Whatever Happened To The Living Project...

As this weekends theme is Object and money, I thought it might be a good idea to explore the issue of The Living Project. I have to honest and say that I am not the first person to have noted this, a contributor to the 'Feminists or Fascists' posting on Moronwatch first brought this up, so I thought I should do some digging.

Didn't get far, actually

What happened was as follows....In 2010, Object mentioned on their website that they were involved in a new project to help ex-lap dancers. It appears that strippers don't qualify, but nonetheless they were awarded £50,000 from the Trust For London to set up some kind of support mechanism. I suppose they imagined they would be confronted with loads of ex-dancers from all of the clubs that they planned to close and probably thought they would also make a good source of shock stories and testaments. Lets face, they only have seven ex-dancer essays and they date back to the last decade.

Lets have a look at some frame grabs.....

A Brand New Plan.....

Above we see the first mention of the idea and note the continuation of the theme of dancers being helpless, hapless victims of abuse...

They Got The Money....

This is a grab from Trust For Londons website and as you can see it details the money, how many years it is going to be granted for and the geographical location to which it applies. Note that the use of the funding is for 'the continued work of the Stripping The Illusion campaign' and for the support group as well. Also its only for London wide geographical area, so if you are an ex-dancer in need of support from say Birmingham, it looks like you are on your own...

The Designed A Poster....

Must have spent hours on the layout.....

They Bought A Domain

Let me tell you something, when Object make up their mind to do something, they do it!!!

They Got A Website!!!

Ok......so the first posting was the only posting and that was just about a year ago....

If I worked for Trust For London, I might be asking questions about what happened to my £50,000.

Lets do some sums....

Place entry of Object website publicising The Living Project                             £5.00 (Labour only)
Buy domain name                                                                                           £25.00 (Generous)
Design Poster                                                                                               £100.00 (Generous estimate)
Wordpress Site                                                                                              £50.00 (Labour only)
Total Estimated Costs                                                                               £180.00

So it seems that of the £50,000 Object got from Trust For London, my best guess is that £180.00 went on The Living Project and £49,820 was spent on ensuring it had enough customers...

Obviously now that Object are a limited company, they have to file some accounts and that must be soon. Just cannot wait to see what they look like...