SHINE LAUNCH EVENT-20
Originally uploaded by Lyndsay Din Photography
We were packed to the gills at our launch party last Thursday, Lyndsay - a 'rise' catalyst member, was our photogapher for the evening; and what an evening it was, with well over 400 guests braving rain, wind and traffic to join us in our celebrations. Were you a guest? Do you feature in the photographs? Follow this link to have a look at how the evening panned out.
We continued the theme of 'past present future', with Sharon Watson; a past alumni and now a successful dancer/choreographer bravely going first with the speeches - well done Sharon! We also engaged Sharon to mentor the young performance students at Thomas Danby College, who in turn put on a series of unusual twinkling vignettes in shine and stunned the guests with a fantastic performance .
Continuing the creative theme, another ex alumni and successful artist; Kevin Hickson began work on a new feature for the atrium of shine, a 'wish pinata'. Guests were able to join in the making of huge willow structures, which will eventually be filled with 'future wish' slips. The culmination of Kevin's workshops with the local community will be a festive event on the 21st December - the shortest day of the year. More on this over the coming weeks.
Rose - our artist in residence, after a fraught week (lots of work goes into putting together an exhibition, and some of her work is very ambitious in scale, necessitating scaffolding!), saw her efforts realised - you really must come along and take a look at her work, it permeates shine both inside and out.
This post is in danger of being rather long, so we will come back with more photos of the event, including the tuck shop, the people, and the faces behind shine!
Never Stop Trying
Originally uploaded by Rose Borthwick
And we never do......
We had a visit from the Minster for Europe (Caroline Flint), rounding off a 60 days of visits by dignitaries. All very exciting, but nothing compares to look on the face of a local person entering the building for the first time, realising this amazing space is within their reach.
We seem to be making progress, but its never enough for me. I don't know why I always feel like that...perhaps its my very own kind of energy supply? But, I thought as we head into a mellow school break week, I would reflect on the stuff we have are on with...
The Launch: we are expecting hundreds to what is fast becoming a sought after ticket in Leeds.
Cafe & Food and in General: we should pick the catering firm, that will be revving up the heartbeat of the building, this Friday! We have been a bit delayed, but the team is starting to press and make progress. Could we be up and running by January 1st?
Music and Art: Rose (artist in residence) has been busy creating amazing things around the space. I will leave it to you to visit and find them. Music, is almost here and I look forward to the live music sets coming later this year and in 2009.
Business: we are very close to eclipsing the 80% occupancy rate and conference/meetings are growing. The more biz we bring in, the more stuff we can do for social enterprise in Leeds. Remember, although we look the private sector part---91% of the revenue goes back into the local community and the value of the building is locked for the community. Bring your biz!
Making things happen; stories are being born every day with new people finding us and engaging with each other. I think when the music and food arrive, we will have that organic mixer in place that will make me feel a bit more at ease.
But, I owe a big thank you to Emma, The Shine Team (Claire, Jacqueline, Jolanta, Samad, Rose), and the Camberwell Team. We are building the dream everyday and that's difficult work. But, as someone once told me; anything worth doing is usually difficult. Hope to see you around the place sometime soon.
Todd
Chris is one of the new faces at Shine. He's just started working with Emma Bearman at Cultivate to help organise events in the space. As well as this, Chris has recently started a partnership with his friend from university, Stuart Childs. The startup company is called Outpost, and is focused on sound design; creating sonic branding and logo's, sound art and other audio creations. Check Outpost out at www.outpost-north.co.uk
Chris' interest in music sprang from playing the guitar in a school band Mannequin, who's claim to fame was that they supported The Artic Monkeys before they were famous! He then went on to Study Music Technology at Leeds Met, and has just graduated.
Look out for more new faces as the blog continues.
Zoological248[1]
Originally uploaded by shineinharehills
If you have been following the blog, you will be aware that we were searching for an artist to join us at shine. The brief was tough, the deadlines short, and the competition was high, we had some excellent responses to our brief. Rose Borthwick pictured impressed with her very specific response to shine. We were looking for artist who was very positive, great at communicating with a diverse community (both internal shine inhabitants, conference attendees, and the local community). Rose is currently working on 'past, present, future' the very first exhibition, due to be launched early November. Watch this space for her progress and her reflections as she creates her bespoke response.
Originally uploaded by Rose Borthwick
And what a night it was! over 150 former staff and pupils came back to their old school to see the changes, hook up with old friends and relive old memories. Oldest boy was George Hollings who attended school in the 1920's, he joined up with 3 other old school mates who he had not seen in some time.
Our new artist in residence Rose Borthwick spent the evening collecting stories and memorabilia from the students and teachers, which will form part of her exhibition in November 'past, present, future'
Rose will be regularly writing on this blog to share her own personal journey,and snippets of stories from the reunion as she puts together her first body of work for Shine.
The team at Shine are keen to help old school mates remain in contact with each other, so do watch this space for more news and ways to reconnect with each other
Brian & Arthur Clark wrote in with the following comments, if you attended the school please feel free to let us know your thoughts and suggestions for how you might like to reconnect with each other
" I am just writing to thank you for the excellent job you did for the school reunion at Harehills County secondary school or the cow sheds as we used to know it.Transformation of the building is well done to an excellent standard i am sure it will be a huge success.Thank you once again also for the lucky dip bag!".
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