Dream Team

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Events!

Gallery37 2006 (2006-09-08 07:55:21)

GALLERY37 REPORT

Week One By Beth Taylor

On the 1st Monday of Gallery 37. We all met at the Mac in Cannon Hill Park. Mac is a building full of art. We walked around the Mac and looked at a kind of exhibition of different random drawings on the walls designed by a man named Matt. We were told that he would be working with us for the two weeks Gallery 37 was running. Matt told us that the project was about skateboards, we were to design something that really appealed to us and we found interesting, we were then going to paint it onto a skateboard and it would be displayed around the hospital. After that we went inside a room in the Mac and we had to get into 2 groups and have a big sheet of A3 paper between us on it we had to put down ideas that we would put on our skateboards, and then we had lunch... After lunch Manesh had rearranged the tables like a large square with chairs around the tables. He then put A3 sheets of paper by each sitting place with a different theme written across the top, e.g.: by the sea, transport.... then he gave us one art media each, Lucy got pink paint, Sarah got oil pastels and I got charcoal. I didn’t really enjoy using the charcoal though. We then had to draw whatever it told us to on that piece of paper. After 30 seconds you moved into the next seat where you would draw/paint whatever it said at the top of that sheet. We then kept going round the table until we ended up back in our original seat. At the end we had these pieces of paper filled with everyone’s drawings. The Tuesday we were at the Gallery 37 building and we just drew still life and each other. Some pictures looked a little odd but it was fun doing them. On Wednesday we carried on drawing each other and still life. After lunch we put a massive piece of paper onto the wall and using poska pens and began to doodle everything and anything that we could think of. It was really fun and looked really cool when we had all drawn on it. But the first week was a bit boring without Miss Katie Nichols….

Week Two By Katie Nichols

Second week had begun with the arrival of me Katie! Matt started the day by giving out folders full of cartoon super heroes such as superman, wonder woman, Xmen and many more. We used these to help us design our own super heroes. We drew a spider diagram of everything we would want our super hero to have. Everyone had loads of different and interesting ideas like; Flying saucers to knock people out, Bouncing powers, super fast speed, Invisibility and x-ray visions, there were so many good ones. We were given the choice to use these super heroes on our skate boards. The day was mainly full of everyone catching up with each other and finishing the pictures that we had drawn.

On Tuesday we began drawing our final design on a piece of paper which an outline of the skate board had drawn onto. This was really helpful as we could see how much room we had to use on the skateboards.

You had to draw the design on with pencil. It was pretty tricky at times because the wood would be uneven and make you go wrong. Once we were happy with our pencil drawings we were allowed to paint it on the skateboards. We used acrylic paints and these pens that were like paint in a pen they were called Poska pens. We all took a break, and thought of a new name for Manesh ‘George’ we then thought of a saying to go perfectly with it ‘Don’t be foolish George have a potato’. After a while Matt put some paper up on the wall and let us doodle again. Everyone drew loads of different things it was really funky to look at and really colourful.

Wednesday was the last day so today was really finishing your skateboards off. We all began varnishing them but realized that when you used the varnish on the poska pens they smudged!

For lunch we went to pizza hut as it was the last day. When we got back we had to write on a postcard what we had done on our skateboard which was really boring to do. We also had to draw two little pictures of the two skateboard designs we had done, we then got these framed and are getting them to remember what we did.

We all drank loads of tea and coffee over the two weeks but we had a great laugh and it was really enjoyable. Sarah, Manesh (George), Jannet and Matt were really laid back, except for a few things…… But overall I really enjoyed it and would love to do it again!!

For more pictures visit the Gallery.....

Summer 2006 (2006-09-14 10:45:14)

Summer Programme 2006

So the summer has been and gone! A filled summer holiday for some with an opinion day and a trip to the pictures, Michelle's cooking experience, bowling, theatre trip to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a website feedback session and a day at the Imax and Think Tank. Some of the activities were obviously more of a hit than others but overall it was an enjoyable and successful summer!!!

If you would like to be invloved next school holidays, i.e. christmas, or have any ideas about what else we could do you can email Dr. Janet McDonagh on janet.mcdonagh@bch.nhs.uk Our team assistant will be leaving on September 15th but will be returning at christmas to pick up where she left off!!

Here what some of the people who attended thought about it......

I went to two days, French cooking experience, and to watch chitty chitty bang bang. The cooking was great we were shown how to cook frog legs and snails. I tried the frog legs but had to wash them down with squash, they didn't taste that bad, just like chicken, but it was just knowing what they were put me off. i wasn't brave enough to try the snails as i had tried them before and didn't fancy them again. After that we had a meal, coq au vin, it was lovely, but the dessert was best.

Chitty chitty bang bang was fantastic, the first half was a bit slow as i didn't know the story, but the second part, where I had got into it a bit more was great. The songs were very entertaining and the acting was brilliant. Next summer I would love the chance to see another performance at the hypodrome, like Edward Scissorhands which also looks great.

I managed to attend all the activities during the summer. The first meeting was the ideas session which was great. I met up with really old friends that I had lost contact with. We all wrote down what we wanted to do over the summer, we had some crazy ideas some of them slightly inappropriate but quiet reasonable I think! We went to the movies to end the day. We saw what I must say is the best film of the year stormbreaker but that’s just because the main actor was fit!

The second activity day was held at Michelle’s restaurant we watched the chef cook frog’s legs. They were really fleshy and tasted a lot like chicken! We also watched him cook snails. I tried one for the first time and most defiantly the last, they were disgusting. We were then served a main course and desert which was lovely.

The third activity was bowling. We all met at the bowling alley and were put into two teams. We all caught up some more with each other and had a laugh. We were all pretty competitive but had a good time. We went on a few of the arcade games before we went home.

The fourth activity was amazing, we were really lucky we got to go see chitty chitty bang bang at the pantomime. First we went into a room and given a task to design our own inventions and tell everyone what they would do. There was a massage machine, flying shoes, coffee machine, a wardrobe that got you changed and decided what you should wear that day, a perfect woman and many more amazing designs. We go to see the performance shortly after. I didn’t really enjoy the first half as it was slow and quiet boring, but the second half was really good it was full of much more songs and characters such as the man that played curly watts in Coronation Street! Overall it was a great night and really enjoyable.

A few of us met up to discuss what we wanted on the website www.dreamteam-uk.org we gave ideas to Heather such as a medical dictionary telling you about the illnesses, medication and side effects from it. We also talked about the colour and layout of it all.

The final day of the summer was really good but it was a shame a number of people couldn’t make it as they had to go back to school or were really busy. But we were joined by Dr McDonagh and of course Heather. We went to the IMAX cinema and the think tank. We watched the ant bully in 3D, there were certain parts made me jump and scream. I also kept trying to flick the ants when they came near me. It was a good film which was made better with 3D. We then all got to go around the Think Tank on our own, it was really funny. Matt and Me had a great time catching up again. Everyone met up for lunch and got to go around for a little while longer before we had a viewing in the planetarium. The day ended really well I had a great time with everyone.

I had fun on all the activities and found it a great way to meet new people and catch up with old friends. It was nice seeing Heather again and thanks to her we all got to go on these trips. I hope there will be more activities like this next summer or even sooner.

If you came on any of the days and would like to let us know what you thought you can post your opinion in the sites forum or email Dr. Janet McDonagh on the email address above and have your say posted!!!