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/

my calling seems to be story shaped, so I am off down the rabbit hole…

Lady by the Sea (inspired by a Daphne du Maurier story)

Today we went to go and see the site which will soon become the Story Museum, on Pembroke Street in Oxford just off St Aldates …. it was AMAZING. the rooms were increadible; pushing through the stable doors you uncover the most increadible courtyard space, then through a door literally into the rabbit warren… Even with the paper peeling off the walls and stepping over bits of debris, the whole building was full of space and light and potential for stories to live and breathe in there, and have people to explore and revel in them. The power of the whole IDEA of stories suddenly hit me right in the heart – it is such a pure and connecting pleasure, to relay stories to each other and spark ideas and imaginations and paintings and music and dance and performance and all the facets of human emotion you could possibly think of. The picture above is of one of the paintings I have done based on a story; set design and painted images end up meeting quite a lot in my mind, outward visualisations of stories that aim to bring them out of the book leaves and into people’s actual line of site… it is a principle by which so many artist live, whether through performing, writing and visual medium. Imagine having a whole building full of such a thing? …

it strikes me that the bringing of stories to people of all ages, all areas, all backgrounds, is an essencial part of life, and one that could only bring cohension, and guenine deep felt joy. it is often said that, especially if you are working in a field as intense and often as tough as the arts, you can only do it if you really, really love and beleive in what you are working on. I believe in stories, that you never really have to grow up when it comes to imagination, and that human connection through the telling of them has a universiality that is one of the most precious things we as human beings have. It shouldn’t matter if you are not the kind of young person or adult who finds it easy to sit down and read a book, stories are so much more than that, and having spent a really eye opening afternoon with Tish Francis (the Story Museum’s co director),  and I am sure that seeing this space form and grow will be quite wonderful. I could very happily spend my entire life helping bring stories to  people, and I can’t wait to meet more people that are doing it now and who want to do it in the future….

About James

Hi,

I’m James, One of the five on the Young Creative Leaders Programme.

I am an artist/ graffiti artist from Oxford.

As I travelled home on Monday from the induction day I couldn’t stop thinking about the opportunities that lie ahead of us. I’m very excited!

I will post more on here soon, here is a link to my personal blog with some of my artwork: www.kleinershames.blogspot.com