01
It runs longer than the festival
A stall, a stage slot or a workshop on the two days belongs in the festival programme. A project keeps going in October, and its value is in the going.
Join · special projects
Ideas that outlive a weekend.
A festival is two days. Some of what it turns up deserves longer: a recipe archive, a language corner that keeps meeting, an oral history of one street, a school programme, a craft apprenticeship. Those get their own address on this site and their own life. Nothing is running today, and this page is the door.
Zero projects running · the first one starts when somebody brings it · current as of 29 August 2026
| Line | State |
|---|---|
| Projects running | 0 |
| Projects in preparation | 0 |
| Who starts one | A community, a group, or one determined person |
| What a project gets | Its own address, its own page, our help |
| What it costs | Nothing |
| Who owns it | Whoever runs it |
Special projects · 0 running · current as of 29 August 2026
Nothing is running yet.
A page of imagined initiatives would be the easiest thing on this site to write and the least useful thing on it to read. The first project starts when somebody arrives with one, and this page fills in that week.
Honest state · this section disappears with the first project
Four tests · applied by the board
What counts as a project.
Four tests. Something that passes all four gets an address, a page and whatever help we can give it.
Four tests · a proposal that fails one usually belongs somewhere else on this site
Four tests · applied by the board, and the reasons are given in writing
02
Somebody is actually running it
A named person or group who will still be doing this in six months. The commonest reason a good idea fails here is that everybody agreed it was good and nobody owned it.
03
It serves more than one community, or it opens one up
Either it crosses between communities, or it takes something one community holds and makes it reachable by the rest of the city. Both count.
04
It leaves something behind
A recording, an archive, a class that keeps meeting, people who learned a skill. Something a person could point at a year later.
- Examples of the shape. Read them as a shape, never as a menu. An oral history of one neighbourhood. A recipe archive recorded in the kitchens it comes from. A language corner that keeps meeting monthly. An apprenticeship pairing a maker with somebody who wants to learn. A school programme built out of the Cultures articles.
- None of those is running. They are examples of shape, and a proposal nobody here has thought of is more interesting than one from that list.
Anything started here belongs to whoever runs it, and a project that wants to go alone takes its work with it.
What a project gets · what it owes
What a project gets, and what it owes.
The deal is deliberately light. A project that needs a committee before it can start is a project that will not start.
What we give · what we ask · both short
| What a project gets | What it owes |
|---|---|
| Its own address on this site, and a page it controls the content of | Somebody named who answers about it |
| A place in the journal, so its news reaches the mailing list | News often enough that the page is not stale |
| Introductions — communities, venues, the people we know | Honesty about what is actually happening, including when it stalls |
| Whatever practical help the team can give at the time | The same content rules as the rest of this site: no invented numbers, no unnamed sources, no photograph of a person used without their say-so |
| Room to grow inside its own address | Nothing else. There is no fee and no revenue share |
| Its own name and its own identity | A line saying it runs with Capital Cultures, where that is true |
- Step 01Planned You write The form below, or an email. One paragraph is enough to start a conversation.
- Step 02Planned A conversation What it is, who runs it, what it needs, and whether we are the right home for it. Sometimes the honest answer is that you should do it alone.
- Step 03Planned The board reads it against the four tests Yes, no or not yet, with the reason in writing.
- Step 04Planned It gets an address A page under /projects/, its news wired into the journal, and its own life from there.
- If it outgrows the sectionPlanned It rises A project big enough for the top menu takes a place in it, and something else comes out. Seven sections stay seven.
Propose one.
A paragraph is enough. The point of this form is to start the conversation. Nobody here is testing whether you can write an application.
Intake 14 · special projects · answered by a person
Join · special projects
Where to go next.
Do I need money to start one?
No. A project needs somebody running it. Money helps, and several of the things that would work best here need almost none.
Can my project charge for something?
Yes, if it is honest about it and the money is handled by whoever runs the project. We hold no money on anybody's behalf.
Will you fund it?
Not out of a festival budget that does not exist yet. We can help with introductions and with a grant application, and both are worth more than a small cheque at this stage.
What if it fails?
The page says what happened and stays up. A project that ran for six months and stopped is a more useful public record than a page that quietly disappears.
Can a project exist before the first festival?
Yes, and the first one should. A project runs on its own timetable and does not depend on a permit.
Somebody has to go first.
The first project on this page sets what the rest look like. Bring the one you have been thinking about.