Bees Make Honey is a Community Interest Company supporting people entering & working in the local creative industries.
We do and have done many different things, so it can get a little complicated. Primarily we’re an events collective inspired by Nottingham’s DIY creative scene.
We also create products, particularly in the sphere of alternative publishing & collaborate to sell products by other local labels, publishers and artists.
We act as a creative studio if you want us to help tell your story. We get involved in projects that advance the local creative community, sometimes hands-on project management, sometimes consultancy, sometimes mentoring.
All this started however, with this here website – a creative community blog for sharing advice, tips, links, Q&As. It’s all 100% impartial, we don’t take payments from people wanting to post content and sell you stuff (this is very rare in the blogosphere!).
AIMS & OBJECTIVES
Founded in 2012, Bees Make Honey seeks to increase opportunities available to emerging artists and creative businesses through education, training, advice and signposting, alongside events – such as Nottingham Creative Fringe – designed to platform new talent, bring together local organisations and enhance the East Midlands’ reputation for the arts. All this combines to help increase graduate retention and employability, whilst encouraging social cohesion and a stronger sense of community.
EVENTS STUFF
We have done pop-up shops, arts fairs, exhibitions, gigs, outdoor film nights, book launches. Usually it’s some sort of hybrid of one or more of these mixed together such as Memories of the Future or Nottingham Creative Fringe.
WHO WE WORK WITH
We work with events organisers, designer-makers, craftspeople, illustrators, fine artists, photographers, filmmakers, musicians, record labels, theatre groups, producers, choreographers, writers & publishers. We’re based in Nottingham but often our offering stretches to further afield.
WHO ARE WE
In some ways the ‘community’ is everyone who gets involved, from someone who happens to read a post and get inspired to the artists and businesses we work with directly. The people actually behind Bees Make Honey are writer, creative producer and social entrepreneur, Kirsty Fox, musician and graphic designer Dan Layton, and filmmaker & photographer Phil Formby.
Bees Make Honey was originally born in the service industry, where creative grads tend to wash up, dazed and disillusioned. It was the brainchild of Kirsty, who felt the creative industries could appear too elite and unapproachable to the untrained eye. She wanted to do something to help those looking to get into it who didn’t have the influential contacts or much of a clue where to start and so a community was born. Bees Make Honey have always been not-for-profit so a couple of years ago they registered as a Community Interest Company to show their commitment to social enterprise and socially minded business.
BEES MAKE HONEY CREATIVE CIC ║Reg. 08727631 ║ @beesmakehoneycc ║ 20 Dornoch Avenue Nottingham NG5 4DP ║ fox(at)beesmakehoneycc.com ║
Bees Make Honey Creative Community 
I tried to email you but the email said it was incorrect. Any other options? Thanks!
-CT
How odd.
fox.beesmakehoney@btinternet.com
Should be right, I just checked it above. If you copy & pasted it, there is a sneaky full stop at the end which might have snuck in (I’ll edit that). If it doesn’t work, are you on FB or twitter so I can message you?
No worries. It worked the second time around. All sent!
-CT
Like the site and the overall idea.
Thanks, nice to get a comment which isn’t from a spambot or trollbot. My two favourite bots.
No bots here! I’ve just bookmarked your writing links section. Lots to read through there. Do you have any plans to add to this? Do you also have any more ideas or links on promotion of writing? (By the way, in the spirit of spreading the word, I’m making links on my site to yours – credit where it’s due).
Just sent a reply but it may have got swallowed up (so apologies if this ends up being a duplicate posting). The gist of the first reply then was that I’m linking to your sites, because I like the idea of the ‘help each other’ ethos. Also, good writing links section (any more to add to that any time?), and have you got anything more on promoting writing?
I’ve posted links with more info about them in my ‘chapters on self-publishing’ section. But hopefully in theory all these have been added to the one-stop-shop aswell. I also post stuff on my twitter feed which takes my eye, but anything I’ve been to more than once is in the links. I’ve posted a couple of blogs on using blogging & social media as well. I will always continue to add to it, is the plan. May need to delete some less crucial stuff as it’s getting a bit long. Thanks for sharing 🙂
I think I speak for many writers when looking for ways to promote work. I’ll keep looking down your lists (or what remains of them after any pruning). 🙂
Hi Kirsty. I’ve spent a week away from the screen and come back to find you’ve posted up a review of my book at Amazon – I thank you hugely for this 🙂 Within that review, in particular, are three words that strike me as a way of summing up my current writing well (a phrase I’ve been looking for but not yet found, until now): ‘alternate poetic realities’! That’s it. That gives me a focus to what I’m doing, in words I didn’t know!
Ace, glad to be of service 🙂 Have you seen my new post on promoting literary fiction? There’s a link near the end to a review site called Awesome Indies which is really good.
Just read your latest piece, seen those sites, and commented. 🙂