20th June, Day 3, a year older, and Now

On Friday when I arrived I already had a couple of things to start with, Metapod and Creative Republic, so began with those. As Kevin was off today I was able to plug my laptop into his desk and be in the main office, Sarah and Gemma were off in the Commissioner office so it could have been a little lonely.

On Thursday evening Helga arranged a meeting between Jemima and I so we could go over what I had planned so far for the Stoke offensive, and how she wanted to progress.

At 1p.m I made my way in a taxi to the Hi8us offices in Digbeth, this was to save me from getting lost. Jemima is the Deputy Director of Hi8us Midlands and has worked at Hi8us for 7 years, and has worked on lots of other interesting projects.

We began to over what I had done so far and I asked how she would like to proceed. We came to the conclusion that pairing with an existing event or events could work well to raise the profile of Creative Republic and promote our values and charter to the sector that way.

I got back, amended my plan and set to work on contacting some of my friends in the sector to arrange meetings, researched existing networks, scheduled events and online activity to begin to
compile an action plan.

I already knew of Creative Stoke, a website that acts as a directory for creatives in Stoke-on-Trent and I sent over an enquiry to them. I emailed Danny Callaghan, supporter and participant of the Stoke-on-Trent Metapod through Culturegen along with a number of others.

It is now just a case of research, putting my ear to the ground and getting out and about in the area – I would be extremely grateful if anyone who reads this knows of any in the area could let me know…

Another part of my day was to help with a mail out for Fierce Earth.

Fierce Earth are now available for event management, since Simon joined the company he merged his company Blue Satsuma with Fierce Earth, this brings together the skills and expertise of both to create the ultimate in event management.

It hadn’t gone un-noticed by my new friends at Fierce that it was my birthday and they had very nicely put together a card and present. We ended the day with champagne; they assured me they don’t do it every week!

Since the 20th…

Helga and Jemima forwarded an email from Melodie @ Soul Monkey about stokesounds.com launch event on the 2nd August at Burslem Park – I have spoke to Melodie and will be going to find out more next week.

I arranged a meeting with Danny Callaghan to find out what he is up to and how he can help me.
I spoke with a couple of my contacts regarding meet ups.

AirSpace Gallery will be having a preview event on 1st July which I will be going along to for Iris (see exhibitions). The image shown is the work of Choë Butler:

And I contacted the membership officer at North Staffs Chamber to find out about membership and networking events.