Paradise Circus

Rage Arts invite you to view the online premiere of Out of Our Grieving taking place on Monday 5th July between 9.30pm & 10pm GMT +1hr.  The film, created as part of their Urban Film Club activities, highlights the difficult subject matter of gun culture and gangs and is worthy of a look. There’s more information over at their Posterous site.

The Urban Film club was setup by the charity Rage Arts to give young people skills to help them take the next step in their lives. They’re really passionate about celebrating the achievements of the young people they’ve been working with, so please catch the online premiere if you can.

The next Brumbloggers will be on Tuesday 13^th July, meeting at The Flapper & Firkin (Kingston Row, City Centre) from 6pm until we all fall over or into the canal. To mix things up a bit, serial lunatic Danny Smith will be running the second Art is Easy evening to coincide with the meetup, so you are presented with the tantalising choice of drink and banter, or drink, draw and banter. I’ll let Danny explain what exactly Art is Easy is:

“I try and show everyone that drawing is a skill that can be taught. We drink, the better amongst us help the ones less able, we draw, we laugh, and I try not to stab anyone with my lovely sharp stabby stabby mechanical pencil.”

Fair enough. Fear not, I’ll be there to supervise him. Or restrain him.

We’ve had a show of interest already for this, so for those who have expressed an interest, please show your face and bring a pencil (HB or 2B), a hardback sketchbook (not essential but you will find it easier) and an eraser. If you haven’t already expressed an interest, this is not a problem – if you fancy a go at this just bring some kit with you on the evening. We’ll kick the drawing bit off from about 7.30ish. Prepare for an odd or disturbing still life composition to draw because, let’s face it, this is Danny we’re talking about after all.

If you’d rather poke your eyes out with blunt spoons than draw, that’s absolutely fine because, as with all the blogmeets, you can just tuck into a selection of exquisitely boozy liquids you’ll be able to purchase if you talk nicely to the bar staff.

See here for a shiny map to lead you to our lair.

The July Central Birmingham Social Media Surgery will be on Thursday July 15. It’s back at the usual venue, the Studio, which is at 7 Cannon Street, off New Street. The postcode is B2 5EP.

The surgery will take place at the usual times – from 5.30pm to 7pm – and all voluntary and community groups are welcome.

You can sign up for the surgery by following this link.

The surgeries are run by volunteers from the Birmingham Bloggers’ group and are completely free events to teach voluntary and community groups about the social web and how it can help the work that they do.
If you want to find out more about the surgeries, please have a look here.

Ooops. I’ve just spotted that the March Central Birmingham Social Media Surgery is going to clash with the March Birmingham Bloggers’ meet. They are both on March 9. Apologies for the clash. As plenty of people will know the surgeries are the result of the Birmingham Bloggers – and a good number of the surgeons are involved in both events – so we try to make sure that they don’t clash.

However, it isn’t the end of the world. While the surgeries start at 5.30pm and the Birmingham Bloggers’ meet up is at 6pm, they’ll be pretty close to each other (see the map) so if people want to pop down to the surgery first – at thestudio, in Cannon Street, off New Street – then it shouldn’t be too difficult to get yourself down to the Birmingham Bloggers meet at The Solomon Cutler, Broad Street – Birmingham, UK, B1 2DS. And the social media surgeries are a kind of ‘drop in when you want’ affair, so there’s no pressure to turn up and leave on the dot.
View Birmingham Bloggers and Social Media Surgery in a larger map

Just a quick post on returning home from the second free Social Media Surgery that we held for Birmingham’s voluntary organisations at the BVSC in Digbeth. As with the first event, tonight’s event was very popular and we hope everyone went home with some practical ideas and the confidence to try them out. We look forward to online activity from organisations including City Centre Neighbourhood Forum, Perry Barr Multifaith Network, the Get Walking Keep Walking project and Digbeth Trust to name but a few.

I’m sure more details will emerge over the next few days about what was achieved (please link to any further info in the comments), but for now, I’d like to say thanks to the following ‘surgeons’ for giving up their free time to offer advice to some worthy local voluntary organisations:

• Robert Annable
• Pete Ashton
• Nick Booth
• Jon Bounds
• Joanna Geary
• Nicky Getgood
• Stef Lewandowski
• John Mostyn
• Henry Mostyn
• Phil Oakley
• Stuart Parker
• Antonio Roberts
• Chris Unitt
• Ben Whitehouse
• Gavin Wray

I’ve written in the past about how I’m not entirely convinced about the proposed new location for the Academy (or Hummingbird, for those of us who’ve been here long enough to remember…), but at the same time pointing out the uncharitable attitudes of some of the people they will be neighbours to once they’ve moved.

Another perhaps-soon-to-be neighbour has managed to secure a court appearance in order to appeal against the licensing application:

But that licence is now under threat after Patrick McCrossan, who lives at nearby Clydesdale Tower, claimed having the venue on his doorstep would infringe his human right to a decent night’s sleep. He said the additional noise from the crowds, cars and cabs leaving after a night of live and loud rock music would make sleep impossible.

The ‘plight’ of people who move in to a house next to an airport, church, farm, or pub and then start complaining about the noise coming from them is, of course, well known.

But this is taking that situation to new extremes; an entertainment license is tied to the person running the venue rather than the venue itself, but the venue still has the use which can be made of it laid down in planning consent – the Dome has planning consent to be a nightclub, so whoever owns it, unless they are successfully granted change of use consent, the building will only ever be used as a nightclub.

Presumably when it was being run as the Dome itself Patrick McCrossan never had any trouble getting a good night’s sleep. If he did, he could have applied for a noise abatement order against the place.
So how will the site continuing to be used for the purposes it has been consistently used for for at least 30 years infringe his human rights?