With my convention organiser’s hat on, I’m very pleased to be able to say that Jo Martin and Julian Bleach will be signing at Bedford Who Charity Con 7, next Saturday (9th April).
Tickets are still available – and there’s a 10% discount for DWC readers, too. For details of how to take up this offer, please see our previous post.
Jo and Julian will only be there for the main autograph session rather than for the whole day. They’re being amazingly kind, too. Neither of them does many conventions, especially smaller ones like ours; they want to come because they want to help us raise money. So, they’re going to sign autographs – and donate everything they make to our charity. And I can’t thank them enough.
The “charity” bit of Bedford Who Charity Con, then, is Bedford Foodbank. I’m one of their volunteers; every month, we give out emergency food parcels to 1,400 local people in desperate need. Shockingly, this is up from 650 people a month, two years ago. A third of our clients are children. And, as Ukranian refugees begin to arrive in the UK, we’ve just started to see them at our distribution centres. Only a few so far, but we can predict their numbers are going to grow. Without Bedford Foodbank’s help, those refugees and other people living locally would struggle to get anything to eat.
Jo and Julian’s autographed photos – they’ll sign them personally – cost £20 each.
So: we have a very strong guest list for this convention! Jo and Julian will be joining Colin Baker, Sophie Aldred, Terry Molloy, Miranda Raison (in a rare convention appearance), Brian Croucher, David Banks (bet he’ll be EXCELLENT hahaha), Roger Murray-Leach (who designed some of the best loved Tom Baker stories), and Peter Roy (who worked as a supporting artist with the first five Doctors). While Jo and Julian can only make it for the signing session, the other guests will be with us all day.
(I need to point out that we can’t absolutely guarantee the attendance of any of the guests – this rider is standard for all Doctor Who conventions – especially when the Covid infection rates remain stubbornly high.)
I’m afraid we can’t offer to sell autographs to people who can’t attend; I’d like to, but the admin would be a nightmare. Even so:
If you can make it, we’d love to see you. The last time he was with us, Colin Baker said, “This has been the best one day event I’ve ever done.” So, do come. We can guarantee you a friendly, relaxed and informal day and, to quote Colin again, “It’s just fun. It’s such fun.”
Details of how to get tickets are on our previous post and on our website and our Facebook page.
We’ll try to have tickets to buy on the door but we can’t guarantee that they’ll be available. Best to pre-order. As we’re now so close to the con, we’ll put your tickets out on front of house and you can collect them on the day.
