Project Developments - Now and Future

(This was sent to me by Brian)


NEW RIVER GROUPS

Nidd - Harrogate
Rother - Rotherham
Don - Doncaster
Frome - Frome
Trent - Scunthorpe
Avon - Strattord
Went - Wentbridge
- Stafford


EXISTING GROUPS

Mahi
Narmada
Sabarmati
Tapi
Eritrean Rivers

Aire Bridge Arts, Leeds Met University and Malham
Dearne Barnsley TUC/Cooper Gallery, Mill of the Black Monks
Calder Centre for Alternative Technology, Hebden Bridge


MAJOR PROJECTS

Two projects are outstripping the others: Malhamdale and the River Dearne


Malhamdale

We have already collected a lot of material and we are now proposing a major gathering on Monday 10 August. Some of us hope to go up on the previous night and stay over. The main 'Meet will be 11.00 am on Monday outside the Buck Inn in the centre of Malham. This will be a 'waters' walk.

There will be a follow up to discuss plans and progress at the Friends Meeting House, Beelks Court just off Beast Fair on 10.00 am on Saturday 15 August.

The Malham Community are interested and we are talking about local government involvement and possibly inputs from the Environment Development Agency.


River Dearne

We meet at Mill of the Black Monks, Grange Lane, Cundy Cross, Barnsley (8 Minutes East from Centre of Barnsley) on Saturday 25 July 10.30am. Have a cup of tea and then walk the river. Lunch prices from another cup of tea to about 10 £ (last time it was really good veggi Food). After lunch we travel across town to Runima Kakoty's House. (Big house and Garden, the Hawthornes, Kereforth Hall Road,) for an afternoon workshop. Writing, Drawing, Creative technology. I estimate between 10 and 20 participants.

This is rapidly developing into a major project. We already have an Exhibition space in Barnsley in February 2010 for a major Rivers Project.

The local authority are interested.

Pam Oxley is already processing material.


MEETINGS WITH PEOPLE AND ORGANISATIONS

I have had several major meetings in the near future including one with the South Yorkshire MEP. We are looking for a European Dimension.


EXHIBITIONS

Barnsley Barnsley February 2010
Castleford Bridge Arts. Hopefully May 2010
York To be arranged August 2010

Fourth Day in India

The activities during the first three days were:
- planning the week,
- settling into the accommodation,
- meeting Vice Chancellor of Sardar Patel University, Dr. B.G. Patel,
- giving a keynote address at the conference "Creativity and Literature" (Brian Lewis),
- organising a workshop on creative writing (Beccy Stirrup and Jenny Marsden),
- giving individual presentations about our work and about creativity in general (Jane Weatherby, Ruth Dass, myself).

Today we visited two other faculties:
- the Faculty of Arts who are hosted in a very interesting contemporary building
- the Faculty of Business, Department of Tourism, where we received a nice Gujarati meals prepared in the restaurant of this institute.



We further discussed the plans for the next two days, as we will head out to the river Sabarmati, to hold workshops and conduct interviews.

I will then for the first time test recording of video and audio with the immersive equipment, which is head-worn and can provide a subjective capture of the experience of the wearer of this equipment.

Thanks to our friendly hosts, especially to Sunil Shah, we do have now internet: we purchased an online connection through a special USB wireless modem, through the name of one of the University employees. This allows us now to have internet during the whole rest of our stay. However, the connection is quite slow, and we do only have a limited number of minutes available - which means that we need to economise on the usage.



Nevertheless, I used this connection today in the evening, to upload pictures to Flickr and to report back to our colleagues in Yorkshire.