Tees Valley Community Media

The Mela Mega Weekend was a huge success. This is the first year we have taken the two events of Saturdays Sports Mela and the Sunday Main Mela and turned it in to ONE two day event. Saturday started really well but we had heavy downpours.

We were obliged to position the large screen on hard standing rather than the prime position beside the stage but it still worked really well and the Abbingdon Road School animations went down really well.

Student and community volunteers made up the camera crew providing footage to the big screen as well as a group of stills photographers contributing the flavour of the Mela from across the park.

Podcasts of the main stage musical performances and the images were successfully added to the site LIVE from our "community media van" by virtue of a bank of laptops and a USB modem.

The Mela management committee were delighted with the great success of the two day event and will most certainly carry the idea forward to next year. Figures for Saturday were close to 5,000 visitors and 26,000 people on Sunday. We had the usual excellent vibe and atmosphere. The website got just over 800 visitors and we will continue to get hits for a week or so as visitors to the actual event return to the "Digital Mela" to look at pictures (hoping to see themselves there)

Things to do while you wait for next years Mega Mela Weekend. (1) Go to the news section and find out when it is ! (2) Fill in the feedback form to tell us what you thought of Mela 2008 (3) Join the email list for news of developments (4) Listen to the 2008 podcasts (5) View pictures from the 2008 Mega Mela Weekend.

It's time for the incredible Middlesbrough Mela once again. Our Community Media Crew will form the video team transmitting the action to the 22 ft stageside screen. Roving photographers will be capturing the event. The Abingdon Road school animations will be projected onto the big screen. Our media truck will be stage side to upload the still images and transmit the webcast feed from the performances on the main stage.

Catch it all here - www.boromela.co.uk

[from tvcm2]

The massive (and expensive) TVCM server has come down. The page you are looking at is hosted by a local company, the excellent UK Web Solutions If you are looking for web space please click on the link and help support TVCM.

One by one the Tees Valley communities are moving to individual inexpensive UKWS hosting accounts. Some may choose a free web 2.00 option. This will create a sustainable and robust community network.

First up is Tom Kelly. Ok so Tom's not a community group but he is a poet and playwright and works with oodles of community groups.

LATEST - Loftus Town Crier - Marske Digital Village.

01/05/08 New - Margrove Park Digital Village have taken flight

02/05/08 Jack Drum Arts have taken flight. They represent a host of community projects in County Durham.
03/05/08 First JDA project to take flight 2000 Feet

09/05/08 And another Masterbuilders
09/05/08 And another Strange Dreams

12/05/08 yet another Light Fantastic

18/05/08 Last But Not Least Our Journeys

05/05/08 Easton Residents Association have taken flight.

06/05/08 Maureen Almond (poet) has taken flight.

07/05/08 - and another one East Middlesbrough Digital Village (TS3) (includes the fabulous V91 Dreams Hopes and Wishes Exhibition and Multi Cultural East Middlesbrough)

07/05/08
A trio of sites take flight all at once!

Voyage of Discovery
Skinningrove Digital Village
Word of the Street

09/05/08 Friends Of Redcar Cemetery are laid to rest in their new web home.

10/05/08 Saltburn Digital Village is now live! - incorporating Destinations, Doorways, Nick 365 (podcasting), Sound Mind (podcasting) and East Cleveland Community Development Groups.

18/05/08 Straad Players are live.
18/05/08 Middlesbrough Mela has flown.
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SEE BELOW -Soon to follow (please return and watch the links go live)
Click here if you want to know when each one takes flight.

Marske Digital Village.
Hemlington Family History Club.
Brotton Digital Village.
Moorsholm Digital Village.
Tees Valley Newspaper Archive
Loftus Town Crier.

Plus whoever I forgot.

Other archived projects will appear over on the right hand menu as they are ported.

As the big ol server gets shut down I'm reminded of an image and a story I blogged back in 2004. Here it is again for your entertainment.

Warrior Women and a Server Technician
(December 01, 2004)

I don't know if the humour of this situation will come across in print. I was working in Hartlepool with a group today called the Warrior Women . This ICT centre had the feeling of the Marie Celeste and when we tried to log on we were getting nowhere with usernames and passwords. We were almost on the point of giving up when this woman walked in and said she had sorted out the server. I said "excuse me, I don't want to sound rude but you don't look like the kind of person who resolves server issues" She said "well, I'm a kitchen helper but I know how to sort out the server" I asked her to show me and we went into another deserted room which was quite surreal as it had a two way mirror into the computer room. She then demonstrated to me her server technique (see below) It worked but I'm sure you're not supposed to throw the mains switch off and back on again!

The Video below was recently re-dicovered on a CD lying at the bottom of a drawer. In 2000 seven Tees Valley communities represented themselves on the Internet as Tees Valley Communities Online. At the same time the University of Teesside’s Virtual Reality department worked with these communities to develop a vision for their regeneration and future development. These environments could be viewed in the University of Teesside’s innovative “Hemispherum” and each community visited the Hemispherum to see this. Another hybrid VR model was built to represent all the communities and artefacts and creative objects were placed within it. The video of this place can be seen below

Or Click Here

Now, Skinningrove are doing something very similar but in Second Life (see bewlow)

How many schoolchildren do you know can tell a story of spending a night in the mine to avoid a German Zeppelin or of being sent home as mines washed up on the local beach and lost roof tiles on their school when one blew up? Check out Whitecliffe Primary School's first podcast at Radio Skinningrove as they read from the 134 year old Skinningove School logbook.

(right) Whitecliffe Podcasters with Barry Hunt (Click to enlarge)

Well it's quite hush hush at the moment but we do indeed have plans. Take a look at the picture gallery and then enjoy this movie.

With thanks to the people who gave us permission to use these. NB click on an image to enlarge and then click at the top to see the very largest version.

The Skinningrovers

An interesting session was had by all at The BBC today. The Skinningrovers were presenting their ideas for the Ochre Trail and the Virtual Tour that would accompany it. Several Skinningrove youngsters from Whitecliffe primary school had come along. The kids were delighted to see that the grown ups were just big kids really when they were shown the movies "Tommy's Plight" and "Skinningrove - Welcome To The Future".

My assistant helps with the powerpoint

The Skinnigrovers told of a boat they had rescued from Whitby where it was due to be disposed of. They brought it back to Skinningrove and refurbished it.

They sited it on the seafront where it will be a monument to the fishing industry which is now sadly in decline. The picture shows an artists impression of two sculptures that have been commissioned to be added to the boat.

Remarkably the boat has ended up across the street from the house where the old fisherman's daughter lives and today his two grandchildren were there to hear the story of their grandfathers boat.

Next it was the Adults turn to be astonished when the Head Teacher from Whitcliffe School, Mrs Shannon produced the 130 year old log book from the Skinningrove School

The beautifully written Skinningrove School Logbook

Several of the children read extracts from the book including one where the children of the day had to be evacuated from the school when a German Zeppelin arrived overhead.

It's now planned that Tommy and Barry will take a more "executive" role at Radio Skinningrove and the children will take over producing podcasts of readings from the old book plus reporting on current events. The adults and the kids will work together on the Virtual Ochre Trail.

There was some jocularity when we realised that later editions of the Skinningrove log book would include reports of the doings of Tommy's school career.

Tommy Evans: This is Your Life !