MISSION TO MELTON

A quick pop out and back again to Brooksby Melton College (Melton Campus) this afternoon, with some material and moral support for the events that the college will be holding during Inter Faith Week.

We're loaning the college the set of pictures we had produced for our Favourite Faiths Photo exhibition last year. They're not being used anywhere else during Inter Faith Week and it would be a pity for them to be left under wraps when they could be put to good use here. Well, not just "here": the collection will be split between the Melton and Brooksby campuses. These pictures were originally planned to be 16 in number - two for each of the member communities on Leicester Council of Faiths, one large, one small. I mentioned elsewhere on this blog (23 November 2011) that when these photos were digitally printed (direct onto thick mounting board) several of them were made too large to fit into the display spaces at Leicester People's Photographic Gallery. So the printer (John E. Wright) offered replacement copies at no extra cost and we were able to hold on to the originals too. We had no plans to use the pictures this year, so when Nicola Welbourne (photo above) of the college's Learner Services, asked if we had any visual material that could help beautify the room where their Interfaith Events Day is to be held next Wednesday (21 November) I jumped at the chance to offer these photos.

I'll be here for that day, with a display which will be "dual-badged" for Leicester Council of Faiths and Faith Awareness (the inter-faith programme of Christians Aware). It'll be a busy day for me: putting up the Council of Faiths table in the second Choice Unlimited at Leicester Tigers between 0630 and 0800; dashing out to the Melton campus for their Interfaith Events Day from 0930 till 1415; back to the Tigers, to front the display there till it closes at 1800; and keeping a watchful eye on the Highcross exhibition. I'm looking forward to it!

Even though the college is concentrating its Inter Faith Events Day into less than four hours on Wednesday, Nicola and her colleague Humera are already generating interest and enthusiasm around the college. They've prevailed upon staff in the Forestry and Arboriculture Department to provide an Interfaith Tree at both campuses on which students and staff are invited to hang heart-shaped labels bearing a wish, a prayer, a remembrance or something of that type. These will be collected for a blessing at the end of Inter Faith Week. You can see the Interfaith Tree to the right in the photo above. It's a big branch, spray-painted silver, stuck in an Oor Wullie style silver bucket; I'm going to see if we can get something like it for our exhibition in Highcross. And from Monday, prayers from different faiths will be circulated around the college, related to study, students or the theme of inter-faith dialogue and relations. I think they're doing a terrific job here.

INTER FAITH WEEK, DAY 4: FAVOURITE FAITHS PHOTO EXHIBITION

You may be wondering, faithful reader, what's become of the Favourite Faiths Photo Exhibition at the Leicester People's Photographic Gallery. This is part of our fourfold presentation for Inter Faith Week (and the gallery is also the venue for the afternoon introductory talks that we're presenting in association with Leicester Adult Skills and Learning Service under the banner, "Discover Communities of Religion or Belief in Leicester").

Due to a technical hitch or two, it's taken longer to get the photos printed than we'd hoped. Then Ian Davies, Director of the Leicester People's Photographic Gallery, was rushed into hospital by ambulance on Monday afternoon with sever chest pains. That threw everything out of kilter at the gallery, including our display. So I'm glad (indeed, relieved) to get a message this morning from our contact at John E Wright (the digital printing company which produces everything displayed in the gallery) that our pictures are ready and have been delivered to the gallery. I ask Arthur Winner (who's come along to help out at the exhibition in Highcross) to come up to the gallery and cast his professional photographers' eye over the pictures. I haven't decided on how the photos are going to be displayed, which ones should go together and so on. But after th ten minute walk up to the gallery, we're greeted by Rob Howden, who tells us that the photos haven't shown up there. So Arthur and I take another ten minute walk over to John E Wright in Marble Street, only to be told that the pictures aren't there, that they were definitely delivered to the Adult Education College this morning. Ah, right so ... this is part of the problem with this new venue. No one knows what it's really called (or what it's supposed to be called, since no one wants to refer to it as the Old Central Lending Library - which is the way you end up describing it when you have to accept that no one knows where it is or what you're talking about!). So Arthur and I head over to the Adult Education College in Wellington Street where - lo and behold - our photos are sitting waiting for us, protected by the biggest swathe of bubble wrap I've ever seen *POP!*


We carry the collected 16 photos (printed on board which is rather too big and unwieldy to carry through the streets) up to the gallery, unwrap them and lay them out along one of the walls, so we can judge how they can be displayed (as in the photo above). I have to say that I'm disappointed in how a few of them have turned out. I'd hoped for better results to be honest (Arthur describes the colour in some of them as "punchy" - I'm not sure what that means, but it doesn't sound positive). In the end, I leave decisions about the order of display in the capable hands of fellow Scot John Toye.


When I come back round to the gallery later this afternoon (to meet the speaker for the Jain slot at 1500), John has been trying to hang the pictures, but tells me that all but one of the larger ones just don't fit! Rather than the whole area of the photo plus white space around it being A2, the picture alone has been printed A2 then additional white space added around. This makes them too big to fit in any of the allotted spaces at the gallery. This is strange and somewhat inexplicable, as the printer (John E Wright) does all the production of these prints for the gallery and should have been working to a set standard. John asks me to leave it with him to contact the printer and talk it over. By the end of the afternoon, John E Wright has committed to printing again the anomalous pictures, to the right size this time, at no extra cost to us. Since the bigger versions are now going spare, I take them down to the exhibition at Highcross, where we can use them to add a splash of colour to the display.

LEICESTER PEOPLE'S PHOTOGRAPHIC GALLERY PREVIEW

A few minutes after leaving Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living, where I'd been attending the regular monthly Core Partners meeting of the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership, I stop at the top of King Street, to put on my coat. As I do so, I hear someone calling my name. A few yards down Wellington Street, sitting on the low windowsill outside the old record lending library, Ian Davies and Chris Minter are waving to me. Chris is Head of Leicester Adult Skills and Learning Service (LASALS). Ian is a community activist and photographer whom I got to know through CreativeCoffee Club at Phoenix Square.

As I cross Wellington Street toward them, they stand up and beckon me into the building, through the open fire exit door and up the stairs inside. The old Central Lending Library is in the final stages of conversion into a new venue for community education and cultural use. Its main feature in this new form will be the Leicester Peoples Photographic Gallery. So here I am getting a sneaky peek at the new gallery space and some of the pictures that will feature in the opening exhibit there. Ian's devoted himself to this project over the last several months and his hard work is clearly paying off. It's two weeks till the building opens to the public, but already it's an impressive sight. It's going to be a very attractive and busy venue, I've no doubt about that.

There's an offer of a public display of photographs for Leicester Council of Faiths during National Inter Faith Week in November. This is something I'm hoping to persuade our Board of Directors to get behind as part of the celebration of the Council of Faiths 25th anniversary.

I've joined the Leicester People's Photographic Gallery with a personal subscription of only £5 per year (which brings a number of benefits). Ian thinks I'm member No. 22.

I'd have liked to have stayed longer and had more of a look around, but I'm supposed to be at the Quaker Meeting House in just a quarter of an hour.

I hope that Ian can maker it to CreativeCoffee Club tomorrow morning. If he does, I'll give him the chance to say a bit about the Gallery .

The Leicester People's Photographic Gallery is the beneficiary of generous sponsorship and support from Jon E. Wright & Company, the long-established and well-respected digital printing business. And the Gallery has a well-subscribed Facebook page.

In the photo above, Ian is in the foreground, Chris is in the background.