Castle Vale Community Awards – a big success all round

A starry night at the Castle Vale Community Awards 2013

We wanted to bring something a liitle different to the Castle Vale Community Awards in 2013 and create something that would not only be a special occasion but that sparkled with awards ceremony all over.  And we think that is what we achieved from the feedback given and as you’ll be able to see from the photos.

It took just over a day for Vortex Creates to transform the Residents Club into our brilliant backdrop with some of the magic starting in the corridor leading you into the room with lights and materials drapped everywhere you looked.  We had lots of ‘wow’, ‘ooh’ and ‘I don’t remember the Residents Club looking like this before’.

Owen Webb and James Keefe, Welsh National Opera

We started the evening off with brilliant performances from baritone Owen Webb accompanied by James Keefe who have been part of a team working with The Ridings Care Home as part of a new opera project by Welsh National Opera.  As well as performing the beutiful classic One Enchanted Evening they also performed one of the pieces from the new opera ‘I Had an Angel’ (look out for a future blog post on the full premiere).

Our master of ceremony Chris Thomas then took us through all the awards presented with help from our funders and supporters.  A short film on each of the three nominees in each category gave us an inside look into the reasons why they were up for the award made by local company Trash.  Seeing some of the achievements of our nominees on film and hearing lots of people speak about them passionatly raised goose bumps and set some tears going.

And the winners were….

In the categories voted by the public from a shortlist were:

Arts and Creativity Award – The Ridings Care Home

Valued Contribution Award – Wendy Walsh

Young Person Award – Jonathan Nelson

Sport and Fitness Award – Castle Vale Pool User Group 

Awarded in 2 special categories were:

Councillors Award - Tracey Teal

TRA Special Award – Sheila Arthurs

And for the open award nominated and decided for by the public, the Unsung Hero – Tracey Barrington

For full details of those nominated in the public votes category including a list of all those nominated in the Unsung Hero award please see the Community Awards page.

Justin Averill

We finished the formal part of the evening with some more fantastic music this time from the first Castle Vale’s Got Talent winner Justin Averill who gave us a brilliant perofrmance including some of his own composed music.

The celebration didn’t stop there – everyone continued with food, drink and more photos.  There was a great buzz in the air everyone chatted and enjoyed the evening and it was with sadness that we had to then pack away at the end of the night.

How to describe the evening – pride in Castle Vale, a genuine celebration of all the hard work and achievements of those in the room, everyone made to feel valued at a special occasion for them.

A big thank you to those who helped make the night a huge success.

For those who presented the awards

Owen Webb

Lynda Clinton, Mike Sharpe and Mick Brown

Caius Collins

Sheila Hyland

Ruth Miller

Ray Goodwin and Sam Lowe

Lydia Miller

Our funders and sponsors:

Castle Vale Endowment Trust Fund

Birmingham City Council’s Community Chest Fund

CVCHA

The Youth Council

Castle Vale Tennants and Residents Alliance

Tyburn Ward Councillors

Greenwood Academy

and Active Arts Castle Vale

Those who gave in kind support for the night

Sainsbury’s Castle Vale - thank you for the flowers and the support from Sheila Hyland

MITIE - thank you for the great support on the night for the security especially to Stephen Barthorpe and to Saj and Habib

Castle Vale Community Awards 2013

If you’d like to see the full set of photos visit our Facebook page.  You’re free to dowload the images for personal use and if you’d like them emailed to you just get in touch with us.  We can also arrange for them to be printed or put on disc at a small price to cover the costs.

Get in touch if you’d liek to be involved in planning next year.  And remember to start thinking of those who should be recognised in next years awards.

Voting Begins…

Castle Vale Community Awards
26^th April 2013
Castle Vale Residents Club

For those of you have seen the Tyburn Mail hopefully you’ll have noticed the page dedicated to the Castle Vale Community Awards. It’s here at last and it’s your time to vote.

This year there are four categories with names shortlisted for you to give a vote to one of them and then an open fifth category for anyone that you think should be recognised.  You don’t have to vote for someone in each category but then again why don’t you have a read and a think as maybe there is someone for each category you think should be recognised.

Young Person Award – all these young people have made a difference. Who would you like to see win the award?

Aaron Moroney aged 14 is a member of the Youth Council and part of the Air Cadets in his own time. He has been shortlisted to recognise the way he has supported other young people to take part in physical activity including mentoring a young person to develop their confidence and self-esteem and helping to lead a free-running club at school.

Jonathan Nelson aged 21 is a volunteer mentor for CVCRS Youth Service. He supports youth sessions and has particularly mentored one young person successfully, attending visits at their school and supporting them to have a successful transition into mainstream education.

Youth Council – the members all give up their time to ensure that young people in Castle Vale have a voice. They assist in organising summer playscheme activities, securing funding for activities and trips.  They also attend various meetings on the estate to put forward their point of view and make sure the views of young people are heard  and taken into account for a range of services.

Arts & Creativity Award – these nominees have championed the arts and helped others to participate, which one gets your vote?

Laura Hicklin is a young person, wiser than her years, who gets involved in a range of activities on the estate, finding creative ways to help her community.  Over the summer she gave her time to support AACV with the Community Games as well as supporting a number of other groups on the estate throughout the year.

Julie Edwards has played a creative part in Castle Vale for the best part of 30 years. Through the leisure centre she organised artistic trampoline and gymnastic displays, voluntarily led the Goldstar cheerleaders (over 100 members) and supported the artSites programme – rarely missing an event. Most recently Julie has supported young people at Greenwood Academy as an assistant in the performing arts team – regularly going above and beyond, giving her own time to help pupils develop their talents.

The Ridings Care Home have been nominated for their involvement in the Horizons project that has seen artists from Welsh National Opera work with residents and staff to create a high quality new opera.  The staff have ensured that residents with a range of dementia care needs could participate and some staff have been joining in themselves, attending singing and performance rehearsals all on top of their working day to help record the music and make a film that features the words and stories of people at the home.

Sports & Fitness Award – without their active role, Castle Vale wouldn’t be able to stay as active. Show your appreciation by selecting one.

Castle Vale Pool User Group (Cllr Lynda Clinton, Judy Tullett, Amanda Cutler, Ian Bingham, Laura Hicklin) have fought hard to keep the pool open, have secured funding for improvements at the pool and helped to organise weekly swimming sessions for people who cannot swim or have disabilities. They have put in a lot of time voluntarily over the past few years and always looked to find ways to keep the pool for the local community and in full use.

Garry Kilday & John Newton have been jointly nominated as both of these men have together worked at the Vale Stadium in a voluntary capacity for a number of years. They opened/closed the building for teams, cleaned the building as well as ran the social club upstairs.

Pat Tanner has been shortlisted to recognise her long standing commitment to running Extend Classes to people aged 60 years and above on a weekly basis. Pat also ensures she attends any event to showcase Extend to profile the group.

Valued contribution – these residents have given their time on boards and championing causes.  Which one do you want to champion for?

John Miles is committed to improving the education of young people on the estate striving to create the best learning experiences in local schools. He sits on a number of groups and boards on the estate to help make a difference.

Sue Spicer is a member of a variety of boards on the estate and gives up a large amount of her time each week. She has been involved as a volunteer throughout the regeneration of Castle Vale, fighting to make sure it is a good place to live.

Wendy Walsh has been involved in Castle Vale for approximately 20 years, she has been part of many boards over the years including NPB. More recently she has taken over the running of the PHAB group, which run weekly sessions for young people with and without disabilities. She has spent a lot of time supporting the volunteers involved in PHAB to ensure they have a good experience and gain valuable skills.

The Unsung Hero Award

You’ve had a look at the shortlist above, maybe there’s someone or an organisation not here that you want to make sure is recognised, someone who hasn’t received an award in the past.  We’d like to receive your nomination to select the Unsung Hero.

Tell us:

Their Name

How to contact them

Why you think they should receive an award

How?

Pick up a Tyburn Mail, one of our voting forms or vote online  here

1)    Tick one box in each section you want to vote in for who you think should win

2)    For the fifth award make a nomination if you have someone to suggest

3)    Give us your details

4)    Then take your written entry and post it in one of the boxes at the reception of either The Sanctuary, Spitfire House or Greenwood Academy or if voting on line select the submit button.

To make sure your votes are counted you will need to tell us:

Your Name

Address

Phone Number

Without this information we can not include your votes.  As a thank you, you will be entered into a prize draw to win a pair of tickets to the event. Only those who live, attend school or work in Castle Vale can submit votes.

Please do leave comments here if you wish but make sure you use the link above for any voting you want to give online.

Voting closes on Thursday 28th March 2013.

Saying Thank You – Castle Vale Community Awards 2013

Sorry for the long gap since our last post – it’s been a busy year and although we’ve been quiet on telling you what we’ve been up to it’s been very busy behind the scenes.

Our latest news is that we are soon to announce details of the Castle Vale Community Awards 2013 which AACV is now taking the lead on.  We’ve been tweaking the nomination process to make sure that we can get more people involved in the voting this year as well as getting very excited about the evening itself, building on previous years success with a bit of the AACV touch.

Before Christmas we began our campaign of saying thank you – public on the website or privately to those you see every day.  We have recently then asked companies and organisation on Castle Vale to make nominations in some of the categories of the awards to help create a shortlist for residents to vote for.

Details of the shortlist and of the open voting category will be announced very shortly on the website and through the Tyburn Mail.

So keep a look out for more details (as well as plans for the rest of 2013 from AACV).

 

A bit of Castle Vale on the London 2012 website

There’s a picture of Saturday’s fun day up on the London 2012 website under the name of Local Leader Claire (that’s me) with mention of Garry Jones our fantastic artist of the parade trolley floats.

You can see the picture and short bit of text here
http://www.london2012.com/photos/galleryid=1257939/#local-leader-claire

I sent them loads of photos and information and pleased that we’ve got a small feature even though we didn’t quite get an AACV or Castle Vale mention – but we know who we are!

Post Games blues?

After blogging every day for a week I’m wandering if I’ll get post Community Games blues!

So for those who’d like a little be more from the events that we ran I thought I’d share some photos that haven’t gone up as yet and are are a fabulous way to show the week in a snapshot.

Remember to share with us your memories and thoughts of the week as well.  Did you see something that you were pleasantly surprised about? Did you try something and enjoyed it and want more? Or was there something missing you’d like to see put on?  Let us know via this blog or by contacting us by email.

It’s been great to see how much interest the website has had – remember you can sign up on the right hand side so that you can get an email with every new blog post so that you don’t even have to think about checking in randomly.

Super Saturday

Our final day of the Castle Vale Community Games was a great one despite the changeable weather.  Known as Super Saturday in the Olympics calendar, we certainly made sure that our Saturday was a super one to finish off the week.

Throughout the day people of all ages joined in with the drumming workshops by Glamba Samba and the flag making workshops with Benny Semp. We also made our final float of the week.

We were joined by a fantastic band in the afternoon, curtosy of THSH (Town Hall Symphony Hall) who played some fantastic New Orleans style jazz out in the sun for their first performance and then in the marquee when the rain came pouring down.

There were lots of other activities in the park as well – a climbing wall, archery, boxing, a rodeo bull, a mini-olympics area, table-tennis and some wii-sports action.

Considering the weather forecasts we did very well and the people of Castle Vale weren’t put off when the rain came, running for shelter in the park on the first light shower and the second deluge that came down later.  There was a moment where we thought perhaps the parade couldn’t happen and a back up plan started to form.  But at 3.45pm just at the time we had been planning to parade, the sun and blue skies reappeared.  We quickly formed our parade line and made our way around and through the park with at least 70 people joining in.  The floats, the flags, the jazz band, the drummers and lots of enthusiastic people made the most of the closing parade, with an occasional back drop of thunder.

The day had come to an end and just as we started to pack away the rain came down again but saved its massive down pour for when we were done and in our cars.

Thank you to everyone who has been involved over the week, joined in with the activities or supported what seemed to be very mad ideas, but as we all found out, made a brilliant contribution to our own games week and experience of the Olympics.  It has been great joining up AACV and CVEC (Castle Vale Events Committee) to run the weeks arts activities, particularly thanks to Jan who got really stuck in.  Also thank you to Richard Mytton for coordinating the whole week and CVCHA for making it happen.

We hope that the other activities went well on the estate including the Water Festival who were getting wet in the Swimming Baths rather than the park!

Everyone has asked what is coming next.  There are some exciting plans to announce over the next few weeks but as a teaser lets just say that we’ll be building on all the enthusiasm and interest.

Here’s a few more photos from the day for you to see how much fun we had.

Day 5 – the final day and FUN DAY!

Not that the other days haven’t been fun but here is the day of the Fun Day in Centre Park.  AACV will be in one of the large marquees running lots of activities just because you’d like to have a quiet moment making something, or perhaps a lively louder moment listening to or playing music and of course this is your last chance to make a trolley float ready for the procession at the end of the day.

Yesterday saw people at St Cuthbert’s Church take part in a range of performing arts activities and at The Sanctuary they added a Giraffe to our float collection.

So today it’s 11am-4pm for a range of activities that you can participate in at Centre Park from Active Arts to archery to climbing walls and lots more.  There’s also the Water Festival this afternoon and the running and walking this morning. For further details visit the Castle Vale Games website.

Slight change to the procession – join us from 3pm in the marquee if you’d like to process with us which will then move into position at 3.30pm for a 3.45pm start.

Let’s hope we’ll be blessed with some rain free clouds and even a bit of sunshine.

Day 4 – Get Active

Yesterday’s Craft and Visual Arts day went very well.  Thank you to all those who came to St Cuthbert’s and found some new skills in knitting, crocheting and flower arranging.  Helen, Sheila, Ann and Pam had lots of people, young and older throughout the afternoon.  We decided to leave the work created on display in the church so if you want to pop in you can do.  It will be moved later today so for those who wanted to keep what you made you can go down later this afternoon.

On Day 3 we also had the opening of our exhibition at The Sanctuary and over the course of the day over 130 people came in to see the range of art work and photos on display.  It was lovely to chat to families of those at the Ridings who came to see the photos of the Horizons project and to those who’d been part of making the exhibition happen.

The Photo Club worked hard on the Wednesday evening to put together some of their photos which they’d been taking over just the last 2 weeks including some image sof the Opening Ceremony and I think they were pleased with the results. At the end of the day AACV put on some refreshments as a thank you to those who have been key in supporting AACV’s work over the last year and particularly this last week, we had a lovely time enjoying the window of sun that came for our BBQ.  Let’s hope our good fortune with the weather holds out for Saturday.

Today is Day 4 and it’s about people getting active. At St Cuthbert’s we have drama workshops with Sandra Hall, dance workshops and a Samba drumming workshop. You can drop in but ideally you need to come in for the whole of the session time as listed here

Drama: 12.30-2pm or 2.30-4pm

Dance: 12.30-2pm or 2.30-4pm

Samba Drumming: 4pm-5.30pm (we hope you’ll come and play the drums with our parade on Saturday)

Over at The Sanctuary you’ve got another day to see the exhibition and we have families coming in for a trolley workshop with Garry Jones – can’t wait to see what this group decide to make to add to our parade.

Tomorrow is our final day and we’ll be at Centre Park for the Fun Day 11am-4pm.  We’ll be in the Active Arts marquee with more samba drumming workshops, a visual arts workshop, a brass band and your final chance to make a trolley float for the parade.

For those who are joining us for the closing ceremony, there is a Water Festival parade leaving the Swimming Baths at 3.30pm joining the big parade in Centre Park for 3.45pm to close the weeks events.

If you’ve been taking photos over the course of the week or have been joining in and would like to say what you thought, please feel free to post photos and thoughts here or get in touch with us.

Day 3: craft and exhibition

Day 2 went very well with 2 new floats created by residents of The Ridings and from those who dropped into The Sanctuary yesterday afternoon.  There’s a very attractive bird, fish and boat that’s now been added to our Olympic rings.

Photo by Viv Jones

We also had a small team beavering away to put up all the entries for the art and photography exhibition that has opened today in the community space at The Sanctuary.  Come and check it out as you can see some beautiful photos by Viv Jones of the Welsh National Opera ‘Horizons’ project at The Ridings that took place earlier in the year as well as photos from our new Photo Club and art work from local residents including children from the primary schools.  The exhibition also features many of the 800 strong coral reef pieces made by local residents through our Rainbow Reef project – you must see how that is growing by the day. There’s been some great feedback already this morning and the AACV team are down there from 4.30pm if anyone wants to say hello to us.

Also for day 3 today we have two craft workshops taking place in St Cuthbert’s Church for all ages from 12.30-4pm.  You can learn some knitting and crochet techniques whether you’re new to it or want to add to your skills.  Sheila Arthurs will be on hand alongside AACV volunteer Pam Mooney to help you. If you like you can contribute to our ever growing Rainbow Reef (there’s also a mini reef on display to give you some ideas).

Helen Webley is leading a second workshop for those who’d like to learn some flower arranging skills.  Inspired by the reef she has a range of flowers for you to create your own sea themed display that will be added to the exhibition at The Sanctuary at the end of the day.

Tomorrow (Friday 3rd Aug) we’ll be back at St Cuthbert’s for drama, music and dance workshops from 12pm-5.30pm.  It’s for all ages and abilities.   Workshop times are

Drama: 12.30-2pm or 2.30-4pm

Dance: 12.30-2pm or 2.30-4pm

Samba Drumming: 4pm-5.30pm

I can’t believe the Games week is half way through – hope to see you at activities.

Great Opening Ceremony, Day 2 Activities Here

We had a great start to the Castle Vale Community Games yesterday.

The rain stopped for us as we paraded down to St Cuthbert’s Church to the music of the Walsall Coronets Junior Marching Band. Our AACV flag made it’s first apprearence of the week, young people from The Sanctuary waved flags that they made with artists from Craftspace Collective last week, the Pool User Group were out in great force with impressive flags and t-shirts looking fantastic and everyone was happy to walk along waving a flag or blowing on cazoos or whistles.

Once we arrived at the end of the parade there were great opening speeches from Sue Spicer and Laura Hicklin, followed by a performance from the marching band and then the confetti cannons marked the moment, set off by our two voted residents and our local councillors Mike Sharpe and Linda Clinton. Thank you to those who came out and joined in the fun and to artist Garry Jones who helped to make such an impressive start to the week.

After the ceremony some people made their way over to the Heritage exhibition in Spitfire House, which is still open for anyone who’d like to go and see some fantastic old images of the area.  At The Sanctuary, more trolley floats were made in the afternoon to get us ready for our closing parde on Saturday.

Today we are running a trolley float making workshop at The Ridings care home in the morning and this afternoon Garry will be at The Sanctuary again for anyone who wants to come down and be part of making a float.

Check out the programme in the post below for activities for the rest of the week – we look forward to seeing you at the Games.