Royal weddings, afternoon teas and a whole lot of sunshine!

Well hello there! …  my my haven’t we been busy!!

It’s been a while! I have been rather crazily busy! We’re 5 weeks away till Cowley Xchange launch! we’re getting all the final details sorted and getting very excited and looking forward to getting going with our participants! whoop!

Well I’ve been gigging with TheVeilFalls around the local Oxford scene. Had some great reports and compliments and loved having the chance to get out there on the scene. Even got stopped in the street by a guy who saw us gig and gave us great encouragement. Getting to sing  at events and commissions which is rather cool!

Also loved getting to see Mike in his other band Praxis Bold and hear a lot of their new material. They are playing in Brighton later this month! BOOM!  was a real privilege to sing with his band at one of their gigs and be part of the action. They are great musicians!

Had some time off recently so been getting into the arty side and looking to do more painting and creating, song writing and designing. I even went back to knitting a baby blanket and going back to arts and crafts and making jewellery.. getting right into the creative juices eh?!

OoOOo – and talking of artiness- for those who have been ‘watching this space’ I did get the job at Modern Art Oxford working on their Art Trolley so I get to do lots of fun creative things with families!

Have met with my mentor recently Janine which has been very helpful. Getting me to think passed my little bubble and see my pitfalls! always helpful, never comfortable! She is a very knowledgeable woman and actually a great aid and I think that we could possibly end up having more hang out time after this project!

Have spent a bit of time with a friend talking about photography and learning the new skills for Gold Arts Award. Lots of books for reading and getting to learn the lingo!  Have let it slipped a little but do want to get this nailed with taking good pics.

what else…? I spent time working with Dancin’ Oxford and working with Miranda and her team. Went to Brighton and spent time with Moving Voices and joined in their consultation and celebration sessions. I got to share about my involvement with Dancin’ Oxford and to share what I learned from my experience.
Also talking of dance – started to do more bits with my youth group again. I think summer just brings out the fun in activities so I am really really hoping to do a regular session with the girls and do some choreography and possibly showcase later on this year! Bring it on!

so all in all it’s been a  very active few weeks but the busiest is yet to come and the fun yet to be had. I am looking forward to having a successful ‘Cowley Xchange’ project and having great workshops with our participants and showcasing at Cowley Road Carnival. This should be a great time and event to look forward to! If you are from the Cowley Road area and want to get involved then get in touch!  you can get more details from our facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_180667935313840&ap=1

sorry to have left it so long…. I’ll try to not leave it so long next time….

xx   : p

Ages of Song

I am currently working on a project with OYAP called Ages of Song. It is an intergenerational choir project aiming to bring young and old together encouraging them to share memories, interact with each other on a friendly and creative level and sing sing sing.

I went in to Bicester today to meet with OYAP’s director and Bicester Day Centre manager and deputy manager. It was the first time we all met to finalise some of the logistics and ideas for the project. Helen, OYAP’s director told us about the choir leader that has been chosen and quiet frankly I am very excited to meet her and work alongside her. She has inspired me already and I am really looking forward to seeing her in action, leading a choir and making a difference. I am sure I can learn a lot from her.

So far everything is going well and I am glad I’ve been asked to be involved. I hope to deliver to the high standard OYAP always strives for

All in all this project is very exciting…

More to come soon

Sarah Pouele – www.sarahprojects.wordpress.com

Sarah and Jo – Project Planning

It has now come to the point where we finally know what we’re doing We had a bit of a brain storm last week and have come up with a lot. What we have decided to stick with is the idea of 3 music workshops which will introduce young people with learning difficulties to music. Each workshop will have a theme and will be aimed to introduce music to those young people in order to help them improve their communication skills, confidence and to enhance their happiness.

The details have to be worked out but we have now written a project plan and will be meeting next week to discuss some of the feedback we got. We also aim to contact some potential organisations or schools that will be interested in our project. I am very excited about this. The more I get into project planning the more I realise I want to make a successful career out of it.

With all the passion Jo and myself can bring and the  practical training and experience we have behind us I feel we can pull this off and make it a great and useful experience for everyone who will be taking part.

I will keep you all updated about our progress!

 

Sarah – www.sarahprojects.wordpress.com

The Fun Raiser

Last night, I volunteered at an event organised by OYAP. The Fun Raiser 2010, an evening of comedy in the aim to raise awareness and money for the charity. Some of the volunteers and myself started off by going out and handing flyers. It was interesting to see people’s reactions. Some people avoided us, some people didn’t really care and others were actually interested and asked questions. After handing out some flyers, we went back to the venue. What a beautiful venue! The Sheldonian theatre is simply stunning. It is such a grand building, with wonderful acoustics. I’ve helped at a couple of events at this venue and I have always loved the acoustics in there.

When we got to the venue Liz McCaffry, OYAP‘s general manager, gave us a quick briefing of what our tasks were. I was on box office with Caroline and Becca and the others were stewarding. Being on box office was nice. I always like seeing all the faces coming in. Seeing what kind of people come to events like this. It was good to see some people came because of the leaflets we had handed out just a couple of hours earlier. A lovely lady also told us she came to the event because she heard about it on the radio! She was the first one there she must have been really keen! I hope she had a good laugh. Everything on box office went according to plan, there were no problems and everything went smoothly. We also sold lots of raffle tickets which was great.

We then sat down to enjoy the show. Huw Thomas was our host for the evening. I really liked him!.He did a really good job at getting the audience involved and getting us in the mood for big giggles. The acts of the evening were Otiz Cannelonni, Mark Maier, Steve Best and Rob Deering. My personal favourite was the last act, Rob Deering. He was hilarious and I loved his singing. Steve Best confused me more than anything. I was thinking “what is going on here….” but then again, he made me laugh a lot! All in all, I’m very happy I got to be part of it even if it was helping in a small way. It was nice seeing the crowd have such a good time. It was also a good opportunity to mingle and meet new people.

At the end of the event we had a lovely group photo taken and packed up. Then went off to the pub! What a great evening. I look forward to many more events with OYAP.

Thanks you to all that helped and thank you to OYAP for putting in such an awsome event

http://sarahprojects.wordpress.com/

Free Lancing

So today we had a session with  Juliet Brain who is an art consultant. It was really nice to meet her she was very helpful. My blog for today will be what I wrote in our speedwriting exercise. I think it pretty much sums up my feelings of the day. Here it goes:

I figure I need to think very seriously about freelance work. I want to make a living working in the music world, as a performer but also as a song writer or even concert manager or something of the sort. I want to be successful without losing a sense of what my passion is but at the same time be at peace if things don’t work out. OYAP is giving me a great opportunity + sense of focus and I am very grateful. I must use this experience as well as I possibly can for my own benefit so I can become who I want to be. That is all.

So that’s what I came up with in 120 seconds.

Week 1 at OYAP

What a busy week!

First, meeting everyone. I was more worried about being late than about meeting everyone. Probably because I was SO late for my interview (I got very lost…). Liz and Helen were so nice about it though, so I was really comfortable about seeing them again. I was just hoping that everyone else would be just as nice. From what I can tell so far, they are! Yep, it’s very exciting to be part of a group which seems so inspired and motivated to start something new, something big, something awesome.

The induction went well, we spent two days going over what the programme entailed. What was expected of us and what we should expect to get out of this experience. We did a bit of dreaming and thought of potential project ideas. I must say, at the end of the second day I felt like my brain was going to explode. I did have a bit of an ‘information overload’! It was a lot to take in but it was really good to ask questions and have a clearer idea of what is about to happen. Over the two days I heard the word JOURNEY repeated several times. I liked the fact Helen and Liz were using that word to describe what we were about to start. Everything I do I take it as being part of my journey here. I could really relate to that and it made me feel more comfortable about this whole thing. My plan is to take it as it comes and do the best I possibly can. After the two days of induction I felt tired but totally inspired and REALLY excited. All the other young leaders are so friendly I’m really looking forward to getting to know them better. There’s 9 of us so far and we might end up with a 10th person? Not sure but we will see.

On Thursday 18th Nov some of us went to the “Vicious Youth” premiere. I loved it. It was so much fun to see young people be so proud of something they created. They were loving the red carpet

On Friday 19th Nov we had a tour of Modern Art Oxford. Sarah Mossop – Head of Education, showed us around. We saw their offices, their library and got to meet one of the artists that had some of his work up, Jon Lockhart. It was a great experience. Sarah Mossop was very helpful and answered all our questions. Jon Lockhart was more than happy to tell us about his art, his practice and the ins and outs of being an artist. It was SO interesting. It really makes you think and challenge what you already think you know. I got lots of ideas just by walking around and listening to all the discussions. I loved every minute and felt very privilege to get a different insight of the art world. Being a musician, I did wonder how much I’d get from the visit but I got a lot out of it. The discussion wasn’t necessarily around the art itself but more around the how, why and experience in the arts rather than the particular art form.

I have a lot to think about and a lot to take in. If I had to describe this first week in just a few words I would describe it as: Inspiring, Fun and New!

I look forward to much much more

The journey has now begun…

Week 1 at OYAP

What a busy week!

First, meeting everyone. I was more worried about being late than about meeting everyone. Probably because I was SO late for my interview (I got very lost…). Liz and Helen were so nice about it though, so I was really comfortable about seeing them again. I was just hoping that everyone else would be just as nice. From what I can tell so far, they are! Yep, it’s very exciting to be part of a group which seems so inspired and motivated to start something new, something big, something awesome.

The induction went well, we spent two days going over what the programme entailed. What was expected of us and what we should expect to get out of this experience. We did a bit of dreaming and thought of potential project ideas. I must say, at the end of the second day I felt like my brain was going to explode. I did have a bit of an ‘information overload’! It was a lot to take in but it was really good to ask questions and have a clearer idea of what is about to happen. Over the two days I heard the word JOURNEY repeated several times. I liked the fact Helen and Liz were using that word to describe what we were about to start. Everything I do I take it as being part of my journey here. I could really relate to that and it made me feel more comfortable about this whole thing. My plan is to take it as it comes and do the best I possibly can. After the two days of induction I felt tired but totally inspired and REALLY excited. All the other young leaders are so friendly I’m really looking forward to getting to know them better. There’s 9 of us so far and we might end up with a 10th person? Not sure but we will see.

On Thursday 18th Nov some of us went to the “Vicious Youth” premiere. I loved it. It was so much fun to see young people be so proud of something they created. They were loving the red carpet

On Friday 19th Nov we had a tour of Modern Art Oxford. Sarah Mossop – Head of Education, showed us around. We saw their offices, their library and got to meet one of the artists that had some of his work up, Jon Lockhart. It was a great experience. Sarah Mossop was very helpful and answered all our questions. Jon Lockhart was more than happy to tell us about his art, his practice and the ins and outs of being an artist. It was SO interesting. It really makes you think and challenge what you already think you know. I got lots of ideas just by walking around and listening to all the discussions. I loved every minute and felt very privilege to get a different insight of the art world. Being a musician, I did wonder how much I’d get from the visit but I got a lot out of it. The discussion wasn’t necessarily around the art itself but more around the how, why and experience in the arts rather than the particular art form.

I have a lot to think about and a lot to take in. If I had to describe this first week in just a few words I would describe it as: Inspiring, Fun and New!

I look forward to much much more

The journey has now begun…

My Interview with Mark Wilden from Musicinoxford.co.uk

Have a listen here:

http://www.musicinoxford.co.uk/2010/08/02/musicinoxford-co-uk-podcast-2-august-2010/

Yak It

Here are some pictures I took over the past few Yak’s:

YAK – a bright eyed beast in the face of an unsuspecting world.

As we sped coughing and spluttering into our opening we were met with enthusiasm and a great deal of buzz.

We already have people wanting to come back and bring art. I can’t wait to carry on developing this!

Loving it.

Live art
Live music.
Wall art.

Space for young people to showcase and get involved.

Next week – marketing week. If anyone can help us to get flyers out and media interest then please please get in contact.