Showing posts with label General. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General. Show all posts
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Thursday, 21 January 2010
More out of hours waffling!
Hello! Well, Zigz and Bik are at home doing green event planning and funding applications (not at the same time) and Nina has just headed off, resplendent in her pink hi-viz jacket - we've just been trying to work out her new wind-up bike lights, very complicated (but pretty cool - I may have to get some too!).
Now it's nice and quiet with just me and Tony, who is up a ladder filling in holes in the ceiling. Tony is (I say this at least five times every day) AWESOME.
This morning Bik drove Zigz and I up to the Sustainability Centre in East Meon to scout out for their Hampshire Green Fair http://www.sustainability-centre.org/html/hampshire_green_fair.html
We'll be filling the gap between full veggie meals from their cafe and the hogroast with a vegan light lunches stall. Ideas include portabello mushroom burgers (nom) and a local version of hummus using field beans, rapeseed oil & Isle of Wight garlic... we're challenged ourselves to bring some local seasonal ideas to the stall, so any inspirations will be most appreciated!
One of my concerns with veggie & vegan foods is that so much of what we eat is from the other side of the world..... so this will be a good challenge for me to see if we can make nommy, easy-to-cook-in-the-open, local, organic (if we can!) and affordable nosh at this fair.
We tried also to visit the Flora Twort gallery in Petersfield, but it was closed.... we did the classic thing of walking into a closed place, something we complain bitterly about when people do it to us! Always good to have the shoe on the other foot :) The Gallery has just been taken over by the Petersfield Museum Trust http://www.petersfieldmuseum.co.uk/ and is opening in a few months, definately looks worth a return visit.
We also did a sneaky visit to The Bran Tub wholefood store in Petersfield http://www.thebrantub.com/ WOW!! How I wish we had something like this in Southampton, though it would be bad for my bank balance! I was restrained and only bought some veggie chocolate beans and loose elderflower tea (oh yeah and some bad wrong sage & onion slices!).
The sustainability centre is growing nicely, it's a really lovely project tucked away in the Meon Valley. The last time I was there was to stay in the yurt, just over two years ago and there were new things on the way including a strawbale shower block for the campsite. It must be hard to get volunteers all the way out there and we weren't quite sure how they managed! They do have some lovely people, some of whom we met, and a few of them live onsite. There's lots of evidence of hard work and good ideas there. We saw the woodchip burner which runs all the central heating for the hostel and main building, they also have PV solar panels which supply up to a third of the energy used on site (pretty impressive!). It is a beautiful site and well suited to what they're doing there, if a little hard to reach without a car - as most rural projects are.
We met Ali & Kev from the onsite cafe. The cafe is quite new, but already has a great looking menu (cheesy lentil wedges were spotted) a shame we didn't have time to stop for lunch! In addition they have lots of courses, a small shop, natural burial ground and camping. We saw the Centre Manager's yurt and it made me just a *little* jealous .... urban projects like ours don't come with the opportunity to camp on site, let alone in such style (anyone got a big back garden??).
Well, Tony is getting on with it at awesome speed and I'm expecting Megan and Kelly in any moment to do some work on the crafts (they are ALSO awesome, by the way!).
Once last thing..... we have quite a lot of new volunteers which makes me very happy. Yay for volunteers, new and old :)
Now it's nice and quiet with just me and Tony, who is up a ladder filling in holes in the ceiling. Tony is (I say this at least five times every day) AWESOME.
This morning Bik drove Zigz and I up to the Sustainability Centre in East Meon to scout out for their Hampshire Green Fair http://www.sustainability-centre.org/html/hampshire_green_fair.html
We'll be filling the gap between full veggie meals from their cafe and the hogroast with a vegan light lunches stall. Ideas include portabello mushroom burgers (nom) and a local version of hummus using field beans, rapeseed oil & Isle of Wight garlic... we're challenged ourselves to bring some local seasonal ideas to the stall, so any inspirations will be most appreciated!
One of my concerns with veggie & vegan foods is that so much of what we eat is from the other side of the world..... so this will be a good challenge for me to see if we can make nommy, easy-to-cook-in-the-open, local, organic (if we can!) and affordable nosh at this fair.
We tried also to visit the Flora Twort gallery in Petersfield, but it was closed.... we did the classic thing of walking into a closed place, something we complain bitterly about when people do it to us! Always good to have the shoe on the other foot :) The Gallery has just been taken over by the Petersfield Museum Trust http://www.petersfieldmuseum.co.uk/ and is opening in a few months, definately looks worth a return visit.
We also did a sneaky visit to The Bran Tub wholefood store in Petersfield http://www.thebrantub.com/ WOW!! How I wish we had something like this in Southampton, though it would be bad for my bank balance! I was restrained and only bought some veggie chocolate beans and loose elderflower tea (oh yeah and some bad wrong sage & onion slices!).
The sustainability centre is growing nicely, it's a really lovely project tucked away in the Meon Valley. The last time I was there was to stay in the yurt, just over two years ago and there were new things on the way including a strawbale shower block for the campsite. It must be hard to get volunteers all the way out there and we weren't quite sure how they managed! They do have some lovely people, some of whom we met, and a few of them live onsite. There's lots of evidence of hard work and good ideas there. We saw the woodchip burner which runs all the central heating for the hostel and main building, they also have PV solar panels which supply up to a third of the energy used on site (pretty impressive!). It is a beautiful site and well suited to what they're doing there, if a little hard to reach without a car - as most rural projects are.
We met Ali & Kev from the onsite cafe. The cafe is quite new, but already has a great looking menu (cheesy lentil wedges were spotted) a shame we didn't have time to stop for lunch! In addition they have lots of courses, a small shop, natural burial ground and camping. We saw the Centre Manager's yurt and it made me just a *little* jealous .... urban projects like ours don't come with the opportunity to camp on site, let alone in such style (anyone got a big back garden??).
Well, Tony is getting on with it at awesome speed and I'm expecting Megan and Kelly in any moment to do some work on the crafts (they are ALSO awesome, by the way!).
Once last thing..... we have quite a lot of new volunteers which makes me very happy. Yay for volunteers, new and old :)
Monday, 18 January 2010
Monday randomness
I thought it would be fun to give an insight into the out-of-hours doings here :)
Today is a Monday and The Art House is closed, but of course we don't always get a day off if there are bits to do! Today Zigz came in about nineish to let the builder, Chris, in to start tiling the new loo.
In the meantime Bik & I were in Eastleigh doing a percussion session with the DICE (Drop-in Centre Eastleigh) group. This is part of The Art House outreach as well as one of the ways we full-timers earn the money we need to pay rent (all of the hours we put in here at The Art House itself are, at present, unpaid). What a fun was to earn a living though! I spent two hours with a permanent silly grin on my face as we played percussion, recorders, didge and glochenspiel, sang a Beatles medley, banged out half the soundtrack of 'My Fair Lady' and mucked about pretending to be a thunderstorm!
In the meantime, Zigz had started experimenting with hot cross buns - her own particular version, vegan of course, with smiley faces on them (dubbed Hot 'Mellow' Buns!).
They are yummy of a little more like rock cakes - I don't mind, I like rock cakes!
This weekend was just awesome...... Sunday's Burlesque performances were just so great and we had a visit from Mark 'Rocky' who runs The Lodge in Portsmouth - a very similar venue and one of my personal inspirations when setting up The Art House. It was good to show him the place and we hope to do some work with The Lodge on the Portsmouth/Southampton 'City of Culture' bid. Sod the Pompey/Sarfamton divide.
In between being very busy there is always time to chat to the many interesting people who come in here, we're so lucky to attract an entirely better class of customer than most places :)
It's very inspiring to chat to Rocky as he's been running the Lodge now for 10 years and he still has most of his hair, as well as remaining inspired to bring culture to Portsmouth!
This afternoon poor Bik is downstairs having to cut up three hundred (his estimate) cardboard spacers for the floor tiles, Zigz is in experimenting and baking mode (yay) and I'm putting the finishing touches on the new Volunteer Induction booklet.
The glamour!
Today is a Monday and The Art House is closed, but of course we don't always get a day off if there are bits to do! Today Zigz came in about nineish to let the builder, Chris, in to start tiling the new loo.
In the meantime Bik & I were in Eastleigh doing a percussion session with the DICE (Drop-in Centre Eastleigh) group. This is part of The Art House outreach as well as one of the ways we full-timers earn the money we need to pay rent (all of the hours we put in here at The Art House itself are, at present, unpaid). What a fun was to earn a living though! I spent two hours with a permanent silly grin on my face as we played percussion, recorders, didge and glochenspiel, sang a Beatles medley, banged out half the soundtrack of 'My Fair Lady' and mucked about pretending to be a thunderstorm!
In the meantime, Zigz had started experimenting with hot cross buns - her own particular version, vegan of course, with smiley faces on them (dubbed Hot 'Mellow' Buns!).
They are yummy of a little more like rock cakes - I don't mind, I like rock cakes!
This weekend was just awesome...... Sunday's Burlesque performances were just so great and we had a visit from Mark 'Rocky' who runs The Lodge in Portsmouth - a very similar venue and one of my personal inspirations when setting up The Art House. It was good to show him the place and we hope to do some work with The Lodge on the Portsmouth/Southampton 'City of Culture' bid. Sod the Pompey/Sarfamton divide.
In between being very busy there is always time to chat to the many interesting people who come in here, we're so lucky to attract an entirely better class of customer than most places :)
It's very inspiring to chat to Rocky as he's been running the Lodge now for 10 years and he still has most of his hair, as well as remaining inspired to bring culture to Portsmouth!
This afternoon poor Bik is downstairs having to cut up three hundred (his estimate) cardboard spacers for the floor tiles, Zigz is in experimenting and baking mode (yay) and I'm putting the finishing touches on the new Volunteer Induction booklet.
The glamour!
Sunday, 25 January 2009
We're really sad to hear this weekend that Spice Art Studios in Bitterne has closed :(
If our mission to make the city of Southampton more splendid, we really feel that it needs many other venues and groups doing arty things. Some people may think it's good news to see a 'rival' close, but we're trying to do business in a different way...... in our minds, mutual support, co-operation and promotion is the way to go (after all Brighton would be pretty rubbish with only one veggie cafe, one art gallery) what we're about is creating a SCENE, not just having one successful venue at the expense of others.
The key, we think, is for independents to work together, talk to each other, respect each other and provide a diversity of things in the city. That way everyone benefits - most of all the people of Southampton benefit by having more to do, which in turn creates a bigger demand, which creates more cool stuff and so on.
We are sure Tracey Spice will be taking her ideas and ethusiasm into a new project and look forward to supporting whatever this is!
If our mission to make the city of Southampton more splendid, we really feel that it needs many other venues and groups doing arty things. Some people may think it's good news to see a 'rival' close, but we're trying to do business in a different way...... in our minds, mutual support, co-operation and promotion is the way to go (after all Brighton would be pretty rubbish with only one veggie cafe, one art gallery) what we're about is creating a SCENE, not just having one successful venue at the expense of others.
The key, we think, is for independents to work together, talk to each other, respect each other and provide a diversity of things in the city. That way everyone benefits - most of all the people of Southampton benefit by having more to do, which in turn creates a bigger demand, which creates more cool stuff and so on.
We are sure Tracey Spice will be taking her ideas and ethusiasm into a new project and look forward to supporting whatever this is!
Monday, 28 April 2008
We're blogging!
A few weeks ago at a directors 'eating' we thought it would be a good plan to have an Art House blog, just to keep everyone up to date with goings on...... also nice for us to look back on!
It's been a crazy few months and I think in the never-ending list of 'things to do' we sometimes don't take time out to reflect on how much we have already achieved here.
I'm now sitting in a newly decorated, fully kitted out arts cafe with wonderful paintings by Kwame Bakoji on the walls, enjoying our weekly 'day off'. Of course when you love a place as much I love this one, days off don't really happen! There is something quite appealing about enjoying the cafe when it is closed, sitting on the sofa in a sunbeam just enjoying this beautiful space. This room has had a lot of love put into it in the last few months and sitting here I can really feel it.
Ziggy is in her usual post in the kitchen, baking up the batch of pasties and chocolate cake for the week. Nina is dashing about sorting out lots of loose ends, the rooms downstairs are being transformed into office and storage space to make running the place easier.... I likened it to a swan, with the cafe and upstairs being the bit ABOVE the water and the basement being the little legs paddling away furiously! As usual, staff lunch involved coming up with lots of ideas for the future (bicycle shaped biscuits for bike week being the best idea today!).
Well, I hope we manage between us to keep this blog going, I think it is a good idea to share our impressions of this little project of ours!
Jani
It's been a crazy few months and I think in the never-ending list of 'things to do' we sometimes don't take time out to reflect on how much we have already achieved here.
I'm now sitting in a newly decorated, fully kitted out arts cafe with wonderful paintings by Kwame Bakoji on the walls, enjoying our weekly 'day off'. Of course when you love a place as much I love this one, days off don't really happen! There is something quite appealing about enjoying the cafe when it is closed, sitting on the sofa in a sunbeam just enjoying this beautiful space. This room has had a lot of love put into it in the last few months and sitting here I can really feel it.
Ziggy is in her usual post in the kitchen, baking up the batch of pasties and chocolate cake for the week. Nina is dashing about sorting out lots of loose ends, the rooms downstairs are being transformed into office and storage space to make running the place easier.... I likened it to a swan, with the cafe and upstairs being the bit ABOVE the water and the basement being the little legs paddling away furiously! As usual, staff lunch involved coming up with lots of ideas for the future (bicycle shaped biscuits for bike week being the best idea today!).
Well, I hope we manage between us to keep this blog going, I think it is a good idea to share our impressions of this little project of ours!
Jani
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