Birmingham Royal Ballet and mac managed to raise a decent amount of money through The Big Arts Give, while Moseley Folk and OxjamBrum ended the year with a Christmas Ceilidh and Flatpack released a few highlights set for their 2011 festival.

We also featured a few independently made Christmas cards by local designers, took a look at what can be expected from the new Library of Birmingham interior and the much anticipated budget for Birmingham art organisations was announced by Birmingham City Council.

As the year drew to a close, Rhubarb Radio made a plea for help, the 2010 Twitpanto production of Jack and the Beanstalk took place and we took a look at what Birmingham’s creative minds had come up with for the festive season.

Christmas Day television treated us to Birmingham Royal Ballet, with a prime Christmas dinner slot on BBC1, while Birmingham Opera Company also made it onto BBC4 for post dinner relaxation.

Brilliantly Birmingham kicked off together with the fifth annual FLUX exhibition, Aedas Presents launched a new monthly art programme and Art of Ideas finally arrived with a host of associated events running over four days.

The We Are Birmingham Shop opened its doors with a drinks reception, Chris gave a debrief of the Arts Council briefing on funding and the West Midlands creative jobs board, Jobplot, returned with a fresh makeover.

November also saw the launch of The Pilot Project, Jennifer Tee’s exhibition, Memento Park opened at Eastside Projects, and Chris attended the wedding of the year.

Lucy McLauchlan returned with her paintbrushes to add something a little interesting to the Moseley Road hoardings, while VIVID launched their latest project, Language, and as December approached, the Christmas fairs sprung into action.

As winter kicked in, we bid a Blonde Farewell to Ikon Eastside, got crafty with Craftspace, said hello to Creative Central and looked ahead to Flatpack and Fierce’s joint 2011 venture.

The Art Bar opened featuring exhibitions and a connection with the Custard Factory’s Sauce Gallery, the Union Black Film Festival took place with a string of events and screenings. Meanwhile Punch and OOM Gallery published photographer, Pogus Caesar’s book, Musik Kinda Sweet

October was also the month of The Big Draw, with an array of activities popping up in association all over the city. We took a look at what Shout Festival had in store for 2010 and, with the help of 40 local bands and musicians, OxjamBrum took over 6 venues in Birmingham for 12 hours of music.

We gave a run down of various Halloween festivities taking place around the city, plus Invisible City hosted Media Circus, celebrating creative Birmingham, and Moseley Folk and Symphony Hall launched the monthly Folk For Free.

Oh and more arts cuts were announced.

With yet another packed programme, Artsfest 2010 took place on the same weekend as Birmingham Zine Fest and VIVID’s Cum Clubbing, while Friction Arts also held Inside Out Festival towards the end of the month.

Bullring announced their plans to spice up Spiceal Street with a regeneration which will see a hub of new restaurants appear in the space by St. Martins church, and with a wave of fresh cuts, the ‘Save the Arts’ and ‘I Value the Arts’ campaigns were launched.

International Project Space launched a week long programme of radio shows featuring a selection of independent art organisations, plus The British Science Festival took place, with a programme full of thought provoking seminars and events, and the Walsall Word Cloud began to take shape.

Brian Griffin’s retrospective exhibition, Face to Face, landed in Snowhill, we took a look at some of the highlights ahead of the Birmingham Book Festival and Sampad launched Radiu5 with a call for young volunteers.

The latest version of The Big City Plan was announced and the We Are Birmingham shop put out a call for people wanting to get involved.

2010 also saw the return of The British Glass Biennale in Stourbridge, The Public welcomed video artist Bill Viola’s exhibition The Fall into Paradise and the anticipation for Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Cinderella started to build as Creating Cinderalla began charting the show’s development.

We took a look at an audio slideshow on The Diskery, put together by Sam Coley, along with couple of locally produced music videos, including Moseley folk faves, Goodnight Lenin’s debut single ‘Crook in The Creek’.

Goodnight Lenin – Crook In The Creek from Prime Objective on Vimeo.

New quarterly Birmingham based magazine, LABB, was launched, and with not long until Artsfest 2010, we took a look at some of the big acts scheduled for the festival, along with the latest information on the Black International Film Festival.

The Photography Collective and Birmingham Photo Space teamed up with Rhubarb Rhubarb to bring us the Contact Exhibition, featuring a selection of local photographers, while Mohammad Ali’s Writing on the Wall documentary was premiered at mac.