Our meeting today was the first time I'd lead a meeting in Langport without Melita to keep me on track, eek!
The first issue that came up was that our planned venue for the meeting was closed and locked because it was Good Friday. This was quickly resolved by moving to a pub garden, so silver-linings all round.
The meeting, whilst not following the planned agenda very closely, actually went very well, early on we met with a young person who came to the meeting opposed to the project but after a short introduction to who the CCT were and why we were developing a project in Langport, they soon became a supporter and a new member of the core group, success!
Our core group, which is growing every week, enjoy a bit of progressive thinking coming up with future use ideas for the church. This really makes me happy because we're actively engaging in the idea of regenerating the church, we're exploring the wants and needs of the community, and we are a group of young people sitting round a table discussing how the grown-ups have messed it all up and what we're going to do to remedy that.
The only problem is that this part of the project development should be happening weeks and months later on, in tandem with community consultation, so that we're having informed discussions on the wants and needs of the whole community, with documentary back-up, rather than the wants and needs of 6 people around a table.
The upshot of this is that we're all getting excited (myself included) about the possibility of a music and performance venue *idea*, and coming up with very legitimate reasons why the community needs it and how it could fit sustainably and with multi-purpose effects in the church (as well as reasons that people might not like it). What we can't do is get carried away with this idea and push it forward without properly researching how it might fit into the community. Having said all this, enthusiastic young people with big ideas and conscientious thinking are not to be sniffed at!
The second half of the meeting was spent inside the church, discussing ideas of value and identifying what was seen as highly valuable and less valuable (I identified the aspect of the nave from East to West, in my eyes it would be heresy to chop the nave in half with a stud wall), other areas that were identified as valuable for different reasons were the space around the altar and the Chancel in general due to its spiritual significance, the monuments on the walls and floor slabs due to their local resonances, and the 'hunkypunk' grotesques due to their sheer number and uniqueness to Somerset. All in all some good, useful discussion.
Next meeting we're working on filling in the HLF application with young people, and coming up with a name that stands out a little bit more than 'All Saints Langport Youth Project', woooooo! After discussing today's meeting with Melita, she's going to scribe the next meeting whilst I lead it, so that I can practice some techniques for holding on to a meeting that enjoys going off-piste.
Friday 22 April 2011
Wednesday 13 April 2011
More young people and *Action* for the project
We had two exciting achievements by the end of today. We were down in Langport again for another recruitment meeting, and we also wanted to take our current group to the church to have a first look with a critical eye.
The first achievement was a brand new young person who's enthusiastic about the project, and very Arts-minded, so I'm looking forward to having him at future brainstorming sessions for ideas for the regeneration project.
The second was that we were filmed! The CCT are so excited by the project that they want to use it in a video that will be shown at fundraising events. Very exciting indeed! Catherine and Selvyn who work for RandalFox (who have done work for the CCT before) came down and filmed a meeting and some interviews with young people, including me! Whilst we thought it was a little early in the lifetime of the project to be filming young people with big ideas about the church (we're still really at the recruiting stage), our young people really stepped up to the plate, even the one who turned up for the first time today!
Quite apart from making it a little bit different and fun, I think this also sends a message to our young people, and Langport, that we're excited about this project, and we're taking it seriously, so whilst it felt a bit rushed and a ad hoc, and took over our meeting a little bit, we got a lot out of it as well! (Plus I get to be on telly!... well, video...)
We're hoping that initial recruitment is sorted now and we can start meeting with our young people, as the core team, to start building the HLF project application, so next meeting we're exploring the church in a bit more detail, and thinking about the core team as a consolidated group ... could be interesting!
The first achievement was a brand new young person who's enthusiastic about the project, and very Arts-minded, so I'm looking forward to having him at future brainstorming sessions for ideas for the regeneration project.
The second was that we were filmed! The CCT are so excited by the project that they want to use it in a video that will be shown at fundraising events. Very exciting indeed! Catherine and Selvyn who work for RandalFox (who have done work for the CCT before) came down and filmed a meeting and some interviews with young people, including me! Whilst we thought it was a little early in the lifetime of the project to be filming young people with big ideas about the church (we're still really at the recruiting stage), our young people really stepped up to the plate, even the one who turned up for the first time today!
Quite apart from making it a little bit different and fun, I think this also sends a message to our young people, and Langport, that we're excited about this project, and we're taking it seriously, so whilst it felt a bit rushed and a ad hoc, and took over our meeting a little bit, we got a lot out of it as well! (Plus I get to be on telly!... well, video...)
We're hoping that initial recruitment is sorted now and we can start meeting with our young people, as the core team, to start building the HLF project application, so next meeting we're exploring the church in a bit more detail, and thinking about the core team as a consolidated group ... could be interesting!
Monday 4 April 2011
Meetings meetings meetings, Go&Sees go&sees go&sees!
Today was spent cramming as many meetings as humanly possible into a day in Bristol. I met with Circomedia, Heritage and Community, and The Station. Circomedia and The Station have been earmarked since very early stages of the project as potential Go&Sees to take our group of young people on and meet people from nearby exemplar projects, so these meetings were crucial to get right! (and there was no Melita this time to ask all the experienced and informed questions!)
These Go&Sees will be undertaken by two groups of people (the first being Melita and myself, the second being Melita, myself and the young people), and fit into three categories (Heritage, Community, and Youth), a lot of which overlap. We aim to provide the project with as wide a range of research and inspirational visits as is viable, so these Go&Sees are undergoing some fairly extensive research!
I've already written about The Station here. Circomedia is a Circus School that is celebrating its 25th birthday this year. It recently started using St Paul's church (the first Regeneration Taskforce project) as one of its venues and training spaces. This soon became the Regeneration Taskforce's flagship project, fulfilling its' roles of securing and maintaining the building, and making steps to regenerate the surrounding community.
Whilst this picture does look great, it doesn't really do justice to the experience of watching a performance with trapeze artists swinging between pillars, people climbing 30m high ropes to the ceiling, and generally using the whole space so creatively. At today's meeting I managed to convince Circomedia that they wanted our young people looking round during one of their BTEC classes, which is fantastic because that huge space is going to be a hive of activity. This will undoubtedly get some creative juices flowing around ideas for All Saints'! Hooray.
The meeting at The Station had the same good conclusion - they were happy for us to bring our young people to see the site and talk to the people involved in planning their project (which includes some Bristolian young people, ooooh). The difference with this Go&See is that The Station is currently derelict, and when we visit it, it'll be an enormous building site. We're going to make the most of this opportunity to see a restoration and regeneration project mid-development (rather than see shiny pictures of one that's yet to commence, or a shiny building thats already been completed), so this summer/autumn our young people are going there!
John from Heritage and Community is no stranger to the CCT and its' exploits, having covered posts during maternity leave in the past, so it was very useful to have an informed but external point of view on the project. He also recommended another local project for a Go&See, that he worked on - Tyntesfield is a National Trust property, which utilises young volunteers in similar (and different) ways to our project, so that's definitely one to keep fresh in our minds. It was certainly good to pick John's brains about his experience of that project - what we should watch out for and what we don't need to be panicking about just yet!
A very long day, but very very useful, and with some great outcomes!
These Go&Sees will be undertaken by two groups of people (the first being Melita and myself, the second being Melita, myself and the young people), and fit into three categories (Heritage, Community, and Youth), a lot of which overlap. We aim to provide the project with as wide a range of research and inspirational visits as is viable, so these Go&Sees are undergoing some fairly extensive research!
I've already written about The Station here. Circomedia is a Circus School that is celebrating its 25th birthday this year. It recently started using St Paul's church (the first Regeneration Taskforce project) as one of its venues and training spaces. This soon became the Regeneration Taskforce's flagship project, fulfilling its' roles of securing and maintaining the building, and making steps to regenerate the surrounding community.
The meeting at The Station had the same good conclusion - they were happy for us to bring our young people to see the site and talk to the people involved in planning their project (which includes some Bristolian young people, ooooh). The difference with this Go&See is that The Station is currently derelict, and when we visit it, it'll be an enormous building site. We're going to make the most of this opportunity to see a restoration and regeneration project mid-development (rather than see shiny pictures of one that's yet to commence, or a shiny building thats already been completed), so this summer/autumn our young people are going there!
John from Heritage and Community is no stranger to the CCT and its' exploits, having covered posts during maternity leave in the past, so it was very useful to have an informed but external point of view on the project. He also recommended another local project for a Go&See, that he worked on - Tyntesfield is a National Trust property, which utilises young volunteers in similar (and different) ways to our project, so that's definitely one to keep fresh in our minds. It was certainly good to pick John's brains about his experience of that project - what we should watch out for and what we don't need to be panicking about just yet!
A very long day, but very very useful, and with some great outcomes!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)