Creative Stoke news update, 20th December 2012

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A happy Christmas and New Year to all readers! During 2012 Creative Stoke has posted regular news of over 690 opportunities, events, funding invites, listings, competitions, and more. See you again in 2013!

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The M.A. in Creative Futures at Staffordshire University is recruiting now for January 2013…

Specialist pathways and awards available within the M.A. degree include: Design; Ceramic Design; Graphic Design; Product Design; Surface Pattern Design; Textile Design; 3D Design; Advertising and Brand Management; Illustration; Animation; VFX; Photography; Contemporary Art Practice; Writing; Heritage and Culture; and Applied Theatre.

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Job: A Teacher of Art is wanted in Stoke-on-Trent. Deadline: 21st December 2012.

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Re:Source Me has a free digital music workshop at the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, on 28th December 2012. Use cutting-edge technology to create your own interstellar soundtrack to complement the gallery’s new “Moon” exhibition, celebrating NASA’s Apollo moon landings. Re:Source Me has also created a new music soundtrack for the exhibition.

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Historian Andrew Lound also has a public lecture on the 28th December 2012, at the Potteries Museum, also part of the Moon exhibition. The illustrated lecture (£2, 2pm) is on the history of H.G. Wells’s famous novel The War of the Worlds. Wells lived in the Potteries during 1888, before he became famous, and his macabre short story “The Cone” (1895) is set in the Etruria Iron Works. The story is all that remains of a sweeping drama of Potteries life, which Wells wrote but which he later destroyed.

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Added to the Directory: Garrick Middleton, Leek-based photographer and designer.

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Added to the Directory: Loud Dance Studio, based in Westmil Street in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent.

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Added to the Directory: Picture Nation is a stock photography library based at the Staffordshire University Business Village.

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Added to the Directory: AlexFloyd is a local service offering music & songwriting services. Carl at AlexFloyd offers: song critiques; songwriter demo & bespoke music production; online session guitar; and guitar lessons.

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Stoke-on-Trent’s Airspace gallery will be hosting a Business Development for Artists advice workshop, on Monday 28th January 2013 (10.30am- 12.30pm). The event will be led by Elizabeth Hawley. To attend, please email:  amf@airspacegallery.org

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Job:  Stoke-on-Trent City Council currently has a tender invite (CR2012/763) to supply “All Our Stories: collection of people’s memories about heritage parks”. The successful applicant will collect stories using video and audio, and these stories will then be delivered to park visitors via methods such as QR codes and mobile phones. Application deadline: noon on 21st December 2012. Full details from Kay Grice at 01782 232546 or   kay.grice@stoke.gov.uk

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Are you an artist or arts organisation in North Staffordshire, with a community-focused arts project due over the next six months? Could your project benefit from a supported student placement? Newcastle-under-Lyme’s B Arts has just launched a new project called Social Agents, providing community arts experience for creative students from Staffordshire University. If you’re interested, please get in touch with B Arts at:  info@b-arts.org.uk

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Need graduate interns? Graduate Advantage offers the free front-end recruitment of unemployed graduate interns, for private-sector SME businesses / registered charities / social enterprises in the West Midlands.

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Stoke-on-Trent’s Steelworks Performing Arts Academy has its entry auditions coming up, on 21st January 2013. Steelworks offers a three-year Dance & Musical Theatre Diploma, and British Ballet Teaching Qualifications from Level 3 to Level 6.

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North Staffordshire’s Keele University and the New Vic Theatre are offering local drama practitioners a free course in “Ageing, Drama and Creativity”. To run February-April 2013, in 6 x three-hour workshops that will combine theory, research & practice. Interested? Deadline: Friday 11th January 2013. Application forms from Tracey Harrison: t.l.harrison@keele.ac.uk

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Three public 10-week courses are available at the University of Wolverhampton, which is easily accessible on the inter-city train from Stoke. The courses are: Videogames Design; Introduction to Life Drawing; and Jewellery Making.

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Birmingham’s DanceXchange is offering a free training course for West Midlands dance artists who want to run dance activities with groups from “hard-to-reach” communities. 12 places are available on the 3-day “Strive” training course (12th-14th February 2013) followed by mentoring opportunities from March to July 2013. Application deadline: 17th December 2012. Full details at the Web page.

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The Start programme offers funding and support to arts venues for them to develop relationships with “deprived” local schools. Start is a national grant-giving programme set up by The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts. The aim is to enable schoolchildren to experience the arts, by introducing them to an outstanding local cultural venue, possibly leading to a long-lasting relationship between the venue and a local school. Children & the Arts now wishes to recruit new organisation partners for the 2013/14 academic year. Application deadline: 31st January 2013.

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The Henry Moore Institute Research Fellowships (2013–14) scheme is now open to applications. Research Fellowships are intended for artists, scholars and curators researching on historic and contemporary sculpture who can make particular use of the Institute’s resources in Leeds. Deadline: 14th January 2013. Full details from:  kirstie@henry-moore.org

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The DCMS has a new free report, Digital Giving in the Arts, which examines what works in digital fundraising and also…

“sets out 10 recommendations to show how [UK] cultural organisations can boost fundraising by engaging audiences through new technology”

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The Museums Association is currently consulting on a new UK workforce action plan, building on the existing Cultural Heritage Blueprint, to be published in 2013. They would like to read your views on staffing and skills in the UK’s cultural heritage sectors.

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Are you based in the more rural parts of North Staffordshire? Are you planning to help your village through a creative-based community enterprise that will engage the whole village? Then the Plunkett Foundation would like to hear from you. They have been awarded over £450,000 from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation to create a new comprehensive support service for villages considering setting up or diversifying community-owned services. The support service will provide a combination of adviser support, training, feasibility research grants, and opportunities for networking with other community enterprises. The support is specifically focused at the early stage of a community’s ideas, and will help them progress to the next stage. Eligibility for support will depend on communities aiming to raise at least £10,000 themselves through community shares. Applications are invited now. Full details from:  info@plunkett.co.uk

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Your editor’s Scoop.it for Good News from Stoke & North Staffs has now harvested an entire year of genuine ‘good news’ press and media reports about the region.

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Are you researching and writing your undergraduate dissertation, or maybe a new business plan or a gallery exhibition, over the Xmas & New Year holidays? Your editor’s JURN search-engine lets you freely search and retrieve the full-text of over 4,400 free ejournals in the arts & humanities — 3,000 of which are in English.

Creative Stoke news update, 12th December 2012

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The Write On! Writing Squad group in Stoke-on-Trent has vacancies for young writers aged 11-16. Details from Joanne Penn, Projects Manager at Writing West Midlands at:  joanne@writingwestmidlands.org

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Job:  An Online Fashion Stylist is required by a recruitment agency, for an unnamed business apparently based in North Staffordshire.

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Job:  Manchester Metropolitan University’s Department of Contemporary Arts (Crewe campus) requires a Senior Lecturer in Popular Music.

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The Faculty of Humanities at Keele University is looking to support applications for the 2013 Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship competition. Fellowships support academics who are… “at a relatively early stage of their academic careers, but with a proven record of research.” Keele invites proposals around its specialisms in English and Creative Writing, or Music and Music Technology. Deadline is 12 noon on 21st January 2013. Full details at the websites linked above, or discuss your application with Professor Ann Hughes, the Director of the Research Institutes for the Humanities and Social Sciences, at:  a.l.hughes@keele.ac.uk

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Staffordshire University’s Creative Communities unit is hosting a free “This is Youth Work” workshop on 7th February 2013. The workshop is based on the book/DVD This is Youth Work: Stories from Practice and will… “use participative methods to explore, analyse and debate youth work and its place and possibilities currently”.

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Staffordshire University’s SPoTS Atelier Collection, a commercial collection from B.A. Surface Pattern students, now has a Flickr gallery online…

Above: SPoTS Atelier Collection: 6.

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Staffordshire University is offering a free “Step Up to Higher Education” course, running for ten weeks from 14th January until 26th March 2012 (Mons & Tues, 10am-2pm). This seems like a useful potential stepping-stone to one of the university’s many arts and media degrees.

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Classes in “Creative Ceramics” start at two community centres in Stoke-on-Trent early in the new year. The venues are St. John’s Community Centre at Trent Vale (Wednesdays, 12.30-2.30pm) and the Sutherland Primary Academy (Fridays, 9.15-11.15am). St. John’s also has a class in “Theatrical Make Up” (Mondays, 10-12 noon). Full details from:  adult.learning@stoke.gov.uk

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Get a free download (legit!) of the new E.P. by Stoke band GreaterGhost…

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The Communities in Focus photography competition is seeking “inspirational images” of local communities and grassroots events across the UK. Deadline: 19th December 2012. Full details at the website (free membership required).

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Pop Up Business for Dummies is a handy new book, written by Dan Thompson of the Empty Shops Network. It presents a UK-oriented step-by-step guide to setting up and running a “pop-up” shop. Get Chapter 2 (“Planning”) for free (PDF link). The whole book is available to buy in print, or as an ebook for the Kindle ebook reader.

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Mickleover Public Library, on the outskirts of Derby, has a one-day “Writing Fiction for Women’s Magazines” with Joanna Barnden, on 16th February 2013. Joanna has an M.A. in English Literature from Cambridge University, lectures in creative writing for the Open University, and has been writing commercially for 10 years. Cost is £25, booking essential. Full details from:  mickleover.library@derby.gov.uk

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The Arvon Hurst residential writing centre, in nearby Shropshire, has short residential Winter Warmer courses in January 2013: “Starting to Write” on 14th – 19th January 2013; and “Putting Together a Poetry Collection” on 21st – 26th January 2013.

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What’s billed as Europe’s largest expo for the hobby crafts trade is to be hosted at the NEC in Birmingham, easily accessible on a direct inter-city train from Stoke-on-Trent. Craft Hobby + Stitch is on 17th-19th February 2013. Details of the seminars are online here. Such crafts are said to be worth around £5bn annually in revenue in the UK.

Creative Stoke news update, 6th December 2012

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The next Cre8NET event has been announced, 13th December 2012 (6.45pm-9pm) at the Pop-up Emporium in the Lancaster Building in the centre of Newcastle-under-Lyme. The topic will be: “Designer makers are for life, not just for Christmas”, with a focus on the current support and other initiatives (such as ‘pop-up shops’) available to help designer makers. There will be presentations from successful designer makers, followed by a panel discussion, and then some advance details of the forthcoming SPARKS creative industries businesses-support service.

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Stoke-on-Trent’s bITjAM has announced a partnership with the Hanley YMCA, to develop a three-month open source digital creativity project called “Node”. This digital hothouse will test ideas which might attract future funding. Possibilities include preparing for superfast broadband, training in creative coding, citizen journalism and peer research training, and microbusiness development. An Open Day is planned for early in the New Year of 2013. Full details at the bITjAM blog.

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From 6th-21st of December 2012, the Burslem School of Art will be hosting the Burslem Christmas Salon, providing an opportunity for artists to display and sell their artworks… “at a discounted commission charge”. If you would like more information please contact Laura Sargeant in advance, at the Burslem School of Art, on:  01782 810808.

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Added to the Directory: Robert Simms, a fine art and social documentary photographer from Biddulph.

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The Centre for Business Research at the University of Cambridge is undertaking the first UK-wide survey of interactions between the UK’s cultural institutions, on behalf of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. They want to hear from those running museums, galleries, theatres, music venues, cultural heritage sites and others. The survey is available online.

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Black Country Co-operative Arts Network invite Midlands artists to register an interest in contributing to a major three-year action research project in South Staffordshire. If funded, the project would aim to develop sustainable arts engagement by local people and communities in the Black Country region. The Councils of Voluntary Service (CVS) for Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton are working together, along with arts partners Black Country Touring and Multistory, to coordinate this ambitious action research plan. The plan will be submitted to Arts Council England in December 2012. Interested? Full details and project outline from Saffi at:  saffi@scvo.info

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There’s a new JISC-funded free open online university course available from a Midlands university. It’s the third-year undergraduate module in Photography & Narrative from Coventry University…

“Photography and Narrative is a B.A. Hons. third-year undergraduate class […] ten weeks of practical study”

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A free afternoon consultants/ideas event is set to happen in Birmingham. “Making More of Outdoor Arts” is led by Helga Henry and Orit Azaz. The date is 11th December 2012, 1pm-5pm. Azaz has recently been working with Nofit State Circus, which is set to visit Hanley Park in Stoke-on-Trent for a residency next summer.

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Stoke-on-Trent Boat Club is to host a free talk on the tasks involved in editing a niche news and features magazine. “Navvies — the magazine of the Waterway Recovery Group” will be on 8th February 2013.

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The Unit Twelve Gallery has a list of crafts workshops in 2013. The gallery is at Tixall Heath Farm, nr. Stafford town. Workshops include, among others:

  * 19th Jan 2013, Gillian Lee Smith, “Whimsical Creatures”.

  * 26th Jan 2013, Jennifer Collier, “Experimental Techniques”.

  * 23rd Feb 2013, Jennifer Collier, “Experimental Sketchbooks”

  * 2nd March 2013, Jennifer Collier, “Paper Shoes”.

And many more, through into May 2013. See the Web page for full details.

Above: Whimsical Creature by Gillian Lee Smith.

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The West Midlands Museum Development Officer network has issued its 2012 activities report, A Sixth Sense. They also have an initial exploratory report on the use of QR codes in 17 Midlands museums and galleries.