What's Occurring?

The upcoming events section is looking pretty empty, so please do let me know about any events, exciting news or other gossip that can be included in the Blog.

Email me at daretoknow@mac.com

Craft Fair at The Water's Edge

It's back again to The Water's Edge for a blog entry today in the form of a Craft Fair for local artists. The centre was full of stalls of a wide variety and is certainly worth a visit. If you missed it today don't fret as the Fair continues tomorrow and Monday. Don't forget, there are wonderful cards on sale in The Water's Edge designed by my good self (shameless plug!). If you can't find them ask for the 'dare to know' cards. Why not go down there and pick up some unusual craft? There is some fantastic present material down there as well as stalls full of cakes and jams.

Julia of Tulip's Kitchen, enticing me with her Cup Cakes and Fudge Brownies!

Cup Cake art

Shalama handmade Jewellery - really nice colourful stall with plenty of variety in options and prices

Hawkmoon Crafts - also, really colourful and great stuff here

Bears of Bottesford - Bears and clothes for Bears

Crazee Lady Crafts - well she didn't seem crazy to me but her crafts were nice!

Crazee Frog

Crafty Links:

Tulip's Kitchen: tulips-kitchen@hotmail.co.uk

Shalama: rosie.turner@live.co.uk

Spell Emporium: www.spellemporium.co.uk

Hawksmoon Crafts: www.hawksmooncrafts.co.uk

Bears of Bottesford: barry.rose@ntlworld.com

Crazee Lady Crafts: hazelgraves@btinternet.com

Barton Youth Brass Band: The Film

The very talented and enthusiastic Barton Town Youth Band have been making a film to enter into the Scunthorpe Young People's Film Festival. The film is about their enthusiasm for their instruments, the music and what it's like being in a band. Brass Bands used to be much more popular than they are today so they explored what it's like doing something that can be considered unusual, especially by your classmates at school. Filmed over two days, much of the shooting took part in Baysgarth Park on Saturday and thankfully the sun shone down for this part of the shoot. The Band worked with two local film-makers: Annabel McCourt of Cut Ltd and Rhian White of dare to know ltd (uh, that's me - well, how else did you think I knew about this??) and experienced a professional setup with a High Definition camera and a very sensitive Boom Mike! Much fun was had by all! Keep an eye out on this blog for the finished product and on the SYPFF website for more information about the festival. Details below.

Recording interviews

Chilling out between takes

In the park, recording a tune everybody knew off-by-heart

Marching towards camera: got there in the end!

Trombone solo

Looking cool in shades!

Percussion solo

Cornet section

The Band

There was even a bit of time for jumping off benches....

and for larking about. Always time for larking about on a fun film shoot.

Scunthorpe Young People's Film Festival: http://www.thebuzzwebsite.co.uk/events/index.php?ID=15

On Twitter: http://twitter.com/SYPFF

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Scunthorpe-Young-Peoples-Film-Festival/91272317132?ref=ts

There is still time to enter films in to the festival (deadline Sep 7th), so if you are aged 8-19 get entering your films!

Allotment Society 61st Annual Horticultural Show

Wow, what a visual treat this was! Trinity Church Hall played host to this year's showcase of the finest fruit, vegetables, flowers, cakes, jams, pies, quiches... ok, so you get the picture. Basically, the lecture hall was adorned with tables full of neat rows of the most colourful and splendid examples in each category and it was an eye-opener too. Never before have I seen such long Parsnips and such enormous Onions! I am immensely impressed by the skill and dedication it takes to produce such fine produce and hopefully the snaps I took do the subject justice. I only wish we could buy these fruit and vegetables at our local supermarket and not produce that has been shipped half way across the world! These look far, far better and are of course local.

Photography Workshop at The Waters' Edge

As a keen photographer I was excited to see this workshop come up at The Waters' Edge, especially as it was being taken by Paul Hobson, runner up in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008 competition. Summer returned again yesterday for the day-long workshop, so much so that I had to get sun cream delivered at lunchtime! It was a thoroughly enjoyable workshop in which we were taken through various different methods to take wildlife photographs and to use simple techniques to improve what we may already be doing. I know I learnt a lot and will be testing my new knowledge out and about in Barton very soon. In the meantime, here are a few snaps from the day.

An interesting technique this, using a sheet of white plastic behind the subject with the sun coming through from behind. 

Contrasting nature and man-made structures.

That's me, contrasting nature and man-made structures.

Borrowing a wide angle lens, i could get all of this plant in the shot.

Keen photographers, as seen from below.

Pesky leaf-munching Caterpillars; the Cousins of these beasts are destroying my Cabbage patch! This was the Macro exercise.

Paul saved a couple dozen Toads that had fallen into a drain, and in return they sat quietly to have their picture taken on a set constructed out of damp moss. Ok yeah right, this little beast sat still for a milli-second, just long enough for me to get this shot though. They were all released back to the wild after their short photoshoot and hopped happily into the long grass and well away from the dreaded drain.

Barnfest at The Mill

This is a day-long gig in the Car Park of The Mill pub in Barton, which explodes Rock Music off the side of a Truck. The sun shone down on the organisers for the day yesterday and thank goodness because it would have been pretty miserable if the weather had stayed the same as in recent weeks. Getting there early on in proceedings at lunchtime, and being a total lightweight, I had to retire after two Lager Shandies for an afternoon nap, but still the tunes played on throughout the afternoon. On my return in the evening the Car Park was packed out and it was great to see so many people of different ages enjoying the music and also great for Barton to host some talented musicians and great music. Now if we could just have this for some talented Electronic Music artists, aka DJs, then I would be a happy lady! Listening, Barney?

Any musicians who played at the event who want their websites listed on the Blog please get in touch.