We’ve been finding ourselves inundated with interest from so many quarters about the Finding Manchester Project. City Councillors, people on the street, emails and responses to radio coverage. We get a warm and tingly feeling whenever people show an interest and confirm our belief that the name of Manchester should be celebrated the world over, whichever Manchester it is. It keeps us going in the evenings when we’re tired, having finished a full days work and about to start again on the FM project. A project like this, which is being progressed in our free time, in addition to the day job is hard work. A glass of wine helps but people’s support helps more.

The good news is, that we have managed to save the personal funds needed for us to travel the globe in search of these Manchesters of the world. All that is required now is the funds for the time and resources to collect the archive materials, the recordings, the documentation, the school learning materials and the items for the exhibition. We’re ready to go and waiting on Manchester to do its bit. Unfortunately it costs money to develop an archive, an exhibition and learning materials for generations to come, and, interestingly, it’s those funds that are slow to come in. I say ‘interestingly’ because we live in an era when creative learning, celebration of identity and The Big Society are championed by the very quarters where the funds should be, but aren’t coming from.

So we find ourselves playing a waiting game; we’ve committed our time and personal funds to get us to the Manchesters of the world (and build this website) but now we wait for others to put their money where their mouth is, to meet us half way and make FM a reality. In the meantime, our Plan B takes shape and the clock ticks.