Episode VI

Sitting down to quickly update this page is a little bit weird every time. There's been countless times since I last wrote here that I thought should really get round to getting this down but then something gets in the way and the update slips away. So, I'll try to delve back through the mists of time in my mind to capture everything!

We just had our first non-Lounge hosted WAc event at the Gallery at Bank Quay House which was a brilliant night and, despite us having arguably the best beer garden weather of the year, the turn-out continued to be high. Thanks all!

We've also seen the launch of Warrington Arts blog which is your place to go to keep an eye on all things creative in the town. This is a great initiative by the folks at the Gallery and links all of the output from their venue, but also the Pyramid and Parr Hall coupled with information about exhibitions and interviews with artists.

There's a real vibe developing in the town at the moment and we're really hoping to continue working with everyone who is doing such a great job or driving it forward - the forthcoming Contemporary Arts festival (sneak peak at the logo here) should prove an awesome proving ground for the scene in town and should ram home the message that it's not all about Liverpool and Manchester, the place that is so often overlooked in the middle, is standing up proud at the moment. Keep an eye out for more about the festival here and on WAc.

Anyway! Back to the main topic, developing WAc as a group. Well, we've managed to rack up five meetups and we've hit 53 members of the group. This is way higher than I thought we'd ever reach by this point so I think it's fair to say, good stuff! The sixth event will be at another venue and we're really excited about this one but we're also looking for your input into what works for you and what you'd like to see more of, so please do leave your thoughts.

And lastly, for the photographers out there, what do you think about this idea? A group for photographers of all abilities where we pick a theme, pick a location and go crazy. Let us know via the discussion board!

See you at the next meetup!

Jog on

Wow, it's really been two months (ish) since the last meetup. That's really flown and we find ourselves on-top of the next one. A lot seems to have happened since the last time I ventured onto the blog. I never really know if there's any point updating this, but then I remind myself that it's one of the only times that I actually get to do some proper writing. I mean, usually, it's an email, or a comment on a Word document. Not some really,... prolonged... writing.

OK, so this isn't quite that, but I'll take it! As we crash into the third month of year we've seen a couple of changes of leadership in a variety of countries and we're in the midst of this Libyan thing. But in terms of overall controversy, we've had the ongoing MediaCity debate, key figures at the BBC opting (or still finding themselves undecided) to stay in their White City castle. March 31st should be an interesting day.

I'm going to allow a little self-indulgence at this point. Having been in London for nearly six years now , I think I'm fairly well qualified to consider myself integrated with this city. And, I have to say, that it's not all that at the moment. Sure, this is where the perceived "it" happens, this is where parliament is based, web firms flock here putting London on a similar pegging as the west coast US firms and increasingly those from Sweden etc etc. But there's something that everyone here seems reluctant to acknowledge, there's things happening up in Manchester. This isn't a back-water somewhere "up north" as the Evening Standard would have you believe.

Note this, the last few times I've been in the north-west, there is a palpable vibe - not just in Manchester, that's been there for years, but everywhere. It's more fresh than the staid agencies of London-town. To simply ignore this, for the short-sighted reason that your belief that London is the centre of the known universe, is fool-hardy. The two can work better together, it doesn't have to be one or the other. So please, stop painting the bleak, coal powered, vision of the north. It's old. It's been old for 25 years. I would strongly encourage those subscribers of WAcreative to take a look at the industry they're working in. It's in good shape!

Anyway! Rant over! The next meetup is on March 10th at the Lounge and we'll have the wonderful Natalie Edwards delivering a concoction of subjects from working with Radio Warrington, running her own business and doing all this through a recession. We'll also have our largest audience yet and a heap of small-businesses and producers - it'll be a good one!

And, lastly, we're cooking up something a little bit different for April - watch this space!

Creativity central?

We've been spending a little bit of time thinking about the creative industries in Warrington and wondering which elements were the strongest? We know that the music scene around the town has always been pretty strong and that there's been a whole heap of IT companies start-up.

But, where do you think the strengths lie? And, also, are there any areas which you think are under-catered for? Do we have a load of web developers and not enough companies to cater for them, resulting in talent-loss from the area?

Oh, and while we're here, remember the next WAc meetup is on Thursday 27th Jan at The Lounge. It is, as always, free to come down and if you're working or studying in the creative industries, stop by and say hi.

A new year brings...

It's the first blog post of 2011 and it's timed, none too coincidentally, to coincide with the scheduling of the January Meetup. For those interested, it's on the 27th January at The Lounge again and if you're working in the creative industries around Warrington, it would be great to see you.

After the "tricky second", and tricky it was owing to -10c temperatures, Christmas and the most snow I've seen in a while, the next instalment should be great. We've got the talk-spot assigned to Alex Kelsey, Interaction Designer at SDG (who bring you Littlewoods and Very amongst other things) and drinks provided by NeverCenter

Anyway, enough self-promotion, this blog is about how we get this group off the ground and the wider digital sphere. It's been an interesting few months since we last posted and there's been increasing interest in WAc, which is great and we've managed to have a couple of excellent meetups, so all going well there! As with all things, it's been tricky to keep the momentum going but there's definite demand for the group! The WAc Jobs twitter stream also continues to go from strength to strength, so if you're interested in looking for jobs in the creative industries, why not follow and see if there's anything of interest going on?

We've also had the wikileaks scandal ongoing, which is impossible to miss and probably something worthy of discussion at the next event, when beer can be deployed. The rights and wrongs of this are beyond probably warrant an entire blog post and is probably covered elsewhere already! Interesting to see that twitter has been subpoenaed by the US government about access to Assange's details. Definitely something to keep an eye on there.

Closer to home, we've seen some changes at NW Vision + Media and the announcement that the NW Fund for Digital and Creative is now open which hints at the growing confidence and output in the creative industry in the north west. I also had the chance to pop down to MediaCity UK over Christmas and have to say, it's looking great! So, 2011 looks like it's going to be a great year with some extremely interesting developments. Look forward to it!

The tricky second

It's widely known that knocking-up a follow-up is difficult and with the exception of Terminator 2 (and maybe Aliens), there's very few things that do it better than the original. So it was tough going into the second meetup for WAc.

We had to deal with Arctic conditions but for the brave few who battled through to be treated to a brilliant presentation by Ian Carroll it was excellent. But for those who couldn't make it, a brief overview of discussions is presented for your viewing pleasure.

First up, it's been a fairly tough month but we've managed to get a second meetup in, setup the jobs feed for WAc and get sponsorship sorted. Not too shabby! So we're now on the hunt to grow the group - we'll be reconsidering the venue, while we love dearly The Lounge, something just isn't quite gelling, so if anyone has any suggestions, holla!

We're also going to skip a Meetup in December simply due to the fact that everyone has loads on already and it doesn't make sense competing with this so we'll wait till the new year and have a big one to really kick-off 2011. Please help spread the word where you can by letting those around you know what's going on.

And lastly, drinks will be on us again at the January Meetup. Should take the sting out of the wallet a little after Christmas. Ah, also (saying "lastly always opens you up for this type of random thought..), we've just fired up a LinkedIn group - say hi.

Getting creative (jobs)

Part functional, part experimentation. This mix can be applied to many things with invariably interesting results. Never ones to shy away from science and experimentation, we've mashed a couple of sources together (for those interested, Monster, Guardian Jobs and Indeed) to form our first venture in pushing creative jobs out.

This twitter stream will (attempt!) to deliver relevant jobs in and around Warrington. We'll continue to add sources over time. You can find us @WAc_jobs. Follow us; you never know what you might find.

Hello world!

Welcome along!

This is just one of those first posts that everyone inevitably logs when they sign up for a new service. They usually make minimal contribution to the wider world and have very little meaning than delivering those ever famous two words, hello world. Avoidance of this is now at the forefront of my mind.

The purpose of this page is to document the efforts of the folks at WAcreative (soon to be abbreviated to WAc I would imagine) as we try to get the group off the ground. Hopefully we can avoid any connotations there!

So, diving into episode one, we find ourselves in a turbulent environment. WAc (damn it!) is setup to deliver a mixing pot for those working in the creative industries in and around Warrington. It's a very simple idea really, connect people who work in the same industry and let everyone make some connections. This is something that has been sadly lacking in town for a while and we'll try our best to sort that out. We'll also try to remember to maintain this site as a documentary of how well (or otherwise!) we do.

We ran the first meetup back in October. The event was a massive success, aside from us having to compete with the comedy night at the Lounge. The ideology of these events is primarily to connect people, but secondarily to create something more than the sum of its parts. And to do it in a fun and informal way. So if you're new to the ideas of meetups, don't feel at all put-off by coming down, all are welcome. So whether you work in digital media, music or photography, welcome to the pot.

We've just scheduled the second meetup for the 30th November and we look forward to seeing you there. We've also got the WAc twitter feed fired up so follow and keep in touch that way.