Chronic Tonic Club Context

Right, I’ve been getting all in my head about writing this blog and putting it off for months. 

Then last week I go and post a call-out for freelance, sick, creative access-led marketing/design/audience development folks living or working in Greater Manchester.

Without much context.

Because I didn’t write the blog yet. 

Because I wanted to update my website first…

and write a blog about my whole DYCP experience before I wrote a blog about Chronic Tonic Club…

and also write all my image descriptions and update my CV before I signpost people to my website, because I can’t advise people to include image descriptions and not include them myself

My VI friends are gonna be really mad at me, I’m mad at me!

Why haven’t I found the time? Why can’t I manage my time better? If I can’t even write a blog about my idea, how am I supposed to realise my idea, in actual, like real life…

And then I got overwhelmed and did none of it.

So I’ve decided I’m just gonna write draft 1 now and publish it, whilst I’m heating up leftovers from last night.

I’m going to not overthink it or allow my perfectionism to delay it any longer (story of my life).

So, back in 2023, I felt compelled to build a collective for local chronically ill artists. For othered others like me. 

For those underrepresented within already underrepresented communities. 

For the freelancers who are dismissed and underestimated, and are marginalised not only by their identity but also by their non-traditional practice.

So, in response to the hostile socio-political landscape we have to navigate as sick freelancers, I am (hopefully going to get funding) to set up -

Chronic Tonic Club: a slow, punk, creative-access-led community to be mad, sad and rad(ical) - unlearn, share knowledge and resources, and build resilience through community. 

Supporting freelance disabled, neurodivergent, chronically ill and mentally ill (shortened to ‘sick’) creatives (formally or self-diagnosed) to develop our accessibility and disability justice literacy and comprehension, build self-advocacy skills and develop our creative access-led practices.

I started developing the Chronic Tonic Club project as part of my DYCP in Integrated Creative Access. In June 2025, I was buzzin’ to be able to pay a bunch of trusted, brilliant humans who wear like proper cool yellow dungarees and have shaved heads (pictured) to come together in a meeting room at Contact, to help shape what it might become. It fuelled me.

Mike Cooper, Danny Hassan, Lekhani Chirwa, Kate Fox, Ben Hodge, Rosie Sergent, Toni-Dee Paul, Sasha Georgette, Fi McGregor - thank you.

6 months later (I work on ‘crip time’), I applied for funding to get the project off the ground. I’ll find out at the end of April if I’ve been successful. I’m also applying for other funding, which I’ll find out about in July. The funding landscape is precarious, so I’m being realistic about my chances, but also hopeful.

Quite a few people have messaged me to say they’re interested in getting involved, which I’m proper chuffed about! But I’m nowhere near ready to launch yet. Not only because we don’t have funding, but also because it’s vital that I do more research, development and consultation with other sick creatives in Greater Manchester to find out what we need and where the gaps are.

I posted the call-out because funders want to know the ins and outs of a cat's arse, which is tricky, because I don’t know exactly what it is yet, because I want to co-create it, after an extensive R&D (I’m a nerd for knowledge)!

If you are a freelance, sick, creative access-led marketing/design/audience development folk living or working in Greater Manchester, and you can make sense of my call-out, pop me an email.

All my othered others, I’m thinking of you, and I’m gonna make it happen.

Also, love and solidarity to sick folks writing funding bids, access to work and PIP applications and all the other exhausting ableist admin tasks we have to do.

I’m going to let the Chronic Tonic Club Visual Notes and Image Description do the talking now.

Created by Rosie Sergent, friend, colleague and creator of Drawn Poorly Zine. We developed these visual notes over months, collaboratively - rather than as an immediate output, and it was joyful.

A pale bluey-green background.

In the centre, bold and purple, it reads, Chronic Tonic Club in a hand-drawn font.

Beautiful illustrations of people are dotted about, alongside illustrations of a ‘crip time’ clock with 3 wiggly hands, a bin (because that’s where ableism belongs), a progress pride flag and a disability pride flag interlocked, a megaphone, an orange planet, a purple crystal ball, and lots of stars.

Starting on the left and travelling across the page, down and around are questions, statements and ideas.

A big yellow bubble asks, WHERE ARE WE NOW?

An arrow points to another bubble, which states, Freelance sick creatives (especially those who are racialised, of minoritised gender and working-class) have to hustle twice as hard for half as much as our non-disabled peers.

The next bubble tells you that we feel pressured to educate non-disabled people (unpaid), and operate in a constant tug-of-war with inaccessible structures and our own bodies and brains.

A third bubble says, There’s never enough stuff for us. There’s never enough spaces that are soft and warm to multi-difference.

The fourth bubble in this bit admits, Our lives are f**king rough. How can we not catastrophize? We’re disabled. Of course, we catastrophize!

In a green bubble, WHAT DO WE NEED?

A speech bubble, A safer space where we can come together to be mad, sad and rad(ical)

The words CRIP TIME are held inside a pink heart.

An Ash-inspired illustration says, The work I do to support non-disabled people in becoming meaningful allies is vital, but there’s a gap: we also need to support freelance sick creatives to self-advocate and creatively challenge oppressive systems and structures!

To the left, our mission - slow, punk, creative access-led.

More bubbles.

‘Disability and Accessibility Confident EMPLOYEES’ - who know our rights and are empowered to set non-negotiables

We need to put capitalist-ableist practices in the bin!

A purple bubble asks, WHAT’S NEXT?

Take space

Find funding, resources and support

More consultation with freelance sick creatives in Salford and Manchester

Develop a strategy and a methodology

Invite local freelance sick creatives to join the club

Peer-to-peer support

Manchester needs something like this, but it doesn’t need to just be you, Ash, you could be pushed into looking after everyone, when really everyone should be looking after each other

In bold font, at the end -

Mobilise, share our lived and learned experience and take collective action

I’d also like to share with you some of the stuff I’m highlighting in my funding applications, too (which are also a throughline of the work I do day-to-day)

• Over 16.8 million people in the UK are disabled, and 10+ million of us live with non-visible disabilities, which are often dismissed or disbelieved.

• Statistics from the Big Freelancer Survey 2025 show that 25% of respondents are thinking of leaving the industry due to low pay, not enough work, mental health and job insecurity.

• Scope tells us that disabled people are almost twice as likely to be unemployed as non-disabled people and that the average disabled household faces £975 a month in extra costs.

• Unlimited’s #NothingForNothing Campaign evidence that 86% of disabled people in the cultural sector have been asked to do something for nothing.

• As of February 2025, the Access to Work Collective reported that around 62,000 disabled applicants were still waiting for their applications to be processed, and the 33,000 people who had been approved were still waiting for the funding to come through for the essential resources they need to work safely and equitably, including access support workers and accessible travel.

(I’m one of many creatives affected by all of the statistics above.)

• The club is not for educating non-disabled people; it’s about sick creatives understanding our rights in the sector, building a sustainable self-advocacy toolkit, deepening community connections, building resilience, sharing resources, knowledge exchange, developing our creative access-led practices, exploring innovative approaches to challenging barriers and shifting how we can better understand and assert our needs.

• Learning new ways of working can be tricky, undoing internalised ableism is hard, access clashes are real, unmasking is scary, disability pride is complicated, and imposter syndrome is rife

Speaking of imposter syndrome and internalised ableism, I got in my head again when I was eating my leftovers.

F*ck it, I’m posting… (I might do some grammar edits and maybe add a P.S at some point, because I can't not)

Thank you for reading, means a lot.

Ash x