1st Monthly Meeting Summary

I think that the first monthly meeting was a great success. It was structured really well starting out with Amy’s intro, Miranda’s “spiel” and going round and finding out the good points and bad points so far. I think this was good as the whole group could input information about a certain person’s query. Then we all moved to the workshop area and sat with the young people on The Cultural Takeover. Amy gave another small introduction to what we would be doing and how it’d work to bring out our creative sides but could also show inspirations, aspirations and self-reflection. I think this worked really well because if you’d have said “Here’s a mask, here are some materials, make this.” it would have come across as being quite boring and not very productive but leaving the Champs and young people to design and create was a lot of fun. I also spoke to some of the young people on The Cultural Takeover placements at SoCo who were putting musical designs onto their masks. This included musical notes, the Metallica “Star” logo, Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison’s kabuki style mask markings, drums and other more colourful and artistic designs. They were really enjoying their placements and being able to jam together on drums, guitar, bass and keyboards to create some great ideas for songs or to just generally have fun.

I have also gathered some feedback from The Champions with their thoughts on how the meeting and workshop went.

“I thought the first meeting went well. All of the Young People were engaging, and seemed to be having fun. As for The Champions, I had a good time. It was nice to see everyone again and also nice to meet some of the young people. The packs you set up for us seem to be helpful and will help us organise things a little better I'm sure.” – Rosie Campbell

“I thought the mask painting was awesome, it was a nice way to interact in a relaxed environment with the young people on The Cultural Takeover programme. It was good to listen to everyone else's experiences and thoughts, bringing them all together” – Clare Nolan

“The monthly meeting was extremely helpful for a number of reasons. I found giving feedback to other Champions and hearing their experiences very helpful and having a question and answer session gave me more ideas on how to approach certain situations. The packs were very useful and informative. The funnest part was the mask making. It not only introduced us to young people but gave us a chance to interact with them creatively. A great exercise and I look forward to the next one!”  - Louise Ward

Here are a few pictures from the creative workshop showing The Champions and a few of the Cultural Takeover young people who were on their placements at SoCo Music Project.