Small & Managed Projects 2008

Arts Connection manage and administrate a number of projects each year for other organisations. We also work in partnership with public and private organisations on a range of activities, including:

Ffilmic Film Festival

The first ever Ffilmic Film Festival took place at Theatr Llywn Llanfyllin in October 2007. It was conceived as a celebration of moving image culture and on offer were a range of feature films, shorts, workshops and talks from visiting film industry professionals. Children and young people took part in stop-frame and model animation workshops. In the week leading up to the festival Llanfyllin Primary and Llanfyllin High School took part in film literacy and digital story telling workshops.

One of the highlights of the weekend was the screening of the Take 1 Five Day Film Challenge entries. Entrants had just 5 days to make a 5 minute film. A packed Theatr Llwyn showed huge appreciation for the efforts of all entrants and Anthony Rosser, general manager of Lake Vyrnwy Hotel, who sponsored the competition presented the awards and said he was amazed by the high standard of the films.

Ffilmic was funded by the Film Agency for Wales with support from Lake Vyrnwy Hotel, Cain Valley Hotel, Valleys Film Society and Spar Llanfyllin. For more information visit: www.ffilmic.co.uk

First Light Movies

First Light Movies funding allowed us to work with 13 young people from Llanfyllin and the surrounding area to produce an 8 minute film.

The project ran from April - June 2008 with the group meeting every week to work with film mentor Ruth Carter. They learnt all about the film making process, from idea to final product. Starting with local myths and legends, they created their own story based at the Workhouse in Llanfyllin in the 1800’s. They created a script, found props and costumes, sourced locations, had a sound location recording workshop with Jacqui Bellamy, a drama workshop with Sharon Calder, and a camera workshop with Ruth Carter. The young people worked as any professional film crew would taking on roles either as cast or crew, giving them the opportunity to be completely immersed in the production of the film. They spent 4 days filming on location in and around Llanfyllin. Greg Hall, a writer/ director, ran a directing workshop and supported them in setting up their locations for filming.

The finished film titled ‘Spirit of the Hollow Tree’ premiered at Theatr Llwyn to a large and appreciative audience of parents, friends, teachers and representatives from local organisations.

Environment Agency Wales Salmon Project

At the beginning of 2008 we agreed to look after a tank full of salmon eggs for the Environment Agency Wales Afon Cain initiative to raise awareness of diffuse river pollution. As well as enabling the community to watch the eggs hatch and the fish develop, we organised an arts project in partnership with the Environment Agency Wales.

Ingrid Maugham visited Llanfechain school where the children learnt about the life cycle of salmon and decorated their own wooden cut out salmon showing amazing attention to detail and creating some fantastic artistic outcomes. The finished salmon were displayed outside the Youth & Community Centre before being proudly paraded through Llanfyllin by the 40 children involved. At the Agricultural Show Ground in Llanfyllin each child got the opportunity to release the salmon from the tank into the river. The project received much publicity across Wales.

Watch Salmon onlnine here.

Family Arts Days

Families had great fun in February half term 2008 taking part in a stencil printing workshop with Ingrid Maugham where they designed their own images and created some fantastic pictures. On offer also was a dance and drama workshop with Sally Russell and Sharon Calder. They had lots of fun making masks and costumes to act out the story of Vortigern and the Dragon.

Caryl Parry Jones

We were delighted to work in partnership with Cymdeithas Cymraeg and Merched y Wawr to bring Caryl Parry Jones the 2007 Bardd Plant Cymru – the Welsh language Children's Poet Laureate, to Llanfyllin. Caryl packed a lot into one day visiting Llanfyllin Primary School where the children laughed and enjoyed the small rhymes she made with their names. In the afternoon she visited Llanfyllin High School where she worked with students to create limericks and then in the evening she attended Merched y Wawr’s 40th anniversary celebration with a ruby red theme.

Storytelling with Mair Tomos Ifans

Thanks to the money raised from selling the Jac-y-Do Welsh Nursery rhymes CD’s made with nine primary schools in North Powys we were able to fund Mair to visit the nine schools to do storytelling workshops. Mair delivered traditional tales through the medium of Welsh and English. After listening to tales such as The Golden Harp, Melangell and Owain Glyndwr, the children participated in drama workshops based on the tale, depicting the story through various character based work and movement. This was then shared with other pupils at the school. The children also sung songs with Mair accompanying them on the harp.

Mair also visited Oldford School to do musical storytelling workshops funded by Communities First Music Trust fund.

Managed Projects

Powys Youth Service

This year we have managed a wide range of projects across the six North Powys Youth Centres, Machynlleth, Llanfair, Llanfyllin, Newtown, Llanidloes and Welshpool. We have organised workshops in graffiti, belly dancing, street dance, shadow puppets, African drumming, creating a skate park DVD.

We also supported the Youth Service Festival in November 2007. 150 young people attended the day and we provided graffiti workshops with Tony Wainwright and Tish Evans. The young people worked together to produce a variety of themed graffiti boards. Also on offer was an introduction to silk painting with Sally Duckers. Participants learnt how to transpose their idea onto silk, a very fine and specialist textile to work with. The end results were beautiful and many of the participants were proud of what they had achieved.

Communities First

We provided arts workshops for the Oldford Community Day and Oldford Fun Day. Participants enjoyed mosaic, junk musical instrument making, circus skills, story telling, jewellery making and metalwork.

Photography Competition

Arts Connection supported the Civic Society and the Environment Agency Wales in their photography competition which saw many entries from people living in the Cain Valley. The Environment Agency are hoping to publish these photos in a calendar for the new year.

Youth Census

213 pupils from Llanfyllin High School took part in a Youth Census in June 2008. They were asked a series of multiple choice questions covering a variety of topics. Responses were given through electronic voting pads in order that the census would be anonymous, interactive and fun.

The project was led by Tom Cavalot as part of his MA Youth & Community work, it was funded by the Rural Community Action and supported by NEWI, Dux from Powys Youth Service and Arts Connection. The full report can be downloaded here.