Stroud MDN

I’m back

Sorry its been a very long time since i last gave an update. I’ve been on compassionate leave, but with the start of a new year and new decade, i’m now returning, and hoping that there will be good things to come for 2010.

I wanted everyone to know that we had some very good news at the end of last year. My bid to the Voluntary Sector Youth Capital Fund was successful and we were awarded just under £10,000 to be spent on equipment. Thanks to everyone who helped me with the application.

So now there is more fundraising to do to get this project off the ground. I’ve just spoken to Annabel Sampson at Unltd about putting in a funding application, and plan to work on this over the next month. There are some others to explore to. Also still in contact with Co-operative Futures, and still contemplating whether to set the project up as a co-operative. But need to apply to Unltd first as they award to individuals/informal groups.

Meeting Malcolm Pollock (GMS) tomorrow and then having a cuppa and chat with George, which will hopefully inspire me to work hard! Won’t leave it so long next time i promise.

Apparently we are half way!

Thank you Andrew for letting us know we are half way through our contract - can’t quite believe it, its gone so fast and i still feel like i’ve got so much to do. Thanks to everyone who has supported and helped me so far, i’m afraid i haven’t got time to write an oscar-style speach like Andrew -  aw he’s so sweet, and he’s done so well over the last 6 months.

So quick update i guess. Why does everything have to be about money?! Driving me mad. Just can’t work out how i’m going to make my project sustain itself, so having second thoughts about Stroud House gallery and trying to find somewhere a bit cheaper. With cheaper running costs we have a small chance of this actually getting off the ground. Been looking round a few buildings with the lovely Pete Rosser, and hoping to look round some more.

Met with Kay from Young Glos last week. She’s very keen to work together which is great. Not really sure how yet but thinking hard about how we can benefit each other.

Spoke to Francis Morgan from connexions about how they could be involved. Hopefully going to get a chance to talk to the PA’s about what their users want in terms of opportunities and training.

Went to Archway School on Fri. Had a drop in session at lunchtime and got about 20 young people coming to talk to me which i thought wasnt’ too bad considering they gave up their lunchtime to do it. All very keen. What came across was that they feel stuff that’s put on for young people can be very patronising, so if they can be actively involved in decision making and running of the organisation they’d like that. So they can create something for themselves rather than adults doing what they think is best.

Also met with Barbara Pond, who works for the rural community council, and has a lot experience in social enterprises. She has offered to help and be on the steering group, and help me with the business side of things like the business plan. Very grateful, this is just the kind of support that i need.

Meeting with Jeremy Collingwood from Stroud Fringe this week, and also hoping to talk to Tom from Shak Studios in Wiltshire, funded by the local council, they offer free recording to young people.

Oh and got my proposal in to the Stroud Town Council so waiting to hear back from them. Fingers crossed (i’d do my toes too if i could).

Quick Update

Got funding application in to the voluntary sector youth capital fund. A lot of work! Put in a bid for just under £10,000 for equipment for rehearsal facilities and recording. We’ll wait to see. Put in a proposal to Stroud Town Council to fund me to do a feasibility study for the project (an extra day a week for 3 months), so hopefully that will be successful and spur me on to continue to put in all the extra hours i’m doing. Met with David Drew Mp for Stroud last wednesday, who was support of the idea and has offered to introduce me to some people that might be useful to the project. Met with another group of young peoplefor a mix of Stroud secondary schools - archway, marling and Thomas Keble. A bit more of a mixed response, and i think this was due to very support parents who let them rehearse at the house and help them to organise gigs, but were interested in having somewhere where they can have a jam and meet like minded people, and recording facilities. Met Rob Evans who runs All together recording studios, really nice chap, very interested in getting involved. He is based at Painswick Inn project, teachers there 2 days a week doing music tech, and a day a week for Ruskin Mill. Going into Archway school on friday to talk to students, will let you know how i get on.

Feet haven’t touched the ground

I’ve been working my little socks off the last few weeks, which is why i haven’t blogged for a while, sorry folks. But i think you’ll be pleased with what i’ve been doing.

I’m working on a new project. Its a not-for-profit music facility in the centre of stroud for young people and the wider community, co-run by young people, with rehearsal/recording facilities, venue/workshop space, training opportunities, support and advice. I’ve found a potential venue, the old Stroud House Gallery, which is just by the train station. It’s in a great location, and has a really useable space, is the right size and i’m really excited about the prospects.

I’ve managed to get lots of people interested. Pete Rosser, community musician as been really supportive, been a great sounding board and came round some properties with me. I looked around the old Stroud Music Centre, which would be absolutely amazing but needs so much work and money thrown at it its out the question.

Jade Hamzelou is a harpist, singer, teacher, ex-music teacher in secondary school, hasarts administration experience, and a wealth of experience and knowledge to give to the project.

Graeme Owen and Nick Buckle are running the rock school i’ve organised at stroud youth centre, and used to be part of the hub collective, that basically had the same goal that i’m trying to acheive. They ran a rehearsal room, but this closed when it was flooded out two years ago when we had all the flooding. The hub collective is no more now so there is a hole to fill!

Matty Airy works for the Stroud News and Journal, writing for the arts section, and has said that the paper will support the project and run some stories for me.

Lee Holder from the college has been very supportive. On friday i was allowed to visit the college and talk to all the year 1 and 2 music technology students. I got all the students to write on a post-it note what they’d like instroud in terms of music for young people. It was great, the discussions seemed to ignite a lot of enthusiasm and excitement, and 27 students gave me their contact details and said they wanted to be involved in the project which exceeded my expectations. The college want to work with the project, but not sure how yet. Certainly encouraging students to be involved, and possible sharing of equipment. We will be talking more after the college have had their ofsted inspection in a few weeks time.

Steph at riffs music shop has shown an interest, and at the moment has a form for people to sign to pledge their interest and support.

Stefan Edwards from kiss my face in cheltenham wants to branch out in Stroud, so i’m going to keep him in the loop.

I met with Francis Gobey from the children and young people’s directorate for a chat, and he gave me some useful pointers, including funding possibilities to look into, and organisations to contact including connexions. I’ve emailed francis morgan from connexions but haven’t heard back yet.

Derek Tanner from business link has agreed to look at my business plan and give me a bit of help with it.

I also met 3 students form cirencester college; lindsay, guy and joe. I had a chat with them for a couple hours, having an indepth talk on what is lacking in stroud for young people in terms of music opportunities and what they’d like. A general place for young people to go and feel comfortable, and to call their own, was what was both lacking and what they would like. Gigs are often in pubs and they were saying they didn’t feel comfortable going to them. Rehearsal space that was affordable, and traing and workshops were also important. Networking opportunities, and access to a wide range of information and people was really important to the group, as were gigging opportunities and the chance to see gigs, and links with other arts. They are very committed to being involved in running the project.

Anyway, lots more meetings planned for next week, but i wouldn’t bore you anymore,just watch this space…

Ops I forgot to say…

That i also finally met the new person who is running the subscription rooms, Jill Frank. She really wants to get the down stairs cafe being used more and seems quite keen to do some stuff that is young people focused, so watch this space…

Summer is over…

Had a bit of a quiet month, been trying to make the most of the summer with my son Ruben, before he started school! We are in the second week now, and all seems to be going well.

So what’s been happening since i last wrote? Well, we had a team meeting at the beginning of august which was really good. Nice to catch up and find out what everyone was doing, talk about funding and projects, and connect with each other a bit. I know that we all feel differently about how the team should work, some people prefer to go it alone, but i feel its really important for me personally to feel part of a team. Andy has arranged a xmas party on the 18th Dec so i’m looking forward to this.

My big news of the month is that i got my funding that i applied for from the youth intiative fund. So i’ve got £500 towards the rock school, and hopefully the youth centre will be successful with their bid for £1200. I still need to meet with Graeme Owen to talk about the content of the course, how it will run etc. Plan to follow this up over the next week or so.

I met with Rick Vick who used to run GlosRocks, they used to run courses and put on youth gigs at the space. He was telling me that he still has lots of young people saying they’d like to have a nigt like this again, so need to look into how this might be acheived. THere are 3 youth band nights happening at the space in oct/nov/dec.

Also, young gloucestershire have got funding to run a new programme trying to tackle anti-social behaviour in 5 market towns in Gloucestershire, one of them being Stroud. They are planning on running music events for 13-18 year olds on fri and sat nights, so i am looking to get involved with them. I’ve spoken to Dave Pick, who is working for them for a short period and orgainising a launch event in stroud at the space on the 18 sept.

It was the Stroud Fringe this weekend. Saw a great young local band called ‘Hot Feet’ on the friday night, highly recommend them. I think the fringe went pretty well, it was a shame i couldn’t get anything happen with them, but hopefully next year…

Latest update

It’s been an interesting few weeks, both in terms of work and personal life. I turned 30 last weekend, so i’m starting to come to terms with the fact that i’m not in my 20’s anymore! It’s a strange thing getting older, but anyway enough about that…

Made contact with Rick at the subrooms again. He’s still looking for bands to support the acts they are putting on for the Fringe Festival, so if you are in a band or know a band who might be interested, get in touch. I still haven’t met Jill Franks, but hope to sometime in August. I’ve heard on the grapevine about a celebration she is organising for the 175th birthday of the subrooms, so would love to get involved in this. And i’m going to get together with Rick and Nick Buckle to talk about the Stroud Music Scene. Unfortunately the open mic nights at the subrooms are stopping, so there is going to be a gap that needs filling…

Talked to Jeremy from Stroud Fringe this week. They haven’t had any luck getting anymore funding so are pressing ahead with one stage at the bank gardens, and the outside forcourt of the subrooms. No youth stage :-(, and at the moment no workshops although i want to look into possibly finding some funding to run these. I plan to talk to Sue at the space about this. It’s a shame that its been such a struggle for the fringe this year, however i did have positive conversations with jereny about next year. I know from talking to Stroud College, that they would be keen to be involved, possibly they could provide and sponsor the youth stage? I’ve asked him to keep me in the loop about progress, and offered my support and help for anything the fringe might need me to do.

Last week I went with George to Taunton to meet and discuss the development of the South West Music Forum. It was interesting for me to hear about what was going on in different areas of the region, how different areas approach things, and meet lots of new faces. Having had time to reflect here are my views: a)There is definately a need for having a South West Music Forum, to share information, support, training, talent, joint projects and show a united front as a region with relation to music, and for members to have a broader view of not just what’s happening in their patch but what’s happening else where too. b)There are forum’s for design and theatre that are already established and successful and we should be looking at these and learning from them. c)Every member will have their own agenda. We should be finding the common links between us and focus on these to take the forum forward. Why do we want a forum, and how will we benefit? d)There seemed to be a great deal of focus an a SWMF website. I do see the benefits of this, but i also think it would take a lot of work, it would need someone to work on it, where would the money come from? I think there are otherways we could benefit that coulc have more impact.e)I agree with George about celebrating acheivements, and using the forum to promote our successes and share ideas.

Today I went to Colwell Arts Centre in Gloucester and met Jo Bousfield and Sam Etheridge. Jo is Theatre Development Coordinator for Theatre Gloucestershire, so is kind of the equivalent to GMF for theatre. She’s been in the role for a long time so i wanted to get her insight into how to approach the role, any advice or tips she could give me, and share a bit about what i was up to and keep up the contact so that perhaps in the future we could collaborate on some projects. She was very generous with her time and sharing her experience and i got a lot out of talking to her. It reinforced the need for me to set up a Stroud Music Forum, and to do some consultation in Stroud. She also gave me a good contact for someone at the Gloucestershire County Council who gives advice about funding so i’m going to follow that up. She then introduced me to Sam who works for GLOSS arts education agency. We had a long chat and some interesting things came out. It seems they have very few musicians on their books, and most of the time get in people from Bristol to run projects! She mentioned some training we could tap, for workshop training and arts award training. This is very intersting (the arts award) and i want to look into this further. I think this could be quite appealing to schools, and other educational settings. Or could even work in a youth centre or something, maybe the rock school project. Then Sam told me about a project she used to work for in Bath called Creative Factory that sounded really great. The project folded due to lack of funding, but was based at Wiltshire Music Centre, and was funded by youth music and virgin mobile. They put on week long courses in the half term that sound similar to the Rock School Project i want to do, but on a larger scale, with some great tutors, and it all sounded very exciting. I think it had also had other strands in hte past including rehearsal space, advice, mentoring, and training. She gave me some names of people to contact to find out more. And lastly she gave me contact details for Sarah Everitt who works for Creative Inclusion so i’m going to follow this up. They work with children and young people with disabilities delivering out of school arts projects and opportunities. Sounds great.

So i’m feeling like i’ve got lots to be getting on with, but i’m pretty excited about developments. Will endevour to keep you updated with progress. Bye for now.

If only there were 8 days in a week

It’s been ages since my last post, and i promise its not from lack of things to report, it’s just finding the time. Plus i’ve been on holiday in Cornwall last week which was just lovely. Anyway an update on the last month…

The funding application has gone off to the Youth Intiative fund for the Rock School Project, which is scheduled for the autumn. The closing date was today and i think it will take up to 8 weeks to find out whether we have been successful or not but here’s hoping. I was pleased with the application so feel pretty optimistic. The rest of the money is being applied for by some of the members of Stroud Youth Centre to the Youth Opportunity Fund, and closing date for that is September, so aim for the course to start beginning of October.

I’m still in discussions with Stroud Fringe, waiting to hear whether they have had luck getting sponsorship, so if they get the money it looks likely we will put on the workshops.

Met with George who gave me the postcards, so trying to distribute those around town, had mixed feedback from them but generally positive.

Met up with Lee Holder from Stroud College, he’s in charge of running the Music Performance and Music Tech Courses. Very keen to be involved in GMF. Trying to make links with them and the Fringe. Also any young bands that students might be members of. Possible open decks night, try and make links with them and The Space.

Met with Malcolm Pollock to see how i could link with Glos Music Service. He suggested a couple of schools that might want to work with me, Thomas Keble and Maidenhill. Want to try and maybe get links between them and STroud College, need to think more about how this might work. Also talked about a small scale songwriting project that i might get involved in with GMS, and discussed lack of rehearsal spaces in Stroud. Also discussed my geographic area of working, as to whether i cover Dursley. I think this is covered by Zac but need to check. Waiting to hear from Malcolm with contacts for the schools.

Will Theilker, the guy who was setting up the jam night in stroud at the Waldolf College, has moved out of Stroud! However he has given me the contact info for the college, and suggested that i take over, so possibly have a space every fri that could be used for something. Need to go there and check out the space, and talk about how they want it to be used.

Met with Rachel Thomas, who is a drama facilitator but also has an interest in music. I worked with her on a Stroud Primary schools choir project a few months back. She was telling me an idea she wants to propose to secondary schools, a multimedia project to include drama, music, art etc. So i am keen to be kept in the loop about this. Her husband is a composer for theatre so keen to meet him too.

Also had quite a few gigs, was in Cardiff with Soul Destroyers the night Take That were playing, so a nightmaree journey getting home! Also was involved in the Severn Project, a project celebrating the river severn, had performance in Tewkesbury and Lydney, with a collaboration of various community choirs across Gloucestershire. Music written by Pete Rosser, words by Alice Oswald. I was part of the backing band. And done a few jazz gigs as well with varios different combos from trio to big band. So super busy. Anyway i will try not to leave it so long next time. Hope i haven’t forgotten anything…

2 weeks passes by so quickly!

Time flies when you’re having fun… Well i’ve had more meetings, been sending lots of e-mails, and drinking more tea! I went to see Sue Bearder at The Space, they are really keen to do more youth focused stuff which is great. They plan on doing 3 gig nights in the autumn that will showcase local young bands, and i suggested they might do some workshops geared towards young people and they seemed enthusiastic about the idea. We also talked about an open decks night. There used to be one at the subrooms but now they are doing an open-mic every week there. I don’t think it was particularly well attended but i think with the right promotion it could work. We also talked about The Space Live project that tok place last winter. This was a project run by Rachael Groom, funded by the v-project. Three teams of young people were put together, given trainging in promotion and marketing and sound engineering, and then each group put on their own night at the space. Some were more sucessful than others, but it seems like the young people got a lot out of the experience. I went along to a celebration party on friday, and met some of the people involved, got some useful contacts, so who knows what might come from this? I also met with a guy called Will Theilker who has set up something called Stroud Music. He’s been donated use of a space at the Waldolf College on friday nights, and plans to have an informal collective jam session, his objectives are to stretch musical boundaries, and aims to be quite organic in the way it develops. THere won’t be anyone leading, just bring your instrument and join in and see what happens. Sounds quite interesting. He seems like a very passionate guy and has lots of ideas and plans. He’skeen to be involved in the forum, and has said i could hold my meetings there so that’s a possibility. The Rock School project with Stroud Youth Centre is looking like it will definately go ahead, as long as we secure the funding, so i’ll be working on my application for the Youth Initiative Fund next week, and Danny James, the youth worker there, is going to help the young people at the youth centre apply to the Youth Opportunity Fund, so i’m really pleased - fingers crossed we’ll be granted the money. It’s going to run as a 10 week course, and then if its sucessful we might see if we can run it more long term, again funding permitted. Today i met with Jeremy Collingwood who is involved in organising the Stroud Fringe this year. He’s also really keen to do some youth focused stuff, they are hoping to have a youth stage for local young talent, and i suggeted running some youth orientated workshops which again he seemed very positive about. As usual its all funding permited, they are really struggling with funding this year, so we talked about how they could generate more money, and inspired by the ‘nham cd that Andrew (Cheltenham MDN) was involved in i suggested a stroud fringe cd that could be sold to try and make a bit more income, so we’ll see what happens with that. I’m sure there’s been more, but i think its time to go, don’t want to bore you all! Will try and update again next week. Ta Ta.

End of month 1

Wow, time has flown, a month has gone by already. Starting to settle into the job now, have worked out what i’m meant to be doing, and feel like i’ve made some key contacts in Stroud. Still lots of people i haven’t had the chance to meet face to face yet, for instance Sue from the Space, but contact has been mad and hopefully we will soon.

Ruben (my son) and i have been recovering from flu, so the last 2 weeks have been a bit out of action, however the most exciting thing to happen recently is my meeting with Danny James, youth worker for Stroud Youth Centre. It looks pretty likely that we are going to run a rock school course next term. He’s really keen, going to do a kind of scoping exercise in the next week or 2 with his members and also going into local secondary schools, and he is also going to look into funding - the plan is that i will apply for the youth intiative fund and he will get young people to apply for the youth opportunity fund (both through the stroud district youth council), and hopefully we will both be successful and raise enough money to put on a 10 week course at the youth centre. Just need to get an exact cost from graeme who will be running the course with a team he has got together. So fingers crossed on that one…

Also met with Steve Miles, youth worker who facilitates the stroud district youth council. He’s passing on information to the members and hopefully thet will want to be involved, maybe on an advisory level, and also hopefully funding (as mentioned earlier).

Also working with the subrooms. They have asked me to find some young bands to support the acts at the fringe festival in september. So need to set up a database of young bands in the area.

Also hoping to meet up with Will Thiekler who is setting up ‘Stroud Music’. Don’t know much about it yet, but he has been offered a space at the british school for free, and i think they plan on putting on jam nights and stuff. So looking forward to hooking up with him.

So overall, feel pretty happy with the way things are going, let’s hope it stays that way! Looking forward to the weekend, have a gig with Soul Destroyers at the Kingshead in Kings Stanley tomorrow night which shoul be fun, and then chill out on sunday so i’m all refreshed for more networking next week!