Happy New-sletter Part 1

2019 was neither one thing or another work-wise, or so I thought until I looked back through my work journal for the year and realised that I had done more than I thought.

• Filmed final scenes for Curse of the Jester which was released on August 29th, and you can watch it here.
• Filmed 34 episodes of The Random Sessions. There are only two episodes unreleased which will drop this month, and you can watch every episode here.
• The entirety of my final go at hosting a stage at the Hockley Hustle in 2018 was released as a playlist, you can watch those here.
• I hosted two Songwriter Sessions gigs at the Central Library in Nottingham, one as a stand in for Ben Smith and one as a crossover with The Random Sessions which of course I filmed.
• Hosted a stage at the Kimberley Jam on an insanely hot day in July, although I filmed all of the sets they are not suitable for release due to the large volume of people talking.
• On the subject of talking at gigs, I once again performed my poem Shut Up And Listen. I was a bit tipsy and forgot the words despite having them in front of me.
• I released three experimental short films:
• Relax With The Swans (watch)
• Kurt Says Hello (watch)
• Lightning (watch)
• Completed a screenplay for a short film that I will hopefully be able to film this year.
• Edited the first four gigs from when I hosted The Sunday Alternative Live at Nottingham's much missed venue The Maze. The trailer is up now and the episodes will be released this month.

Also of course I put in two shifts when the clocks changed doing my usual good work on Twitter. This of course didn't attract any local media attention and I was disappointed in the fact that donations didn't meet expectations. I also did not manage to attract any sponsorship.

Talking of the local press, this links in to the main point of this newsletter. For some reason I am subject to a media blackout. As far as I can make out, I am the only public figure in Nottingham with this childish and unprofessional treatment, the worst part being that a charity single I released got no attention. As a way of making amends, I have suggested that Simon Wilson, the entertainment editor of the Nottingham Post (he used to have a pullout but now he has been relegated to a few pages at the back) make a donation to Hockley Hustle charities, but at the time of writing there has been no confirmation regarding the amount. 

The first thing you can do to help make 2020 a successful year is to email the following people and ask that the media blackout be lifted:

simon.wilson@nottinghampost.com

newsdesk@nottinghampost.com

jaredwilson@leftlion.co.uk

There's also Notts TV, East Midlands Today and BBC Radio Nottingham, but I don't have the email addresses for them. Please BCC me in and forward me the replies as I am interested to get to the bottom of this situation.

Thank you.

#SteveO2020

August newsletter - It'll be my birthday soon

It has been a while since I posted a newsletter so there's a lot of business to attend to. Although I have been busy this year I am still hitting a brick wall trying to get people to understand how crowd funding works. For this reason I am still a long way behind on the old to-do list so hopefully this newsletter will provide the nudge required.

The Random Sessions continues, I have come out of promoter's retirement to run a stage at this year's Kimberley Jam, work has began on an audio documentary, and today I watched the finished version of The Curse of the Jester which will be released very soon.

August is my birthday month, 27th to be precise, and I turn 43 this year. With this in mind, please could you consider donating £4.30 at least? Things have become a little more urgent on the donations front as I have set a target to move to Scotland in a year, two at the most, and I have unfinished business this side of the border. To make things even easier, aside from using the donation button at the top of the page, you can also follow this link.

I want to complete a short Hitchcock style thriller in Nottingham as I have already scouted a good selection of locations. Also, another short comedy that I have written, possibly a documentary about a popular Nottingham band, and a smattering of Nottingham-centric documentaries. Once I have done these, I promise to leave town, I am sure that's a good incentive for a few people!

So in summary, I need donations in order to entertain you. There's also a shit-load of ideas in my collection of notebooks that I would love to breathe life into.

In other news

I made a relaxation video which follows a family of swans on the River Lean in Nottingham. Hit this page which, once you have read it will lead to the video on YouTube. As always you can make a donation by hitting either the button at the top of this page or by going here.

I am starting to share live music from my archive, sometimes just the one song and sometimes a full set - either video or audio. Not everything will be released because I am asking permission from the artists that I have recordings of. Although these won't be the best quality because they were mainly phone recordings, I am editing these up into something rather nice. It doesn't seem right to use these videos to try and ask for money as I feel as if I am insulting the artists, so feel free to donate anyway to help me do my thing. To soothe your conscience, you could research the musicians that I feature on the channel and go and see them live, buy their music or merchandise, that sort of thing.

Like most writers, I archive everything. This includes tweets. Did you know that you can only see your most recent 3,200 tweets and not go any further back? I don't keep them all, just the really good ones in particular the funny ones. These are saved as jpegs and I will provide a disc of these to my 2000th, 3000th etc follower. A CD is also available for sale, like a greatest hits album eh? Email me with 'Tweet CD' in the subject line if you fancy revisiting jokes that were once topical (the horse-meat scandal, Jimmy Savile for example) and funny observations.

In other other news, we can generate funds in a number of ways

I have written a half hour version of A Christmas Carol suitable for public readings, condensed without losing any of the story and ideal for Christmas festivals, parties, schools and the like. This script is available for sale, email me at the below address with 'A Christmas Carol' in the subject line for more details. If you would prefer to have me read it in front of an audience along with a sequel set five years later called Finding Scrooge, then I am available, email me with 'Christmas shows' in the subject line.

Read about my typewriting service here.

As time seems to roll along so quickly, it will soon be goodbye to British summertime with the changing of the clocks. As always I will be providing a dedicated hourly service via Twitter and you can help me monetise this by reading this page.

For all of the above please email steveEoliver@gmail.com

Social media

Follow me on Twitter

Follow me on Instagram

Like my page on Facebook

For a man and artist of my calibre, I am still woefully underfollowed on all of the above. I have no idea why but you can help me to change this by recommending me to your followers. The blue tick has no appeal to me because Twitter (in particular) threw it around to a load of nonentities so it has lost its value. 

Finally

Don't forget to make a donation, however big or small, by going here.

If you would like to sponsor The Random Sessions by way of 'read out' advertisements then get in touch.

May Newsletter

Nearly five months into the year and it has been one of slight disappointment to be honest. Apart from being allowed to try on Punch and Judy puppets.

As usual I was hard at work during clock change weekend on Twitter helping out with the confusion, but the downside is that I didn't raise a lot of money through this. Apart from not selling a single advert, the donations were very thin on the ground. I was hoping to be able to announce that I had raised the necessary finance to make a short film after the weekend but it wasn't to be.

April's payday weekend has hit us so please can you see your way clear to dropping a few quid or whatever you can afford using the PayPal button at the top of this page. Every penny that goes into the fund goes into creating films, documentaries, comedy sketches, podcasts and the continued run of The Random Sessions. In return for your generosity, I will make everything created available online completely free of charge for everybody to enjoy.

If only impressions were donations

On the subject of The Random Sessions, I have taken a break from releasing the main episodes while I get the Hockley Hustle videos out, and today the whole day of shows is available. As for the main series, I am still enjoying this and have this year changed things up a little by introducing the interview element and adding the Facebook bonus video on the Random Sessions Facebook page. There are still a good few episodes ready to go out every Sunday, but apart from one in May I am taking a short break from filming while I concentrate on a couple of other projects.

One of the things I will be working on is some work on a documentary I am planning about Punch and Judy. Aside from writing the narrative I am taking a day trip to the Covent Garden May Fayre and Puppet Festival to record vox pops and gather material. I also have a first draft to write for a radio play and hopefully make some moves regarding other projects. The Random Sessions will return though although I would love to find a sponsor for it, to be able to up the production a bit without taking away from the DIY ethos and more importantly to be able to pay the artists who appear. 

I found these blank cassettes in my office, and now I am thinking of a way to turn them into money without simply selling them.

Other ways to raise funds, all of which will go into the PayPal account to create free entertainment.

Typewriting service: More details here.

Kazoo: More details here.

More importantly though, please just give what you can using the PayPal button at the top of this page, thank you in advance for becoming part of something brilliant.

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You can help to remove the word 'underfollowed' from my bio by following me (and recommending that others do the same) on Twitter and Facebook 

February Newsletter

January is just bollocks isn't it? 

On New Years Eve we're all full of optimism for the year ahead and make all kinds of nonsensical promises to ourselves, only to realise that January is just bollocks. The dregs of Christmas hang in the air like a bad smell, and worst of all everyone is skint. It seems so nice to be paid early ready for Christmas until you realise that the distance between receiving your December salary and your January salary feels like a million years. With this in mind I think it's time we treated January as a buffer between Christmas and the proper new year, which technically starts in February when we are all back in funds. 

So, happy new year proper. This is the one I want to look back on as the year that things finally turned around and started happening. Last year was a bit slow with regards to creating entertainment for you so we now need to pull together and make things right. If you haven't donated before, then please consider it now.

There are things in the pipeline that I need funding for, not a huge amount but just enough to get things moving. We all know how crowd-funding works by now, everything I create will be made available online completely free of charge for everybody to enjoy. In addition to this I will (new offer for the new year) pull two people at random from those who donate and send some gifts relating to the things I make, a finished film on DVD or an audio CD, that sort of thing. 

For this year I am bringing back the audio podcast of The Random Sessions, which will probably be fortnightly although I would like to do it weekly. I also have another series of podcasts that I am discussing, The Random Sessions starts back up this month with a slight change of format, new audio books are on the way for Christmas, all of which won't cost a fortune. However I have documentaries, films, sketches and other things that need funding. 

Please share this newsletter around and if you have never made a donation before then why don't we make 2019 count? If you have never donated before, then now is your chance to make things right. Perhaps a monthly amount on payday if you can manage? However you decide to do it, please remember that you will be becoming a part of something wonderful.

If you would like to be a big backer of a project then please email me and we can sort something out.

The PayPal button is at the top of the page, thank you very much in advance.