Times are tough and jobs are going, but there are reasons to be cheerful

Clare Teal, jazz singer

My nan always said without occasional dollops of stress and worry we can't fully appreciate happier times and she could always find something to smile about. I am hoping to have a bit of time off in November and am really looking forward to spending quality time with friends and family over the next few months.

There's a group of about eight of us who get together once in a blue moon, each couple brings a different course and a bottle of wine, the food is always homemade and fabulous with the exception of my attempt at profiteroles.

We laugh, eat and drink all evening, then fall into a cab with various Tupperware boxes and recipes. It certainly cuts down on the cost of entertaining as everything is shared.

Judging by the newspapers hard times are still ahead but at least George Osborne hasn't put a levy on friendship yet, neither has he taxed laughing. The best things in life are still free.

Kate Lock, York environmentalist

To quote singer Ian Drury, the reason why I don't get back into bed – and stay there with my head under the pillow – after the Government's slash-and-burn spending review is simple: I'm too damn busy. I didn't vote for Dave Cameron and the Blockheads but, being involved with six different community groups/projects, I can tell him a thing or two about the Big Society.

My reasons to be cheerful are about making a difference: running nature activities in the park, starting a community food-growing scheme, empowering children through drama, even teaching people how to compost. (My husband, a public sector employee – for now, anyway – keeps reminding me that I really do need to get a job so that we can eat, too.)

I'm looking forward to December, when I go out carolling with the brass bands I play in. People come out of their houses, carrying their little ones all wrapped up for bed, and ask us to play Silent Night. It feels good to spread the love. And we're all going to need to do more of that now. There may not be much money around but generosity of spirit can work wonders.

Sam Barrett, Bradford teacher

"Tell me about the rabbits, George," pleads John Steinbeck's Lenny in Of Mice and Men. Lenny's future bunny booty symbolises everyman's wish to have and hold a dream. Me, I'm cheerful because I haven't yet been expelled from the school of life and do still have dreams.

I'm cheerful that Mr Osborne ringfenced school budgets though worried about unfenced needs.

I'm cheerful that I'm no longer a deputy headteacher and can concentrate on teaching, with my smiley and supportive departmental colleagues.

I'm looking forward to the bewildered recruitment drive that will follow with the decorum of a pitch invasion at the Coliseum once the Government want their own ideas implemented and discover they sacked everyone that could have done it. That'll cheer me up no end.

I'm cheerful that I no longer worry about my contradiction of atheism and evensong and I'm looking forward to becoming a cathedral regular, singing flat and too loud but loving listening to people doing it properly.

I'm cheerful that I'm 52 and still dream of rabbits.

Irena Bauman, architect and founderof Leeds-based Bauman Lyons Architects

Personally, I'm looking forward to work on the South Link Station entrance in Leeds progressing now funding has been approved and we are also hoping the second stage of funding for Tower Works in Holbeck will be given the green light, but there is a big picture.

Boom years have turned citizens into consumers and turned communities into cohorts of individuals disengaged from politics and from social realities. We are collectively no happier then

we were in previous times

of austerity.

Adversity often has the effect of bringing people together in search of new solutions.

Collective action gives a sense of purpose and of civic pride that no amount of shopping can ever do.

A period of austerity is an essential break with the unsustainable orthodoxy of unlimited economic growth– it creates a space in which to evaluate and realign the present social values and consider how Britain could become a more equal society. The rhetoric for genuine empowerment of local people to work in partnership with local councils must be embraced without cynicism, because in this possibility lies the reason to be cheerful and the possibility of remaining so for many years to come.

Adam Gillison, buyer for Jumbo Records in Leeds

It seems flippant to be talking about musical entertainment in the light of economic cuts and the inevitable misery it will bring. However, while the music industry has its own problems at the moment, one thing it's rather good at is articulating people's feelings as well as delivering pure excitement.

So here's a few things to cheer you up, express your emotions or provide an escape. For pure rock'n' roll adrenalin-rush, Greg Cartwright of the Reigning Sound brings out an album by his new band Parting Gifts in November, a collaboration featuring members of the Ettes, Black Keys and Greenhornes. A mixture of country rock, garage punk and '60s beat, Cartwright is a master at this sort of thing and this album is up there with his best.

Darkstar have just released a long-awaited debut album, an instant classic of downbeat electronica that feels perfectly in tune with its time. They have released one of the year's great albums right at its end and even rework an obscure Human League B-side on there.

Leeds has surely never seen a better time for live music either, and the coming months provide a feast. Michael Gira's Swans

visit Leeds University, the hotly tipped Warpaint come to the Brudenell and for pure pleasure the return of Madness shines a light throughout everything.

See? It's not all doom and gloom after all. Mind you, that Swans gig might be a bit dark at times...

Milly Johnson, Barnsley author

God might have shoved me to the back of the queue when he was giving height out (I'm 4ft 11in on a good day) but he made up for that by awarding me a magnificent bosom and a cracking sense of humour – and I wouldn't swap either for Julia Roberts's legs. In my job, I'm never sure what's around the corner. This week, I've been watching myself on Come Dine With Me and wondering if it will lead to me being sought out by Marco Pierre White as his new sous-chef.

I've got all the excitement of a TV company looking at my books to turn into watchables, I'm launching my next book on a cruise, I'm schmoozing down in London at posh Christmas parties and (don't faint) I've even got a hot date coming up.

My generous chest has been rather lampooned on the TV this week – but after losing a young, dear friend to that "awful disease", I know she'd be willing me from the sky to stick it out and suck life dry of all the juice that I can. And I fully intend to do it for us both.

Daniel Evans, artistic director of Sheffield Theatres

I'm really excited about the next 12 months. In November we'll announce our spring season across all three theatres and there are some fantastic highlights in there.

In the meantime of course, we're gearing up for a spectacular Christmas with Peter Pan in the Lyceum and the return of the musical to the Crucible stage when Me and My Girl explodes onto the stage.

In the New Year I'm thrilled to be staging the David Hare season, a celebration of the work of one of the country's finest playwrights. We're producing three plays: Racing Demon in the Crucible, which I'm directing; Plenty in the Studio and The Breath of Life

in the Lyceum. I love David's work, he has a gift for getting to the heart and humanity of his characters with enormous sensitivity and wit. These plays are great examples of that talent.

We're also presenting workshops and readings, including a reading by David himself. This ambitious kind of festival within one theatre complex is just one of the reasons why regional theatre is thriving at the moment.

Ashley Jackson, Holmfirth-based artist

I'm 70 now and the greatest gift you can ask for is good health. The best things in life are provided by Mother Nature, whether it's walking on the moors, walking by a river, or going down to the beach. It's free entertainment.

The problem today is we don't make our own entertainment, we buy it. But for me, as well as with spending time with my family and friends, I want to be out on the moors, that's what makes me happy – and if I've got a flask of whisky then I'm even happier.

Philip Whitchurch, actor playing Ebenezer Scrooge in the West Yorkshire Playhouse's production of A Christmas Carol.

In spite of taking on the role of probably the meanest man in literature, Ebenezer Scrooge, I haven't let him get under my skin (not yet anyway), and even with the spending review announcements (and the fact I have only one day off at Christmas Bah! Humbug!) I have many reasons to be cheerful.

Despite the spending review Liverpool FC have some money to buy some good players. I look forward to a white Christmas but not the wrong kind of snow, after four months of a Broadway winter and one of the worst snowstorms NYC has ever seen, I relish the thought of a good old Yorkshire winter.

Reason to be cheerful part 3: Ian Dury's music still pushes all my buttons and keeps me smiling, so uplifting, so funny. I'm optimistic that this government recognises the value of theatre, that people

need to be entertained. And finally, getting home for my son's 18th birthday but not picking up the bar tab. Bah! Humbug!