Alrewas Arts Fest Round Up: 101 Oddfellows

So here we are, over a week on from the Alrewas Arts Fest. When you walked around the village in the couple of days that proceeeded it, you felt this sense of shell-shock, almost eery peace and tranquility throughout the village. The positivity that was left by it, the sense of unity and community spirit was incredibly noticeable.

So right from the build up to the festival there was a great energy that embraced village. This was even evident on the internet with various emails and excited tweets from Paula and the team. The festival was set to be the best and most exciting yet, embracing more of the village than ever before.

One thing I did learn from the festival was about it's origins. This being the 4th Festival, held every 2 years (I am told for the reason that it is unbelievably hard work to put together bi-annually, let alone annually, which I can very much believe and sympathise with) it was spawned out of an arts committee idea in 2006 and has grown and grown every year to become what it is now.

I have fond memories of the event on past occasions. I remember doing a film workshop with Pete Ralley with my Grandad, whereby we drove around in his Ford Mondeo (coincidently held together with masking tape at the time) filming the village, before returning back to the village hall to add effects like blowing people up and creating fireworks in the church. I can also remember past Party In The Parks, where we took our camping chairs, ate burgers and enjoyed some of the fantastic music produced by the wonderful local musicians that really are an asset to the village.

However I feel this festival has been the most involving for me, not least because it has been the most recent, but because I feel like I have played more of a role in  the activities, workshops and projects which have gone on. I suppose this all started back in March some time when I bumped into Paula outside the shops. I was asked if I would like to take some pictures of some oddfellows, and in my usual way, agreed without really knowing what I was letting myself in for. It turns out, after attending are really interesting training day with Paula, Jim and a lady called Alison who is a photographer for Kerrang, where we ate lots of chips, drank lots of tea and most importantly learned how to take a decent portrait photograph, that we would be attempting to photograph 101 people of different ages from the village of Alrewas.

Well to say 101 is an understatement. In the end we took 214 different people's photographs, each sent on their way with a very fetching badge stating "I Gave My Face To 101 Oddfellows" on it, as well as the promise of their face being projected big style onto the side of the church. I have to say at this point, while we had completely exhausted ourselves over the 2 days we took the photos, we still didn't really know exactly what would be happening to them.

No more than 2 months later, cycling back from my paper round one day, there was the front of the village hall (named Oddfellows Hall, just so you can make that link) covered from top to bottom with the faces of the village. I have to say it did give a little bit of a fright, not least because it was still only 7 in the morning and my eyes were still a little blurry. 

So that was it until the Saturday of the festival, when the protective tarporline was ripped off, and the project was revealed to the whole of the village which seemed to have gathered itself outside of the hall, blocking the road, footpaths, and anything else which tried to spoil the fun of that opening day of the festival. Jim, however, in his usual way, didn't think this was quite enough. And also, Jim, being Jim, decided he wanted to get out his prized Macbook and iPad and show off his fancy tech. So on the Tuesday night, it was to the church, where we were treated to a fantastic display of lights, eerie music from Maya Whatton, and Jim's fancy projection mapping thingy-ma-bob which I still don't fully understand! I have to say it was absolutely brilliant!

Getting involved with this project was great fun. It gave us an opportunity to learn new skills (when I say us, I should probably mention Katie Greensmith at this point who probably has more to claim than I do for the actually photos themselves) and put them into practice to be part of an incredibly awe-inspiring project which we have a lot to thank Paula, Jim and everybody else who helped with that. 

Thanks for reading!

To find out what else happened in this years festival, please read on to the next few posts!

Follow me on twitter: @peachy146!

Alrewas Radio: Official Timetable

I am proud to present to you, the official timetable for Alrewas Radio, supporting Alrewas Radio 2012! I do also have to make the disclaimer that although we will endeavour to maintain this at all times, it is subject to change!

Firstly, The morning show, where we will be explaining all the day's events and looking back at the previous, then generally warming up for another fantastic arty day.

The second show of the day is with me, Tom, which will involve a lot of lovely music to keep you going until lunch, as well as some chatting and hopefully some special guests, but I better not get you too excited! I will also try to cover all the workshops going on in that morning session as well as keeping it entertaining for the rest of the village.

Interconnecting the afternoon's proceedings are various pre recording sessions involving artists and bands from the local area, including long standing band The Hoovers, who have a very special anniversary this year. more to come about that.

To look out for is the Decades show, which will take you on a musical journey from the 60's right through to the teenies, playing some of the highs (and possibly lows) of those decades. Co presented by Rob Spall, this looks to be a great show.

Also to look out for is the alternative show, for all those who are a fan of alternative music, there will be all sorts to listen to on their, with the 2 incredibly funny and talented Tom and Alex presenting that for you.

Finally make sure you catch the special Last Night Do. I can#t reveal to you what that is yet, but I can assure you it will be fantastic.

Also you can keep up to date with us on twitter @AlrewasRadio and with the hashtag #AlrewasRadio, which I am not entirely sure how that works, but I am assured by people who spend a lot of time on twitter that you can get the important info from there. also for further information please go to the Alrewas Arts Festival website. Have a fantastic festival week and I hope you can also enjoy the beautiful sounds of our voices throughout.

Here is the link for the radio internet stream: http://radio.canstream.co.uk:8032/live.mp3.m3u

I can assure you this link works as I have spent about 2 hours today trying to get it to!

A big thanks to Jim Ralley for making this happen, and James "Womble" Richardson for managing to organise this!

Project OddFellows Photography

For the Arts Festival within the village, we have being taking part in a project which has been on-going to celebrate the 101st birthday of the village hall. (Don't ask, the hall is called Oddfellows Hall. I think this explains enough)

To commemorate this "spectacular occasion" we have received funding to be able to take a photograph of a person from the village for every year of the 101 years that the village hall has been around for, so we are really pleased to now officially call this project open!

It was a load of hard work for all the people involved, including the marathon of photographing 214 people in 1 weekend, between me and fellow photographer Katie Greensmith, which was a feat in itself. Also a massive thanks to Jim and Paula, as well as Joe and Peter for their support during the whole project and also the contribution to actually sticking up the pictures.

Now neither me or Katie are what one could call professional photographers, but we have really improved or love for the art and also our skill level throughout the project with the inclusion of the workshop which we took part in to learn and deveop the skills which would prime us for the crunch time of actually taking the photos!

Last but not least on this project I would also like to mention the funding which facititated the purchase of the best camera money can buy, the Canon EOS 5D Mark III (OK well maybe not THE best, but certainly up there) which is now in the possession of the village. We are looking to start up some photography clubs and workshops to pass on our skills and passion for this hobby within the near future and are very much welcoming people from the local community, not just the village to get involved. If you would like to find out any more info about this, or would really like to get stuck in with some photography yourself but just don't quite have the knowledge or the skills to do so, then please follow us on twitter for further info.

Our twitter is @OddFellowsPhoto so as I say please follow us to find out loads more about events, workshops, clubs and exhibitons which we will be putting on.

Thanks for reading!