This from Stan’s Cafe:

It’s sad because Brightspace were behind a huge number of inspirational projects that took artists into schools to work creatively with students and teachers. Now, despite a great report from OFSTED setting out the great value of these projects, the plug as been pulled, the axe has fallen, the bubble burst, the goose cooked, the turkey plucked, the swan sung and the full stopped.

I’d lost track of what’s happening with Creative England – I thought it was going to be based on a partnership of all the screen agencies but here’s a press release:

On Friday 30th September 2011, regional screen agency Screen WM will bring the curtain down on nine years of support for the screen media industries in the West Midlands and welcome Creative England as the new umbrella body for the creative sector.

The closure of Screen WM follows the coalition government’s decision to replace the UK Film Council’s support for film-making, which core-funded the regional screen agencies, with funding through the British Film Institute.

All the best to the folks working at these organisations who are moving on.

Sadly, I’m predicting a few more posts like this over the next few months.

Jobs:

• Creative media trainer, Playwright Media
• Outdoor Creative Practitioner, Bright Space
• Outdoor Creative Practitioner, Bright Space
• Outdoor and Drama/Story-Telling Creatives, Bright Space
• Sculptor or Artist, Bright Space
• Project Co-ordinator – Birmingham Contemporary Art Forum, Bright Space

Opportunities:

• Creative stall holder, Tiger Bam House

If you’re a film maker, photographer, artist, sound engineer, web designer, writer, radio presenter, arts organisation or whatever then get yourself listed on Jobplot.

First up is this film for Bright Space’s Platform project. Filmed by Courtney Salmon and starring Matt Windle.

And secondly, there’s this rather good promo for the Birmingham European Theatre Festival 2010 (30 June to 3 July).

Update: seems the BE Festival trailer’s been deleted. Shame that.

Bright Space are doing a project called Platform and they’re after youngsters:

Platform will be a blog written by 16-19 year olds, featuring articles, reviews, events listings and much more. Written by young people for young people it will represent a unique perspective on arts activity in Birmingham.

We are now looking to recruit 15 young people aged 16-19 years old who are interested in reporting, reviewing and attending the many cultural events in and around the city, including exhibitions, theatre, dance, launches and gigs.

Successful applicants will receive a £200 bursary and the opportunity to attend a week long intensive summer school in August, which will highlight the many techniques and skills they will need to become fully fledged Platform bloggers

Which sounds like a pretty decent deal. All you have to do to take advantage is write a 200 word article on a creative passion that you have, including your name, address, date of birth and contact details and send it to Bright Space. You need to be 16-19 years old and available on certain dates. More info on all that on the Platform website.

Seems a shame to let the young folks get all the fun though – I reckon doing a project like this with OAPS/accountants/badminton players/whatever could be fun.

We, the Waverley Youth Panel (which consists of 15 young people from years 7 to 8) who want to make our school an exciting place for pupils and staff, and to allow them all to be active learners together. We will be working with our teachers to help them set up our Bright Space/Waverley Change school programme. Our initial ideas are to employ/commission one creative person or even an organisation to work with us to ‘find our voice’ and to support us in finding out what is already in our school and how we all want to use it. We also want to continue to draw on the strengths our school and community

If anyone wants to get involved then further details (incl contact info) are on the Arts News item.