Everything's Changing

Since my last blog which expressed my joyous feelings about moving to Cornwall I am devastated to announce that this journey will no longer be happening. Sadly, the sale on my house down there fell through, which means I am staying put in my hometown of Bicester. Whilst this is not what I wanted, I am happy to be staying in Bicester for a while as it means I can continue to have close friendships with people here. Unfortunately, I have sacrificed my job with OYAP Trust as they hired my replacement, shortly after my advisory that I would be moving away. There is now no funding for me to stay on. Another truly saddening event. 

OYAP has been my place of work for 8 months and with each day I have grown to love the work they do as a charity and I do for them more and more. It has been a dream job working with creative people, being able to use the creative side of my brain to develop and coordinate exciting activities for young people to get involved in. Even the meetings were inspiring and brilliant to be a part of and left me feeling motivated and full of ideas for not just the activities I coordinate, but also crafts, teaching tips and my career. Having the opportunity to work with a variety of wonderful people, each skilled in many different art forms, has been amazing. I am constantly inspired in their presence and wanting to do more for OYAP and their participants day after day. My favourite moments with OYAP include putting together a youth action team in Banbury and watching the young people succeed in planning and coordinating their own creative acts of kindness for their community. A significant project which will stay with me is when the young people designed and created cushions for elderly people and we all delivered the cushions into a care home. This particular project was featured in the Banbury Cake Newspaper. 

Another favourite moment was watching the success of the first project I coordinated in its entirety - UnFrozen. A theatre and set design project based on Disney's popular Frozen, which ran over October half term 2014. It was a huge sell out and the performance created in just 2 days was enough to bring the proud parents to tears! It was a wonderful celebration of theatre, singing, dancing and indeed the Frozen soundtrack. 

Finally, working with Heyford Park Free School has to be up their with the top favourites. Another project completely coordinated by me! After getting in touch with the school I successfully recruited artists to join me each week in providing lunchtime art activities for the students. These ranged from puppetry to animation, photography to sculpting! We have successfully seen the students through their Arts Awards too, which has been a very rewarding process for both them and OYAP. I will miss going into the school each week and working with such talented children. 

Earth Meets Sky

On Wednesday 19th February I attended a vocal technique and performance workshop at The Mill Arts Centre, Banbury, England. This workshop was provided by the Children's Art Charity I work for, OYAP Trust, and aimed to give young people an opportunity to create music performances together, working with professional artists from the music industry. 

Juliet Russell was the significant facilitator, who is a singer, composer and vocal coach on BBC's popular The Voice. Alongside Juliet was Flexie, a musician from London and Fred, a session drummer. The team together created a fantastic and inspiring atmosphere, which lead to all the participants forming a piece of individual music. 

The session saw us learning new techniques, significantly using our voices; basslines, melodies and beatboxing to name a few! We formed melodies as a group and used rounds and harmonies to produce exciting sounds and atmospheric songs. We were pulled in and out of our comfort zones as we each explored elements of music we hadn't tried before. For me, mixing up time signatures within a song and putting lyrics and a melody to these changes was most challenging, but thanks to Fred's support and encouragement from others, I was able to succeed in performing this task. It boosted my confidence as a singer and inspired me to learn to play an instrument so I can begin a process of writing my own music. 

Yesterday I was also lucky enough to meet some fantastic people, who truly inspired me to get back into singing and music once more. This was my favourite part of the day as I was able to learn about other emerging musicians who were present and watching them perform their incredible talents. From singers to rappers to violinists to drummers, the day had an exciting vibe running through the air as we explored deeper aspects of music and explored everyone's different genres and styles. 

I want to thank Zaylie from OYAP Trust for organising such an incredible event and a HUGE thanks goes to Juliet, Flexie and Fred for facilitating such a great project. Earth Meets Sky inspired young people across Oxfordshire to dive into the deep end and boost their confidence, learn creative new ways to express themselves through music and develop their music technique. 

A truly inspiring day to experience, I am looking forward to seeing the video pieced together from the best bits of the project.  

Make a Change

Make a Change

Let’s do something good, let’s do something kind

Let’s use our imaginations, just sat there in our minds.

In a world that suffers, let’s do something good

Let’s take positive action, bring it to our neighbourhood.

The more often we meet, the more often we plan

To take away negative portrayals, to show everyone we can.

Join us to make a difference, let’s make a change

Let’s become something worthy, make that change today.

~ Amie Johnson, 29/01/2015 ~

~ Inspired by the Youth Action Teams of OYAP Trust ~

As some of you may know, I work for a Children's Art Charity, who are devoted to encouraging arts within the young people of today. It is something I have so much passion for and commitment to and today, whilst working on a project, I was inspired to write this short poem to encourage positive change. 

A Youth Action Team is a group of young people who express interest in using art as a catalyst to make positive changes within their communities. As someone who has always gone out of my way to make people happy, even strangers, this project is the highlight of my job. Engaging young people and supporting them to take creative action within their communities for the sake of others is something I truly love to do. It is something I believe we should all do a little more of when we can. 

This morning a lady greeted me and it made me happy. Moments later I greeted another passing stranger with hopes that they will pass along the happiness and 'spread the joy'. Even something as little as this can spark happiness within someone, so if you pass someone, acknowledge them, say "hello". 

Maybe you want to take it a step further and help create other changes? The Youth Action Teams at OYAP Trust are working hard to make these changes happen, and support is always sought. For more details on our Youth Action Teams and updates of what they have been up to visit: www.oyap.org.uk and check out our projects page. 

I hope they can inspire you as much as they inspire me.