Welcome to Episode 22 of the West Park park bench podcast. However, this Park Bench Podcast is not coming from a park bench. It's taking us back to the Audio Blog strolls that I did many many years ago when I would walk from the top of St. Stephen's Church in Sneinton through to Lace Market House to give me a five minute window in which to record a podcast. That Audio Blog gave me a sense of time that I could do that in between. And I'm kind of reviving that I'm down in London for a week. And during this week, I'm trying to fit in all of those things that I would like to be more present in London at other times, but I have to put them all into one week and try and coordinate things so that it all happens.
So on Monday I was at equity meetings.
I met with the stage management committee via zoom on my way down on the train, getting to guild house, which is the headquarters of equity to be present in the real physical flesh for the stage committee, as a representative of the stage management committee, because equity committees do that, and it was just so enlightening to be at the place where the decisions are being made, and this is the really tricky thing about organisational power and to some extent about the trouble with democracy. And that is that the decisions have to be made somewhere and often when those decisions are made the ripple effect of those decisions go out far beyond the people have made those decisions and they often don't take into account the ripples that hit that when you're hit by a ripple. You don't know what its causation is. And although it comes from a central point, you are just hit by the wave. And this is a little bit of a problem with the decision making that's been going on in equity at the moment. I'm not gonna go into that too much because this is kind of a bit of a, an update of what's happened and for me to get an episode 22 in the bag or in the phone, so to speak.
Tuesday, was the purpose of my visit which was to zoom control, alt space facilitate tech wrangle a meeting for cyber salon, Christmas social. During the last six weeks, I've been working with my partner, Daniel Rose. Visual ratio is his company. And we have built a faithful recreation of 39 Whitfield Street which was the very first venue that Cyberia had as an internet cafe in 1994. And the subsequent organisation that has remained cohesive is Cybersalon and Cybersalon is the organisation that I've been trying to help connect with technology in a way that they are very, very tech savvy, but often you just need a producer or stage manager to connect those cogs and wheels in the background to just make the thing happen. It's not that you're having the idea for them, but you're just taking the idea and just snapping the pieces into place. It's like a bit of an Airfix model that doesn't quite fit together properly and you just need to go round and snap a few of the connections in. And then once it's there, they're away they had it in the first place.
So that was my Tuesday and here we are at Wednesday. And today I spent a whole day at a new co working space that I found through a service called Othership. I highly recommend you check it out. I'll put it in the show notes. Othership is a directory of curated co working spaces, cafes and event spaces. And I found a co working space called CoBalance over in Shoreditch. I was hoping to find a space where I can hide in a corner but have some space also have some light, decent Wi Fi potentially an extra screen. But I wanted to be away from the general public so I didn't want to be in a cafe. And one of the problems that I have with cafes is that often either coke fridge is just so busy. It's all I can hear all the barista machine is constantly going.
So the compromise is to find a cafe that's a co working space in and CoBalance is that balance. I really enjoyed working there yesterday for a couple of hours upstairs and today I was in the basement for a good five hours meeting with my support assistant Fi Woof Bark Donkey who is supporting me through my neurodivergent journey into arts council support. And we talked through the report that I have to do for the Arts Council for my DYCP funding.
So I had a very, very generous grant from the Arts Council in August 2021 of 12,000 pounds, and I now have to write a report to demonstrate to them how I spent that money and it's going really well so it's not a problem. I just have to write the report. So after that, so Wednesday, I then returned to central London to a fundraising meeting with Safety Curtain.
So Safety Curtain is a charity that I am a trustee on. I became involved because of my social media ninja skills and website guidance for the current chair. So Jo Cameron Brown is currently chair and Safety Curtain their tagline is "Keeping culture alive in the darkest of times". A lot of the people who apply for funding from Safety Curtain live in war torn countries. So there's conflict there's environmental disaster there's often natural disasters, so earthquakes or it is a conflict zone and the artists that are trying to create work in their home country. They just need a bit of support for their livelihood. They need a way of being able to take art to the streets while still finding a way to feed and clothe themselves and often take care of extended family members and often take care of their own medical needs. So quite a lot of them have medication requirements and because these countries don't have the NHS they have to find a way of funding and that medication need.
So I'm on my way back now to the place that I am staying. And it's only halfway through the week. And I just felt that it would be really good thing to get this 22nd episode into the workflow. I have been really enjoying doing these podcasts in the park, but I'm not in the park this week. So it's still something to do and the great thing about it is I am able to record the audio and I now have a process in which that audio is taken out of the Otter app into the anchor.fm podcasting app. I have a way of creating the thumbnail using Canva creating the show notes using the auto transcription and very quickly and easily being able to record something like this and knowing that I can sit down and have the steps in my head to just get that metre out quite quick.
So it's Wednesday. I have got three maybe three days remaining down here in London. I am meeting tomorrow. I'm gonna have lunch with the Royal Historical Society who I've been doing some zoom wrangling for during the COVID never met them before in person. So I always really liked that first time that you're meeting somebody. And this is one of those times and the Royal Historical Society have been with me throughout COVID So to come to this point where I'm able to be in London for the first time and meet with this connection, but I did not have before COVID who have really kept it a trickle economy coming in to my bank account and I will be forever grateful for their support.
And then on Friday, Tuttle in person. So Tuttle in town, so all the way through COVID I was tuning in on a weekly video call with Lloyd Davies, who is the founder and chief Tuttler at Tuttle.
And it's been an online thing and it's just been so nice to support the organisation and and the entity that is total to just hold this space on a Friday. And this is the first time that I've been in London and been able to potentially attend a Tuttle. It's not been a lot of planning behind it, but there's definitely going to be a meetup. So I will put that on Twitter.
But it's the point of these podcasts is that it's a development. It's a journey and you are all on journeys. So for whatever reason you're listening to this, whether it's in 2022 when this has been recorded, or whether you find this in the future when Hey, wouldn't it be great if the PCM immersive staging company was coming close by you've done a web search and you've found this crazy creative producer called Caron Lyon who, during 2022 started to try and make a podcasting series and just keeping a media trail active. It's really important to have something that is of a consistency.
So as I approach my destination I will wrap this up to say wherever you find yourself at this moment in time in your life, it's December 2022. What ever Christmas means whatever the new year means, just reflect on it. And do know that @PCMcreative is there for you to comment, to share with me your comments. Some people said they don't know how to put comments in to anchor, type PCM creative into Google, find a blog post. Find a Facebook entry. But if you want to say something to me if you want to say hi, just PCM creative and get in touch with me. I'd love to hear from you. I love to extend conversations.
So just as I enter the forecourt or the entryway into where my accommodation is I thank you so much for listening and hey, maybe this will actually get posted as opposed to me thinking maybe episode 22 needs to be something more than just a ramble about where I've been for weeks. So if you're getting this I really hope that you've enjoyed it. And Sweet Dreams
