The case for support

So the case for support. Why you should give us your money. why our little cause and our little organisation are deserving of your time, talent or cash. Such a tricky question. and so hard for people to answer, especially the people who see the benefits each and every day. Sometimes I just want to write DUHH!! and dump my collective experience of my organisation on to the mind of whoever it is I am trying to convince.

I want to tell them about the enthusiasm of the 4 teenagers who nervously edged their way into the building and then virtually exploded with ideas about what they wanted to do at the place. So many ideas, so well presented, argued," there is no other place to practice our music where we live, we've got to go all the way across the other side of town" and later "can we put on a gig here? Here's how we'd market it, and here's what we would server in the way of refreshments, and security would work like this..." they virtually leapt on my idea for learning how to take better pics using phone cameras, they've all got them, we've got the biggest disabled access darkroom in the city, this seems like a logical extension of that ethos.

The only thing stopping all of that happening right now? money.

And not even that much money, mostly just time and a bit of skill. when you see that kind of effort, energy and potential swilling around the place you just want to empty your own pockets and get it done.  That's the impulse we need to spread. That's the enthusiasm that is so easily contagious when you spend more than a few hours at the place.

RAKU

We did some Raku as the final of 4 sessions on the ceramic extension course I've been taking. Good fun it was too. Out in the playground of an old school, right in the city centre, with a big old tank of gas and a modified dustbin lined with spun aluminium. Odd setting, but so very right.

The portable kiln is filled with our pieces, made from special clay, and painted or dipped in special glazes, then we blast it for 30 mins while we snack and gossip.

Once Yvette, our tutor says so, and ONLY when she says so the pieces are man handled out of the kiln...

...and dropped in yet more dustbins filled with sawdust and shredded paper , which of course bursts into flames and is very dramatic.

Once cool, but still hot enough to make steam on being dipped in buckets of water, they are cleaned , scrubbed and polished. something magnificent happens at some point during the process. Probably mostly when they are thrown in the sawdust and shredded paper.

My pieces, two replicas of the larger Kaftans we got in Istanbul, so I can't take any credit for the shape, but the pattern is all me.

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I'll be back in September.

Thinking about a revolution...

This would be a good place to dump all the stuff I'm learning about fundraising as I go through my internship.