Bid on a trip in Eric Morecambe's Rolls Royce and a Tyson Fury-signed boxing glove to save this events venue

A chauffeur-driven tour around the town in the late Eric Morecambe’s Rolls Royce and a signed Tyson Fury-signed boxing glove will be auctioned on Monday at a launch party for the Friends Of The Platform Morecambe’s new Loyalty and Reward Programme.

The Platform is a restored Edwardian railway station on Morecambe promenade, which has been offering unique live performance, conference and exhibition facilities since the 1990s, but it is under the threat of closure if money can’t be found to enhance and improve the building.

The Friends were established in May after Sue Saunders organised a petition and spoke at a city council meeting to save The Platform from closure. Her campaign succeeded with the council reversing its decision on the provisos that The Platform must stand on its own financially in the future and that a Friends group be formed to promote the venue, increase awareness, and raise funds unavailable to the council to enhance and improve the building.

The Loyalty & Reward Programme aims to raise money for the Friends who can then apply for grants to help ensure the future of The Platform which became an entertainment venue in the 1990s.

Celebrity offerings

Eric Morecambe would have known the station well and the chauffeur driven trip around his hometown, which is one of the items to be auctioned at the party, will visit several places where he lived and the first theatre where he performed before finishing with afternoon tea at the Midland Hotel.

Morecambe-based world boxing champion, Tyson Fury, is also lending a hand – or should that be glove – to the Friends fundraising efforts as he has donated one of his boxing gloves signed and dated this year.

The third item to be auctioned will be a Lindisfarne t-shirt signed by the band who recently performed at The Platform.

Friends chair, David Morgan said: “The Loyalty & Reward Programme is quite an innovative concept for this kind of venue. The benefits that we have been able to negotiate with The Platform are such that members can actually get their money back in full during the year which I think is a first for any such scheme.”

The event

Anyone interested in supporting the Friends and their plans to ensure that The Platform continues as a popular venue, can attend the free party which begins at 7pm. The evening will be hosted by local broadcaster, Mike Stevens, and will also be attended by Lancaster mayor, Councillor Abi Mills who will speak about the Friends, the new Loyalty & Reward Programme and The Platform which is owned by Lancaster City Council.

The scheme

For £5 a month, those who sign up to the scheme will receive one free ticket annually up to the value of £30 for a Platform production, a 10 per cent discount on their own drinks at the bar, advance bookings and early admissions to events, invitations to exclusive programme launches, members coffee mornings, monthly newsletters and invitations to attend bi-monthly member general meetings.

It’s hoped that the Loyalty & Reward Programme will help to boost bookings for The Platform and produce more ambassadors for the venue which first opened as a railway station in 1907.

For more information about the Friends of the Platform Morecambe and the Loyalty & Reward Programme, visit https://www.friendsoftheplatformmorecambe.uk/