What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 10 June 2013

Welcome to another week and it’s the start of a manic time for us here at Cloud 9 Towers with events a plenty over the next couple of weeks.

First up is the Midlands Media Awards which are set for this Thursday at Aston Villa Football Club. Over 250 guests will gather to recognise the stars of the Media Industry with categories that reward outstanding talent Journalism, Broadcasting and Photography.

We are certainly doing all we can to ensure Thursday is a fantastic night and you will be able to follow the results on Twitter from around 9pm using #MidlandsMediaAwards.

 

The Awards have been running for over 10 years but this our first time running the event so we are hoping to bring that Cloud 9 feeling to each and everyone of the guests.

 

The Birmingham Press Club is the oldest press club in the world, and the story of the club begins on a foggy winter night in 1865 when a small group of journalists met at a hotel in the centre of Birmingham.

The original minutes' book (still in excellent state of preservation) records: "At a meeting, held for the purpose of establishing a Club for promoting social enjoyment and literary recreation among Reporters and others connected with the Newspaper Press of Birmingham, held at Suffield's Hotel, Union Passage, on Saturday, the 16th of December, 1865..."

The club, to be called The Junior Pickwick Club, was duly formed on that day and date. Among its first rules was the edict that the reporters connected with the Daily Post, the Daily Gazette and the Midland Counties Herald should be its first members. Curiously, on that memorable occasion no one seemed bothered about financial matters. That came at the second meeting in January 1866, when it was resolved that there should be an entrance fee of one shilling. The subscription was set at five shillings a year.

Subsequent meetings were often held quarterly, usually over dinner accompanied by speeches and the reading of literary papers. One brief entry of such an occasion in the minutes' book records simply: "Everything so jolly that no minutes were taken."

By 1870 the Junior Pickwick Club had become known as The Birmingham Press Club. Few records remain about the club's activities between then and 1910, when an account of its history was published.

Entitled "A Thirty Year's Retrospect", this tells a story of convivial social occasions and "complaints as to defects in the service, and of remonstrance with the manageress" of the Midlands Hotel where members had their own exclusive club room. A search for other premises eventually resulted in a move to rooms in Castle Street off the High Street.

The history also tells of the first of the various financial crises faced by the club, this being in 1883.

Notice was given to the manageress and a decision taken to realise the assets of the club with a view to meeting its liabilities - however, temporary respite was found by relocating to a new home in a basement in Temple Row at the end of 1884.

The financial problems continued, however. At one point bailiffs armed with a distress warrant visited the club, but were paid off by those members then on the premises.

In 1890 the Birmingham Press Club moved back to the Midland Hotel. Aided by the generosity of Sir Algernon Borthwick, the club's President, a room was rented for £55 a year and the annual accounts showed a healthy surplus again.
 

At the turn of the century yet another crisis had members once more facing the prospect of having to move or wind-up the affairs of the club. Rooms were rented in Martineau Street where, for the first time, a full-size billiard table was installed.

At the annual dinner in 1910, the president spoke of his confidence that "we have passed through the valley of tribulation and are now steadily climbing to the pleasant uplands of assured prosperity" - a sentiment that, in the light of later events, seems a little misplaced.

Two years later, members voted for the club to become a limited liability company, The Birmingham Press Club Ltd. But by November 1912, the executive committee faced such a serious financial situation that a special meeting of the members voted to wind-up the affairs of the club unless a rescue plan could be agreed. Membership had fallen from 150 to below 100 and a new committee, formed to retrieve the situation, continued to manage the club until the end of the war.

The club prospered again and in 1923 an offer of larger premises at 9 Bull Street in the city centre was accepted. By the end of June, the move from Martineau Street had been completed. Membership now stood at 130, the annual subscription was increased to two guineas and the future of the Birmingham Press Club in Bull Street - the club's home for the next 43 years - seemed assured.

On the outbreak of the Second World War, special arrangements were made for members "to enter the Club during an air raid warning after closing the bar." The post-war years saw a return of the financial troubles that had so nearly led to the club being wound up some forty years earlier. In an attempt to supplement falling bar receipts, a fruit machine was installed - and soon became one of the principal sources of income.

1965 was the year the Birmingham Press Club should have been celebrating its centenary. Instead it was so preoccupied with negotiations for new premises that it contrived to miss the great occasion - surely the only club of any kind to do so!

The city council's plans for compulsory purchase of the Bull Street site for redevelopment forced the move to Corporation Street on Januay 28th, 1966, the Prime Minister, Mr Harold Wilson, officially opened the club's new premises.

That same year another momentous step was taken when directors agreed to the

admission of women to the club as guests for a trial period. Two years later the first women were admitted to full membership, and H R H Princess Alexandra became the first woman life member in 1972.

During the 1980s, increasing overheads and declining use of the Corporation Street premises made another move inevitable and the club moved to premises in the basement of the Grand Hotel, which were officially opened on 8th April 1997 by the Prime Minister, John Major.

The recurring theme of financial difficulties soon raised its head, and the club was soon forced to relinquish its lease on these premises. Thanks mainly to the efforts of the chairman, Andrew Sparrow, the club avoided being wound up, and today is thriving once more.

Yet another new home has been secured, at the Old Royal in Church Street. This is in a sense has been the club's spiritual home in the modern era, as it has been the venue for many dinners and other social events during past years, and is set to be so again for the foreseeable future.

Towards the end of 2005 the club was lucky enough to secure a major sponsorship deal with Royal Mail, who pledged their support for an initial 12 months. It is largely due to this that the club has been able to revamp its events calendar, which will now annually feature a number of celebrity lunches, the club's traditional Christmas lunch, a summer ball, the Midlands Media Awards and a monthly 'drinks evening' at the Old Royal and other venues.

So there you go, a history of the Press Club. We look forward to the Awards on Thursday and hope to see you there but whatever your plans this week, enjoy!