THE Market Hall Cinema in Brynmawr – Wales’s oldest cinema and the only cinema in Blaenau Gwent – has won the Consumer Facing Social Enterprise Award, at the Social Business Wales awards.
The cinema became a community-owned venue in 2013. From the start, it set out to be self-sustainable, with a clear focus on selling ‘seats and sweets’.
Coupled with drive and ambition, the business plan has seen turnover increase by more than 600 per cent since it became community owned. The cinema now provides a valuable, accessible and diverse service to its community.
It will now go forward to compete, alongside five other winners, with others from Scotland, England and Northern Ireland at a UK Awards ceremony to be held in central London in November.
The winners were revealed at a ceremony held at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea on September 28, in front of an invited audience of VIP guests from the social business sector.
The Brynmawr cinema first opened in 1984.
Since it became community-owned, it has also been named as the 2014 Cinema of the Year, at the annual SCREEN awards held in London.
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