THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS

Welcome to another week and all that it holds. Welcome too, to the month of June. Elizabeth Windsor paid a visit to my home town on Friday which saw the streets lined with the impoverished masses, all flag-waving and thrilled to catch a glimpse of their rather sour-faced monarch in the pouring rain. The £3mill+ visit saw the cleaner-than-I've-ever-seen streets, empty of traffic for the first time in years, the air full of helicopters and high-visibility coppers staked out on roundabouts and every street corner. This was the same week too, as the ermine and diamond-encrusted speech to parliament, in which we heard her government (and shadow parties) talking about inequalities. What we need now, are policies to back this talk up.

For those of you who don't know the ancient hamlet of Lancaster, here's a vile portrayal of my local chip-shop, by our latter-day fauvist and peddler of simplistic Utopian trash (well, the same image is available on the chip shop's very own plastic bag - so proud). How I hope the 'artist' in question, produces a rendition of HRH tucking into a bag of scraps and curry sauce. 

Now - here’s an important short Public Service Announcement from Peggy Shaw

A Dementia and Imagination free event in Manchester

Tickets are now available for the free Dementia & Imagination event that’s being held on the 25th June at MMU. There are very limited places and will be an active day that really needs input, commitment and expertise from artists, clinicians, researchers and planners. We want to share our practice and inform future research and direction. So, if you want to hear from our research team, from our intervention and research artists and share your own ideas and practice, we’d love to hear from you. Tickets are available now by clicking on either Bette or Joan below. 

Women Make Music Grant Scheme 
The next applications deadline for the Performing Right Society's (PRS) Women Make Music grant scheme is 6pm on the 28th September 2015. Through the grant scheme, financial support of up to £5000 is available to women musicians to create new music in any genre. This can range from classical, jazz and experimental, to urban, electronica and pop. Through the scheme, support is available to individuals and organisations @ 

http://www.prsformusicfoundation.com/Funding/Women-Make-Music__

Five Ways to Wellbeing Toolkit
Voluntary Arts explore the Five Ways to Wellbeing model in their Toolkit, as a method for setting up and developing voluntary arts groups, and for making the experience of being a member even more enjoyable and beneficial to health and wellbeing. It is mainly aimed at people who are in a position of setting up a new voluntary arts group, or who want to invigorate an existing group by increasing involvement and basing it on solid foundations for enhancing the experience of members. Find the toolkit @

http://theloveofit.org/publications/Five%20Ways%20to%20Wellbeing%20Toolkit.pdf

                                                                 .