The Welfare Ystradgynlais has been successful in funding bids to install a new projector.

The funding means that the Swansea Valley community is now back on screen, after catastrophic equipment failure post-Covid lockdown left them unable to screen films at the venue, which has been delighting cinema audiences for almost 90 years.

Marketing manager and Ystradgynlais local Becky Roberts explained:

“The Welfare Ystradgynlais is a charitable organisation that relies on grant funding and income from ticket sales and donations in order to continue doing what we do, so it was a massive blow to us when our trusty old film projector stopped working mid-film back in May.

“This not only caused a huge disruption to our cinema audiences, with us having to postpone all our planned screenings and processing refunds, we also had to find £30,000 sharpish to buy a brand-new projector, as ours was beyond repair. We’re truly grateful to all our customers for their patience and loyalty and especially those who asked for a credit note for a future film screening instead of a cash refund, giving us that extra bit of financial support at such a difficult time.

“We are proud to have been showing films since 1934, in this digital age we also screen live concerts from around the world with regular screenings coming from The Royal Opera House and the South Bank’s National Theatre, we also make to most of the projector for community and arts projects.”

The Welfare hopes to have their projector delivered and installed within the next couple of weeks.

Becky added: “We’d like to say a warm thank you to Ystradgynlais Town Council for its funding and continued belief that we provide a great service to the community and a heartfelt thanks to our hard-working Friends of the Hall volunteers who fundraise on a weekly basis, allowing them to donate a massive £5,000.

“We were also ever so relieved and grateful to the Powys based Margaret Davies Charity who granted us £10,000, the final jigsaw piece that enabled us to go ahead with the purchase of our state of the arts cinema projector system.”

Staff at The Welfare are currently working on their new film schedule with back to back Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick screenings, Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, Jurassic World Dominion, Minions: The Rise of Gru and Downton Abbey: New Era already on sale.

The Welfare screens films, and live broadcasts as well as hosting performances of music, theatre and dance plus a host of community activities.