From the Trustees:

Today, the Oxford Centre of Fantasy has published its accounts of income and expenditure for the thirteen months from December 2020 through December 2021. You can see that there has been a huge amount of activity, from the flurry of fundraising at the beginning, to the investment in online classes that allowed creativity to continue throughout lockdown, leading to in-person events in 2022.

We are immensely grateful to the staff of the Oxford Centre for Fantasy for their perseverance and vision to start the charity and help it take flight. In addition, our thanks must go to the tutors, presenters and other people who have offered their talents and support to give participants an unforgettable experience.

Most importantly, however, we must thank our supporters and those who engaged with our courses online and in-person. We have been blown away by your generosity, creativity, resourcefulness, and your energy to engage with the different platforms and suggest new ones. Your connections to the Centre and to each other will carry on through 21st century means such as podcasts, Mighty Networks, Tik Tok, read-thons, dance concerts, and beyond.

We are proud to say that in the first year of operation, we have had 66 students engage in online and in-person courses, and we have distributed three scholarships. We built the foundations for the in-person events linking writing with walking, history with creativity, and virtual options to real-life experiences.

As Trustees, we are so pleased happy knowing that the creative growth has taken root in such fertile ground.  We think the Inklings would be pleased to know that their legacy has sparked such exciting and innovative collaborations. 

It is impossible to predict where the inspiration will take us, but we continue to be humbled and excited by people’s engagement with fantasy and creativity more generally.

Yours Sincerely,

Amelia B. Kyazze

Nigel Pearson

Simon Sheldon