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

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

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

Visit the Darnhill Festival website

Friday 5^th July – Darnhill Festival Preparations

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

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

Wednesday 3^rd July – Darnhill Festival Preparations

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

Wednesday 12^th June – Scribble Fest Preparations

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

Friday 7^th June – Scribble Fest Preparations

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

Wednesday 5^th June – Scribble Fest Preparations

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

Wednesday 22^nd May – Scribble Fest Preparations

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