Hello. This month's newsletter includes: details of The Sheffield Housing Conversations, a new imitative that we've been helping to set up; the Sheffield Creative Guild; the 2016 Sheffield Design Awards, War Memorials and lots more. If you have details of upcoming events, projects or news that we could help promote in a future newsletter please get in touch to let us know.
The Sheffield Housing Conversations
Over the last few months Sheffield Civic Trust has been part of a team that has developedThe Sheffield Housing Conversations. Housing rose to the top of the political agenda during the 2015 election and we're all talking about housing more than ever. The Sheffield Housing Conversations is a new initiative to keep those housing conversations going and to provide a platform to discuss solutions for addressing Sheffield’s housing crisis. The new website will promote housing events and discussions that are taking place in the city, and encourage online conversation through the blog and on social media. Take a look and find out more here.
Anyone who has an interest in housing and may be running an event on housing can join in and get involved (just contact h.hunt@syha.co.uk). The calendar of events, as well as online and face-to-face discussions, will bring together individuals and groups who are interested in housing and we’d like to focus on the follow themes: place-making, housing supply and the future of housing. There's already details of upcoming housing events on the new website and more will be added soon. Follow the Sheffield Housing Conversations on Twitter and Facebook
Get Connected with the Sheffield Creative Guild
In 2016 a new Sheffield organisation aims to support, promote and celebrate the creative sector within our region. The Sheffield Creative Guild will connect creative individuals and organisations through a website and regular events such as talks and workshops.
Guild members will have access to a profile where they can showcase themselves and their enterprise. Through their profile they can connect and collaborate with other Guild members. Member will have access to the creative timebank and will be able to exchange skills, knowledge and services with other members. You could call on a Guild member to help you set up an event, design a flyer, fill in an application form, review a business plan ... you get the idea.
Membership will be open to all unpaid or paid creatives. Members could be architects, urban planners, graphic designers, a professor of creative design, event organisers, a potter, poet, games designer, a student on a creative course and so on. The membership fee will give you a profile and access to the members’ directory, an allocation of hours for the timebank, and free entry to Guild events as well as news, support and advocacy within the region. Member’s fees will sustain the Guild's activity.
The Guild is supported by Sheffield Cultural Consortium and its start-up has been funded by the Arts Council, Sheffield City Council and both Sheffield universities. There will be a launch event in May 2016. For further details about the Guild, its launch or the advantages of becoming a ‘pioneer’ member contact Jane Dawson jane@sheffieldcreativeguild.com or visit http://www.sheffieldculture.co.uk/what-we-do/sheffield-creative-guild/
Sheffield Design Awards 2016
The Sheffield Design Awards will return later this year. We organise the Awards every two years to celebrate the best new design in our city. See the list of previous winners here. The 2016 awards will be held in the autumn and full details will be coming soon. Would you or your organisation be interested in sponsoring the awards? If you are interested in working with us then please email Samantha Birchall.
Sheffield's War Memorials - Volunteers Needed
This year the Civic Trust will be leading work in Sheffield to help conserve the city's war memorials for future generations. We're looking for volunteers to take part in a new survey. The National Survey of War Memorials, run jointly by Civic Voice, Historic England and the War Memorial Trust, plans to survey and record all of the War Memorials in England, which are thought to number more than 80,000, before 2018.
Funds are available to assist in repair and conservation of any memorials found to be requiring work. In Sheffield, the survey work will be led by the Sheffield Civic Trust and plans are in place to hold workshop sessions to help plan this year's survey. Sheffield Civic Trust’s Membership Secretary Paul Bedwell said, “More than 50,000 left Sheffield to serve in the First World War. Casualties were significant and included Sheffielders that died as a result of a Zeppelin raid on the city in September 1916. We are looking for volunteers as there are at least 200 war memorials in Sheffield and many more that are either lost or missing." If you can spare some time and would like to get involved with this project contact Paul by email at pabedwell@icloud.com and he will add your name to the list for future workshops.
Around The Toilet research project
The Civic Trust has supported the Around The Toilet project, a cross-disciplinary research project which has explored the provision of toilets in the public realm, and whether different groups in the community, children, people with disabilities, LGBT and so on, might have contrasting responses to what is currently provided. Lisa Proctor, one of the lead researchers, has written for us about the project:
"At the closing event for the Around the Toilet project, we celebrated the provocative, visual and artistic creations produced in our research workshops over the last seven months. The exhibition space provided by Z-arts in Manchester gave us plenty of room to display the ‘Toilet Stories’ comics created by children at a local Primary School, toilet drawings and postcards by Smizz, the alternative toilet symbols created by members of Venture Arts, and the incredible installation game designed and built by MA Architecture students at the University of Sheffield as part of the Live Projects programme. In a separate workshop area, creativity continued to flow on the day thanks to resident artists who helped us to stencil political toilet slogans and designs onto t-shirts and tote bags. A cinema room also offered people attending the event the opportunity to watch a range of activist, artistic and Hollywood depictions of toilets. To read more about the event please visit the events page on our blog here."
Conservation Advisory Group
Each month Sheffield City Council's Conservation Advisory Group meets to consider the impact of planning applications and potential new developments on heritage assets and conservation areas in the city. The Civic Trust is a member of the group and we're looking for new volunteers to attend the meetings on our behalf. If you would be interested in representing the Civic Trust on the Advisory Group then please get in touch. Email us at info@sheffieldcivictrust.org.uk
Would you like to join Sheffield Civic Trust? If you're passionate about Sheffield and want to help shape the debate about the buildings, places, spaces of our city then why not become a member? http://sheffieldcivictrust.org.uk/join/
