Getting there…

Things left to do include fixing up one dress and the accessories and putting everything together for the amazing cupcake dress! Have a look at our pictures by our own photographer Wing Hei Choi. He is the shiz with his fat lens of a camera!

Cupcake dress – showstopper!

Again, the ideas originated from the last project session. Thanks to Maddie & Denise! Little stars!

Dress-making. Session 2!

My project has just finished session number 2 and here’s some of the ideas Maddie and I have come up with. It’s amazing what two passionate people can come up with in 2 hours and a few biscuits. We got stuck straight in and discussed so much we came up with three outfits already.

Here’s a sneak peak at what we’re aiming for!

Follow me at www.sonyd.wordpress.com

Calling all fashion loving young people! Time to forget designer!

Have you ever worn a T-shirt which you liked in the shop, but got home and disliked it? Do you ever wear the same things over and over again, even until it’s broken, but still wear it anyway? Do you go shopping and always manage to find an item of clothing you feel compelled to buy?

It’s not that much of a coincidence really because there are many people in the same boat!

This project aims to raise awareness of the impact of consumerism on young peoples’ well-being as well as the impact on the environment. By bringing a group of young people together we aim to be involved in a ethically-friendly fashion project producing an outcome for public display. There’s one catch though, all materials used must be old and broken to be reused and recycled. From clothing items, newspapers to accessories and imaginative bits and bobs. So, go find last year’s Christmas presents or that item you threw to the back of the cupboard!

Follow the project:

Twitter = https://twitter.com/#!/O2ThinkBigSony

Subscribe to the blog = www.sonyd.wordpress.com

O2 Think Big =http://www.o2thinkbig.co.uk/Projects/Project-Home/?clubId=538&publicView=true

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!

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/

“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.

A Perfect Day June 2010

A Perfect Day project brought together the members of Bicester Resource Centre and local pupils from Kings Meadow School to create a graffiti mural. The mural is hanging on the dinning room wall at Bicester Resource centre and is much loved.

To see the photos of this project see the link bellow.

http://beccart.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/a-perfect-day-in-action/

Success is the result of perspiration not

inspiration.

There I am, sitting down to lunch with my mentor for our last session. I have just sat on my first interviewing panel and been commented as peer to my patron Helen Le Brocq. I think that the latter was a little generous. My mentor wanted to treat me for working so hard over the past year. All my questions for my mentor made me feel just as far off being professional as at the beginning of the year but perhaps from a slightly higher stand point.

The session got me to take stock of things. Stand back and see the bigger picture. Address the smaller issue so that I can move on which, I may add, I couldn’t have done without her.

As I mulled things over this past week, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I was in that interview room. I honed in on the ends that didn’t meet. I saw people’s problems and personal insecurities. I felt as if I had met each of those personally (aside for perhaps a couple). I felt harsh and critical. People who know me well tell me that I am too hard on myself. I can’t help that part of my personality. I push myself to be the best possible. My performance isn’t right if it is not flawless.

I wasn’t seeking perfection in that interview room. I was looking out for those people. I wanted to make sure that they were making the right choice at the right point. The course requires a lot of get-up-and-go. I believe that being on the course at the wrong time or for the wrong reason could be detrimental. I didn’t want that for them or for the others.

The other thing that surprised me in that room was meeting the with the ideas again. The drive to achieve amazing outcomes in the community, for people. Sometimes, it is so hard to just stay afloat that you lose sight of what it is that you are trying to achieve or want to achieve. I suppose for me it was always more about just achieving great things for people. That and the creative idea is what excites me. I met the excitement face-to-face in that room.

When you talk to people who have made it, it is often after many years of gruelling work. Only sometimes would you get to see that excitement that drove them on in the first instances. A glimmer here and there. My peers in that room oozed an almost sickening mixture of fear and excitement. The – I don’t dare to dream I could but what if.

I was flicking through the paper the other morning. I rarely do this. A lady had been honoured with a degree for her achievements. I roared with laughter when I read her line about success. You don’t get there by having good dreams. You get there by sweating it out. Taking the heat, doing the leg work and doing it all over again. Spot on girl.

Out of the last week I have two hopes:

I hope that my hard work does not leave me being too harsh.

I hope that my hard work does not kill my inspiration. In the meal of success I would rather have the option of inspiration as a side order than non-existent.

I am really looking forward to the months ahead in my work and with the 2011 Young Creative Leaders on the horizon.

Comments welcome.