable us to improve how we run events - both for our volunteers and and for our visitors - with upgrades to our sound and lighting equipment high on the to-do list.

So, we’re asking for your support to help raise the funds to make these improvements happen. Based on initial quotes, we need to raise:

£10,000 for ventilation

£3,500 for PA/sound equipment

£2,000 for lighting

Our priorities are very much in that order!

So, if you’ve ever enjoyed a packed Club Velocity gig, been part of one of our many dance classes, browsed a busy Christmas art market or squeezed in to be part of the Here Comes The Sun Festival crowd - and would like to do all that again - please give whatever you can and help the Sun Rise once more!