Y.E.S – that's the Youth Enquiry Service...innit

The Youth Enquiry Service have been pals of The Stove for a while now – so we were delighted when they got in touch to ask for our help with their ambitious project to chart their own 20 year history. Their project will look at how things have changed for young people over the last 20 years in Dumfries, they will do this by undertaking research and then creatively pulling their work together as a film, a publication and a travelling exhibition.

Y.E.S crew working on Back2Back at The Stove 2013

The Stove will be working with Y.E.S on this from now until September and making as many opportunities as possible for our own programme to compliment  the Y.E.S project.

More info etc – drop us a line info@thestove.org

Stove and Regeneration

Lately we’ve been thinking a lot about The Stove as an opportunity to put our money where our mouths are in thinking about the society we live in. We’ve been inspired by the New Economics Foundation to think about the way we work, and crucially, invest in services and people locally.

The 'leaky bucket' - how easy it is for new investment in a place to be allowed to escape and lose its long term effect - from 'Plugging the Leaks' - New Economics Foundation

 

'Money, like other aspects of life, has become controlled by distant organisations who, as the recent economic turmoil has demonstrated, do not necessarily have our best interests at heart. As the New Economics Foundation put it, our economies have become like ‘leaky buckets’, money that should be staying and circulating locally being sucked out to distant corporations and shareholders.  This all adds to our vulnerability in times of increasing uncertainty, rather than reducing it.

Local enterprises are more likely to employ local people, provide services to improve the local quality of life, spend money locally and so circulate wealth in the community, promote community cohesion and, by reducing transportation of goods from across communities, are likely to have a smaller environmental footprint.'

'Plugging the Leaks' - New Economics Foundation

Lets use the resources of The Stove to give the maximum effect in our local economy and society -  if you’ve got ideas about ways The Stove could be effective in assisting regeneration locally then please do get in touch  info@thestove.org

Creetown Belltower.....You Are Invited to the Big Launch

More details on the project - here

Hard Hats and Hi-Vis all round (....touch wood..!)

Big Changes to report chez Stove.

Last Friday ownership of 100 High Street officially passed to Dumfries and Galloway Council - this means all the hard miles of negotiation and inspiration that we have been travelling with DGC can now pay dividends!

We also have a start date for the construction work that the Cooncil will undertake to improve the access to the building and add the essential services required to support the way The Stove propose to operate in the building.

This is a long-winded way of saying that The Stove is about to move out of 100 High Street so that building works can take place. Subject to DGC coming through with the right paperwork (aka our Pre-Nuptial Agreement) we will be flitting the building on 13th Feb, storing oor stuff and taking up temporary residence elsewhere.

Note to all......if you have anything 'stored' at 100 High Street that you value and want back - then please come and take it away before Thursday 13th.

Also - we have a couple of avenues to explore re alternative accomodation for 4 months.....but if anyone has any brainwaves please do let us know. What we need is a decent sized office/room in the town centre that we can access anytime of day 7 days a week.

Not often we have something specific to report on 'the building' - so lets drink to that...cheers!

The Big Burn 2014

The third Big Burns Supper Festival really found its stride this year - there was a palpable feeling that the toon had taken BBS to its heart and was joining in at every turn.....big respect to the festival team and to Doonhamers everywhere!

The Stove joined in too - it has now become a bit of a tradition that we contribute something of the outdoor ambience to BBS (not quite sure how we ended up with that job at a festival in January!). This year we staged the Big Burn - but before we get to that there were a coupl of other wee Stovish things to enjoy - we made a lantern for the procession:

The Stove's 'bunch of balloons' lantern - made by Danae Marshall, Iain Gisbey, Hayley Stephens and Sara Redden. Seen here at the front of the Homecoming Parade - carried by Hayley and Sara and ably assisted by Sara's daughter Daisy.

More pics of the amazing parade and BBS generally at Colin Tennant's Flickrstream

Katie Anderson made her own installation 'Close Enough' for the close next to The Stove:

'Close Enough' by Katie Anderson - domestic wallpaper designs stretched and interpreted in UV paint with an accompanying soundtrack of environmental sound and spoken word

The idea of The Big Burn was dead simple - to tell folk that we were making a bonfire in the middle of the High Street and to see what happened. We hoped to make a place that people would hang out a bit and get a bit of a warm....to bring a little of a familiar bonfire vibe into an unfamiliar setting and see what happened.

Will proved his mettle as firestarter general

No barriers....no problem

The first addition volunteered for The Big Burn came from Phoebe Marshall who brought along hazel twigs, marshmallows and chocolate biscuits. Toasted marshmallow sandwiched between two chocolate biscuits makes a smoor......

Regular marshmallow action on the flaming logs that stood around the fire

Extreme marshmallow toasting

The next unexpected addition was the arrival of the Cairn Chorus who were led to the Big Burn by Wendy Stewart. They sang beautifully for 20 minutes and included the most emotionally stirring version of Auld Lang Syne that I have ever heard. The fact that we were sitting around a fire in Dumfries on Robert Burns' birthday was lost on no-one.

The Cairn Chorus at The Big Burn

The next intervention around the fire was the arrival of a troupe of mysteriously masked dancers:

Dancers in black and white at top left

There were no clues at all to the identity of the dancers - and if anyone knew, then they were giving nothing away....they melted back into the night just as they had arrived.

One of our Turkish neighbours played a bit of drum and danced briefly....tatties were baked and consumed and tea was had. Then the D+G Fire service arrived and offered to help us put the fire out.....who can refuse a handsome fireman with a hose....

D+G Fire Rescue performing at The Big Burn

And that was that really - except that the 20 or so folk who were still around the fire then all help clear away the Big Burn. A human chain was formed and 1.5 tonnes of bricks were moved to behind The Stove....in under one hour from the fire engine arriving there was no sign at all that anything had happened in the square that night - apart from some very happy memories.

Thanks to everyone who made The Big Burn such a success - great craic and lovley to spend time with old friends and new. We have a feeling this just might become a Big Burns Supper regular feature....maybe we might be allowed an even bigger fire next year???

The Big Burn - Call Out

Welcome!

An invitation to from the Stove to bide a while round our fire 25th January 7 - 9pm..............

This year the Burns Big Supper Festival has a special series of events entitled The Occupy Dumfries Project. 
It is a celebration of Dumfries and coincides with the short-listing of the town for a coveted Creative Place award 2014. 

The Stove’s contribution to Occupy is to put on The Stove’s Big Burn - a bonfire right in the heart of Dumfries on the High Street outside the Stove.  Please stop by, have a natter, toast a marshmallow or juggle a baked tattie. 

There will be some informal “happenings” during the evening but the focus of the fire is the people who share its warmth with us, so come along, inbetween events, or just because, a welcome awaits!

Creative Dumfries - hell yeah

The is proud to be part of the team behind the bid for Dumfries to be Scotlands Creative Place for 2014 and are pleased to announce that a media toolkit is now available to download from www.creativedumfries.com - see below for more details

Creative Scotland’s Creative Place scheme is in its third year. Dumfries is nominated in the largest population category, and is up against Falkirk and Orkney. The judging is on the 29th of January 2014, and we have until then to show just how creative Dumfries can be.

Creative Dumfries is here to stay – whatever decision the judges take in January. People getting involved in creative activity throughout our town is key to the future of Dumfries as a place that support and nourishes its residents. We believe in a Can-Do Dumfries that puts no limits on ambitions and dreams.

Creative Dumfries – Logo
The logo is free to use and available in a variety of formats (available from www.creativedumfries.com) Please use the Creative Dumfries logo as part of your own activities – e.g. on email headers, printed publicity for your events, social media pages etc. The more people get used to seeing the logo the more it will work for everyone as a sign that Dumfries is a place to watch out for and the more people will come to all of our events, classes, cafes etc.

The Creative Dumfries logo is a marker of that ambition and has been created by one of the town’s leading young designers, Russell Milligan of Brighteye Design & Branding,
www.brighteyedesign.co.uk. The arts in Dumfries are something to be proud of and the Creative Dumfries logo is a way of showing that to the rest of the world.

We keep forgetting to put this video up on the blog - finally getting round to it today. Here is John Wallace's brilliant wee film of the Inbetween:Dumfries project The Stove did in November 2012

Inbetween:Dumfries by John Wallace

enjoy!

DMC - taking Dumfries by Storm

The Born to be Wide Seminar Panel on Thursday night

It's been a hectic week or so at Stove - and it is with sadness that we wave goodbye to DMC for another year. It's been insightful, exciting, wild, engaging and fantastic. Having landed at a music conference with very little music background, there was an initial concern of being the cuckoo of the flock however, 
The Dumfries Music Conference kicked off last Wednesday, with a showing of LCD Soundsystem's Shut Up and Play the Hits, a beautifully shot, poignant film about the band's last ever gig in Madison Square Gardens. I decided to avoid googling the band beforehand, and went in with no knowledge of them or their music - and left with a new love. 

Barstow Bats rocked the Stove on Friday night

This buzz carried into Thursday - with a seminar programme, relocated back into the familiarness of the Stove. It kicked off with Born to be Wide's Getting Started in Music - which included a panel of industry experts who gave inspiring but honest insight into the contemporary music scene in Scotland. Grassroots music  Popcop blog was represented, as was Bar Bloc and the Wickerman, as well as Keren McKean of We Make Music Work - and covered everything from managers, getting live gigs, to pluggers, promoting and marketing your music. This was followed by Gary Aitkinson who spoke about the story of Document Records, and it's in-depth archive and back catalogue of musical gems. 

Hector Bizerk Live in Dumfries

Up to pace. Friday saw the Stove taken over by aspiring song writers who landed to join Music Plus in learning from Robert Shields of Finding Albert, who worked from a music composition base, and gave some inspiration into his early career within the music industry and Findlay Napier of Findlay Napier and the Bar Room Mountaineers - a self proclaimed folkie who had all participants writing a song from scratch in less than 30 minutes... Say cheese, say please sounds set to become a chart topping success!

The beautiful Honeyblood opened the Stove's first live gig

Quick change over and the Stove transformed to Dumfries's newest intimate live music venue.  Chris from Bar Bloc mentioned during the seminar night that remote and unusual venues are often the most atmospheric, and we couldn't have imagined how great it would be when first Honeyblood, at the end of their UK tour and just about to head for the States rocked up and gave the Stove it's first live set. Followed up by the mind-blowing Hector Bizerk, Glasgow based hip hop group, who really blew Dumfries out of the water. Local lads Barstow Bats led the Stove into the night, and the whole place glowed.

Thanks to Zoe Bestel for going out and photographing the DMC programme in situ!

The DMC team didn't disappoint on day four, and another quick costume change for the Stove saw it re-invent itself as a retail outlet hosting Rebecca Vasmant's record fair, featuring DJ sets and sellers both local and down from the big city. Congratulations go out to the DMC team for a fantastic programme, thanks to everyone who was involved and thanks to everyone who came to our events - we hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did! To see more of the photographs taken at DMC head to our flickr site here 

Stove Members Gathering 29th October 2013

Brilliant to see about 40 intrepid Stove folk braving the dark winter evening to come to the Stove Members Gathering/Catch up/Planning  Thing Meeting last Tuesday night.
Old friends and new friends came and it was particularly good to see people who had helped with Back2Back and taken part in the Nithraid. The Stove is all about reaching out and working beyond the arts….in fact there was chat about whether what we are doing is really ‘art’ anyway- and does that matter.
One of the ideas that seemed to catch peoples interest and agreement was that the Stove should be about inspiring people to take charge of their own immediate environment. Too often people think that they are ‘not allowed’ to do things – we hope that our events have an ethos of ‘just do it’ about them and that others will be inspired to follow suit. We believe that people working form the grassroots with independent and locally relevant initiatives is the way that Dumfries with prosper in the future. (Sermon over!)

The evening kicked off with a Welcome led by Will – who invited Katie to talk about Back2Back – The Stove’s project for Guid Nychburris in June. Katie showed John Wallace’s lovely wee film of the event – which you can view here

Back2Back - 15th June 2013

Linda followed on with a slide show of images for the Nithraid and it was great that other people brought their own pictures to share too – even if the one of Will and Matt hugging in pink T Shirts might not see the light of day again anytime soon! More pictures from Nithraid - here

Nithraid 22nd September 3013

Nithraid really seems to have caught people’s imagination  - there was a really strong contingent of folk who had taken part and in the race and a collective determination to do it again next year. Mark Zygadlo is leading on this for The Stove and currently working very hard to raise the necessary money for next years event.

The Awesome Nithraid Scratch Band

Lots of people ask ‘how do I get involved with The Stove?’ – the Nithraid is a great example: The Curatorial Team raised some money to do a Stove project as part of the Environmental Art Festival…..we had a first think about what might be possible and relevant to both our larger programme and that of the Festival. We then put out an invite to Stove Members which said ‘Stove is going to do something for EAFS – it will be connected to the River Nith in some way….if you are interested to be part of this then come along on this day and we’ll all brainstorm ideas together’ . About 10 people came to that original meeting…the idea of Nithraid was born and Mark Zygadlo and Stan Bonnar became part of the project team that made the Nithraid happen. 

The Nithraid was a proper challenge!

Along the way other folk were pulled in by word-of-mouth and adverts etc eg Roy Kerr from Nith Navigation and all the folk who took part in the race. Then closer to the date we put out another call for people to be part of the crew for the day and we were thrilled that about 12 people came and were part of making the whole thing happen on the day (from being part of the scratch band, to catering, to stewarding, to releasing the banners into the water, to helping get the boats out of the water).

The Archivist (by Stove Members: Jo Hodges, Robbie Coleman and Dave Giblin) at Environmental Art Festival Scotland

Matt then showed some slides from the Environmental Art Festival Scotland – The Stove was part of the team (with Spring Fling and Wide-Open) that thought up and produced the festival. One of the great things about EAFS was the way it provided opportunities for so  many people in D+G to take part and the way different people worked together – just about everyone in the room had been part of EAFS in some way – great feeling!!
Photo from EAFS

Colin talked introduced Dumfries Music Conference with a video from last years event and a run down of this years programme that was starting the day after this Gathering.

Hector Bizerk onstage at DMC at The Stove 1st Nov 3013

Matt then rounded off the presentations with a quick run through of The Stoves 3 year programming plan.  In synopsis this breaks down into:
2014 – intensive focus on Dumfries with TheStove@TheStove (including residency opportunities for Stove members)
2015 – First part of year finishing TheStove@TheStove before focussing on the second Environmental Art Festival Scotland for September/October that year
2016 – Year of Architecture in Scotland….The Stove hopes to be a main partner in the festival in SouthWest Scotland and pick up themes form work in Dumfries and across the region through EAFS……imagining a sustainable future for D+G.

Another big push for The Stove recently has been in the way we are using different media in our work. Katie Anderson is now building on the great foundation made by Mike Nicholson on Social Media for The Stove. Our Facebook page has never been busier and Katie has become surgically attached to her IPad it seems.

Check out The Stove on Facebook
And on Twitter.

And if you're not yet a member and fancy being part of The Stove mission to change the world then send an email to info@thestove.org and Sheila will send you a membership form. Membership is free and gives you no obligations whatsoever....you'll just get emails and updates from The Stove and the offer of being involved in projects, commission opportunities and members rates on room hires etc.