Create Cardiff quiz

Back in January we arranged an evening of ‘anti-quiz’ at Cardiff Arts Institute as part of their Future/Cardiff project. The quiz took form in several rounds of first a warm up round to get people engaged with things they might know about Cardiff, moving to rounds that encouraged the participants to think hard about what they really knew about their city, and the people they engage with – from their neighbours to Cardiff heroes (a round contributed by Dan Green from Big Little City). Other questions ranged from examining empty properties and landmarks around Cardiff and what they could be used for, and mapping great things like where they thought a difference to their community could be made, and the three best places in Cardiff they had kissed someone! (A nice time to do that, on St Dwynwen’s Day!).

The prize for the evening was ‘knowledge’ and the sharing and learning from it – all who came loved Cardiff and had many views of it and ideas for its future, whether it was based in the realms of planning, sustainable development, community building and engagement, or the Arts.

The night was attended by about 25 people, from many different backgrounds, and all were absorbed during the evening with debating the ‘answers’ amongst their teams – many of the discussions were full of memories and heart-felt love for Cardiff and how it could be improved, and how to preserve the best parts for the future – answers were not necessarily right or wrong, and the event provoked discussion, lateral thinking and laughter among the participants.

Groups came up with words to describe Cardiff ranging from beautiful, creative, friendly and vibrant to the less complimentary - decaying, unfulfilled and soulless. Ideas for unused spaces and empty buildings in the picture round (Callaghan Square and SPIN building (formerly The Gaiety) on City Road) included calls for a skateboard park, outdoor pool, work pods or food market; and for the building, a Chapter East, community centre, theatre, circus school, or mosque.

See more photos on our Flickr page – the evening’s discussions and ideas were recorded by Jordan Harrison from the University of Glamorgan, and is available now at www.jghaudio.wordpress.com.

Thanks to Geraldine Nichols for most the write up.

Where are all the Women?

I was asked a while back if I could think of some ‘inspirational women’ I know to speak at a local Cardiff event. To my dismay, I was stumped. So was the questioner, hence the question. We both sat there, humming and hawing. But as neither of us are Cardiff locals – we used this as an excuse, a poor one but an excuse nonetheless.

This year, it is the global centenary of the celebration of International Women’s Day, www.internationalwomensday.com As the topic entered our conversation at last weeks ARK meeting we decided it would be a perfect opportunity to celebrate ‘inspirational women of Cardiff’. For further information on local Welsh events go to www.cymruwomen.org.uk and www.flarewales.com

The date is Tuesday 8th of March, but ARK will be doing our celebrating on Saturday March 5th.

The intention is to celebrate local inspirational women that enhance our lives everyday, be they a sister, a mother, a daughter, a friend? Has your grandmother done something outstanding? Is she outstanding? Is your friend the only female on the senior management board of a company? Have you worked ceaselessly for the betterment of your community? Does your mother still bake homemade sourdough bread that is a unique family flavour? Did your sister walk the breadth of the Australian desert alone, with one pair of shoes?

Or maybe it’s just their sheer existence that makes your world better. We would like to know. If you would like to ‘nominate’ someone as one of our most inspirational woman then get in touch.

More details will follow.

Posted by Laura on behalf of Sharon

Responding - Attracting people and the lessons we are learning.

Well this year started with a bang we had an event that we had to get organised (still not to late to come along with your friends to it. Tuesday 25th January from 6pm at Cardiff Arts Institute). Coupled with the really good news that a number of people who were looking for work have now got new jobs and some have been redeployed to different areas of their business. So for 2011 this brings a whole different feel to thinkARK as most of the projects have relied on people using some of their spare time to help out creating projects and events. So this year is going to be even busier.

Anyway back to the real reason for the blog post. We have for many months now averaged about 10 -12 people coming and chatting about projects. And we have got to know each other very well which is great but is also an issue when new people come as we have groups of people that are talking about things that have happened or about to happen. So for potential new people coming into a close group it can always be a bit intimidating.

Firstly as we have been starting to get involved in a lot of projects we have started to let our planning of these control our Wednesday evenings, which were always envisaged as more of a social event and experimentation space rather than physically working. In balance to this we have been struggling to all meet up at one time so Wednesday is perfect for talking about projects. The layout of the room at Cardiff Arts Institute is also a bit to do with the issue as for the last few months it has made us talk in a large circle where people have become disengaged and it is really not as fun as it has been.

SO TO NEW YEARS RESOLUTION

- in 2011 we are going to divide the wednesday meeting up, so there is either a space or time to discuss projects. Then another time or space for just having fun and socialising.

- in 2011 we are also going to try and stop mass talks and break into smaller groups. We hope this will create a more creative and personal experience for everyone.

- in 2011 we are also going to develop new ways of introducing new people to the group. So we are aiming to pick one person who says hi and looks after a new person gets them introduced and is made to feel welcome.

We hope these new small changes will help in the development of an even better community, and come together with better projects. Would love to hear your thoughts

CHANGE OF DATE!!! Creating a new Cardiff... Have your say

thinkARK – Future Cardiff Response
Create Cardiff

On Tuesday the 25th January thinkARK are going to be creating an experience that reassesses your thoughts about our fair city, Cardiff. Bring friends to explore, make, design and quiz about what you think you know about the micro and macro. So if you are interested in pushing new thoughts and concepts about the future of Cardiff come along from 6pm.

TUESDAY 25th JANUARY 2011

6pm-8pm

The Resilient City Project

The lovely Geraldine kindly sent me this link

It's a blog post about an idea for a tool that helps local communities share resources and reduce expenses using geolocation, interactive mapping and visualisation.

It also mentions other interesting sites like:

https://thesuperfluid.com/ Superfluid makes collaboration in social networks fair by enabling members to trade favors using a virtual currency

http://ushahidi.com/ Ushahidi is a non-profit tech company that develops free and open source software for information collection, visualisation and interactive mapping

and discusses the possibility of using this software for organising community based initiatives.

It's worth a look - I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts.

Bringing, Sharing and having a Good Time

Thanks to all the people who came to share their skills and talents last Wednesday night in CAI. Everyone seemed to have a good time, even if they didn’t come away with exactly what they were looking for!

In the lead up to the event, what struck me was the amount of people who claimed not to have any skills to offer. It’s easy to forget that not everyone can do the things that you can do and that something you take for granted can be valuable to other people. So to help jog people’s memories of what their skills were we put up a number of headings that skills could be categorised under. They were Green Fingers, Computery Things, Health & Happiness, In the Kitchen, Art & Crafty Stuff, The Business World, DIY Dilemmas, The Life of the Mind and Miscellaneous. We also put up a list of other potential skills for people to take inspiration from.

We asked people to consider 3 basic guidelines for sharing and bartering:
-The unit of exchange is one hour
-Give freely – it’s better if you offer something you enjoy doing
-Skill sharing is based on trust and common sense – so keep fairness in mind.

People were then invited to spend the first hour putting up everything they had to offer and everything they wanted under the various categories. Then the next hour was for finding the people who were offering something you wanted and bargaining with them for it.

These were some of the skills offered...
Digging and weeding
Basic blogging
CV revamping
Intermediate knitting
Curry lessons
Basic hoola-hooping
Intro to sustainability
Wardrobe weeding
Bike maintenance

And some of the skills wanted...
Body popping
Bouzouki classes
Astronomy with binoculars
Basic Welsh
Positive thinking
How to screenprint
Mushroom foraging
Basic website design
Biological pest control

Bartering was good fun; I found myself in a few humorously tense ‘lay your cards on the table’ situations in order to get what I wanted, having to stand there and list every skill I could think of until the person I was bargaining with consented to do a swap.

A couple of people who weren’t able to come have asked if the skills swap can go on online. It would be interesting to figure out a way of doing this, however there are already a lot of skill swap and local exchange trading systems websites dedicated to this. ( Freeconomy , Cardiff Taffs) The charm of Bring and Share for me was being able to speak to people face to face, get to know new people and have a laugh. However I think we are going to have a look at putting the skills offered online for other people to do swaps for some time in the near future.

Actually I’m finding the barter mentality hard to kick – today on Twitter I spotted an opportunity and negotiated a ukulele lesson in exchange for basic sewing. Might be skill swapping for Christmas presents this year ...

If anyone would like to offer any feedback about Bring and Share or comments about skill sharing in general it would be good to hear from you...

Developments for the market

Welcome, welcome, welcome!

Bring and share is all about creating a place where people with a skill to offer can hook up with people with a skill in need and vice versa. It could be anything that interests you, from juggling to video production to art appreciation. Have a look at our ideas if you're not sure... Meanwhile, here are a few tips on making it work for everyone.

1. The basic unit of exchange is one hour, of your time or someone else's.
2. Give freely – it works best if you offer something you really enjoy doing.
3. Bring and share is based on trust and common sense – so please keep fairness in mind.

Need a bit more detail? Just ask your welcome host...

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The areas we are looking at so far:

- computery things
examples:

I need to learn how to use Word. How do I get started on Twitter and Facebook? I can teach people about (legal!) music sharing.I'm offering word-processing skills training.

- in the kitchen
examples: Can someone help me make perfect cakes? I'd love to learn about Indian cooking. I know how to make flawless souffles. My speciality is French cuisine.

- green fingers
examples: Anyone know how/where I can keep bees? I'd really love to grow my own vegetables. I'd like to share my appreciation of permaculture. I know exactly where all the best blackberries/apples/sloe berries/nut trees are.

- health and happiness
examples: I need to find better ways of chilling out. Can anyone help me manage my time better? I'd like to teach yoga classes. Climbing is the best thing ever – I want to pass on the passion.

- DIY dilemmas
examples: Can anyone help me put up a shed? I'm a whizz with the power tools.

- arts and crafty stuff
examples: I'd like to start going to Cardiff's museum and art galleries. Film has always fascinated me. I'd love to share my knowledge with others.

- the business world
examples: How can I turn my hobby into a solid business idea? I can give people top tips on business success.

Quick thank you to Clare for the words, Laura for the words and everyone else for contributing to the testing out last week.