Rusty Towers in review

 Glad Monday tidings from Rusty Towers folks!

It's time to update you all on some of the things we talked about at our recent AGM. The company gathered in person or via the web to hear Alex and the leadership team update folks on how the previous year went and what our plans for the upcoming year are.

In case you don't know, the current leadership team of Rusty Quill Ltd consists of Alex (CEO & Creative Director), Anil (Chief Comms Officer), Vaughan (Accounts Manager), Martyn (Chief Tech Officer) and Mike (Head of Video). And now...

Please welcome Hannah Brankin who joins us as Chief Operations Officer to help streamline our processes and make sure the company is running effectively. She brings with her a wealth of experience in event & process management and corporate governance. Hannah has been helping out RQ from the start - and some may recognise her from the livestream last year or as the voice of Jane Prentiss (and other misc voices on The Magnus Archives) - so we're making this official now.

In terms of things that happened, 2018 was a consolidation year - lots of effort went into making sure the company infrastructure is solid, that proper procedures are in place for a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff, a lot of talking to people and negotiating things. Whilst that work isn't complete, we are in a much healthier place now than say 18 months ago.

And part of that is down to you all - your support here means that we can start to be financially independent, the company is now loan-free and we can actually pay the crew for their time. In fact, that was the biggest thing we did last year - establishing a wage structure to make sure that everyone is getting something for the time they put in, be it performing, editing or admin. Plus, we can pay industry-comparable guest rates and expenses - which definitely helped when it came to casting for Seasons 3 & 4 of TMA.

In addition, this support allowed us to establish the Rusty Quill Satellite Recording studio in Brighton, so that Tim & Ben could put Stellar Firma into production. And on the community side, we launched the official RQ Discord server which has brought so many fans together in a friendly and supportive fashion, that has exceeded all my hopes for it so far.

Looking ahead, 2019 is a growth year - we have a number of projects, both audio and video, in the pipeline, not least of which is Freaks' Rolecall. We'll be improving the company processes, finally getting new merch in the store - the artwork for Azu & Grizzop are nearing completion - and looking to attend more events, both as guests and as performers. We are actively looking into what RQLive might look like, so stay tuned for that. On the community front, look forward to more Discord events for Rusty Nobles, as well as a proper policy on fanworks - particularly when it comes to things like selling fanart or using our IP in games you run.

Obviously if there are things you'd like to see us do or produce, please feel free to drop me a message at any time!

One other thing I have done this week is gone through the Patreon bonuses and added some new Tags to make it easier to find older bonus content. If you are a Rusty Noble, you can now use Poetry, Bloopers and Deluxe to filter the relevant items.

Which will come in handy for Nobles this week, as Friday will us release the final Martin poem for Season 1, which will be followed by a live Discord event with Community Manager Anil talking about and taking questions on Martin's creative output, horror poetry and poetry in general. That will kick off at 10.30pm BST in the #podium channel of the Discord server.

And here's what you can expect from us this week (all shows release at 4pm UK time):
Tue 16th April - RQG126 (FINALE) - What Now? (Patreon)
Wed 17th April - MAG135 - Dark Matter (Patreon); RQG126 - What Now? (Public)
Thu 18th April - STL012 - Denizens and Goobrication (Patreon); MAG135 - Dark Matter (Public)
Fri 19th April - Poem #8 - Draw State; STL012 - Denizens and Goobrication (Public)

Have a great week folks!

Anil
Community Manager