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# Fundraiser launches to “save” Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, an icon among London’s queer-friendly venues
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/fundraiser-launches-to-save-bethnal-green-working-mens-club-an-icon-among-londons-queer-friendly-venues/
- Published: 2025-02-26T10:29:55.000Z
- Updated: 2025-02-26T10:29:55.000Z
- Description: A fundraiser to “save” Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club (BGWMC), an icon among London’s queer-friendly venues, has launched, aiming to raise £12,000 by April 8. A key player in London’s LGBTQ+ and alternative scene, the venue first opened as a traditional working men’s club in 1953, and two decades
- Author: Graham Robson
- Tags: Sponsored Content, LGBT, LGBTQ, London

A fundraiser to “save” **Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club** (BGWMC), an icon among London’s queer-friendly venues, [has launched](https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-bgwmc?ref=scenemag.co.uk), aiming to raise £12,000 by **April 8**.

A key player in London’s LGBTQ+ and alternative scene, the venue first opened as a traditional working men’s club in 1953, and two decades later reopened with a remit to stage cabaret, comedy, drag and alternative events, which over the years has included the **Sink The Pink** queer club night, and the **David Lynch**\-inspired Double R Club.

In summer 2024, owners of the venue announced they were looking to sell the club. **Friends of Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club** (FoBGWMC) subsequently managed to get the **Mayor of Tower Hamlets** on its side in a bid to protect the club, but there is still a danger it could wind up in the hands of unsympathetic developers.

**[Those who wish to donate to the fund can do so HERE](https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-bgwmc?ref=scenemag.co.uk)**. Incentives include A3 prints of the club by artist **Lawrence Brand** and beer mats.

**Nick Keegan**, a variety organiser for performing arts trade union **Equity**, which launched the petition to keep the venue open, said: “BGWMC is a crucial and irreplaceable fixture of London’s cultural heritage.

“It has been a catalyst for the development of new artists and cultural workers in the city, a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community, and it is a building with more than 100 years of history as a community-owned space. It is vital that we protect BGWMC for future generations and allow its legacy to live on.”

**[Support the “Fighting Fund” fundraiser HERE](https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-bgwmc?ref=scenemag.co.uk)**