Dear Julian,
Thank you for a very productive meeting last Thursday, below a summary of the things we discussed (sorry it’s taken so long – unbelievably Wednesday again!):
Teenage Reading Groups
The sessions would last 60-90 minutes and be run by students from the college. They could either be run as individual sessions, or two over two months with the possibility of encouraging the young people to work on projects such as storyboarding, puppetry etc over the intervening month. Whilst the workshops would focus on drama activities and games to improve confidence and bond relationships within the group, they would also have an educational flavour with work on books, reading, and literacy in general.
This could also work with the TM group, although as that’s a slightly different demographic, the possibility of a stand up comic was also suggested.
CRB clearance was also discussed, as we were unsure whether the students running the workshop would need this clearance, I am currently investigating.
BBC poetry season & National Poetry Day
Mentioned the possibility of students offering poetry readings during poetry season. Julian suggested a Slam Poet, which would be brilliant for encouraging younger members of the public to engage with the spoken word, but also more traditional forms of poetry, in the form of Poetry Please etc.
Roald Dahl day
As this is 13th September, it falls between the terms so RB may not be able to help us with this.
Black History Month
The story book ’London Jungle’ by Indian author Bhajju Shyam, was recently transformed into a ‘mechanical cabaret’ and the possibility of displaying some of the mechanical sculptures within the library as a focal point for BHM was mentioned.
Other ideas
Janice also stressed that we were happy for events to take place independent of a theme. For example, ‘author talks’ where students read extracts from novels, plays or poetry. (However, readings could also be themed, ie. Christmas = Dickens, Erith Library = nautical theme, elections = political speeches from history).
I’ve spoken to my Teenage Reading Group who are very keen to take part in a drama workshop, and have expressed a particular interest in drama games to expand their confidence in performing and working on script development. However, as some of them can be a little shy, I wonder if the workshops could be tailored to include a mixture of activities to cater for different abilities? I’ve also spoken to my colleague, Gareth Thomas, who is responsible for the Thamesmead Teenage Reading Group. He’s sure that the group would be keen on a workshop as several members already belong to youth drama groups (no dates for their meetings yet, I will get back to you asap).
Although I didn’t mention this at the meeting, we also run a very successful Chatterbooks group in a number of libraries across the borough. These operate in a similar way to the TRG’s, focusing on crafts and activities with an educational background, but at a younger age range – from 7-11 years. My colleague, Ann Donovan, who is responsible for the Chatterbooks groups was very interested to hear the variety of things that you could offer in working with us and asked me to pass on her contact details. [Ed: contact outreach@bruford.ac.uk]
Although I was established as the main outreach contact for you, the Chatterbooks groups are really Ann’s area of expertise so if you’re interested in working with this age group Ann would be the best person to speak to.
As I mentioned on Thursday, the dates for the next Central Library TRG are 28th May and 25th June, 5.30pm-6.30pm. As we will need to issue the publicity for the May date fairly soon, I would be grateful if you could confirm whether May would suit or, as I suspect will be the case, the time schedule is a little tight, in which case we could aim for June.
Hope I’ve cover everything we discussed! Best wishes,
Rachel
