Saturday 6^th July – Darnhill Festival 2013: Memories and Dreams

And what a glorious day for a festival it was! Blazing sunshine saw me hopping between the many stalls and attractions armed with cups of water; an excellent opportunity to keep up with all that was going on, and there certainly was a lot! The parade looked and sounded fantastic from the shade of the library, too. My highlight was the seeing the play area. Three months ago, it was looking such a sorry waste. Now it’s been done-up, it looks fantastic; it was especially nice to see the photographer catch all the children on the slide and frame with their painted faces beaming.

This was a spectacular way to top off what has been a rewarding traineeship, enriched with fun, learning, and inspirational people. I hope to continue gaining experience and training so that I can work with community arts companies and projects, and I look forward to opportunities to come back to Cartwheel for more!

Visit the Darnhill Festival website

Friday 5^th July – Darnhill Festival Preparations

Today started with my appraisal/evaluation of my traineeship with Lucy: and a chance to reflect on what has been an enjoyable and rewarding experience, and a sad reminder that it’s come to an end all too quickly. I was encouraged to be honest about my experience, and offer suggestions for improvement for future trainees.

Then I returned to preparations for tomorrow's Darnhill Festival. The weather certainly has picked up, and it’s promising to be a wonderful finale for my traineeship!

Wednesday 3^rd July – Darnhill Festival Preparations

After 3 weeks away, it was lovely to get back in the office and stuck into preparation for the next Cartwheel Arts associated Festival: Darnhill’s festival, Memories and Dreams. It’s very exciting to see the number and variety of stalls and attractions, as I made signs and packs for each. I just hope the weather picks up…

Wednesday 12^th June – Scribble Fest Preparations

What a fantastic day! Great atmosphere with so many creative participants and professionals writing and sharing their work. I enjoyed participating in a workshop myself, and was inspired by the work others read out during the workshop and in the later sharing session. It was a real treat to hear the professional writers perform their work, too, and the live band was wonderful. Fantastic culmination of lots of hard work and creativity from Cartwheel Arts and Story Group participants over the last three years. There is so much love and hope for this project to continue, and I really hope more funding can be sourced. Until then, I hope the participants continue to practice and gain confidence through their wonderful writing.

Friday 7^th June – Scribble Fest Preparations

Today I got creative, making bamboo signs for the workshops, putting name badges together, and deciding to create an alphabetised box to store them (didn't know what else we could do with them!). I then typed up some participant pieces on how much TUAO means to them, which has been lovely to work through. I look forward to meeting them at Scribble Festival next week!

Wednesday 5^th June – Scribble Fest Preparations

Things are getting very busy in preparation for the conference and Scribble Festival; very exciting! I put together lots (and lots!) of packs for people attending and typed up some more poems, this time on the theme of “Celebrations”. Lovely and interesting as always!

Wednesday 22^nd May – Scribble Fest Preparations

Today I finally got stuck in to the Tell Us Another One Scribble Festival presentation (only 3 weeks to go!). I particularly enjoyed searching through and choosing quotes and photographs to use; I chose those that I thought were particularly expressive of TUAO’s aims and achievements, and had fun matching quotes and pictures together appropriately. I was very pleased to have it nearly finished by the end of my day, just awaiting some statistics and touch ups from Emma.

Wednesday 15^th May – In The Office

I don’t like MACs, and they don’t like me. Unfortunately, I ended up using one to input TUAO feedback and evaluations into a database. This was fine for the most part; I enjoyed reading participants’ comments on the benefits and need for TUAO to continue. Unfortunately MAC decided to crash when I still had a pile to get through. Luckily it was resuscitated and Emma was able to do the rest, but for me, home time!

Saturday 11^th May – Spring Has Sprung

I was rather disappointed to wake up to heavy rain on the day of the Arts and Enterprise’s family fun day, Spring Has Sprung (apparently!)The day still had a great turn out, evidenced in the crowding in the hall. There was lots going on, and I managed to get roped into a Tai Chi demonstration! It was also nice to meet Laura, my predecessor at Cartwheel, and great to see that she keeps coming back for more! The event team have clearly worked very hard and well together to pull off this event. It proved very busy and popular; a Reiki treatment to finish was much appreciated!

Wednesday 8^th May – In the Office

Today I got to do a bit of everything: I completed the spreadsheet of Art Cart and Arts and Enterprise participant responses, in-putted freelance arts workers’ information into the database, and documented the roles that Art & Soul have delegated between themselves today. I've also looked back over the work I started for Emma weeks ago, and am looking forward to getting stuck into it next time.

Friday 3^rd May – Art Cart

I went to visit a very busy Art Cart as they prepare for Nothern Lights, and event where they will sell the work they’ve made over the duration of the course. It was great to see everyone so busy; the amount of effort and care is really paying off with some beautiful work! I enjoyed getting to see finished products as I catalogued them.

Friday 26th April - Back in the office

After a number of weeks of being out and about, attending and supporting various Cartwheel activities across the community, I came back to the office to find a lovely full tray of jobs to do! I finished typing up the poems from different Tell Us Another One sessions, which was even more enjoyable now that I had experienced some of these sessions myself, and was introduced to the TUAO filing system. I then finished typing up participant responses from Art Cart, Arts and Enterprise and the Skills Fortnight (including my own!). It's interesting to see what participants value in these sessions. I'm feeling better for having gotten on top of these jobs, and looking forward to more next time!

Tuesday 16th and Friday 19th April - Tell Us Another One

This week I attended two Tell Us Another One sessions. The first was in Rochdale, and was the last of a series of sessions working with people for whom English was an additional language. It was lovely to hear them perform their own work, both poems and songs. Clearly over the course they have gained great skill and confidence in writing and speaking in English, especially to be able to do so creatively!

The second was at Dumer's Lane, again coming towards the end of a series of workshops for this new TUAO group. Here I was offered paper and pen by a participant and invited to take part. This session was lead by a participant, who did a great job in encouraging us to write dialogue. I enjoyed hearing the poems, scripts and stories participants had written both during and outside of sessions, and was grateful of the chance encouragement to get writing again myself.

Friday 5th April, Monday 8th April and Friday 12th April - Skills Fortnight

I attended Cartwheel Arts' Skills Fortnight, with workshops in First Aid, Health and Safety, Equality and Diversity and Risk Assessment. This was a great opportunity to learn and train myself, and also to see how Cartwheel offers training and career development to people across the community who aren't necessarily working in the Arts. Having said that, I was inspired by how Kerry turned Risk Assessment (a notoriously dry topic) into a creative and fun workshop; I never would have guessed Risk Assessment could have a group laughing so much! As well as supporting Kerry in this session, it was great to experience these workshops as a participant, gaining valuable insight into the workshop topics and another branch of Cartwheel's work.

Tuesday 2nd April - Out and about

Today I went with Rick out and about around the various estates Cartwheel Arts work with. We met the Enterprise participants at Langley, who are in the process of organising a family fun day. A spot of lunch, then we went to Darnhill Library for the Easter Fundraiser. It was nice to meet the ladies and see the kids enjoying the Easter crafts. We had a walk around the park area, and then continued to Back o'th Moss. It was upsetting to see the hard work of Cartwheel and the community being mistreated, but nonetheless inspiring to meet the groups of people working hard to bring their communities together.

Wednesday 27th March - In the Office

It was really nice to come in to a full try of odd jobs to do: shredding, photocopying, typing up poems (always a nice part of an afternoon with Cartwheel!). I was then introduced to the company's database, and after a demo from Lucy, I in-putted participant data into it. Although I've done this using a spreadsheet before, this is the first time I'd used an actual database, so was a useful experience.

I then set about creating a spreadsheet to record Art Cart participant feedback. The tricky bit was figuring out a clear format that would list the information by date, but I think I've cracked it! Just need to input the answers and see how the graphs turn out.

Wednesday 13^th March 2013 – Exploring the town and back in the office

Over a quickly-succeeding second cup of tea, Kerry explained the basics of how I go about registering as self employed, what this entails, and completing an invoice – this seems a lot less scary now! We then went for a walk into sunny Heywood, stopping to visit the Phoenix Centre, the Library, Recovery Republic and an Art & Soul session. It was nice to get to visit these places and groups that I've heard about and know I will be working with over the course of the traineeship, and it was useful to chat with Kerry on the way about some of the challenges arts companies face regarding funding.

Back in the office, I organised Community First questionnaires into a collective response from different wards, regarding their thoughts on the wards and where they think funding should be prioritised. It was good to gain an insight into the area through the eyes of residents, and I visited the Community First websites to learn more.

Key learning points of today were the challenges in securing funding for community arts projects; the Hopwood Recreation Ground needs draining; and I need to up my tea-drinking game!

Wednesday 6^th March 2013 – First Day

The day began with a cup of tea, an introduction to Cartwheel Arts and its various staff and projects, and a tour of the building. Lucy and I synchronised diaries to schedule when I’d be in the office and when I could be out assisting projects, consulting the rest of the team accordingly. I’m particularly excited to get out and about and work practically on projects in the community. Another cup of tea in hand, Lucy then set me some simple admin tasks to warm me into things, including distributing leaflets for the BUPA Manchester 10k run around the area. I took time out to sit in on the team meeting, where staff very kindly took time to describe the various projects being discussed and suggested how I could be of further assistance.

All in all a very pleasant first day; I’ve been made to feel very welcome, and look forward to what the coming weeks with Cartwheel Arts have in store