Charnwood Community Artslink Report 2008/09

Charnwood Community Artslink

Special Edition - A Year in the Life of Charnwood Arts - 2008-09

Welcome to this special edition of Charnwood ArtsLink!

All of us involved with Charnwood Arts as staff, participants and trustees are proud of our contribution to the arts, creativity and culture within Charnwood and the East Midlands region. The purpose of this publication is to the share this achievement with our friends and partners. We have produced it now, at a time when we are planning for the future of our organisation against a backdrop of economic turbulence, structural change and uncertainty. We feel that this is a particularly important moment to put on record how Charnwood Arts has helped to enhance the lives of the people we work with. It stands as a marker point against which we can all judge our future progress. We have chosen 2008/09, a typically busy year, to highlight where we make a difference across a wide range of communities, groups and different geographies.

2008/09 was a highly productive year for Charnwood Arts with much of our work based around participatory projects often linking into key national target development areas such as ‘Be Healthy’, ‘Strengthening Communities’ and ‘Make a Positive Contribution’. We also produced, promoted and presented a wide range of other artistic and promotional work as part of the programme. Through active dialogue with partners, commissioners, participants and other stakeholders and through both internal and external evaluation we gained a greater understanding of the quality and depth of the work we undertake. We believe that the level of public benefit offered by Charnwood Arts is the key to our success. Our approach is built on the four cornerstones of sustained dialogue, building relationships at all levels, exploring benefits and encouraging creativity. We continue to receive very positive feedback in relation to the vast majority of our work from the people we engage with and from partners. Through all of this we are committed to constantly strive for better processes and outcomes.

Charnwood Arts was in a healthy position financially during 2008/09 securing a range of funds from project partners and a good level of core support from our three main funders Charnwood Borough Council, Leicestershire County Council (Next Level Café) and Arts Council England, East Midlands.

The greater focus on governance issues highlighted by our Arts Council England annual review during the year resulted in a more engaged Management Committee and an improved level of leadership and delegation from the trustees. The organisation looks forward to both challenging and exciting times ahead.

This will include strengthening and deepening our work locally, continuing to support and partner regional initiatives and to further develop our international projects linking Charnwood with creative activities and communities elsewhere. Busy years ahead, but then every year is!

We hope you enjoy this publicationand look forward to your feedback, please feel free to write to us at info@charnwoodarts.com We would also encourage you to explore and join our website www.charnwoodarts.com where you can find out much more about our work.

Kevin Ryan FRSA - Chief Executive Officer 2

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CONTENTS 2 3 4-5 6 7-10 11 12 13 14-15 16 17 18 19 20-21 22-25 26-27 28-29

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Welcome to this special edition of Charnwood ArtsLink Contents Facts & Figures Charnwood Arts Staff Printed and PDF distributed publications 2008/09 Picnic in the Park Streets Alive! ‘08 Charnwood Mela ArtZone Yisp Plus - Summer Residency Younger and Older People in Charnwood Villages Work With Schools Work With Hind Leys Specialist Arts College - Shepshed Summer Colleges 2008 Next Level Café Making The Connections: Arts, Migration and Diaspora Trans-national Communities: Towards a Sense of Belonging Rangoli On-line Magazine Arvon Centre & the Kala Kahani Writers Development Programme Kala Kahani Works in Schools Swan In The Rushes Loughborough Council of Faiths Pantomine

35 | Youth in Action 36-37 | Map: Charnwood Arts - Worldwide Connections 2008/09 38 | International Links 39 | Here Our Voices 40-41 | A space for the arts in Charnwood 42-43 | SportsLink - 2008/09 44-45 | DanceLink - 2008/09 46 | Arts in Mental Health 47 | The Big Knitting Group 48-49 | Sileby Community Arts Day 50-51 | The Thrussington Beast Project 52 | miniWORDS 53 | UpFront 54 | EMAS: Faith, Belief and the Emergency Services 55 | Creative Curriculum Development Project 56 | Literature Network 57 | Glastonbudget ‘08 58-59 | Re-imagining Loughborough 60-63 | Pixel and Grain 64 | Sector Support 65 | Jill Vincent - Chair of trustees 2008/09 66-69 | Creatively Connecting Communities...

70-71 | Acknowledgements

Cover picture by Helen Saunders - now sited in Loughborough Town Hall

The Baring Foundation

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Facts & Figures!?

38 Participation Projects in 2008/09.

73 artists involved in delivering the participation programme.... ....and 24 educators!

Our Next Level CafĂŠ programme worked with around 100 young people at risk over the year.

Arts programme development and co-ordination of performances at 4 outdoor multi-arts events with an estimated combined attendance of 23,000.

19 Placements during the year including 5 Leonardo students from across Europe.

Arts or media based sessions 745 for 5-16 years - 5,749 att.

144 for 17-19 years - 1,060 att.

93 for adults (20+) - 1,086 att.

50 for Mixed age groups - 770 att.

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12 sessions for 0-5 years with 137 attendances.

13 exhibitions 597 exhibition days estimated attendance of 166,000.

Publications 7 publications 28,125 issued + thousands of downloaded PDFs worldwide 4 DVD’s produced.

Requests for information, advice and support currently around 900 per annum by e-mail, phone and callers

11 Community Arts Development Projects in progress during 2008/09.

Freelance contracts to 57 men and 47 women as artists and performers.

10 other performance events in music, comedy and live literature.

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Printed and PDF distributed PUBLICATIONS 2008/09 Every year Charnwood Arts publishes or works on a number of regular and new project related books, magazines, newspapers, CD-Roms or DVDs. Publishing in PDF format has resulted in many thousands of downloads worldwide and wherever we can we now produce publications on paper and for Internet distribution.

During the year we continued our association with Charnwood based poet and editor Deborah Tyler-Bennett to produce two issues of The Coffee House chap book inviting both local and international writers and illustrators to participate on an equal footing.

In a more participatory vein we worked with the Leicestershire County Council Jitty website team and a group of young poets and photographers from across Leicestershire to produce a lavishly illustrated book of poems called ‘Have You Not Heard?’.

The quality of design won critical acclaim from young people and the County Council.

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Publications In November 2008 we published the 64 page newspaper, Charnwood Artslink, highlighting Charnwood Arts’ project work, a review of our international work over 30 years engaging with 70 different countries worldwide and featuring an 11 page section supporting a temporary gallery space for emerging artists in Charnwood.

Heart of Three Cities – during the year we worked on two Heart of Three Cities publications. The first distributed in April 2008 covered the festival period during May of that year. It was enthusiastically received

by Charnwood residents and partners and did much to promote a wider arts and cultural offer in the borough alongside our own events and initiatives.

The second Heart of Three Cities publication was researched and designed in early 2009 for distribution during April 2009 and covered a two month programme.

The theme of ‘Charnwood – A Land of Legends’ was again enthusiastically received and formed the basis of a number of project ideas for a two month programme during 2009/10.

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Publications In another year long project with Leicestershire County Council we undertook a major commission to work with specialist youth support services to produce a 400 page Parenting Pack For Young Families with an accompanying CD-Rom. The pack is a comprehensive guide for young people and the people who work with them and is the largest publication we have worked on to date.

Our work was highly valued in producing something that would be visually and organisationally accessible and is of extremely high quality in design.

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Publications Rangoli is the first magazine we have designed explicitly for PDF distribution - the project also marked a significant development for Kala Kahani in being a major project undertaking with volunteers who contributed so significantly to its origination, production and success.

Many thousands have been downloaded worldwide.

The Sound Of Water is an A5 booklet charting the progression of our community engagement work in the Charnwood community of Thurmaston and is based on participatory work related to a new public art project in the village.

The 34 page book contains photographs, project details and a host of Haiku written through workshops with internationally renowned haijin, Paul Conneally, another Charnwood resident.

The production of all of these publications involved the commission of illustrations, photography and new writing with most of the design work being done in house. However, we also must thank Manuela de Castro for her fantastic contribution to the design of Rangoli.

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Picnic in the Park Our annual ‘creative village fete’ for the town of Loughborough, ‘Picnic in the Park’ took place for the 28th time in May 2008.

For only the third time in its history it was dogged by fairly persistent rain but it was still extremely encouraging to see how many people still came to the event in spite of the weather.

Combining a range of community stalls, three performance areas with family friendly entertainment and participatory activities (in tents, under umbrellas and rainhats) we were pleasantly surprised that anyone turned up at all!

Over the twenty eight years some 95,000 visitors and well over 2,000 performers of all ages have turned up rain or shine . . .

. . . not bad for a small town comunity arts fete!

“What would we do without this event in Loughborough, it’s part of our tradition in this town.”

- Audience Member

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Streets Alive! ‘08 Streets Alive! – Loughborough town centre’s annual street arts event – has been jointly developed with Charnwood Borough Council for over ten years.

We also benefited from the support of the Town Centre Partnership who enabled us to bring a real crowd puller, in the form of the robot ‘Titan’, to the event!

During that time Charnwood Arts has programmed over 250 hours of performances involving many hundreds of artists and performers.

Inclement weather played its part in 2008 for a second year running.

Nevertheless, over 80 performers provided an estimated audience of 6,000 people with a well programmed afternoon of street entertainment including dance, music, circus, street theatre and comedy across four town centre performance areas.

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We are also indebted to AstraZeneca R&D Charnwood for their invaluable financial support through our joint ‘Arts in the Community’ scheme.

“This is a great event, great audiences, one of the best I’ve been to all year.”

- Professional Street Performer

Charnwood Mela performers from around the East and West Midlands.

Audience figures were one of the best yet with a large number of people from all communities experiencing the event for the first time because of its town centre location.

Charnwood Arts worked with the Charnwood Mela Committee throughout the development of the 08/09 event which also took place in Loughborough Town Centre (this year for the first time). Charnwood Arts undertook the artistic programming, stage management and documentation of the event.

Featuring a range of stalls and two stages the event showcased a wide range of local talent from Charnwood as well as South Asian and Chinese

The event also featured the Olympic Flag handover, significant for Loughborough as we will be hosting many of the UK’s top athletes in the longer build up to the Games as well as the Japanese Olympic team.

A warm welcome to them! “Another wonderful opportunity for local communities to come together� - Community Organiser

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Our highly successful programmes of ArtZone and ArtZone On The Move at Charnwood Museum and venues around Charnwood continued throughout 2008/09 offering weekly opportunities for children to engage with a wide range of skills and artist led projects throughout the year. An on-line brochure was also produced to celebrate the programme.

Alongside the delivery of the programme we have been running a registered volunteer scheme for students of Loughborough University School of Art and Design interested in developing workshop based skills and approaches.

“It’s really great for my kids to have something like ArtZone where they can try out so many creative ideas” - Parent 14

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There were 35 ArtZone Saturday workshops in the year and 18 other workshop opportunities around the borough.

ArtZone During May and June 2008 Charnwood Arts ran ArtZone workshops at Charnwood Borough Council Play Rangers activities in South Charnwood at Birstall, Syston and Thurmaston. Artists Rosny Hayward, Nita Rao and Sue Clews all delivered free arts activities to passing locals and promoted the ArtZone programme working with around 150 people over the three sessions.

Charnwood Arts also organised four ‘Create Too’ sessions for adults over May and June 2008. During Picnic in the Park, members of Albert Street artists ran a papermaking demonstration following that up with a day long workshop the following Monday.

Recycling artist Clare Bull also ran two ‘Create Too’ sessions demonstrating her well honed recycled material weaving techniques to a group of adults including students. ‘Create Too’ is designed to provide ArtZone style workshops for over 16’s.

“I really like it, it’s exciting - the artists are cool!” - 11 Year Old Participant

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Yisp Plus - Summer Residency the session with an icebreaker introducing ourselves and saying what our special power would be if we were a super hero.”

This project took place over three days at Kirby Muxloe in July 2008. Professional artists Jemma Bagley and Jon Williams worked with 30 young people over the three days supported by youth and youth offending workers.

The first day concentrated on painting canvases and modelling with air-drying clay. All of the young people had a go at both and produced a good quantity of work.

Activities on the second day included doodle murals and super hero making. Jemma takes up the story: “We started 16

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The entire group engaged well.

A couple dropped out but a game of football/rounders on the field at lunchtime helped.

The youth workers took them out and gave us chance to get straight. Some young people came back early to continue working. One lad, Callum, who usually has a very short attention span, spent ages carefully colouring in his super hero, ‘Mole Man’.

The third day included painting clay work, printmaking and card making and body paint tattoos. In the morning the young people painted their now dry clay work.

All of the young people were praised for their attendance and the work they had produced - we awarded them all certificates of their achievement at the end of the residency.

Younger and Older People in Charnwood Villages We have continued to build relationships and develop work with young people in Charnwood villages and in particular have been involved in development work towards new projects in the central Charnwood village of Mountsorrel.

These came to fruition in 2009/10.

Following on from our support to an initial launch of World Community Arts Day (WCAD) we supported and ran arts activities at Rawlins Community College in the Charnwood village of Quorn.

We are keen to explore futher links with WCAD which has already grown significantly in the last two years to embrace a widening range of participatory arts and cultural organisations and practitioners across the globe!

This has already created interesting links and opportunities for local young people.

As part of a project to design a mural for the subway that links old and new Thurmaston, Charnwood Arts ran several workshops around Easter 2008.

The first of these workshops was held at Silverdale Community Centre as part of an Easter holiday project.

Young people spoke to Thurmaston Action Group member Brenda Seaton about their ideas. Sculptor Nita Rao also ran a two day willow weaving workshop with youngsters.

Sue Lewis and Jemma Bagley then worked with the Jagruti group, a South Asian elders group. The members came up with the idea of using traditional Rangoli patterns to help decorate the subway. This inspired us to run further Rangoli design sessions at Eastfield School where around 100 children took part in design activities. Rangoli patterns are traditionally used at the entrance to buildings to welcome visitors.

They will be painted at the mouth of both ends of the subway.

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Work With Schools Charnwood Arts worked with primary, middle and secondary schools across the borough of Charnwood. Specific projects are highlighted within the rest of this document but engagement may also take place in a myriad of other ways including inputs from schools to outdoor events, through competitions, talks and exhibitions, portfolio advice to arts students, joint working with Next Level CafĂŠ and publications. Work in schools also included elements of our collaborative SportsLink and DanceLink partnership initiatives.

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The large photocollage below was created by pupils of Stonebow School in Loughborough working with artists Helen Saunders and Paul Gent on a project funded through AstraZeneca R&D Charnwood.

Work With Hind Leys Specialists Arts College - Shepshed

During the year we initiated two photography based projects with young people in Shepshed – Vision ‘09* was an international photography project aimed at 16 -25 year olds which was conceived and managed by the student group.

A further photography project based on local legends was also planned with the group during the year. Both projects had outcomes in 2009/10. *Vision 09 attracted nearly 1,000 entries from 82 different countries - the largest numbers coming from England, India and the USA! The resultant exhibition was stunning!

The above is one of six images created with the group to illustrate the legend of “Bel the Giant”.

Using a motorcycle and costume from Stonehurst Farm Museum in Mountsorrel we explored the Soar Valley for locations - this image is set at the Birstall/Belgrave roundabout.

Bel the Giant mounted his horse ‘Sorrel’ at Mountsorrel In one leap the horse reached Wanlip At Birstall he ‘burst his girth’ Bel now lies buried at Belgrave.

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Summer Colleges - 2008 In the summer of 2008 we undertook a major programme with Connexions to develop a series of Summer Colleges across Leicester city working with young people who were not in education, employment or training. In partnership

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with the FE sector we utilised a range of educational facilities to run creative and other work orientated activities.

The first week of the scheme developed skills in making

and design leading up to Leicester’s Caribbean Carnival. The young people involved made their own float and costumes and hooked up with a dance troupe to net the third prize in the parade!

Summer Colleges - 2008

A week of outdoor activities and challenges was highly popular with participants. Fashion and Photography Week did what it said on the tin with some very lively participation from the group leading to an end of week fashion show in the city.

Multi-Arts Week gave participants a range of creative activities to choose from to pursue their own creative ideas in areas such as jewellery making, ceramics and visual arts.

Throughout the programme a number of taster sessions were also arranged including animation, film-making, music making, running a chat show and outdoor pursuits.

The workshop programme was interspersed with taster sessions related to particular employment skills ranging from carpentry, painting and decorating to motorcycle maintenance and hairdressing. | 21

Next Level Café A year round arts provision funded through Leicestershire County Council Community Safety Partnership. The provision is administered through Charnwood Arts and the Leicestershire Youth Offending Service.

Next Level Café is a specialised art and new media environment designed to engage, encourage and develop a client group who are aged between 12 -16. The provision works as part of a preventative programme using creative arts, new media, sports and gaming to raise self-esteem, teach responsibility and socially engage the targeted client group. Once implemented the Café works towards the re-engagement back into a mainstream educational environment or other alternative referral placements.

Holiday programme work revolved around week long projects or thematic approaches including film-making, visual arts, drama and music.

The Café continues to work with the National Youth Arts Award and provides a peer-mentoring project with a special school for young people with behavioural difficulties.

Next Level Café ran 426 workshop sessions during the year and held a highly successful exhibition and sale of young peoples work.

Over the next three pages you will find a more detailed picture of an average year in the life of the Café.

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Next Level Café How Next Level Café Supported Children and Young People: Outreach & Activity Work Direct Contact Support Training Advice Facilities Focused Learning Objectives Key Worker

Activities Undertaken and Issues Targeted During This Period: Visual Arts - Painting, Drawing, Photography Construction Crafts Animation Media Production Music Model making Discussion groups Educational Support Co-operative development Home Partnerships Mentoring/Training Facilities Provision ICT Skills Participation/Engagement Information/Sign Posting Social relationships/challenges Language and Basic Skills Work on Peer Pressure Work on Self-Esteem Actions and Consequences Discussions

Services Referring to the Café: Leicestershire Youth Offending Service Connexions Student Support Services Burleigh Community College Social Services Garendon High School Hind Leys Community College Birchwood Special School, Melton Mowbray King Edward VII, Coalville King Edward VII, Melton Mowbray Parents / Carers

Referrals Made from the Café: Youth Inclusion Support Panel Connexions Burleigh Community College Hind Leys Community College Local Youth Groups SportsLink.

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Next Level Café Below are the percentages of how young people felt that different aspects of Next Level Café helped them: 100% of YP felt that NLC staff played a part in helping them.

100% of YP felt that ‘one to one support’ played a part in helping them.

80% of YP felt that ‘group work’ played a part in helping them.

80% of YP felt that ‘working on individual projects’ played a part in helping them.

60% of YP felt that ‘other YP’ played a part in helping them.

Referring Agencies: 100% of refering agencies said they would refer YP to NLC again.

100% of refering agencies said they were informed and updated on the work that the YP undertook whilst attending NLC. 80% of referring agencies felt that NLC programme supported the work they were doing with the YP. 80% felt that there was an improvement or change in the YP after their involvement at NLC.

Below are examples of comments made by parents/carers with regards to the changes they had seen.

‘NLC provided a break from school for my child. It made her realise that she wanted to gain qualifications, gave her confidence and made her realise her own potential’ ‘I noticed a positive change in my child’s attitude and NLC improved his knowledge in computers’ ‘My child enjoyed going to NLC because she was spoken to like an adult and respected’ ‘My child did not like school but enjoyed going to NLC’

Parent / Carer: 84% felt that they were informed and updated of the work their child was doing at NLC. 84% said they were pleased with the work that the YP undertook at NLC. 50% said they noticed a change / improvement in their child’s behaviour / attitude whilst they attended NLC. 24

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‘My child was being bullied at school and NLC provided a break from all the bullying’ ‘The Café is a good provision and would have been even more beneficial to my child if she had a will to co-operate’ ‘My child knew she could come into NLC at anytime; she was made to feel welcome. The government needs to fund a lot more alternative provisions like NLC. NLC keep up the good work’

Next Level Café 100% of YP enjoyed the time they spent at NLC ‘very much’.

YP were asked what were the best things about being at NLC.

Examples from what YP told us they most enjoyed:

Below are some examples:

Painting, meeting new people, doing artwork, having a choice of different things to do and participating in the mentoring scheme, working with other YP with disabilities.

100% of YP said that they had learnt something whilst attending NLC. Examples from what YP said they had learnt whilst at NLC:

Learning new skills, working on individual projects, having people to talk to, holiday activities, and meeting other YP.

100% of YP felt that NLC helped them..

Below are the percentages of what the YP felt NLC helped them with: 80% felt NLC helped with their aggressive behaviour.

40% felt NLC helped them learn the consequence of their behaviour.

‘How to keep my mouth shut at certain times!’ - young woman, 16.

40% felt NLC helped with their tendency towards crime.

‘Film editing, drawing and how to communicate with other people’ - young man, 16.

60% said NLC helped them think more about their actions.

‘That I can do stuff if I try’ young woman, 16.

60% said NLC helped them think more about getting back into school.

‘How to paint’ - young woman, 16.

100% said it helped working in a group setting.

70% said they learnt new skills.

80% said NLC helped with their self-esteem.

80% said it helped being able to talk to an adult (Staff).

100% felt NLC helped them find positive things to do.

Next Level Café consistently returns excellent figures on non-offending and re-offending | 25

MAKING THE CONNECTIONS: Dr Maggie O’Neill from Loughborough University at the final ‘Making Connections’ conference in July 2008

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Arts, Migration and Diaspora This programme of ten AHRC funded regional seminars and conferences came to a conclusion in July 2008 with a major conference at Loughborough University. Charnwood Arts was one of the key partners in this programme, managing the project with Loughborough University and other regional partners.

Making Connections established a regional network based upon the principles of participatory action research (PAR) and participatory arts. The network examined the transformative role of arts and culture in fostering integration and belonging for new arrivals in the East Midlands. The network was built upon the strong regional work of the Arts Council England, East Midlands office, regional community arts organisations, academics in regional Universities, artists, practitioners, policy makers and diasporic communities by creating a programme of workshops and seminars in order to: -

enhance the lives of recent arrivals in the East Midlands stimulate high-quality inter-disciplinary research and the production of art works facilitate connection, communication and feed into public policy and contribute to public awareness of the issues facing new arrivals.

The nine seminars taking place around the region leading up to the conference were: 1. What is Art? - conference at the Peepul Centre, Leicester - co-led by Charnwood Arts 2. Therapeutic Features of Working with the Arts - workshops at the University of Derby 3. Learning in the Real World: using local diversity to promote intercultural education - Devonshire Place, Leicester 4. Destitution and the Role of Ethnic-Minority Media in Representing Asylum-seekers 5. Refugee LifeLines’ - Cross Corners Community Arts Centre, Leicester 6. ‘DISTANT VOICES’ - Migrant Workers, Representation & the Arts 7. ’Telling Tales’ - University of Northampton 8. The Dreamers Group - Mountfields Lodge, Loughborough - supported by Charnwood Arts 9. Women and Migration: Art, Politics and Policy - Conference at Loughborough University Further to the success of this initial programme the partners submitted a second bid to the AHRC - this is reported on overleaf.

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Trans-national Communities: The Sense of Belonging – Knowledge Transfer Project – was a collaborative programme working with Loughborough University and other regional participatory arts and academic partners to explore the experiences, needs and support the artistic development and promotion of East Midlands based refugees and asylum seekers (including exiled artists). Based around action research methodologies the programme resulted in a major report to the AHRC, a

collaborative exhibition at the Bonington Gallery, an artists showcase at The Art Organisation in Nottingham, the production of a wide range of new work and a joint participatory arts practice approach shared by all partners and regional refugee groups.

We also initiated the Beyond Borders website.

The Knowledge Transfer project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). It was a partnership

between Charnwood Arts, Long Journey Home, City Arts Nottingham, Soft Touch Arts Co-operative and Loughborough University in collaboration with photographer John Perivolaris and new arrivals in Leicester, Nottingham, Loughborough and Derby. The project builds upon the strong regional work of many artists, voluntary and statutory agencies and organizations, community groups and researchers as well as the regional ‘Making Connections; arts, migration and diaspora network’ www.makingtheconnections.info

Our collaborative work sought to deliver social and cultural benefits to new arrivals (migrants both forced and free) in the East Midlands region by developing three strands of participatory research and arts activity that contribute to public awareness, examine the role of arts and cultural activity in social policy agendas; and facilitate knowledge, communication and understanding with new arrivals.

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Towards a Sense of Belonging ‘I have never done anything like this, I didn’t think I could do it. I am so proud to have done this and to tell our stories tonight” - Participant from ‘Dreamers’

The three strands of activity were: • The creation of a new website - Beyond Borders UK, a regional (and national) resource, providing a hub for the region and a repository of research and arts based activity focused upon arts, migration and diaspora.

• A database of artists in exile and artists with experience of working with new arrival groups and communities as well as artists wishing to extend their practice in this area.

• A participatory arts/research project exploring ‘Trans-nationalCommunities: towards a sense of belonging’.

The arts/research project was launched with a ‘walking’ event developed by internationally recognized artist and educator Misha Myers (visit her website www.wayfromhome.org). The walks happened simultaneously in Leicester, Loughborough and Nottingham on Friday 16th May 2008 at 10am. Post walk discussions led to the connecting themes for the creation of the Nottingham exhibition.

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Rangoli On-line Magazine Although the Kala Kahani website is very popular and packed with information about our work, writers, dance, art and a comprehensive guide to ‘What’s On’, there still seemed a niche for our own online magazine..... and so, the seed of ‘Rangoli’ meaning ‘rows of colour’ was sewn. At the end of April 2008 with the dedicated services of two very willing Loughborough based volunteers, Raakhee Modha and Nalini Solanki, this became a reality!

Raakhee very ably slipped into the role of ‘Editor’ with Nalini as research assistant. They interviewed writers, photographers and artists, gathered articles, and enlisted the help of the very talented local photographer Kajal Nisha Patel (see www.kajalpatel.com). Kajal’s vibrant photography and inspired design by Nela De Castro made the magazine an instant hit. Raakhee’s insightful and interesting articles made the magazine an interesting read

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with the first edition including interviews with established authors Preethi Nair, Shahrukh Husain and Shiromi Pinto as well as spotlights on our own writers Kirti Joshi and Safraz Ahmed.

After months of hard work, long nights, endless proofreading and editing, harsh decisions made concerning the editorial content, design, layout and the audience we were trying to attract, ‘Rangoli’ was finally launched! It was certainly worth the wait, it has enabled us to attract a solid niche market all over the world with an attractive format that can be carried through to subsequent issues.

Here at Charnwood Arts we felt like we had had a new baby. We eagerly awaited feedback after the on-line launch. Within days we were overwhelmed with positive responses about the magazine. ‘Great insightful articles’, ‘Terrific!’, ‘well written’.... just to mention a few of comments that were received. Over the first 6 months the magazine was downloaded in excess of 3,000 times which also created a flurry of submissions and requests for the next edition. As this year book goes to press the second edition has been downloaded in excess of 7,000 times and is about to go to print.

Arvon Centre & the Kala Kahani Writers Development Programme Kala Kahani Writers Programme is now in its 6th year with some of the writers being with us from the very beginning! Amongst our group we have poets, novelist’s and script writers. We are also very proud that one of our writers won a Penguin Decibel Award after entering a competition through Kala Kahani, and our script writers have had their work performed at the Lakeside Arts Centre in Nottingham. other members have been published both online and in magazines and anthologies.

Our regular workshops give the writers both inspiration and increase their writing skills. The workshops are usually hosted by established writers. We have been very fortunate in the past to have the pleasure of Daljit Nagra, Preethi Nair, Rani Moorthy, Shamshad Khan and Qaisra Shahraz to name but a few.

Undoubtedly the most significant event for the group during the last year was our sponsorship by the Arvon Foundation to spend a week at their Shropshire retreat, John Osborne House. During the week there was ample opportunity for both the writers’ own personal development as well as structured sessions with Dominic Rai of Man Mela Theatre, Rani Moorthy of Rasa Theatre and a guest appearance by poet Daljit Nagra.

The Arvon Centre is set in 27 acres of wonderful Welsh border countryside. The weather was very kind to us and we just had an amazing time, especially when we had to cook each other dinner!

The writers all felt they benefited enormously from the time away from the usual stresses and strains of everyday life and being able to spend uninterrupted time just writing.

Three storytelling development groups also took place during the year – one aimed at adults, one for adults and children together and one for a group of ESOL students.

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Kala Kahani Works in Schools Part of the work of Kala Kahani is to engage in working with our local schools especially to encourage exploration of South Asian culture and artforms. In November we took along several artists as part of the multicultural week at Limehurst School to host different workshops with the Year 8 students. The children were shown how to create wonderful Rangoli designs using coloured rice, pasta and seeds, these were to form part of a huge Rangoli laid out in the

Storytelling is an important part of the work we do, it’s not just for children but for adults too! We have hosted several ten week courses in schools for parents and children, short taster sessions for trainee child care workers as well as for ESOL students from Loughborough College, storytelling tents at Picnic In The Park as well as working with young women at Foston Hall Prison.

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Community Room. We also had storytelling sessions about Diwali as well as a puppet making workshop based on traditional Indian costume, although some participants did chose to dress their puppets in a Chelsea kit!.

At the end of the day the work was all displayed as part of an enormous display for the local community event attended by the Mayor.

Everyone has a story to tell and it is such a valuable way for relating family stories, children’s stories and oral histories, as well as being an invaluable tool when working with vulnerable groups.

As well as encouraging our participants to share stories we teach creative writing, book illustration and puppet making as part of the workshops.

Swan In The Rushes During the Heart of Three Cities Festival 2008 we worked with the popular local pub ‘The Swan In The Rushes’ to support and promote an extensive programme of events including touring theatre from Mikron Theatre, their ongoing folk evenings, a new concert season, two comedy nights and the creation of an extensive new mural work celebrating the ‘community’ of the venue.

The mural features staff and regulars at the pub and extends up the stairwell to the new function room where the events were held.

Further characters now grace the passageway through the pub......and talking of characters check out the wonderful world of doktorcocacolamcdonalds below!

“The mural is just wonderful, so funny, it really brings this community of people alive in a fun way” - Participant

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Loughborough Council of Faiths Pantomine Charnwood Arts also supported the early development and documented the Loughborough Council of Faiths Pantomime – perhaps the first such multi-faith panto in the UK! A full blown version of Dick Whittington set against the backdrop of a worldwide journey to restore the mayoral integrity of Charnwood Borough! Our involvement with this project was very light

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compared to the support of other organisations and the remarkable voluntary efforts of so many people from different faith groups in Loughborough. However, we must include it in this report to ensure that this remarkable cross cultural and cross faith event is honoured and recorded. For more images of the event visit http://www.pbase.com/kaparu2/interfaithpanto

Youth in Action Charnwood Arts continued its engagement with three European Union schemes during the year – Youth in Action and the Leonardo/Erasmus programmes. In September 2008 we followed up on our involvement in a pan Eastern/Western European partnership workshop programme in Azerbaijan with a week long residential arts and media programme in Charnwood.

Participants came from across the EU, the Caucasus and

other former Eastern bloc countries. The programme completed the production of two films and an on-line magazine exploring youth issues and led to a further residential programme in Charnwood in 2009 to follow up on our work around web development and social networking. The projects took place in partnership with the Charnwood Rights and Equalities Council and were organised with Nadja Rein.

“We produced a serious magazine in a week, another fun book and three films and planned things for the web - it was amazing to work with the people from Charnwood Arts.” - Participant from Armenia

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Leonardo Placements Spain 2 France 2 Italy 1

Sense of Belonging

Clickit! 08 Winners

Artists in Exile and forced migrants worldwide, resident in the UK East Midlands

South Korea India UK Georgia Switzerland

miniWORDS 08 Winners

Entries to VISION 09 Afghanistan Australia Bangladesh Benin Bharain Bosnia Herzegovina Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Canada Central African Republic Chile China Croatia Czech Republic Egypt England France Germany Greece Haiti Hawaii Holland Hong Kong Hungary India Iran Ireland Italy Japan

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UK Ireland USA New Zealand Australia

Kazakstan Kenya Kuwait Lativa Libya Lithuania Malaysia Mexico Moldova Myanmar New Zealand Nigeria Northern Ireland Norway Pakistan Palestine Peru Philippines Poland Quatar Romania Russia

Saudi Arabia Scotland Singapore Slovakia Slovenia South Africa Sweden Turkey UAE Uganda Ukraine USA Uzbekistan Vietnam Wales Zambia

Coffee House USA Ireland Scotland England Wales Greece Tenerife Canada Portugal Hungary

Here Our Voices - work with young forced migrants from: Afghanistan Iraq Iran Albania Somalia Eritrea Kosovo DRC Sri Lanka Palestine

Making the Connections Artists in Exile and forced migrants worldwide, resident in the UK East Midlands

Artists/Performers Youth in Action Austria Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus Bulgaria Estonia

France Georgia Germany Greece Hungary

Italy Latvia Lithuania Moldova Poland

Portugal Russia Turkey UK Ukraine

Afghanistan Bangladesh China India Senegal

Sierra Leone Taiwan Turkey UK Zimbabwe

Pixel and Grain UK Poland South Korea Portugal Russia USA

China/Taiwan

Gujarat - India SportslLnk and arts residency in Gujarat and Indian dance and sports in Charnwood Schools

Kala Kahani

Beyond Borders

India Pakistan Sri Lanka Bangladesh USA Canada

- planning with Charnwood based curator Ming Turner, Chongqing based Professor Yan Yan and Nottingham based Ling Peng for exhibitions and participatory project developments involving local, European and Chinese/Taiwanese artists

Japan Visiting arts director placement

Australia Sierra Leone DRC Worldwide distribution of Rangoli magazine

Artists in Exile worldwide resident in the East Midlands

Charnwood Arts - Worldwide Connections - 2008/09

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International Links During 08/09 we continued our dialogue with the regional artists (Nottingham based) Peng Ling and (Charnwood based) Ming Turner and with the 501 art organisation in Chongqing, China.

Our support to Ming Turner originally focused around the development of a fine art exhibition and participatory arts project spanning Taiwan and Charnwood. However, we are currently planning to change this venue to Chongqing. During the year, working with Peng Ling and Yan Yan, the director of 501, we have been developing a bid to create a more coherent participatory arts approach to working with South West China.

During 08/09 we played host to a series of placements with the arts director Yuko Ijichi from Japan who is studying participatory arts in the UK. Yuko actively worked with us to develop the project relationship between Akram Khan and the Dreamers refugee group and was keen to see outcomes from this project tour to Japan. Yuko’s organisation has worked with many well known

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performance companies from the UK as well as developing a wide range of participatory projects.

Elsewhere in this report you will find reference to our work, through Youth in Action, with young people from across Eastern and Western Europe. Opportunities are constantly arising in this area of work and we are keen to develop these contacts wherever possible.

Charnwood Arts has had an ongoing relationship with organisations and communities in the Indian state of Gujarat since the late 1980s and many projects have taken place between artists and residents of Charnwood and link villages and towns. In January 2009 artist Paul Gent and our SportsLink Officer, Pete Thorpe visited the Valod area of South Gujarat to conduct a residency at Vanasthali School. Their work contributed to a book and development programme in Charnwood during 2009/10.

During the year we had two Leonardo placements from France, two from Spain and one from Italy. This support to the Loughborough College’s involvement in Leonardo and Erasmus has been taking place since the mid 1990s. Each placement lasts around 2 months although we have supported people for up to a year returning to work with us on a voluntary basis.

During 2008/09 we also worked with Sudipto Chatterjee and Dr Maggie O’Neill on two seperate Arts and Humanities Research Council bids, both well received but ultimately unsuccessful.

Sudipto’s project will go ahead in a more limited form and will see performances of his play ‘Man of the Heart’ in Loughborough and at the Barbican in London in 2010.

Discussions continue with Dr O’Neill on how best to further explore the links between community arts practice and other approaches to action research.

Here Our Voices “Here - Our Voices” was

launched in January 2009.

Funded for three years by the Baring Foundation, this project seeks to engage young Refugees and Asylum Seekers in accessing arts and cultural experiences through individual and group working. With an emphasis on learning new skills, sharing cultural heritage and building solid relationships in the community.

Many young people have attended performances and exhibitions at local and London theatres and galleries and engaged in informal arts experiences on a weekly basis.

This has witnessed an increase in self-confidence and sense of identity in many of the participants. A highlight was a trip to see Cirque Du Soleil in Birmingham. The exquisite costumes and awe-inspiring movement encouraged many

of the young people to further engage with a series of circus skills workshops later in the year with Loughborough University Circus Skills Society “Fever”.

Young people are able to feedback on their experiences informally as our dedicated project worker attends their youth-club twice weekly, therefore supporting their participation in an environment they feel familiar with.

From theatre trips to workshops, debates to creating websites, “Here Our Voices” has been working in partnership with Loughborough Youth Affairs and Charnwood Independent Youth Action in creating a varied programme.

Three Young people participated in a debate about Islam and Hip Hop, meeting leading artists in the field, while another four met with internationally renowned dancer Akram Khan, to discuss potential future projects.

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A space for the arts in Charnwood In September 2008, following eight weeks of intense effort, we submitted a bid for just under £5,000,000 to the Big Lottery administered ‘myplace’ scheme for new youth facilities in the UK. In a partnership involving Arts Council England, Leicestershire County Council, Charnwood Borough Council and Loughborough University, Charnwood Arts commissioned consultant Fred Brookes and architects Marsh Grochowski to help us realise our vision for an integrated youth and youth arts facility for the borough.

The plan involved an ambtious design for the University owned Loughborough School of Art and Design building on Frederick Street in the town. The facility was designed to include a youth hub for integrated service delivery, an expanded Next Level Café site for arts and media work with young people at risk, gallery and performance/studio spaces, starter studio spaces for emerging artists, music and new media workshop spaces, a cafe space and offices and creative studios for Charnwood Arts.

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A space for the arts in Charnwood

Beyond this a comprehensive vision for activities involving the use of the building, outreach programmes, regional links and benefits to policy areas involving young people and inter-generational areas of work was also put forward.

With a limited budget the ‘myplace’ scheme was ultimately targeted at other ‘geographical priority areas’.

Charnwood simply didn’t fit the profile for the final round of this fund. Ironically, Charnwood Arts was chosen as one of the three organisations to put forward a national best practice on arts with young people example for a booklet for those organisations who were successful!

Undaunted and with the continuing interest and support of the Arts Council we continue to pursue our vision for providing a community arts facility for Charnwood. We hope these ideas inspire you too!

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SportsLink - 2008/09 Charnwood Arts’ community cohesion related SportsLink programme extended into its 6th year during 2009/10. We tried, unsuccessfully, during the year to secure funds for a further continuation of this work and had secured Sport England (SE) funding towards it. However, delays in the Football Foundation reaching grant decisions (they held a moratorium on all funding for several months due to internal reasons) meant that we had to turn down the Sport England grant.

Throughout the year the SportsLink programme worked on a wide range of projects and initiatives supporting access to sports and linking with our arts programme, sometimes dovetailing events and initiatives and championing access and cohesion related issues in a variety of fora.

Activities have included a Loughborough based summer events day with Street Games, continued support to local Antismoking initiatives, the Cobden Cup – Lets Kick Racism Out of Football Event, work with the Dreamers refugee and asylum seeker group, the development of Sports Leadership Awards programmes through rural 42

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SportsLink - 2008/09 community colleges, multisports sessions in local schools, work with our arts based preventative service, Next Level CafĂŠ and estate based work in Loughborough.

In the year the first phase of a schools based design project for a mosaic (tee markers) and flag project at Shelthorpe Golf course was undertaken.

The SportsLink co-ordinator also undertook a research trip to Gujarat with artist Paul Gent. In 2008/09 this resulted in the introduction of Indian sports and games to four schools in the Charnwood town of Shepshed. This project is covered further under International work.

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DanceLink - 2008/09 The DanceLink programme delivered between 6-8 sessions per week of dance activity in Charnwood schools throughout the year.

Additionally DanceLink worked with summer activities work in local villages.

For International Dance Day the programme worked with Phoenix Dance to develop workshops and a thematic follow on programme with Shepshed High School in the Spring of 2008.

DanceLink progressed from strength to strength over the year with projects throughout the community.

Dance and performing arts sessions were provided for young people with a wide range of abilities to encourage confidence and to develop performance skills.

“It was brilliant - we worked hard but we learnt so much, new techniques and ideas� - Participant at IDD 44

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DanceLink - 2008/09 The sessions ranged from traditional and modern Indian dance to Street, Jazz, Cheerleading and Movement classes throughout Charnwood.

Sessions were open to schools and community groups. These free open sessions gave everyone a chance to get involved with all aspects of dance and performance skills. | 45

Arts in Mental Health Arts in Mental Health work in 2008/09 included a DJ mentoring support project in conjunction with Loughborough University, film editing support to a member of Albert Street Artists and work with Bright Sparks to create a showcase event in Loughborough as part of the Heart of Three Cities Festival.

In Spring 2009 Charnwood Arts worked in conjunction with the NHS mental health team and Loughborough Universities Media Centre to provide DJ‘ing sessions for an adult from Woodhouse Eaves with enduring mental health issues. The sessions were designed to improve his confidence and rediscover the DJ skills that he enjoyed before he became ill. A student volunteer from the University mentored him through all eight sessions.

On the evening of the 2008 Picnic in conjunction with Arts In Mental Health, we ran a Post Picnic Performance at the Pack Horse pub in Woodgate Loughborough.

This open mike evening saw around 30 adults with enduring mental health illness take part, standing up to performing poetry and songs.

Paul Conneally along with Jemma Bagley from Charnwood Arts performed a Bob Dylan style piece with Jemma holding up the pieces of cardboard with a renga poem, written by participants during the Picnic, whilst Paul read them out.

The audience even got Kevin Ryan, Charnwood Arts’ Director, up behind the mike to sing his version of the Chieftains ‘Seven Drunken Nights’.

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The Big Knitting Group The Big Knitting Group is a weekly cross cultural group open to men and women which develops skills in knitting, textiles and design and undertakes group projects. In 2008/09 the group knitted a picnic for the annual Picnic in the Park event and launched the ‘Pocket Project’ which will result in an exhibition at Charnwood Museum in 2010..

The Big Knitting Group increased its membership in 2008 making it necessary for us to move the group from its original home of Charnwood Museum to the United Reformed Church in Frederick Street. We have to pay for the new venue, but we now have more room and a handy kitchen. The group still enjoys the amazing support of a dedicated team of volunteers. The membership has continued to remain steady, even with some members moving back to their home countries. New members continue to find us and we still have a very varied membership of all ages and backgrounds. In February 2009 we were pleased to accept a grant from the Helen Jean Cope Trust of £900. This money has been used to buy materials for the next big project and has contributed to the rent.

The Big Knitting Group Project for Spring 2008 was to knit up picnic food for Picnic In The Park. The group made sandwiches, pasties, cakes and fruit which were displayed inside the bandstand. These were then packaged up for sale in Charnwood Museum to raise funds for the group.

The Big Knitters now have over 20 people attending the weekly sessions and the membership remains very mixed. We have members from two social care groups, one of which comes over from Syston weekly to attend.

Local ladies and ladies who are from the Middle East and Africa who are living in Loughborough also attend.

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Sileby Community Arts Day The ‘Sileby Community Arts Day’ was organised to celebrate the completion of two public arts projects in the village, both at local schools. The event involved the performance of works from a poetry residency in both schools and also included dance, music and participatory workshops as well as providing a platform for local creative and environmental businesses. The schools were linked by a performance led parade through the village.

Our work in Sileby started as long ago as August 2006 with a community consultation day held in the park and at the youth centre to make people

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aware of the new build of flats on Swan Street.

Charnwood Arts worked closely with the then arts officer for Charnwood Borough Council, Simone MacLaine. We visited Richard Thornton, the sculptor designing the gates and balconies for the flats.

That’s when Redlands and Highgate Primary Schools got involved.

Local historian Eric Wheeler provided us with old photos of textile workers and people working locally in the shoe trade. We found out that a lot of people worked in cottage industry around the Swan Street area.

Sileby Community Arts Day

Children from both schools then visited Starchild Shoes based at the Oaks Business Centre on Ratcliffe Road. Janet Middleton, the owner and designer worked in the shoe trade locally and in London before opening her factory in Sileby. Janet used to design boots and shoes for the high street and for designers like Vivienne Westwood. It was after her first child was born that she started to make her leather baby shoes. She now exports all around the world. Starchild employs several local people at the factory as well as outworkers.

Starchild also ran a shoe design competition during the project. The winners received their design made up into shoes.

We asked artist Louise Evans to visit the schools and run design workshops with them. The children drew their inspiration from local history, their visit to Starchild and the old photographs to produce their sketches. Louise showed the children some of her work and taught them how to join copper wire together to form pictures. One of the designs made on the day, the ‘Swan in Boots’ was made up

into the large sculpture in the Redlands School garden.The work at Highgate School is based on the alphabet and includes lots of items from local history and the local landscape. The sculpture gardens will be used as a wonderful learning and creative environment at both schools. We also employed story maker, Lindsey Warnes Carroll to work with children from Redlands and Highgate to produce writing based on the artwork and how the gardens have inspired them.

On the 10th May 2008 both Schools celebrated the completion of the sculpture project by inviting the Sileby residents to a community arts day. This was attended by over 300 people. The children danced the Maypole up at Highgate School, recited their literary contributions and then processed down Seagrave Road led by Bill Brookman and friends to a celebration at Redlands School. Here we ran ArtsZone workshops, had street theatre and music from Ska-Amanga and the school put on a hog roast!

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The Thrussington Beast Project The Thrussington Beast Project was an excellent rural community arts programme based in this small south Charnwood village during the summer of 2008. The programme, which engaged both children and adults in the village, involved poetry, storytelling, the construction of a giant figure, indoor performances and an outdoor community event on the village green.

In July 2008 Charnwood Arts started a project to construct a local legend at Thrussington Primary School. The local history society spoke to the children about the history of framework knitting in the village and knitter Mary Leeson spent a day in school teaching the children the basics of knitting. This gave the children some ideas about a new legend for Thrussington.

The idea of the Odd Sock Monster of Thrussington was born. Artist Clare Bull then visited and designed a recycled bag with the children for the monster to collect his socks into. Full of gadgets and essential elements for any self respecting odd sock monster the bag was a masterpiece of creativity!!

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The Thrussington Beast Project The first two weeks of the summer holidays saw local people of all ages meeting at the village hall for six monster making workshops.

Storywriter Lindsey Warnes Carrol worked with the group on the text of the story and Charnwood Arts’ dance coach Jo Mee ran a movement workshop designed to explore how the monster would look and move about.

Theatrical designers Donya Coward and Elsa Bua worked on the actual monster himself, creating an amazing eight foot tall puppet.

Volunteers from Charnwood Arts Big Knitting Group also provided support, running finger knitting workshops and knitting teeth and eye brows for the monster. The Odd Sock Monster legend culminated in a wonderous community day in September 2008.

Children performed the legend of the odd sock monster upstairs at the Star pub whilst out on the Green Roger the Puppet Man set up his classic Punch and Judy show and ran free puppet making workshops for visitors. Members of folk band Khaotic-us? acted as wandering minstrels on the day. Art work and photos from the summer sessions were also displayed in the Star.

All in all over 400 people participated in the project.

Poet Steve Carrol acted as MC for the day and performed his own work.

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miniWORDS miniWORDS - our on-line short form writing competition attracted over 3,500 entries from around the world – here are four of the winning entries:

Neil Tollfree - UK “Who Cares”

Sandra Simpson - New Zealand stopping train summer fades between the doors

Squally winds build dunes of desert sand up against the cars.

The lights flicker to green. Nothing moves.

A newspaper catches under his windshield wiper, fluttering in the wind.

Headline: “Chronic apathy is first symptom…”

He wonders how the headline ends.

The lights flicker back to red.

Mary Whitsell - UK - “Mariya Says I Live in Paradise” Pristine beneath its shimmering plastic veil, My bloodless chicken rests, wings tucked demurely in on pert new nest of purple Styrofoam – Mariya gasps in disbelief: The glossy candy, sheathed, arranged Bread baked and sliced – the smell of yeast and fragrant fruit sweet-ripe.

Her gnarled hands reach out to touch clean packaged lettuce, crisply green.

She whispers it; this grown-up child of Leningrad: “You live in paradise.”

Jennifer Moore - UK - “Myopia” After Grandpa died, Alice stopped picking at her scabbed knee. She tried her best to behave, even in private. He was watching over them in heaven, Grandma said. Grandma broke down when they brought back his glasses. Alice celebrated upstairs, picking her knee until blood dripped down her shin.

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UpFront UpFront was a significant project working in partnership with the Leicestershire Teenage Pregnancy Advisory Service.

We worked with the TPAS and young people to plan, storyboard and produce scripts for a film on DVD which was premiered at the Reel Cinema in Loughborough before being distributed as a learning aid to relevant agencies.

We worked with three groups, two on content and design and the third directly acting in the film alongside interviews with parents. The focus of the film covers the problems parents and young people have in talking with each other about sex, sexual orientation and pregnancy. This high quality film has been distributed Leicestershire wide through schools, youth groups and specialist services.

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EMAS

Faith, Belief and the Emergency Services

In the late spring of 2008, we were approached by East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) to discuss the possibility of producing a short film for them. The film was to address the issues of faith and belief when making a 999 call to the emergency services. It’s perhaps not something people really think about, but to the minority ethnic communities we work with, it became apparent that we could really make a difference here. EMAS had secured the funding for the DVD through the NHS Pacesetter programme whose ethos is to engage with community organisations and service users. They had identified a specific need within the communities and faith groups to engage in some real grass roots work to acknowledge the problems.

Kala Kahani was ideal for this project with our extensive working relationships with both faith and community groups in the local area. We also had support from the Council of Faiths to help identify participants willing to be interviewed and personal contacts at places of worship.

The project entailed interviewing people who had called an ambulance recently and were willing to talk about their experience.

We also interviewed local paramedics to hear about the difficulties they faced on a daily basis. We also filmed a local family who were willing to take part in a dramatisation for us alongside participating actors from the emergency services themselves. We were amazed at the issues that surfaced, from the taking off of shoes when entering a temple to male paramedics attending to female Muslim patients, as well as the usual language issues. By far the most impressive consequence of the filming was the willingness of participants to share their stories with us to the candidness of EMAS in realising their shortcomings, and a readiness to address these issues.

The DVD, produced with Leicester based Atmospheres, was launched at the EMAS Summit in October and was a great success, it created a forum for open and candid discussion and went on to encourage the sometimes difficult dialogue between EMAS and the faith groups and local communities. The film has now gone on to be part of the workshop programme that EMAS has undertaken with community groups as well as being used as part of the training package for new recruits.

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Creative Curriculum Development Project

In Spring 2009 we worked with Leicestershire County and Charnwood Borough Councils to develop a pilot Creative Curriculum Programme for children’s centres and communities in Shepshed and Thurmaston. The bulk of the sessions were delivered in 2008/09 but the project was completed in the following financial year. Despite the relatively short lead in the

programme was successful in engaging a large number of children and parents over 16 themed delivery sessions.

The programme highlighted a strong interest from parents in the development of more comprehensive information to families about what was available in their areas.

Participants were also keen to see more creative opportunities

made available to their children in their localities.

A report on the project highlighted many other factors to be taken into consideration by those providing services to the under fives and their families. In all 125 participating families gave feedback on a wide range of questions highlighted through the creative sessions.

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Literature Network 2008/09 saw a successful bid by Charnwood Arts to Arts Council England’s Grants for Arts for the future development of the Literature Network and the appointment of a new regional co-ordinator, Damien Walter, in the Autumn of 2008. Since his appointment Damien has built his communications with the sector and developed a new steering group. He has created and marketed a new, more interactive website and built on the EMIT bulletin list of regular literature mail-outs. Membership now stands at over 1,000. He has also established the East Midlands Literature Forum.

Damien has been developing a new regional approach which will form closer links with other organisations using literature within their work, in particular the participatory arts sector.

He has commissioned a number of Literary Bloggers in partnership with Writing East Midlands and has been developing ideas with them for a second Writing Industries Conference, which was held at Loughborough University in March 2010. He also undertook ground work to support a number of new projects – including a resident writers scheme, participatory literature research and research and development into the future Network structure.

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Glastonbudget ‘08 This was our fourth year of support for Glastonbudget – currently Europe’s biggest Tribute and New Bands Festival which took place yet again near the picturesque Charnwood village of Wymeswold. Our involvement developed into programming our own marquee in 08/09. 15 bands performed ranging from the creative/multi -media fringe, funk and punk to the Riverside Dancers and two regionally based African bands involved with refugee arts support group, Long Journey Home.

We also ran a participatory ArtsZone throughout the festival. In addition we documented the festival and supported the marketing of the event.

Over 120 acts performed over the three days with attendance at over 5,000 people who steadfastly braved the rain and wind - true festival weather!

Luckily for the fans there was plenty of cover and the food and vendors village was greatly expanded - with six venues this was the biggest and boldest Glastonbudget yet! That was until this year’s of course.........

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‘Re-imagining Loughborough’

‘Re-imagining Loughborough’ was a commissioned project from Loughborough based AstraZeneca R&D Charnwood, a major pharmaceutical company celebrating 40 years of pharmaceutical research on their site in the town. The project involved the creation of a re-imagined image of Loughborough based on the practice of Helen Saunders – a Derby based artist working with constructed photographic imagery. Helen is a former student of Loughborough University School of Art and Design.

Helen also undertook two participatory projects taking place in local schools, Stonebow Primary School and Limehurst Middle School. The Limehurst School image (pictured here) reflects pupils’ interest in re-cycling and combines images from South Asia and Charnwood. The Stonebow picture depicts pupils having fun in the snow around a re-configured neighbourhood!

Helen worked with artist Paul Gent and photographer Kajal Patel on the schools based projects which involved nearly 100 young people.

Helen’s own vision of a Loughborough with water running through its centre and surrounded by glorious mountains has been gifted to the borough and now resides at Loughborough Town Hall.

It also graces the front and back covers of this yearbook publication.

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PIXEL AND GRAIN Contemporary Photography and Illustration programme combining live exhibition space and an on-line exhibition gallery. 2008/09 was a busy year for Pixel & Grain exhibitions and projects!

Our Pixel and Grain Gallery at Loughborough Town Hall ‘A Passion for Performance’ – two exhibitions celebrating the photography of human movement:

Richard Calmes (USA) – ‘A Passion for Dance’ - Richard is one of the foremost dance photographers in America.

Angela Edwards – ‘A Passion for Swimming’ – Loughborough based Angela is a sports specialist with a long term passion for photography. Her images of members of the UK Women’s Olympic swimming team training in Loughborough contained a stunning series of underwater images.

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PIXEL AND GRAIN

Tatiana Antonuk – ‘Theatre of the Imaginary’ – This Russian born, but Swiss based, photographer’s poetic images were an extraordinary celebration of constructed imagery.

Phil Hutchinson – ‘Aerial’ – Charnwood based sports and wedding photographer Phil Hutchinson exhibited a fascinating exhibition of aerial images from Charnwood and surrounding East Midlands areas.

Hind Leys College – ‘Nature’s Lens’ – a series of images produced by photographic students at Hind Leys College exploring a creative take on flora and fauna around Charnwood.

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PIXEL AND GRAIN

Photographers Worldwide – ‘ClickIt! 2008’ – our second International ClickIt! competition attracted over 1600 entries worldwide and the winning entries provided a stunning exhibition of creative skill and innovative image making.

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Luis Afonso – ‘From City to Sea’ – Luis Afonso is a well known photographer in Portugal whose work encompasses stunning land and seascapes and a creative approach to urban street photography.

Charnwood Arts – ‘Tribute’ – Charnwood Arts’ own tribute’ to the creative industry and enterprise of the Charnwood based Glastonbudget music festival – thought to be the largest tribute and new bands festival in Europe.

An estimated 370,000 people visit the Town Hall each year, a majority of whom will see all or part of the Pixel and Grain exhibitions.

PIXEL AND GRAIN ‘Protest’ – This exhibition at Charnwood Museum was curated by Kevin Ryan and Natalie Chabaud and was organised entirely on-line with six contemporary Polish photographers based in the UK, Poland, Africa and South Korea. The exhibition was part of the Heart of Three Cities Festival and was critically acclaimed.

The ‘Protest’ exhibition attracted around 2,500 visitors throughout its display at Charnwood Museum.

“Art in the Swan” Digital Illustrations

by Nuno Jorge – our first illustrators exhibition took place at the Swan in the Rushes public house in Loughborough.

Recently voted the third best pub in the country by the industry – the Swan also played host to a wide range of festival events in 2008/09. Nuno, a former Loughborough resident but originally from Portugal is part of the Nottingham based digital design team ‘gatafunho’.

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Sector Support Year on year Charnwood Arts actively supports and promotes the participatory arts sector at a local, regional, national and international level.

A key link is the organisation’s Federation membership of the East Midlands Participatory Arts Forum. We were also represented during 2008 at the English National Youth Arts Network, statutory partnership forums in Leicestershire, the steering group for the East Midlands Literature Network, support to MAILOUT magazine, and representative work through conferences, talks and delivery of seminars within the region and nationally. We also engaged in international discussions,

supported the development of the Vanilla Galleries initiative in Loughborough - a project led by recent graduates from Loughborough University School of Art and Design. The Vanilla Galleries – ‘Extract’ project involved us working collaboratively with 26 young artists to establish a 2 month gallery and workshop space within an empty shop near the centre of Loughborough. particularly through our links with China and India and following the International Community Arts Conference in Rotterdam in March/April 2008.

We have also actively supported the promotion and growth of World Community Arts Day and engaged in activities with Rawlins Community College to mark it.

Locally we provide fund-raising help, advocacy, informal training opportunities, support, partnership developments and information to a wide range of artists, organisations and groups.

This amounts to hundreds of enquiries, consultations, work based sessions and meetings locally every year.

In addition in 2008 we actively promoted, partner funded and

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The project highlighted the lack of exhibition, creative workshop and focal point for the arts in Loughborough which has a significant lack of infrastructure for such a large town and conurbation.

Jill Vincent Here is what Jill Vincent, Chair of Trustees during 2008/09 had to say about this year.

“This was an excellent year for Charnwood Arts. As ever, our programme was broadly based. We received excellent funding support from Charnwood Borough Council, Leicestershire County Council (Next Level Café) and Arts Council England, East Midlands as well as from a variety of project-related sources.

We managed an extensive and diverse programme which accorded with our main aims, to do all possible to foster, promote and provide participatory and community arts and cultural activities in the borough and further afield. Through these activities we contribute to the pleasure, development and well-being of individuals, groups and the local community.

Our approach is essentially one of partnership, working with others in pursuit of negotiated aims and outcomes, while providing rigorous quality control and evaluation. Here we can note our productive relationship with Charnwood Borough Council, and the brilliant outdoor events we run that bring such pleasure to residents - even when it rains, as it persisted in doing during the year.

There have of course been some lows, we were very disappointed that we failed in our ‘myplace’ bid, in which Loughborough University joined our usual list of close collaborators. However, the process was positive because of the joint working and local enthusiasm and we have not given up. We certainly do need a new base because our current base is sadly lacking.

Also, as an organisation dependent in part on project-related funding, we were buffeted by staff changes, the inevitable failed bids, in particular when the focus and criteria of funding bodies changed, and as in one case, problems are experienced by a partner funding agency. External contexts are crucial, but beyond our control.

This was my first year as Chair and I enjoyed it, even or especially because of the challenges. Charnwood Arts has such good staff, ‘core’ and project-related, and such a supportive management committee, that being part of it all makes for an exciting experience. The organisation is led by our Director who has been included in the East Midlands Cultural Leadership Programme; it’s nice to think that the exacting standards he sets for himself and for all of Charnwood Arts can be put to wider use.”

Jill Vincent - Chair, Charnwood Arts

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Creatively Connecting Communities...

In producing a year book going back to 2008/09 it gave us a little distance to reflect on many achievements Charnwood Arts secured for the borough of Charnwood during that period. However, 2008/09 was not atypical of the remarkable achievements of other years but rather one in which we were able to document Charnwood Arts programme more effectively across its diverse range of activity.

The organisation has worked tirelessly and consistently over its thirty three year history to provide a wide ranging service to the people of Charnwood and its many partners.

We have collaborated with many hundreds of different organisations in that time and engaged with participants and audiences passing into the millions.

Past programmes such as rural touring cinema in the 1980s and professional music, drama and dance throughout the 1980s and 90s have now been taken on by other organisations yet we still maintain a lively rural outreach aspect of our programme.

Events such as Picnic in the Park, which reached its thirtieth birthday this year (2010), Loughborough Mela and Streets Alive, both past their tenth birthdays, continue to entertain and excite local people.

Our work in the field of community informatics was hailed as groundbreaking at the first international conference held on the subject in the UK in 2000. We have achieved numerous awards and accolades for our partners since, particularly local authorities and statutory services but also for individuals and community groups as well. Internet based work continues to grow and expands our considerable international network enabling us to bring an increasing diversity of cultural offers both into and from the borough.

Our work with young people has been extraordinary, whether through projects managed by young people themselves or through collaborative relationships in practically every field of the arts imaginable. Our work with young people at risk produces remarkable results and is a testament to good partnership working with local authorities.

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...Creatively Connecting Communities Much of our work over the years has been both culturally specific and cross cultural, focusing on a myriad of ways to bring the ethnic, cultural and religious groups of Charnwood into contact with each other in new ways. Sometimes the work is visible with events and larger programmes but often it is quietly going on in the background through a myriad of ways in which we support local creative and community action.

In particular the organisation has actively contributed towards and remains committed to fostering community cohesion within the borough, an unending task and one that has been at the core of our thinking over the decades. Charnwood Arts contributes to a broad range of issues and other social agendas through the arts. Our work encompasses a wide range of groups of all ages and abilities and disabilities.

We have developed unique ways of working and are challenging, experimental and innovative when working in partnership with others. We excel at bringing life, imagination and opportunity to situations where it was lacking and respond to the life, imagination and opportunities brought to us by others who want to see things go further.

This book has been produced at a time when arts and cultural funding faces enormous challenges. Even the commercial creative industries, which ultimately benefit from much of the groundwork of publicly supported arts, are feeling the pinch. However, this industry is still a major earner for Great Britain PLC and may yet become even more so in the years to come. The nurturing of skills, talent and the building of experience in the arts is as vital as ever – this is the work that goes on everyday at many levels in organisations such as Charnwood Arts.

If you refer back to the beginning of this publication you can readily see a snapshot of what the year’s funding bought. What you won’t see of course are the thousands of other interactions taking place throughout the year which both support this work and work with individuals and other organisations to develop projects, funding bids and journeys of their own. You won’t see the countless meetings with statutory bodies, local authorities | 67

Creatively Connecting Communities... and partnerships to which we have been able to contribute or the detailed outcomes and impact this organisation has had. That’s for other publications. What we hope will come across is the enormous range of outputs for relatively modest budgets, the creativity of our staff and the other artists we work with. We also hope you will better understand our deeply held belief that there are endless possibilities for this area of work and for the people and organisations we work with. The arts are not peripheral to our society and any Big Society worth anything at all will place them rightfully at its centre.

Charnwood Arts and Value for Money Regular investment by our core funders has been significant in enabling the quality, breadth and depth of development achieved by Charnwood Arts in the last ten years.

Arts Council England funding of around £140,000 a year and Charnwood Borough Council core contributions of just under £50,000 per annum offers confidence to our participants and partners that Charnwood Arts is an organisation that they can trust.

The Borough Council’s core contribution of roughly 28p per head per annum for the population of Charnwood has been key to unlocking investment from elsewhere. It is remarkable to think that the relative value of 28p will only buy a single Granny Smith apple from the home delivery service of a well known local supermarket!

When people are asked if they support public subsidy of the arts, the extent arts programme, against comparative costs, such as an apple delivered to your are almost always left out of the equation. Think about how much is spent on services. Compare this to the remarkable range of outcomes presented in this year

of an door, other book!

For every £1.00 invested by the Borough Council in 2008/09 a further £9.00 was realized to support the development of arts projects and events. In other words, the total of subsidies, commissions, earned income, grants and project partnership work as income came to £2.80 per person per annum, with less than 30p of that coming from our local authority.

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...Creatively Connecting Communities I think it underscores just how efficient the arts are at a local level and what good value for money we represent. Looking forward, in 2011/12 (with a planned 26% cut) our Charnwood Borough investment in core funding will only buy three quarters of that apple. We are currently mindful of the impact this may have on inward investment and our services, both for local ratepayers and audiences, artists and participants elsewhere. However, we remain dedicated and committed to the work and in helping to realise the benefits it brings.

Charnwood Arts delivers an extraordinary range of creative activities and projects which meet a wide range of objectives which are valued beyond the arts themselves: •

These include work with young people at risk – reducing crime and anti-social disorder, health, support to schools and community groups, directly supporting partnerships with the Borough and County Councils, promoting and marketing the borough further afield, job creation, support to inclusion and sports development and improving services, to name but a few!

•

On-line services and partnership developments have led to or contributed towards enhanced local web services for a wide range of organisations..

•

Indirect financial benefits to the borough from people coming to events, workshops and from work to help others raise money for their own projects.

•

With a major university and international trading companies Charnwood is anything but an island – our international connections contribute to the cultural offer in Charnwood and create new opportunities for local people on a wider stage.

We value our dialogue with local residents, on-line participants and partnership organisations very highly and welcome your feedback and support. If you would like to comment on this publication or our work please feel free to e-mail us for my attention at info@charnwoodarts.com Kevin Ryan - Chief Executive Officer | 69

Acknowledgements We gratefully acknowledge the support of and working partnerships with the following organisations in 2008/09: Albert Street Artists Art Reach Arts Council England, East Midlands Arts Council England - National Office Arts in Mental Health Arvon Foundation Ask Sue Witts AstraZeneca Atmospheres Media Aylestone YMCA Babbington College Baring Foundation Barkby Neighbourhood Watch Barkby Seekers Belton Primary School Birch Wood Melton Area Special School Birch Wood School Brooksby College Burleigh Community College Charnwood Borough Council - Arts Service Charnwood Borough Council - Leisure Services Charnwood Independent Youth Action Charnwood Mela Committee Charnwood Museum Charnwood Racial Equality Council Charnwood Sport and Active Recreation Alliance Charnwood Together City Arts Connexions Cultivate Cuttlefish / CALLICO Derby University Dreamers East Midlands Ambulance Service East Midlands Children & Young People’s Agency East Midlands Chinese Artist Development Group ENYAN EMPAF - EMPAF Partners, Network and Forum Factory Project Fever Circus Skills Society 70

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Football Foundation Foston Hall Prison Garendon High School GlastonBudget Guthlaxton College HatNews Highgate School Hind Leys Specialist Arts College HREC Humphrey Perkins High School - The Annex Jagruti Group Jazz at the Priory King Edward VII Coalville King Edward VII Melton MowbrayLeicester College Leicestershire Constabulary Leicestershire Council of Faiths Leicestershire County Council- Arts and Museums, Teenage Pregnancy Service.

Leicestershire YOS, Social Services, Children and Young Peoples Services Leonardo Scheme Library Services (via LDO’s) - Leicester, Derbyshire, Limehurst High School Literature Development Network Long Journey Home Loughborough Canal Festival Loughborough College Loughborough College ESOL Loughborough Library Loughborough Town Centre Partnership Loughborough Town Hall Loughborough University Loughborough University - Arts Centre, Radar Loughborough University - LUSAD Loughborough University - Social Sciences Dept.

Mailout Mainstream Partnership Man Mela Theatre Mountfields Lodge Youth Centre National Year of Reading Network

Acknowledgements Northampton, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire North Warwickshire Arts Association Nottingham Trent University Nottingham Writers Studio Park Hill Training Centre Paul Hamlyn Foundation Quad Rawlins Community College Redlands School Rendell Primary School Robert Smyth College Rothley Youth Centre Roundhill Youth Centre Rural Community Council The Rural Arts Project Tower Hamlets PCT Sandfield Primary School Shelthorpe Primary School Shepshed High School Shifting Sands Theatre Shree Ram Krishna Centre Soft Touch South Leicester College

Sport England Sports Leaders UK Staple Magazine Street Games Student Support Services (Pupil Referral Unit) St Winifred’s School Surtal Arts Swan in the Rushes The Jitty - Youth Website The Old Pack Horse Thrussington C of E School Thrussington Parish Plan Group Thurmaston Parish Council Thurmaston Action Group Time Travel Opportunities University of Nottingham Vanilla Galleries Voluntary Action Charnwood WIN Marketing Woodbrooke Vale High School WORD Writing East Midlands Youth in Action - British Council

...and of course anyone else who has slipped our radar!

We also gratefully acknowledge the support of over 200 volunteers at different times throughout the year and over 70 freelance artists and support workers.

In particular we would like to extend our special thanks to: Laure Teyssedou, Susan Robinson, Zuzanna Skekla, Lorenzo Ottino, Debbie Eagle, Grace OJ, Paul Gent, Jon Williams, Paula Arriagada Chapela, Sarah Bailey, Gerry Flanagan The Management Committee of Charnwood Arts in 2008/09 was comprised of the following people: Trustees: Jill Vincent (C), Viv Green (VC), Bob Trubshaw (T), Tony Hilton (S), Jackie Edwards, Angela Edwards, Isa Hogan Observers: Helen Flach, Jo Marlow, Lucy Phillips, Andy McWilliam, Sally Boon, Kelly Davidson, Helen Naylor Appointed Observers: CBC - Diane Wise, Jewel Miah, Roger Wilson, Betty Newton,

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Charnwood Arts is a registered charity no. 505977 Charnwood Arts 31 Granby Street Loughborough Leics LE11 3DU United Kingdom tel: 01509-822558 e-mail: info@charnwoodarts.com web: www.charnwoodarts.com