Mass appreciation for OYAP Trust

You know when you have one of those moments where you sit back and evaluate things in your life? How things have progressed? Whats good and whats bad? Where you wish to be in life and where you don’t? Today is one of those days.

I was so happy to receive a tweet from them amongst all the chaos of rushing to Stansted airport to catch my flight. (I arrived at the front doors of the airport to find out the gate had closed to my flight!!)

Generally, I have had a few pieces of good news recently and it’s something I’m rarely used to admitting, accepting and truely appreciating.

However, today, standing back from the crowd, whilst sitting in the sun in South Italy I’ve realised that I’m so appreciative of where I am today. So I want to give thanks to OYAP Trust for giving me support and really influencing where I am right now.

OYAP Trust has shone a light on a road that I never knew existed. Rebuilt utter belief in myself to thrive to achieve and do so much more. To take risks. To connect with others. Bring out the best in others.

My motto: If it’s bitter in the start…it’s always sweeter in the end.

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Numero dos:Gender Equality

We had a really interesting session on gender equality in society on Sunday. We started by discussing the positive and negative aspects of the roles of women in society. Sadly came up with a lot more negatives than positives. Eric spoke of the women in Guatemala being forced to do much of the work, not just in the home but also paid work to support their family’s. He said often they were forced to take on this role as

their husbands or fathers did nothing but drink and smoke; yet they still did not gain any respect within society.  As I am learning this is of course the case not just in Guatemala but can be seen all over the world.

In order to discuss this further and to create a visual campaign, we split in to groups and created 5 photographs which portrayed both the negative and positive roles of women. We portrayed sexual, domestic and pay equality, the maternal figure in society and women as educator to improve the future.  The latter point it was clear everyone considered the most important during the discussion afterwards. If change is going to occur women needed to be empowered. By educating them and showing them that gender equality and freedom from repression is their right will give them the strength to educate their children. If this happened the children would grow up surround by positive images of both men and women; Therefore would create a  world where both genders are treated as equals.  However it is inevitable that change will be slow.

In the western world. One issue which was raised was that feminism has gone too far! I think that sometimes it is expected of women to assume the role that men have in Europe especially in regard to mother hood and returning back to work before they are necessarily ready to do so. this damages their relationship with their children and therefore damages their children, which damages society! There is also the debate where women reject social eticate between men and women as they consider this to be discrimination against women, and suggesting that women can not adequately look after them selfs. However i am of the opinion that Chivalry is not dead!

The Miracle Project

It’s been a while since I last blogged, and A LOT has changed!

By chance some miracle happened and Emma, Alice and I stuck gold with an idea for a project whilst thinking about fundraising and budgeting. We were given funding criteria and had to pitch an idea for a proposal to Liz and Helen including the budget (which slightly got left behind because the actual concept of the project took over in our priorities!)

Our project concepts aim is to enhance cultural cohesion and awareness of other cultures between different sections of the oxford community. Through the project we hope to celebrate and honour diversity and cross cultural interaction. At the moment the project is in the VERY early stages of development.

Were hoping to have some preliminary meetings with possible partners in early March once our idea is more concrete and we have had a few consultations with possible participants.

Time is ticking on, at a quite horrific speed, and our project is slowly picking up momentum, so I will keep you up to date with developments more regularly from now on!

MAKE SURE THERE IS A NEED

We had our first project planning session on Monday…just the nine of us, no one to make sure we were doing the right thing! In a way it was quite nice to get out of OYAP and what has become a very safe little hub to create hair brained ideas, and in to a not so nice room at Brooks. It seemed to be the beginning of a journey we were going to have to make alone!

We talked through ideas some of us had come up with about projects we would like to ideally run, and sort of discovered through discussion that actually some of these projects there was absolutely no NEED for! A project has no purpose if there is not an initial and very important need, and therefore will not be useful and probably in that case successful, nor will anyone be interested in participating in it, and so it would never secure the all important funding!

From this I have learnt that securing a need, but not letting your ideas and concepts become too twisted by funding criteria is SO important. You must speak to the possible participants before you get too excited about a possible project. They have got to think it’s pretty dam good, and also VERY cool, or they are just not going to turn up!…and that’s not fun for anyone.

Oyap so far this year!

As a new year begins the busy times start to show up again! Our first training session of the year went very well. Our day started off with a self promotion talk from Scott Cridland-Smith. His talk was very informative and he was approachable enough for us to feel like we could ask as many questions as we wanted. The talk itself was accompanied by a powerpoint presentation and was centered around how to promote yourself on the internet. How to set up your own website, get your blog seen etc.. I learned a lot and was glad not to have missed out! It’s been one of my favourite sessions so far.

In the afternoon we had Pete Mosley come in. He is OYAP’s evaluator and runs a company called Art of Work. This initial meeting with him was very helpful. He was also very approachable and offered to help and guide us in the future when it comes to our projects and working in the arts. It’s always good to know there is a support system around us, it gives us some confidence in what we’re doing.

On Monday, all of us young leaders had a meeting at Oxford Brookes University. I was productive but I feel we need more discussions like that one. It was very good to hear people’s ideas and the challenge will now be to see what is achievable and to see what we will be allocated. Tomorrow, I get to meet my mentor for the first time, Sharon Woodward. I am very curious to see what comes out of this meeting. I’ve been really looking forward to it.

This year has started off well and I predict we will see a lot of progress in the weeks to come. Busy times ahead!

“Give ‘em tea”…Leadership and Self Employment

Another crazy two days at OYAP thinking and learning about partnership working and self employment. Schedual D, QR Barcodes, intellectual Property, preconceptions, idea development and a lot about social networking online (which I have gone to town with…possibly a little early)

CRUMBS! Again a lot to take in and made me terrified about attributing everything correctly and also wary of where I put work of my own. (I have recently received an email from a friend threatening to take me to court over a photo of her that I put on Facebook after I told her about the need to attribute everything and the possibility of people using your work without permission or claiming it as their own. hopefully she will not follow her threat through!)

I’m also beginning to think about USP’s which seems to be a crazy concept. I hate the idea of having to sell myself to people. the only way I can sum up how hard I’m going to find this particular must is a sentence I wrote on the train home from Bicester; “what the FLIPPOS are my USP’s…I cannot even BEGIN to imagine what makes me unique from anyone else???” clearly this is something I’m going to have to work on, and I think it’s probaly something which will become clear as I become more confident in myself and my ideas! – Reputation and a recognisable profile will be the work of the next few years!

On to partnership now. which seems like an EXCELLENT strategy for excelling and achieving great things for all those involved! And the beginning of a good partnership begins apparently with a cup of tea. VERY true! You can never have enough tea.

What struck me most about the session on partnership was when Maddy, Emma and I planned an idea for an Art project that we could do with young people. The final concept that we came up with was OUTRAGEOUSLY flawed but very different to anything I would have ever come up with by myself, and therefore probably much more succinct and rounded and also achievable! It proved for me how important it is to work with other people so you have a broarder spectrum of Ideas and concepts which can lead to a much  more refined and therefore successful final project.

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…

First blog…scary stuff!

So a week has now passed since our first two  training sessions, (which were insane!) Two days of much information cramming and brainstorming and chatting about youth arts…By tuesday afternoon we were all a little exhausted and over excited and coming up with some not very inspiring ideas about evaluation; but very comfortable with each other and also being at OYAP!

There are 10 of us altogether, and I cannot belive how well we all seemed to get on. It’s quite bizarre being in the same room with such a big group of young people who all have similar aims and ideas to my own, but also very inspiring and exciting!

I have a feeling that this next year is going to be a tough and a very steep learning curve, but I can not wait to get started now.  Seeing the Vicious Youth Premier on Thursday night made me even more excited about what I have somehow managed to get my self into. I just hope I can live up to my own expectations of my self!