Image below the team at the Sealife Mosaic (click here for the story)

June had brought along her mum and whilst she matched us step for step she had her own Skinningrove stories having herself lived there and attended school in what is now the Riverside building. There was some tale of buying cigarettes at school aged 6 but we turned a deaf ear to this. Luckily our route took us past the Riverside building so we enjoyed tea and lemon cakes (no cigarettes this time) We have  heard stories about the German air raids during WW2 from the school log but but Junes mum had actually experienced the evacuation from the school and taking cover in the mine.

After tea we went onwards through the village. At 14 Stone Row we stopped for my own little bit of Skinningrove heritage about how I installed first public computer in the village there. Then it was back to the professional raconteurs (Tommy and Barry) whilst we visited the  landmarks of the Sylvania Anchor, the Village Mosaic and the Repus. Barry even repeated the story of “The Boat Comes Home”  (The Repus) for some passing walkers on the Cleveland Way. How times have changed, walkers used to hurry through here without pause.

Our visit ended with a privileged visit to the Skinningrove Chapel. The Tour Goes On ! if you want to be involved email s.d.thompson@tees.ac.uk

The gallery below (click to enlarge) shows the team at work. The actual pictures will be seen at the exhibition in the summer.

For European Get On Line Day March 4th we’re organising a Day of Cultural Blogcasting from Destinations, Saltburn UK.  We’ll plan to use the “live blogging” approach employed for the recent Saltburn Community Animation event so that media is released throughout the day to a schedule. The site is here: www.destinations.uk.com/gold

At this short notice it’s unsure how much content will come from Europe but we at least expect items from Latvia and Finland, possibly Greece. We’ll be firing up 5-10 min videos, some audio stuff and perhaps image galleries: all hoping to reflect who and where we are. If anyone has anything they would like to have considered for inclusion contact me direct on s.d.thompson@tees.ac.uk

You can relive the event on the blog at www.saltburn.org.uk or if you really want to re-run the event in the order it happened click here ( it builds slow but quickly gets media rich) – just read each page, scrolling down and then click “older entries” at the bottom. As well as the hook-up with Latvia, the event was followed by people in Greece, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey, Sweden, Finland and the UK.

The event saw the world premier of “The Force is With You” which you can enjoy below.

Featured this year will be World Première of “The Force is With You” which has been produced in partnership with the Institute of Digital Innovation, the Skinningrove Community, Whitecliffe Primary School and Redcar & Cleveland Community Safety Partnership. The school children will get their own matinee screening at 1.30 on the same date.

During a recent International workshop in Vienna one of scenes in “The Force is With You” was “voiced” using the services of some of the workshop attendees. The film clip below is a sneak preview of one of the scenes and a behind the scenes look at how it was put together.

Trouper 1 is played by Markus Petz from Finland, Trouper 2 by Thomas Chepaitis the Minister of foreign affairs of Uzhupis Republic (Lithuania) Arthur Vador is played by Steve Thompson and Barry Hunt the Mayor of Loftus is camera operator.

In the background is Laura Pakalne, Senior Officer in the Public Relations Department in the Ministry of Justice, Latvia who is most interested in our working with the British police and the movie production team on more collaborative projects. Markus has delayed his return to Finland to travel to Saltburn to assist with a hook-up with Latvia during the event on the 11^th. It’s quite possible that people all over the world will be able to participate in the event. More information on this will be released closer to the event.

(pictures Paul Davies)

Community websites have helped people to interact, given them access to communication technologies, and replaced facilities that were unavailable to them.

For example, one ‘digital village’ website in Teesside provided links to recruitment websites, Royal Mail and travel information, for people living in an area that had no JobCentre, post office or train station.

They’ll share their tips and experiences with other centres and help develop a national strategy for community and social media.

Ofcom is supporting the scheme and the ten centres were officially awarded Community Media Beacon status at a ceremony at the Ofcom London offices on Thursday, 29 January.
New media

Ofcom’s Head of Media Literacy, Robin Blake, said: ‘New technologies are empowering all of us to produce our own information, talk about the issues that matter to us, gather support and make real changes not just to our own lives but to the lives of those around us.

‘Making sure everybody, everywhere can get expert support in understanding and using those technologies is vital, and UK online centres can play a major role in opening up new media options for more people in more communities.

‘It’s vital we capture and share best practice, and I’m looking forward to seeing the Community Media Beacons light the way for other communities.’

The ten UK online centre Community Media Beacons are Leeds Central Library, Destinations@Saltburn and Hendon 2000 in the North East, Knowle West Media Centre in Bristol, The Engine Room in Somerset, Dingle Online and Kensington Community Media Centre in the North West, Living Archive in Milton Keynes, BCB in Bradford and Foresight in Grimsby.

Pictured below are Steve Thompson of the Institute of Digital Innovation, University of Teesside & Paul Davies of Destinations @ Saltburn receiving the award from Ofcom’s Head of Media Literacy, Robin Blake.