I hope you all had a great Christmas and cava fuelled New Year! The Bunker couldn’t have got off to a better start in the festive period, with a brilliant night at our first annual fundraiser. I was touched to see so many faces down to support our organisation and we hope we rewarded everyone with a great evening. I want to say a special thanks to everyone who attended and donated on the night. Roll on 2012’s party, we are going to make it even bigger and better!

I have been in and around Sunderland’s music scene for a long time now, and I have to say, although this year has been challenging, it has been one of the most exciting times I have seen for music across our city. There are so many quality artists who have emerged this year to sit alongside some of the great musicians our music community has produced in it’s recent history. I can’t wait to see what next year brings!

I would like to take the time to thank all of our partners and local community organisations who we have worked alongside this year. Being able to use music as a tool to aide community development is always a hugely rewarding part of our work at The Bunker. Following on from that it would only be right to thank my team at The Bunker for all of their hard work which makes the delivery of these initiatives possible.

I am really proud of what we, The Bunker, have achieved this year and we will again look to build and expand our influence across Wearside in music and the community. This time of year reveals just how tightly knit and special the music community of Sunderland can be, and as always, I am looking forward to being part of that again over the next twelve months and for many more years after.

Kenny Sanger