Everyone appears to be gearing up or winding down for the festive season so it’s been an opportunity to reflect over a great year. My blog next week will be the reflective one so I thought I’d use this week’s blog to give a heads up on some early 2011 news.
Firstly some great news from our partners at Panj Pani Radio, the internet radio station operating from top-notch studios at the Towers Hospital. They have secured a 28 day FM Radio Licence (RSL) and will be broadcasting on 95.1 FM across Leicester from 5th January to 1st February 2011. The young reporters will be having a show on Monday’s and Andy Cooke returns to the air waves with an Environment Show every Wednesday.
You will be able to listen LIVE to my ‘Reportage News Show’ every Thursday between 2.00-4.00pm on both 95.1 FM and the internet starting Thursday 6th. The show dates are Thursday’s on 6th, 13th, 20th & 27th January. The full listing will be available in the next week or so and I’ve installed a media player at the foot of the Citizens’ Eye home page.
The plan is then to continue the weekly show on the internet with the launch of a new radio station here at Phoenix Square. It’s being developed by the new Reportage Club I’ve set up (see below) and the working name so far is “Radio SQair”.
Next is exciting news of a project I’ve been planning or should I say dreaming about since I first helped Nick Hamer of Intrepid Media bring the Leicester Documentary Club to life back in 2008.
On Saturday January 22nd 2011 the Phoenix Square Film and Digital Media Centre will host the inaugural Leicester Documentary Film Festival called DocFilm Festival.
The Festival, which has been organized by the Reportage Club in partnership with the Citizens’ Eye Community News Agency, will run from 12pm until 11.30pm and feature live music from 9pm.
Screen 2 at the Phoenix will be showing documentaries provided by a selection of their news agency partners including Bike Film Festival, British Silent Film Festival, Leicester Comedy Festival, MACE, LLGB Centre and Leicester Documentary Club.
The Screen Room will also be available to local documentary film-makers wishing to showcase their work and the Screen Lounge will be hosting a special marketplace.
If you wish to submit a documentary for viewing in the Screen Room please contact me on editor@citizenseye.org.
Tickets for the first ever Leicester DocFilm Festival are available from the Phoenix Square Box Office on 0116 242 2800.
A day ticket for the event costs £10 (£5 young people/concessions) with individual film prices of £2 (£1 young people/concessions).
Entrance to the Screen Room is free throughout the day and as films are coming in I may well add an extra room to show them.
I’m working with my media partners in the ‘media2012’ project to screen a documentary called ‘With Glowing Hearts’ that was made during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. It’s the inspiring story of how the disadvantaged community in one part of Vancouver took the opportunity to use the games as a catalyst to get things sorted. An inspiration to my own plans for the nine month Community Media Centre here at the Phoenix.
Please put the date in your diary. It will be an exciting event so hope to see you there.
Next is news of my new Reportage Club that will organize meetings/events & workshops/training for Community Reporters involved in the Citizens’ Eye Community News Agency & its associated news agencies. The following news agencies will be hosting these sessions:
• HAT News – reports on Refugee & Asylum issues
• INO Mag – Inside ‘n’ Out mag reports on CJS issues
• Dzine – reports on Disability issues
• Wave – Young Peoples newspaper
• Senior Eye – Older Persons issues
• Down Not Out – Homelessness issues
• EWALIN – African Development issues
• Green Issues – the environment
• HowRU? – health & well-being
• CAPs – Community Action Photographers
• DNA – Dad’s News Agency
• LGBT News Agency
• Women’s News Agency
• Bands n Beatz News Agency
Various venues across the city will host the sessions so look out for the timetable in early 2011.
I was very excited to hear about the latest media offering by Soar Media with its innovative partnership with South Leicestershire College. The partnership will involve taking over the Soar Community section of the printed magazine and I wish them well as they forge ahead with this very excitement new development. I’m very happy to have had the opportunity to develop that section and feel confident that it will continue to evolve.
I hope the Reportage Club will have a quarterly double page spread in Soar Magazine from April 2011 and use it to keep the growing ranks of our 2,012 Community Reporters by 2012 project informed of new training opportunities and events.
Pease get a copy of the Leicester Mercury on Wednesday 29th December as the Wave young peoples newspaper will carry details of their recent awards evening. They are an inspiration to me everyday and keep my feet on the ground.
Finally I met with the City Council officer who is coordinating their 2012 plans so hope we can get a bit of joined up thinking going on. I’ll keep you informed. I’ve also spoken to Blueprint about using the wasteland adjacent Phoenix Square for a six week Olympic Village. They said….”umm…that’s interesting!”
So how long to go….
Olympics is 588 days to go
Paralympics is 621 days to go
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