@jamesbanyardwriter.bsky.social
Freelance Journalist, Writer, Comedian, Green Party Councillor, Exeter. Email me: jamesbanyardwriter@outlook.com Portfolio: https://jamesbanyardwriter.wordpress.com Imprint https://tinyurl.com/3aztmwju Substack: https://pitchfailclub.substack.com/
Pitch Fail Club: Guest Post from @markffisher.bsky.social
Mark warm-pitched an editor and shares the full pitch, the feedback, and what he learned.
pitchfailclub.substack.com/p/the-post-m...
Got a failed pitch? Email pitchfailclub@outlook.com for a shot at a free annual sub.
New from PFC
“I want to write about...” is not a pitch. It’s a crumb. No editor sits down for a crumb.
🔗 pitchfailclub.substack.com/p/the-craft-...
👀 On Thursday: A Post Mortem from a national broadsheet theatre critic, and a reply that came too late.
#FreelanceJournalism #Pitching #WritingTips
5/5 Ready to turn those rejections into your future acceptances?
👇 Subscribe to Pitch Fail Club & send it to your most bruised journo mate:
pitchfailclub.substack.com
Get the editor feedback you've been missing. Subscribe Now! #freelancejournalism 🍾
4/5 Why did I start this? Because learning to pitch through trial & error alone is brutal. And lonely. Pitch Fail Club is about changing that, together.
#LearnFromFailure #failupwards
3/5 With Pitch Fail Club, you get:
✅ To read REAL pitches that failed
✅ REAL editor feedback on why
✅ Clear lessons from each rejection
✅ Craft tips that actually help (beyond 'be good'!)
✅ Company in the glorious, miserable art of freelance pitching. Because we've all been there.
2/5 Welcome to Pitch Fail Club! 🎉 My new weekly Substack where we DO talk about it. We dissect real failed pitches & share the actual editor feedback that came with them.
We're here to show you the 'WHY' so you stop pitching into the void.
#WritingCommunity #Substack
1/5 🚨 LAUNCH DAY: Pitch Fail Club is live! 🚨
Freelance Journalists: Your freelance pitch gets rejected. Again. No feedback. No explanation. Just a 'We’ll pass on this,' or more likely, silence.
Sound familiar? 😫
#PitchFailClub #FreelanceJournalism pitchfailclub.substack.com
Freelancers, ever feel like your pitches are loading... and then stalling? 😫 Coming soon...a new community to help you get past the error messages. Pitch Fail Club is Launching May 29th, 2025 with very special guests. #PitchFailClub #FreelanceJournalism #Pitching #Substack #WritingCommunity
22.05.2025 07:55 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0btw, at VAN, we have updated our pitching guidelines! welcoming submissions from freelancers and new friends of the magazine van-magazine.com/contact-us/s...
13.05.2025 17:31 — 👍 10 🔁 7 💬 1 📌 0I didn't realise the Spectator had such a good classical music section!
06.05.2025 10:39 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Congrats on VAN hitting 400! That 'sexless' verdict on a Daphnis with acrobats is brutal - like describing a banquet as tasteless.
28.04.2025 11:04 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Hey, I wrote this! So pleased to be making by debut in VAN Magazine. Thanks so much to @mbetteridge.bsky.social for his time last week.
13.03.2025 16:57 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Image shows a person in an airport watching a plane take off. Text says, Travel, flying and the climate crisis (Exeter). A community event about how we can reimagine travel, and why we must, Thursday 6th March 7pm-8.30pm, University of Exeter or online
We're bringing our event 'Travel, flying and the climate crisis' to Exeter!
Hear from @jamesgyke.bsky.social, @vipulpatel.bsky.social, @sarahfinch.bsky.social & more about campaigning, justice, offsetting, travel...
Register to attend in person or online: www.tickettailor.com/events/fligh...
Quirk's Christmas show at the Exeter Phoenix is stunning, and hilarious. Review up now!
www.theprsd.co.uk/2024/12/16/d...
councillor james banyard meets the cast of wandering tiger
Great to meet the guys from Wandering Tiger today - Ben, Luke and Charlie - as they prepare for this year's production of Humbug at St Nicholas Priory
Starting with a small @exetercouncil.bsky.social arts grant in 2017, they’ve grown into a key fixture in the region’s culture.
Excellent preview piece, Lee!
11.12.2024 08:51 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 013/ The pandemic forced Exeter Council to stop accepting cash.
But we don’t have to accept this ongoing exclusion.
🌱 Greens are calling for:
A full EQIA on cashless payments.
Reinstating cash payments at leisure facilities.
Let’s make services inclusive for all.
12/ Going cashless affects young people too.
Ron Delnevo from the Payment Choice Alliance said over 50% of pocket money is given in cash.
Harriet Baldwin MP went to a cashless leisure centre that insisted that customers used a coin for the locker.
Cash won’t vanish.
11/ This issue isn’t just in Exeter.
The Commons Treasury Committee in Westminster is currently discussing access to cash.
@age-uk.bsky.social told the committee it was crucial that people could still access essentials, like council run leisure services.
10/ Cllr Knott (Labour) argued that handling cash costs twice as much as card payments, and challenged me to suggest which services the council should cut to fund cash-handling costs.
But running a council is not the same as running a pub.
9/ Labour says only a small number of people are affected by this policy and claims leisure centres have found ways of helping them.
But what about the people who don’t even try to go for a swim because they know they can’t pay in cash?
8/Cllr Duncan Wood, Labour’s Portfolio Holder for Leisure, said the pandemic forced the council to go cashless, so no EQIA was necessary.
But why haven’t they done one now, years after the initial change?
7/ Councils are legally obliged to assess how their policies impact disadvantaged groups.
Last week, I attended the Strategic Scrutiny Committee, and asked Exeter’s Labour-led council why they hadn’t done an Equalities Impact Assessment on going cashless.
This is what they said:
6/ Consider victims of financial abuse.
These people rely on cash—often saved secretly—to escape their abuser, and to hide their trail.
Using cash can be a matter of life and death.
Cashless council leisure centres exclude these vulnerable people.
We must do better.
5/ The people who use cash most are often the most vulnerable.
Older adults, people with disabilities, undocumented migrants, those without bank accounts, and victims of financial abuse.
Excluding cash excludes them from accessing leisure facilities.
4/ The FCA says 10% of the UK population still rely on cash.
Cash payments in shops have gone up for the second year running.
A Fore Street trader told me she is seeing more customers paying with cash. Why?
The cost of living crisis drives more people to use cash to budget.
3/Fast forward to today: vaccines have brought back normal life for most people.
But while workers have returned to their offices, cash hasn’t returned to many council services.
Why not?
2/The pandemic changed everything.
Cash became “dirty." Contactless payments were the new normal.
Exeter City Council switched to a cashless system for leisure facilities. St Sidwell’s Point was built with no cash handling facilities at all.
Cashless was the future.
councillor james banyard exeter holding a five pound note outside st sidwells point swimming pool
1/ Cashless payments are everywhere.
In Exeter, the Labour council-run leisure centres, like St Sidwell’s Point, don’t accept cash.
Who cares? Most people pay digitally now.
A 🧵 about why the council should accept cash.
An image of the cleared former bus station site - niw a concrete eyesore - in Exeter City Centre. Imposed on the image are the words: We asked what YOU wanted to see at the former bus station site in Exeter. The results are in... NO to a car park. YES to something special and distinctive.
👂Our survey asking local residents for ideas on the former bus station site in #Exeter found no appetite for Labour's temporary car park plan.
💚 Over 280 responses brought forward many creative ideas for the site.
🥳 This has prompted the Council to consult on possible alternatives to a car park.
