Welcome to the Mayfly blog…

Photo: Stu McCallum

Typing with sticky fingers…

Half-past four on a Thursday afternoon: time to clear the decks for action. Get the tables folded away and hang the blinds up over the windows; time to sweep the day’s chaos under the rug and drag the projector tower up from below, ready for the film tonight.

Time, also, to have a go on Alex’s jerk chicken and mac-and-cheese, which is both exceptional and free, the best of all outcomes. He’s up from a church in London somewhere, looking for community, looking for ways to help, and we are the happy beneficiaries. He’s been out the back all day, in the garden breaking rocks and digging great piles of compacted earth, pitching in however he can. Pretty soon, he’ll be off again. I hope we stay connected, but that’s far from definite. I know little about him, but I do know he can cook.

And while I’m at it, a snatched moment to take a look at this blogging game. Wise heads have suggested it, and I can just about see that it might be worth pursuing. A few weeks - or even months - ago, I wrote a fairly long-winded post on Facebook, outlining why the Mayfly could no longer maintain an active presence on the platform. Here it is, in full:

“Whilst also selling the occasional coffee, the Mayfly does its best to work in the interests of the community in our small corner of Lowestoft. It is rewarding work and worthwhile: ours is a community which constantly proves itself to be deserving of a very bright future. It is dynamic and diverse, endlessly surprising, relentlessly creative, and completely capable.

Still, it is only possible to succeed when our community pulls as one; when we are prepared to work collectively for principles beyond the reach of greed and division. We win when we work for unity, tolerance, and inclusion. We are at our best when we are together, working in the interests of everyone. When we do that - and that’s often - we are exemplary: we are what the world should be.

It is now clearer than ever that the corporate interests and political agendas of social media companies and tech super-elites do not align with any of these principles or ways of working. The world these operators are working to create is not one with which our community could ultimately be fully compatible, nor exist in its best form.

So, the Mayfly is disconnecting from them. I’ve been giving it as much thought as I usually give anything and I’ve made the decision that the Mayfly will no longer have an active presence on Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp.

This will obviously cause inconvenience to those who use these platforms to find out about what the Mayfly is doing; to performers and exhibitors; and, of course, it will frustrate the many excellent people who help promote the Mayfly on their own social profiles. It will also, without doubt, make life very much harder for the Mayfly itself, as like any small business, it is hugely dependent on the exposure of social media for the promotion of its events. However, dependence is not a healthy basis for anything much.

If you like, you can sign up to our mailing list at the link below, and I’ll do my best to keep you informed of everything that’s going on. This will help us a great deal. You’ll also always be able to catch our news in the Lowdown zine - essential reading for locals. And of course, we’ll continue to be available in human form, at 72 High Street.

Come and see us - that’s always been the best way of keeping touch anyway.

Thanks!”

This all remains true, and happily, my decision has not proved nearly as disastrous as I’d been warned it would. Quite the contrary: in fact, removing the Mayfly from active Facebook use, I’ve found that subscriptions to our mailing list have rocketed. People want to hear from us, one way or the other, and that’s wonderful to know.

So, it seems right to give people something to get their teeth into. The ‘Notes from the Mayfly’ blog won’t be intended simply as a means by which we can let you know what’s coming up (the inimitable Robb Johnson on the 17th April, incidentally), but will generally be a place for reflection on the issues churned up over the course of our day-to-day operation: what’s good, what’s not; what’s got to change; how we, our community, the High street, and Lowestoft generally, are all managing in these peculiar times.

There’s more to it than that, though. As always, the grim business of money is ever-present. As anyone who’s familiar with this place knows, running an independent community coffee shop in Lowestoft in 2025 is a fast pass to penury, however rewarding the work we do is. If you’re able, a paid subscription to our blog content is a great way to stay connected to us whilst help keep us afloat in a very real way, even if you can’t make it here in person. In return, I’ll do my very best to make it almost worth reading.