Today I travelled to Leeds to attend the NIACE, CLIF (Community Learning Innovation Fund) Project Briefing It was good to chat to the other successful ‘bidders’ and learn more about their projects. Sarah Edwards, from the WEA Cumbria office was there too as she is running another project for the users of COSC.
Yesterday, no sooner had I walked through the office door than Walt Crowson from LSEN ushered me into the meeting room to talk to someone about Peripheral Vision. Walt had hosted a meeting between the BBC and MOSI-ALONG, so there was quite a buzz in the room. Walt introduced me to Fred Garnett from MOSI-ALONG and we settled down for a chat about our respective projects.
“Right,” said Fred, “This is what we do,” and he began telling me about the following:
Participatory Curatorial Strategies and a seminal book The Participatory Museum by Nina Simon
The ‘Aggregate then Curate’ model of learning:
- physical creation
- physical aggregation
- digital creation
- digital aggregation
- digital sequencing
- social media aggregation
Fred would like to test the learning model theory outlined above and is in the process of meeting various project managers in Manchester to see whether their projects could help him to do this.
Fred then dashed off to meet a friend for lunch and I was left feeling like I’d just been whipped up into a whirlwind of ideas and names and learning theories and dropped back down to Crawford House with a thud.
At 14:15, Sue Easton from NIACE rang to check on the project progress to date. Sue had already met Fiona Parr, my Line Manager, at an IACL NIACE meeting and so was pretty conversant with Peripheral Vision. Apparently our workplan is fine but she just wanted clarification on our methods of ‘Impact Measurement‘.
In order to assess the impact the project has had, or will have, on participants’ lives, I will need to think carefully about how to ‘capture’ this before the project starts. We discussed various options such as:
I told Sue about diaryofaproject.com and she logged on there and then, which was terribly nice of her. She has the loveliest Scottish accent – just perfect for telephone interviews!
I also finalised the arrangements for the Peripheral Vision presentations which will bring together the four main partners: Cornerhouse, Whitworth Art Gallery, Mad Lab and People’s History Museum. This will take place on Friday 16 September from 10:00 – 12:00, in the Cornerhouse annexe (thank you Pat). WEA staff, tutors, some learners and volunteers and community partners will also be invited to make up the audience.
Aims for the meeting:
This morning I had a meeting with Fiona and Mandy to discuss Peripheral Vision. We decided it would be a good idea to get the four main partners along with WEA Learning Managers, community partners, tutors and some learners and volunteers, to tell them about the project and to give the cultural venues a chance to showcase their workshops. I also need to do the following:
I then had to dash off by taxi to the People’s History Museum (PHM) as I didn’t have time to walk (my preferred mode). Crikey, what a grumpy, old taxi driver. Absolutely no welcome, he just said “Huh waiting on the street,” because that’s what I’d said I’d do on the phone. Granted I did nip to the loo before heading down the stairs but I took no more than five minutes after putting the phone down.
Anyway, my meeting with Gurdeep at PHM was delightful. She and I chatted about educational things for almost two hours non-stop. She is full of ideas and likes to get out and about and meet people. I shall look forward to our working together on Peripheral Vision.
I had a walk around the museum just to refresh my memory of the exhibits etc. When I spotted the blown up pictures of the badges above, I made a mental note to include badge making on some of the courses. I’m sure the learners will come up with their own inspirational quotes such as the ones at PHM.
I met Mr W for lunch and we decided to go around the corner to Samsi. Good choice. Yummy food and we got chatting to the owner who’s a very interesting bloke. He’s now exporting Vimto to the Japanese! How enterprising.
Here’s a photo of the chef who also came over for a chat:
Today I went to Leeds with Julie and Mandy. We attended the NIACE (National Institute for Adult and Continuing Education) IACL (Informal Adult and Community Learning) Fund meeting for all the successful projects in the north of England. As we were signing in Jan Novitzky, Programme Manager, NIACE commented that the WEA bids were very well-written. That’s nice to know!
It was fascinating finding out about some of the other projects with names such as ‘Beauty in the Universe’ and ‘Health Maintenance for Men’.
I was amazed to learn that the fund had attracted 2,414 bids, of which only 59 were successful, including Peripheral Vision and COSCade which Julie Ballantyne will manage for WEA in Cumbria.
Our conference packs included a copy of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Evaluation Resource Pack which will prove invaluable when evaluating the project. You can download a free PDF version by clicking here.
is one of my favourite cultural venues in Manchester. I love its park-side location and the way in which as soon as you enter the building and walk through the foyer you are in the galleries. I find this immediacy both stress free and calming. So, when Ed Watts, the Adult Programme Co-ordinator, suggested meeting up to talk about Peripheral Vision, it put a big smile on my face. Ed and I have worked together extensively over the past couple of years with excellent results. I first met Ed when he worked at Urbis. He put together a wonderful video making session for some of our adult learners who had learning disabilities. I clearly remember popping down to Urbis to take some photos of the group, opening the door to the creative studio and feeling touched by the happiness and warmth in the room. Everyone was having a great time and the learners were delighted with the videos they had shot and edited themselves. Apparently they all spoke about the experience for months afterwards.
Working in partnership with the Whitworth is an absolute joy: everything runs smoothly, and the workshop facilitators that Ed (and Wendy) have employed were all professional and inspirational, and I have received excellent feedback from the participants.
Examples of the workshops we have run at the Whitworth have included:
Printmaking with Alan Birch
Book-making with Lucy May Schofield
Fabric cup cakes with Andrea Lord
Just the Ticket
In March 2009, we held the celebratory event for our prior NIACE project, Just the Ticket, at the Whitworth. Wendy Gallagher, did an amazing job providing us with the fabulous South Gallery and various exciting workshops for over 90 adults who attended on the day. It truly was the highlight of a very successful project.
Anyway, Ed and I discussed Peripheral Vision and how we could use the Whitworth’s iPads to make short films. We also thought we could run another photography and textiles course that we put on for Levenshulme Inspire a few months ago, in which the learners printed digital photographs in black and white onto cotton then embelished their pictures with embroidery, beads and sequins.
You can see a short video of the learners’ work here (scroll down to the Whitworth & Inspire video).
Wey hey, we have received email notification from NIACE that our bid was successful!
See, lying in the poppy field dreaming up Peripheral Vision has paid dividends.
Super duper! Now the real hard work begins…
After Thursday’s debacle, I decided to wait until Monday to attempt the online application form again. This is how it went:
Dear A
It’s happened again!
I got one page further (completed up to page 10) than on my last three attempts and when I went to save the page the system said I had to log back in again and when I did EVERYTHING had gone.
Please help me asap.
Best wishes
E
Monday, June 13, 2011 11:10 AM
Hi E
Don’t panic, your data has become disassociated from your account, we can join it back up again. I’ll email you again once it’s joined up again.
N
Monday, June 13, 2011 11:13 AM
Hi E
I’ve now joined your data back up again so if you log in you should see it is there again.
Regards N
Monday, June 13, 2011 11:20 AM
Hello N
Thank you
But I can only get so far before I get logged out.
Fingers crossed I can go right to the end this time.
Best wishes
E
Monday, June 13, 2011 11:50 AM
Hello N
It’s happened again.
I got up to page 16 this time.
Please retrieve all the data.
Thanks
E
Monday, June 13, 2011 12:02 PM
Hi E
Re-attached again. Fingers crossed it behaves itself for you.
N
And then, at long last…
Monday, June 13, 2011 3:32 PM
This is email confirmation that your application to the Adult and Community Learning Fund 2011 has been submitted and received by NIACE.
Hurrah!
Well, today’s the day I submit the bid online to NIACE. It’s not going well as the following emails will testify:
Thursday, June 9, 2011 10:01 AM
Dear A
Thank you for the new password.
I have just spent 30 minutes filling in the first two pages of the online ACL Fund application, saving each page as I went. When I saved the second page before going on to the third page, the system logged me out and asked me to log back in again. When I did this all my work had gone – nothing had been saved.
Have I done something wrong?
Best wishes
E
Thursday, June 9, 2011 10:02 AM
Hi
Not sure why it would have logged you out. Very odd.
I have fixed the issue, so if you log back in and re-open the form, your data should be there.
If this happens again, do let me know.
Thanks
A
Thursday, June 9, 2011 12:23 PM
Hello A
It’s happened again.
Nothing has been saved.
I left it for a while and when I came back to continue filling it in, I pressed the save button and it logged me out again. When I logged back in, everything had gone.
I am working on an iMac – don’t know if that makes a difference.
Help!
Thursday, June 9, 2011 12:30 PM
Hi E,
This is certainly an odd issue. Were you on any other pages at all? Did you log out of any other NIACE page?
A
Thursday, June 9, 2011 12:55 PM
Hello A
I had the form up and was filling it in and saving each page as I went along. However, if I left the computer for a while to do something else and then came back to resume filling in the form, if I saved a page I would be logged out. When I logged back in again (by putting email and password) all the information would be gone.
Am I the only one having problems?
Best wishes
E
Thursday, June 9, 2011 1:31 PM
Hi E,
Other people are having similar problems, but yours is very specific.
What I believe is happening is your browser (I assume you are using Safari) is probably seeing that there has been no activity for x amount of time and is logging you out as a security measure.
The other option it could be is, cookies are not being saved properly.
I will do my little fix again to get your data back. I imagine that this will happen again if the form is left for any length of time.
A
Thursday, June 9, 2011 1:41 PM
Thank you A
I’m not going to attempt it again until later this afternoon (had enough for now).
E
I have to say that A was very helpful and replied to me within minutes. He also managed to find all my lost data each time. I’d like to thank him for that. Later that day NIACE released a statement on their website saying that due to the large amount of applications, their system wasn’t coping too well and that they were extending the deadline from Friday 9 June to Tuesday 14 June. So that’s alright then.
A few days ago NIACE circulated an email about the latest government funding opportunity:
“The Adult and Community Learning Fund is a new fund to help make the Big Society a reality.”
“Organisations from across England can bid for their share of £2.25 million from the Adult and Community Learning Fund for new and imaginative adult and community learning opportunities that engage and motivate, in particular, disadvantaged adults.”
Well how perfect is that for WEA? Engaging and motivating disadvantaged adults is what we do best.
So, I am now going to lie down in a flower strewn meadow and think up something wonderful for the good people of Manchester to enjoy.
Watch this space…
