Celebrating 21 exciting years at the Cheese and Grain

Cara Dillon announced as patron for the Cheese and Grai

The Cheese and Grain are delighted to announce that International folk star Cara Dillon has joined Emily Eavis as a Patron of the Cheese & Grain. 

The Irish singer-songwriter, who resides in Frome, came along for a tour of the new Bert Jansch studio at the Cheese and Grain on Thursday 19th September with Glastonbury Festival co-organiser Emily Eavis, who has been the venues patron since 2009. 

The Patrons were shown around the studio by Paddy Higgins who works as a Live Events Management Apprentice for the Cheese & Grain/Young Somerset.

Tracey Rawlins, Marketing Manager commented, “We are absolutely thrilled to have Cara Dillon as an additional patron. She regularly performs at the venue and her concerts are always a delight, she also spoke at our International Womens Conference in the spring. Cara is talented, charming and enthusiastic and will be a brilliant ambassador for our venue. To have Cara as well as Emily Eavis connected with our venue is a real asset.” 

More than music

The Cheese & Grain is celebrating its 21st Birthday this month and has become a popular event venue attracting over 250,000 visitors a year! 

Events have quadrupled in last five years and the Cheese and Grain has gained an excellent reputation being one of the major venues in the South West. With 70% of the audience coming from outside Frome the Cheese and Grain is a key part of Frome’s economy.

However the Cheese and Grain is much more than a music venue, the venue is fundamentally a community centre and offers many activities every week.

Every Monday morning the cafe is buzzing with the Healthy Monday Talking Cafe, a free scheme to get people talking and enjoying some light exercise.

New for Mondays is Chess at the Cheese, a chess club for children and adults in the cafe, visit the website for more information.

Monday evening is Bingo Night with The Pod a local charity that supports young people with additional needs and young carers. 

Mojo Moves a fun exercise class with the larger than life comedy character Cheryl from Rare Species in the hall every Tuesday evening and the cafe is alive with sound of Rock Choir every Tuesday night too.

Also on Tuesday afternoons is a busy martial arts class for youngsters in the hall with Elevation Martial Arts.

Frome Flea Market is every Wednesday morning and is crammed full with vintage and collectable items. Frome Country Market is in the hall every Thursday morning and is the best place for plants, cakes and bakes all homemade or grown locally.

Roots Sessions are a free entry music session in the bar every Wednesday evening and is a must for music fans offering a platform for upcoming artists and bands. 

As well as all the weekly and monthly markets: Vegan Markets, Farmers markets, Vintage and Gift markets the Cheese and Grain is also a perfect venue for conferences and exhibitions. 

The hall can hold up to 500 delegates and with the extra meeting rooms for break out sessions plus catering and is a good choice to hold a conference.

Three good meeting rooms are available to hire up in our mezzanine area and are only £12 per hour and include projectors and whiteboards. 

Also on the mezzanine is a hotdesk space and is a busy hub ideal for workers who want to be in a lively, exciting space. 

The Cheese and Grain is often mistaken as being council funded however it is actually a registered charity and receives no funding. This can be very challenging when running an old building and the responsibility of paying almost 50 staff! There is a current fundraising campaign to replace the heating and install air conditioning which the venue desperately needs, donations are steady but it a long way off the £100k target at present. There will some future fundraising ideas to try and achieve the target including a big benefit concert so watch this space! 

Another way to support the venue is to become a Friend. For just £20 a year benefits include a priority booking period on the more popular shows, regular on sale announcements 10% off in the cafe and bar, free cloakroom and special member events and offers. To join or make a donation go to the Cheese and Grain website www.cheeseandgrain.com or call the friendly box office team on 01373 455 420.

Coming Up This Season…

As the nights draw in where better to spend the long evenings than at Somerset’s favourite venue, the Cheese & Grain.

Coming up this season is comedy with Jonathan Pie, Ruby Wax and the Scummy Mummies Show. Dance music with UKF10, Trevor Nelson’s Soul Nation, Idles DJ Set, Craig Charles Funk and Soul, Cuban Brothers and the Gorilla Tactics Annual Christmas Party.

There’s also talented musicians such as Gilbert O’Sullivan, Wishbone Ash, Oye Santana, Al Stewart, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Steeleye Span and Merril Osmond.

Some of our favourites are back again including London African Gospel Choir, The Blockheads, Complete Madness, Dreadzone, Bad Manners, New Purple Celebration and the ultimate feelgood show Neville Staple Band.

Other exciting events include Shaun Ryder, The Sweet, Frome’s Missing Links Ceilidh and for New Years Eve The Unravelling Wilburys, which is guaranteed a great night to see in 2020! 

As well as some great music and comedy we are looking forward to the popular Vintage Bazaar, Wessex Camera Fair, the Pushing Up the Daisies Festival, the always popular Chocolate Festival and also the Multicultural Day. 

For details of these events and so many more go to the website www.cheeseandgrain.com or grab a copy of the latest What’s On brochure.

Frome Community Education at the Cheese & grain by Sue Klepper

Frome Community Education CIC has worked with the C&G since our inception – we are now coming up to our 10th year and the partnership has been a huge success.

When we first had the idea of providing leisure classes without the paperwork and just bringing tutors and students together to learn the things they enjoy we had no office and no real administration facilities – something we still do not have!  Being able to use the C&G box office made the whole enterprise work and the staff there have always taken an interest and made life easier for us, something we really needed when dealing with 35-40 classes per term, over 300 students and about 25 tutors.  Since the advent of online booking everything has become even more efficient and excellent bookings so far this year has meant full classes and occasionally having to put on extra sessions.

The development of the mezzanine and the classroom space was a huge boon for our work, especially the ‘hotdesking’ workspace.  Over the past 5 years we have been able to provide free classes to people who are struggling with IT and literacy basic skills.  We have received a number of grants (Awards for All, Frome town Council, Somerset Skills Learning) to provide the computers, teachers and helpers. The IT hub drop-in sessions are a fantastic way of getting people more involved in their community; people search for work, renew their bus or rail pass, fill in complex forms or just get in touch with loved ones.  They can also learn to read and write in informal sessions with the help of our literacy tutor.  

Many people do not have computers at home or do not know how to use them.  Working in this friendly, non-threatening space (with a nice cafe attached) means that people can feel less isolated and also get a glimpse of all the other fantastic stuff that happens in what feels like ‘our’ community centre.  The space really brings people and organisations together.

The bert jansch studio

Since officially opening earlier this year in February, The Bert Jansch Studio has had all sorts of bookings from hosting Alt-Folk artist, Sam Brookes as he records his third album to holding public events such as the free Drum Clinic hosted by former Level 42 drummer Gary Husband. 

March to June has seen the Rural Music Network Project take up residency using the space for rehearsal and recording session for its tour programme as well as  putting on a number of community events such as its free masterclass sessions. The first of these sessions saw Frome Punk band SickOnes give a Masterclass/ Q&A session on “Band Life”. This proved to be a very realistic, eye opening, inspiring and informative insight into their own “band life” experiences, sharing plenty of tips, advice and humour on the way. 

As mentioned earlier former Level 42 Drummer, Gary Husband ran a free Drum Clinic which saw a 42 (coincidence) people attend, filling out the live room. In this session guests were treated to an evening of Gary husband sharing his  skills, knowledge and philosophy of being a drummer as well as a showing some of his techniques and how he likes to play the drums. 

This has not been Gary’s only time using the studio as previously used the space to film his brand new Drum Tuition Videocast series. This series will be an ever-expanding series of standalone tutorial videos for anyone who has a desire to establish their own style of drumming. These videos will be practical, motivational and educational for all. 

However this has not been the only commercial booking the studio has had with clothing brand Dickies hiring out the studio for a week to shoot one of their new ranges. This has shown that the studio is not just about music and can be used for much more than rehearsals and recording. 

The studio has still had plenty of music booking so far this year with its first professional recording taking place in May when sound engineer and partner to the studio Dom Monks joined with choir made up of 30 members of Longleat Safari Park staff to record a brand new single due to be released later on in the year. 

Dom Monks would return to the studio in June but this time working with Bristol based Alt-Folk artist Sam Brookes to record his third album. Their time was split in two with Dom Monks and Sam Brookes staying for a week in June before coming back in August to finish up the recordings on what will for sure a great album. 

The studio has hosted music acts from the Rural Music Network Project throughout March to June. Music acts have been using the space to record new songs, rehearse for shows, practice and record live takes of songs to use for promotional material. 

For the remainder of the year for the studio sees the Rural Music Network Project return with its ‘Tour Program’ bring with it eight new music acts from across Somerset who will be using the Studio for rehearsal and development sessions from October to December. For those that wish to take part on the Tour program you can apply up to September 23rd by either emailing jamesbrookes@young   somerset.org or sending a message to Rural Music Network on Facebook.

There will be more open community sessions coming up at the Bert Jansch Studio with an open Jam session for all being run between 5:30pm to 8pm on Tuesday 24th of September in the studio live room. For more information about this email studio@cheeseandgrain.com. 

During this week will also be hosting another Rural music Network academy session with sound engineer Dom Monks giving a masterclass on recording and record making. In this session Dom will be sharing his experiences as recording engineer as well as discussing how he started out in the industry and then sharing his philosophy on recording. 

This session will take place on Thursday 26th of September and is a free drop in session. For more information email studio@cheeseandgrain.com.