Hurray for Social Networking Sites and Creative Procrastination!

Its been a while since I last blogged - combination of factors, involving busy-ness, lack of something tangible to say and also an awareness that it has been a difficult time for many of my colleagues within Curious Minds and its wider network who have been grieving the loss of Chris May - a significant leader within culture and education across the North West which has left myself and I suspect many others, simply lost for words.

So - why hurray for Social Networking Sites? - well first of all it has been a space for significant support and connection throughout the last few weeks but also it greatly improved the weekend just gone! As a direct result of posts from a variety of people I had the information and enthusiasm to get out of the house in my 'down time' and go to three very inspiring and diverse events:

1 - Friday evening was a launch event for GMMAZ, Brighter Sound's first album, Living To Our Habitat - a really great example of youth music and creativity!
2 - Squeezed into Saturday morning a quick visit to Manchester Art Gallery to catch the end of the exhibition by Anish Kapoor: Flashback before a long but enjoyable day of shopping and dress fittings (planned long before the urgent gallery visit!)


(Sitting on the steps of the gallery with my Dad before it opened for the day!)

3 - Dashed from a full day of selling jams and chutney's for our friends at Reedy's Naturally to the Lake District to experience the awesome Harmonic Fields organised by Lakes Alive!

Its only a very rough cut on a basic mini cam but this explains far better than I can just how awesome Harmonic Fields was - and why it was worth every second of driving behind slow slow drivers on a Sunday evening without much idea of why or what we'd experience!....



Its difficult to discuss my experiences of each of these events because they were simply beyond words but all hugely inspiring. Simply to say that I am now ever more keen to share those experiences - by trying to build connections between such high quality youth work and my local community and my realisation that every school should have a 'harmonic field' and yard of experiential sculpture inspired by Anish Kapoor and other greats! In a time of looming evaluation deadlines it feels all the more important to celebrate our inspiration and reason for starting it all in the first place!


PS. Thanks to Phil for the photos!