CEO statement on COVID-19

Hey folks,

Some updated news on the current situation and how that affects operations at Rusty Quill, courtesy of CEO Alexander J Newall. This statement is available on all our audio feeds as well.

To stay abreast of the latest news from Rusty Towers and our plans, please follow our Twitter (@therustyquill), Facebook, or join our Discord.

“Hi everyone,

This is Alexander J Newall, CEO of Rusty Quill Ltd. and this announcement is to explain how we have been handling the Covid-19 outbreak so far and to let people know what they can expect from us in the coming months.

Firstly, I want to take a moment to let everyone know that, although some of our colleagues have been exposed and some have already contracted the virus, they are recovering well and have taken all sensible precautions to stay healthy and quarantined. We are in daily contact to ensure their well-being, and I am sure I speak for everyone when I wish them a speedy and full recovery.

Thankfully, we took a number of early precautionary measures which have helped us to mitigate any problems before they could escalate. This included closing our recording studios, implementing self-isolating procedures and organising a dedicated crisis team to help ensure all our colleagues’ ongoing well-being during this time.

Naturally an exceptional situation like this does mean we are going to be making some further changes going forward. However, to be absolutely clear, we are still very much open for business. As content creators we have a responsibility both to our colleagues and to our fans to provide employment and entertainment respectively, especially in times of hardship. With this in mind I can confirm that all our colleagues are retaining their positions and we are going to continue our existing release schedule as planned for all shows. Furthermore, we will be providing regular updates for everyone as to how things are running.

That said, we are going to need to make the following adjustments to our productions to ensure that we can continue to work in a safe and sustainable manner for the foreseeable future. Firstly, I am sorry to announce we are cancelling our live, in-person participation in any events until further notice, including the 2020 Gaming and Giving Livestream. In their place we are arranging to take part in a number of online equivalents. The 2020 Gaming and Giving Livestream will still take place this year but we are now looking at streaming remotely without a live audience. We will provide more information about all of these as soon as we can.

Secondly, as I mentioned previously, our recording studios are closed for the foreseeable future. This means we are pivoting our production to remote recording setups so that we can continue to record content without risking the safety of our cast and crew and maintain all our existing production schedules. We do not believe that these changes will reduce the audio quality of any of the shows you know and love but we ask for your patience during this adjustment period as minor delays are possible as we all get used to these new systems.

Finally, in terms of future productions, our next commissioning round for new content will continue in May as planned and we are even looking to launch a significant amount of new community-focused content for both Patrons and the public to help keep people happy and healthy during this quarantine period. More info will be available on these projects very soon via all our normal community channels.

We could not achieve any of this without the loyalty and support of our fans and colleagues and so I would like to take a moment to thank everyone.

Thank you to our amazing production team and performers for their dedication and flexibility during this period. We could not ask for a more wonderful bunch of creatives.

And thank you to our astonishingly generous supporters. We actually passed 3000 patrons recently despite current events and it is incredibly humbling to see people supporting the creators they love during hard times such as these. Thank you so much to both our long-standing contributors who have stuck with us through thick and thin and to all of those that have begun supporting us more recently to help us through this time. We do however, wish to voice a note of caution to everyone, that though your contributions are hugely appreciated please, give responsibly. We do not want anyone to commit over what they can afford, and we understand if people need to step back from their support during these times.

On a related note to this, COVID-19 has affected the arts in general very heavily, and despite the uncertainty Rusty Quill faces, we have decided we will be donating 10% of all our Patron income to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund effective immediately.

This fund was created by the World Health Organisation and United Nations and it ‘enables private individuals, corporations and institutions anywhere in the world to come together to directly contribute to global response efforts’. We have always sought to lead by example and now more than ever we are committed to this goal.

Obviously these are difficult times but we truly believe that if we all just continue to take care of each other we will be able to weather this. Please be kind, stay safe and support one another. Online communities such as ours matter more now than ever and we are so fortunate to stand side-by-side with all you as we beat this thing. Together.

Thank you.”