East Cleveland Online

Open Evening in Loftus

Dvnet Admin — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 18:45:29 +0000

A very interesting evening was had at Loftus Library this week hearing the story of the East Cleveland Image Archive and seeing some wonderful old pictures. For anyone who doesn’t know, the project began as Loftus Digital Village but grew so big that is seemed highly appropriate to rename it the East Cleveland Image Archive. You can see for your self the wealth of images by clicking here.

Many of us have seen these pictures but the story came alive in the hands of Librarian John Hannah. John described linkages between people and places, past and present in a way that was fascinating.

Others with an interest in history and heritage such a the Skinningrove History Group and the Mulgrave Community Research Project were present and we discussed ways of knowledge and resource sharing. The community archives is here in it’s infancy – www.thedigitalvillages.com

The presentation from the evening is below and you can view the images along with their descriptions and comments here

East cleveland image archive

View more presentations from Steve Thompson.

East Cleveland Image Archive

Dvnet Admin — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 18:16:56 +0000

There can be no doubt that the East Cleveland Image Archive housed at Loftus Library will play a big part in the “Iron Age to Digital Age” exhibition. The diagram below shows how images are panning out with regard to East Cleveland Villages. We think that we will place images geographically around the 8 screens. I have edited the obvious ones first andt here are another 938 still to be placed into a location.

Loftus Digital Visit

Dvnet Admin — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:48:08 +0000

A large group of Digital Photgraphers were seen wandering Loftus today. Cllr Barry Hunt had organised a visit to the Town Hall and thanks also go to Alison, Clerk to Loftus Town Council for showing us around. Barry features on these walls in both name and image. Our intrepid group are pictured below in the Council Chamber. We then took to the streets of Loftus. What a fabulous place, I’ve visited many times and driven through even more but you see so much more on a walkabout. This visit was accompanied by a rich tapestry of local stories from John including the one about the famous Race between a Camel and a Lion. The pictures will end up as digital post cards as well as featuring in the Iron Age To Digital Age exhibition to take place in Loftus Town Hall in September.

Rubber Blocks to Loftus

Dvnet Admin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:07:59 +0000

What have Middlesbrough Music Live and Loftus Library got in common? Four rubber blocks that’s what. Thanks to Martie at Music Live I took charge of 4 rubber blocks and shipped them down to Lofus calling on Mr Motivator, Barry Hunt to help offload. They’re now sitting under John the librarians desk so when he gets back off holiday he will be delighted. These blocks will form the basis of the Octorama soon to be built in the Mayor of Loftus’s Barn and if these work out we’ll need another 12. Interestingly, I found out after shipping these all the way from Middlesbrough that Skinningrove already have a supply!

Cleveland Ironstone Mining Museum

Dvnet Admin — Fri, 14 May 2010 06:30:39 +0000

We had an excellent visit to the Mining Museum in Skinningrove this week and we’d like to thank CIMM for their hospitality. Particularly we’d like to mention the three volunteers Alan, Liz and Ian who took us through various parts of the mine and told us of the working and the history. We had a pretty large group on this visit with Friends of Redcar Cemetery joining us. Actually we’ve learned that there is a fair bit of networking happening on these visits with East Cleveland people attending Middlesbrough ones and vice versa. This will be the first visit to become a “Digital Visit”, an experiment to map, display images and tell stories about community visits.

The Ochre Trail

Dvnet Admin — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:22:00 +0000

Following on from yesterdays Marske visit we once again hit the Healthy Heritage Highway and had an afternoons walk right through Skinningrove. We were met at the Tom Leonard Mining Museum by Barry Hunt and by the time we reached the Doorstep Green we were also joined by Tommy Evans so we had the full compliment of the famous Skinningrove dynamic duo. Tales of folklore, history, nature and regeneration abounded as the team snapped away with their cameras.

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.

Walk The Walk

Dvnet Admin — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:40:32 +0000

Heritage and Health walked hand in hand as a small team visited Marske to take “Digital Postcards” today. The walk began at Winkies Castle Folklore Museum and followed a route set up by Joan Russel. Joan had made up a book of the route complete with heritage images of several locations and the team set off to take current pictures of each site.

Above, the team prepare for the photographic march. Joan gave a running commentary on what proved to be a most interesting afternoon. When we reached the beach we got talking about Marske Fishermans Choir and then the fishing industry in general which prompted Barry to tell us about the Tuna steaks he had marinading in Soy Sauce, Honey and Garlic (our mouths watered !) The walk finished by the grave of Captain Cooks father in the Marske cemetery. The finished images will end up in the Octorama tour which you can read about here. Tomorrow it’s Skinningrove.

Social Network Move

Dvnet Admin — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:43:33 +0000

The free social network NING that drives the Digital Village Social Network is intending to go PREMIUM only. The announcement from the new CEO (whilst cutting the Ning workforce by 40%) seems quite stark, “pay for premium services or migrate off the network”. Of course no-one said Ning is going away and all you have to do is pay (not sure how much yet) to keep your network. However, I hear warning bells and so I’m experimenting with alternatives as are many people.

Meanwhile folks who are on Facebook may want to join the Facebook Page – Digital Communities which will also form part of a new social media strategy to replace NING.

East Cleveland Image Archive

Dvnet Admin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 08:11:23 +0000

There has been a change to Loftus Digital Village. The Image archive has grown very large and is not simply a Loftus Image archive. SO – it is now known as the East Cleveland Image Archive and it’s still at http://www.ecol.org.uk/loftus – John Hannah’s team at Loftus Library will continue to beaver away at the archive. There is now a new site for is Loftus Digital Village is http://www.ecol.org.uk/loftusdv – Pages pertinent to Loftus are there and Loftus specific images. The site is in its infancy.

I’ve started to implement another other strategy and you can see the idea here http://www.skinningrove.tv/image-archive/ NB the images are not actually on the Skinningrove site – merely displayed there

Others have been added

STAITHES http://www.staithes.org.uk/image-archive/

BROTTON added http://www.brotton.org.uk/image-archive/

CARLIN HOW – http://www.carlinhow.org.uk/old-carlin-how-photos/image-archive/

LOFTUS http://ecol.org.uk/loftusdv/image-archive/

MARGROVE PARK http://www.margrovepark.com/images/archive-images/

SKELTON http://ecol.org.uk/skelton/

SALTBURN http://saltburn.org.uk/image-archive/

This is a fabulous resource for East Cleveland

Blogcast

Dvnet Admin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:34:29 +0000

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