Congratulations were given to Raphael Selbourne for winning the 2009 Costa First Novel Award and we came across The Music Quarter, a new music blog.

Hustle made the move to the Midlands, we had a giggle with Kipple and the Emerging Festivals Fund was announced, with some of the fruits of that being revealed towards the middle part of the year. Leftfoot started their 10th birthday celebrations and our most popular post of the year was published.

Ian joined the CiB team, we got the first glimpse of WeVee and plans were announced for the CiB shop

We also waved hello to Jane Anderson, Mark Wilkinson, Lucy Pryor, Phill Blake, Helen Flanagan, Sarah Lynch, Jade Sukiya, Jodi Ann Bickley, Leon Sparkes and Luke Halliley.

We also said farewell to Neil Farrington.

To enter – email the name of your organisation to createdinbirmingham@gmail.com using SUPPORT as the subject.

We’ll draw a winner on Wednesday 7 July at about 5pm.

CiB Supporters is our way of helping to keep Created in Birmingham going. For £75 for 12 months we plaster your name and logo in the blog’s sidebar, in a monthly ‘thank you’ post, on our Supporters page and on our Facebook Page. We also include you in a special Twitter list and give you regular  mentions at the end of CiBmail.

We’ll even send you a Christmas card.

Sounds good? As online advertising goes it’s cheap. It also helps to keep this website going, which hopefully you think of as a Good Thing.

Sign up here now

The offer was meant to end yesterday, but I’m going to extend it until midnight tonight (or whatever time I wake up and flip the switch tomorrow morning).

Thanks to everyone who’s signed up so far. You’ll be pleased to know the special Christmas cards (designed by band new crafty duo Lady and Small) are being delivered today, so you’ll get them sometime next week.

There seem to be two reasons people are signing up:

1. As far as advertising goes it’s ridiculously cheap (see details of the offer here)
2. People seem to like CiB and want to ensure that it can carry on

Please note – this offer is for online sign-ups only. If you can’t pay online and need invoicing then I can do that but it’ll have to be for the full £75.

Two more notes:

1. You don’t have to be a ‘creative’ person, organisation or whatever to sign-up – anyone’s welcome
2. If you’ve got nothing to advertise but want to support anyway (as a couple of people have done) then you can use this banner (right click-save as) and this link – http://www.createdinbirmingham.com/cib-supporters/support-cib/ – when you’re asked for them

It’s called CiB Supporters, costs £75 for 1 year and you can sign up here now.

But wait, there’s an introductory offer!

Oh yes indeedy. Until 10 December (or the first 50 takers, whichever comes first) you can sign up for just £50! Bearing in mind it costs £50 to advertise on the site for a week, that’s dirt cheap. (NB – The offer is only open to online sign-ups – if you need invoicing it’ll cost the full £75. Email us here for that).

In return, you get:

• Your advert/logo (125×125 pixel block) shown on rotation in CiB’s sidebar and linking to your website
• Your advert/logo shown on the CiB Supporters page and linking to your website
• A mention in that month’s ‘Thank You’ post
• Listing on the Supporters tab on the CiB Facebook Page
• Your Twitter name (if you have one) in the CiB Supporters List
• A specially commissioned Christmas card (if you’re a supporter prior to 10 December and you provide your address)

In addition you’ll be helping to make Created in Birmingham sustainable and (although it shouldn’t need saying) you’ll have our thanks too. In fact, we’ll try and find extra ways to thank our supporters over the year.

Please note, if you want to change your advert/logo over the course of the year it’ll cost an extra £15 per change.

We’ve already had a few takers which is superb (and means we’re definitely sending some Christmas cards). You can see those nice peoples in the sidebar on the right already.

I’ve taken the liberty of asking myself a few questions about this, in a contrived way of explaining things a little more. If you have any more questions then please drop me an email or leave a comment.

Why this approach?

We think £75 should put large and small organisations on a similar footing. From our point of view it’s a lot simpler to manage a programme like this than to run weekly advertising (although we’ll be doing that too). We’ve eschewed the option of means-related charging – partly because it’s trickier to administrate, partly because it’s nice how the CiB format treats small and large (roughly) the same.

Who is this aimed at?

CiB helps promote a lot of arts/cultural/etc organisations in the city – I’m hoping that they’ll chip in to help ensure that there’s an outlet for their work.

There’s also a lot of companies that I’m sure would love to market themselves to arts organisations and/or the sort of audience that Created in Birmingham attracts.

Finally, on a cost per impression basis, £75 is incredibly cheap – it’s sale of the century, folks!

What about other people who want to support the site in some way?

People are welcome to use a photo of themselves and link to, for instance, their Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn profiles. Otherwise, we’re looking at other ways for people to support the site – through the many and varied CiB Projects, for example.

Does being a CiB Supporter guarantee me editorial coverage?

Just the mention in the monthly ‘Thank You’ round-up.