ProMail August

After a brief hiatus, ProMail is back! Over the past few months, we were kept busy with the ongoing developments of our broad range of projects as well this coming up with this new issue of ProMail. Enjoy reading!

Welcome Pat and Portia!

There are two recent additions to ProMo-Cymru and they are Pat Green, our new Companies Administrator and Portia Nicholson, CLIC Information Worker.

Pat was with ProMo-Cymru during its very first days at the South Wales Co-operative Development Association. She then went on to work in community, enterprise and co-operative development with other organisations.

In re-joining ProMo-Cymru in May, Pat has come full circle and is excited about being able to contribute to the developments of our projects once again. Pat has a background in dance and the arts as well as community development and youth work.

Portia joined the ProMo Cymru team in July. Portia is a final year Journalism student and is currently developing a thesis on how students engage with politics. She has a background in working on projects that involve both young people and multimedia. Portia has volunteered on www.theSprout.co.uk website for over a year and worked as a detached youth worker in Bristol.

Portia will be working on developing the CLIC website and is very enthusiastic about working from young people from all over Wales to rewrite the content and create multimedia for the website.

Her main objective is to meet with a wide variety of young people to help ensure that young people’s concerns are heard and the advice and information they want is easily accessible, well written and is regularly reviewed and updated.

Ebbw Vale Institute Photomarathon

The first Ebbw Vale Institute Photomarathon held on 11 July was a great success.

Participants were tasked with deciphering six mystery poems by performance poet Anni Wilton Jones which determined the subjects they should photograph.

After two weeks of judging, our panel of independent judges from Coleg Gwent and the Ebbw Vale Camera Club decided on the following results:

First Prize: £75 Walter’s Photography voucher - Kaisa Pankakoski

Second Prize: £50 Walter’s Photography voucher - Amy Preece

Third Prize: £35 Walter’s Photography voucher - Susan Smallwood

Under 16 prize: Apple iPod Shuffle - Lauren Kelly (10 years old)

If you missed out on the action on the actual day, here’s a short video filmed by Adrian Markey:

To view all entries, visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/promocymru/sets/72157613043631299/

Do also look out for Photomarathon Exhibitions at EVi and Coleg Gwent in September!

Apart from organising the Ebbw Vale Institute Photomarathon, we also hosted a Church Street Regeneration Meeting at EVI.

Representatives from the Blaneau Gwent County Borough Council and regeneration organisations such as EVAD, ProMo-Cymru, United Welsh Housing, Scarman and local councillors came together to look at ways to regenerate Church Street, which was historically the centre of Ebbw Vale Town.

Draft street regeneration plans were presented, together with organisations' role in this task.

On another note, we would also like to thank the group of kind volunteers who assisted us with different tasks around the EVI building.

The 1st BIG CLIC Weekender

CLIC got together 18 young people from across Wales to participate in the first residential weekend, providing young people the chance to get involved with CLIC and become part of a National Editorial Group for the project.

After a long day of travelling, the participants arrived at Tyn Dwr Outdoor Centre in Llangollen on 26th June exhausted but excited about the activities lined up over the weekend.

On Saturday morning with everyone fresh and alert, we kicked off the day with a series of workshops to engage the young people in reviewing and rewriting some of the subjects and headings that at the core of CLIC as an information service.

Everyone then took a break from writing to take part in an outdoor high ropes course run by the centre. Full of enthusiasm and good ideas, the young people participated actively in the rest of the workshops and activities throughout the weekend, providing us with valuable feedback.

We are currently putting together all the ideas, comments and feedback provided by young people on the CLIC project into a report which will follow shortly.

You can view all the photos from the residentials at http://www.flickr.com/photos/cliconline/

The next CLIC residential will be held later this year. If you are keen to take part or find out more, please contact Kathryn Allen at kath@promo-cymru.org

CLICzine

CLIC is planning the first issue of a quarterly published magazine, CLICzine, which will be distributed free to all young people in Wales through secondary schools, colleges, training centres, information centres, youth centres and provisions and cafes etc by September 2009.

The eight-page magazine will feature selected news items from the website as well as offer fresh new content linked to a central theme. There will be news on music, film, theatre, books, events, art, fashion, features and listings plus a collector's 'how to' guide for different industries.

Issue One's guide, We're With The Band offers tips on breaking and making it big in the music industry, how to set up gigs, interviews with successful bands and highlights of the industry's pitfalls and secrets.

More than 200,000 copies will be published and given out to young people across Wales.

CLIC's working with you

After working closely with local county areas via the Children and Young People’s Partnerships to develop their local CLIC sites, there has been good progress.

Some key developments include:

We met with key staff members of Anglesey’s Children & Young People’s Partnership on 3 July who were very keen to come onboard the CLIC project.

Rhondda Cynon Taff and Torfaen are now looking into employing youth editorial workers to run their local CLIC sites.

The Vale of Glamorgan has put in place editorial support in preparation for the launch of their website.

Flintshire has begun consulting young people on the design and re-branding of the new Young Flintshire website.

After several meetings with Powys and Pembrokeshire, we are now working together to develop the details of setting up their websites.

Newport Youth Service Video Project

Working in partnership with Newport Youth Service, ProMo-Cymru was funded to carry out three issue-based projects with three groups of young people in Newport.

Young people determined the issues they wanted to work on, created the storyline, scripted and acted in the film, with some involved in production and post-production.

The films were showcased in the cinema at the Riverfront Theatre and Arts Centre in Newport with the event presented and attended by young people taking part in the projects.

Consent has been gained for these short films to be included on the CLIC website:

Bullied: Produced with young people from St Andrews Youth Club, this hard-hitting story is about a new boy in the area being bullied by a gang outside of school.

LOL - Lost Online: Produced with young people from Newport Info Shop, the story is focussed upon the dangers of meeting strangers contacting young people via the internet.

Smash and Grab: Produced with young people involved with the Bettws Youth Inclusion Project, the film explores the consequences of peer pressure and car crime. This film was part funded by the Youth Offending Team and is part of the recent initiative to reduce car crime in the area.

These short films will be available to view on the new CLIC website when it launches.

Demonstrating Success

The draft handbook for practitioners has now been produced following on from work with youth professionals, academics and young people and drawing upon good practice models from across Wales.

The project is now entering a new phase of development, with the draft handbook about to be trialled with a number of organisations and groups to gain feedback and determine effectiveness in measuring the progress that young people make through youth intervention and development activities.

A number of organisations have already been identified for this pilot work and their long-term involvement and feedback will help develop and determine the final toolkit and resource for Demonstrating Success.

Youth Cultural Research

Research has been carried out by ProMo-Cymru across Cardiff to identify and determine young people's understanding of "culture" and their take up of cultural activities that are available for them.

The research has also been able to identify where gaps in provisions exist with young people making a number of tangible suggestions as to the additional cultural activities they would like to see on offer and feasible solutions to improve their access.

The research has been carried out by completion of questionnaires and through a number of focus groups with young people between 11 - 25 years old. A report is in the final stages of completion and will be published and presented to the Cardiff Young People's Partnership in September 2009.

Send us your videos for Wales and the World to see

If you have worked with young people to produce issue-based videos and would like to make them available to a wider audience, CLIC would be an ideal platform to showcase your work. We are currently collecting videos from organisations that would like to share their resources. If you would like to upload your videos onto the new CLIC website, please contact Cindy Chen at cindy@cliconline.co.uk.

Go Gypsies!

ProMo-Cymru worked with a group of traveller girls from Shirenewton earlier this year. We provided administrative support as well as organised a Digital Story Telling workshop.

For a few months the girls worked hard to come up with their own garments, practise their choreography and attend make-up workshops to prepare for their appearance at Fashion Wales Live 2009, a showcase of young people’s creativity across different art genres.

We documented every step of their preparation and together with the girls, wrote a story with it, which can be viewed on theSprout website: http://www.thesprout.co.uk/sprout-tv/

The photos we took of the girls at Fashion Wales Live 2009 also made the front cover of Issue 39 of the Travellers Times magazine. You can download the magazine here:

http://tinyurl.com/m34ev3

theSprout's Welsh Language Concert

TheSproutco-ordinated and funded a Welsh language day at Plasmawr High School on Thursday 16 July to promote the forthcoming bilingualism of the site.

A marquee saw local school bands including Nos Sadwrn Bach support Welsh scene-leaders, Sibrydion, and almost 500 pupils from Plasmawr and Glantaf School pogoed for three hours, took advantage of free refreshments, and burnt off end-of-school energy on the inflatables and bucking bronco.

The event was compered by Radio Cymru's Maggi Dodd and Big Brother 7 runner up, Glyn Wise, who threw Sprout badges and Radio Cymru flags and t-shirts into the adoring crowd.

"It's been a brilliant day, thank you so much," said Plasmawr teacher Siriol Wilde, "we hope to make this an annual event with theSprout."

Elsewhere, theSprout is holding Website Journalism courses as part of this year's Summer Learning Festival, and the monthly editorial meetings are now held in a swanky meeting room in Cardiff's new Central Library.

Next meeting is 4.30-5.30pm on Thursday 27 August. Aged 11-25? Please come. All welcome.

Grooveland Records

It’s been a while since we last updated you about ProMo-Cymru’s very own record label, Grooveland Records, so here’s some news about the label’s latest achievements and projects:

JLD supports Lady Sovereign’s Tour

From June 6th to 12th Jenna Louise Dickens (aka JLD) and her band The Binary Kids were touring around the UK as a support act for world-renowned grime artist Lady Sovereign.

JLD has been a ProMo client for more than four years and has already built a good reputation as a live MC. Now, with gigs in places such as London, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, her future looks brighter than ever.

http://www.myspace.com/thebinarykids

Grooveland’s releases top the charts!

Grooveland’s two most recent releases have been getting attention from DJs around the world.

"Crazy", written by Grooveland’s very own production team Audioplayerz and featuring Sarah Brown on vocals, has reached No. 1 on Junodownload, one of the main mp3 stores in the world.

It has also been supported by number of DJs including those from BBC Radio 1, Kiss FM, Hed Kandi, Ministry of Sound and many others.

“Want You Around” by Swedish producer Sande also reached the charts by getting to No. 2 on Junodownload’s progressive house chart.

http://www.groovelandrecords.co.uk

Audioplayerz’ show on Radio Cardiff 98.7 FM

Marcus Simpson and Emil Falek, two-thirds of the DJ and production team Audioplayerz, have recently launched their own weekly show on Radio Cardiff 98.7 FM called “Audioplayerz In The Mix”.

The boys present the best of dance and house music every Thursday from 8-9pm GMT. The show is also streamed live via webcam directly from their Myspace page:

http://www.audioplayerz.co.uk

Creative Workshops

ProMo-Cymru has a team of professionals who are able to deliver music, drumming, video and photography workshops for young people and adults.

Our workshop facilitators include Victor Fredrick from St Kitts in the Caribbean, who is an experienced musician and master drumming tutor and has toured Europe as a musician with a number of bands.

Victor has experience of working in a number of settings and with a variety client groups, abilities and ages. He is CRB checked and covered by ProMo-Cymru's insurance.

Call Marco Gil-Cervantes on 07970 662341 or email marco@promo-cymru.org for further information or bookings.

Event Management and Facilities Services

ProMo-Cymru has supplying staging and sound systems for recent events such as the Riverside Festival, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month, Funky Dragon’s Annual General Meeting and theSprout’s Welsh Language Concert at Plasmawr School. If you require sound and staging services, please contact Marco Gil-Cervantes on 07970 662 341 or email marco@promo-cymru.org