The Reader Online

Merseyside Community Theatre, Alt Valley, 2010

Romeo and Juliet

The Reader Organisation, in partnership with Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, Mersey Care NHS Trust, Cobalt Housing, Merseytravel,  Liverpool City Council and Liverpool PCT will be deliver a community production of Romeo and Juliet in August 2010. Full details will be announced shortly.

Please see our website for details of our previous Community Shakespeare production of The Winter’s Tale (Birkenhead Park 2008)

Applications are invited for the post of Designer for the 2010 Merseyside Community Theatre production of Romeo & Juliet.

The successful candidate will be responsible for the concept and delivery of the design, both set and costumes. You will have professional experience and be based locally, preferably with some experience of community work. You will work with the script, director, lighting and sound designers and oversee the whole creative process, ensuring that it is delivered on time and on budget. You will be working with a large team of community volunteers and willingness to work with non-professionals will be a key quality the Director and Producer will be seeking. The production will have 4 weeks rehearsal culminating in 6 performances at the end of August. You will also work on a project launch event scheduled for the end of April 2010.  Fee £3k.

Please send a letter of application and your CV to Zoe Gilling, Business Manager, The Reader Organisation. Applications must be received no later than 5.00pm Tuesday 16th March. No applications arriving after this time will be considered. Email applications are preferred: zoegilling@thereader.org.uk

Interviews will be held at The Reader Organisation offices, 19 Abercromby Square, Liverpool L69 7ZG, on the afternoon of Friday 19th March.

WHAT A WONDERFUL WIRRAL!

Friday, March 12th 2010
10.00am to 3.30pm
Birkenhead Town Hall

Volunteering Wirral and the Cascade project are hosting a joint event, to  showcase the skills and talents of Wirral people, to celebrate volunteering and to promote good practice in volunteer management.

The Deputy Mayor Councillor Alan Jennings will perform the opening ceremony which will be followed by a full day of entertainment and displays.

Activities include: belly dancing, cookery, poetry, healthy lifestyles, African drumming, arts and crafts, martial arts, songwriting, Wirral Green Orchestra, workshops stalls and information desks, BBC Radio Merseyside’s A Team and the Up for Arts Project.

Help celebrate what makes Wirral such a wonderful place to live, work and volunteer in and explore one of Wirral’s iconic buildings in its full glory.

For further information call us at Volunteering Wirral on either 0151 647 5432 (Option1), or 644 7577.

• Job based in Liverpool/Wirral
• Full-time – but would consider part-time
• 1 year fixed term contract (£15,000 -£18,000 p.a. pro rata)

This is a dynamic and varied job requiring you to promote, set-up, establish and facilitate weekly Get Into Reading groups in order to promote well-being and good mental health for a range of community members in both Liverpool and Wirral.  Client groups include  Carers, people living in Care Homes, people with a range of physical or mental health problems, and members of the general population who might enjoy  shared reading.

Read more about the job role and how to apply on our website.

He may not be able to read yet but eight hour old Charlie Harris could be entered into the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest person in the world to join a library.

Organisers are deciding whether to award him the title after he joined Halton Lea library at just eight hours old. There is currently no world record for the world’s youngest library member.

Charlie was born at Liverpool Women’s Hospital and one of his first visitors was his grandad, library janitor Noel Harris. Armed with a Bookstart pack to help him on his way Noel got his first grandchild signed up straight away.

Read more here.

The winners of the 19th Sefton Writing competition were announced on Sunday 15 November at the annual writing awards presentation at Crosby Civic Hall.

Hundreds of people entered this year, of all ages and from across the UK, there were even two entries from abroad. They came from writing groups, schools and individuals.

Brian Wake, Head of Sefton Arts Development said:

As the judges, we whittled the hundreds down to tens, we read them quietly to ourselves, we then read them out, we read them upside down and inside out, got ten down to seven or so in each of the three categories and then after much, as they say, deliberation, we began to comb through the seven pieces of work.. We began to ask what the work did in terms of emotion, in terms of the language itself and then we allowed our personal taste to help us decide.

Keep an eye on the Sefton Arts website for more Sefton Celebrates Writing events throughout the year.

The winners and runners up of this year’s Sefton Writing Competition are:

Writing (including poems) by young people

First Prize: Child Soldier by Philip Meakin (12years) Birkdale, Southport.

Runners-up: Past or Present by Katy Heron (12years) Southport; The Lift Off by Harry Draper (12years) Formby; Journey Home by Sarah Cutler (14years) Netherton; Snowflake’s Journey by Katy Louise Minko (12years) Formby.

Poetry

First Prize: Fetch by  Margaret Gleave, Ainsdale, Southport;

Runners-up: Cuckoo Spit by Nicholas Hancock, Liverpool; In Vino Memoriam by Celia Gentles, West Kirby, Wirral; Journey’s End by Michael O’Leary, Formby; The Cataraque by David Costello, Wallasey.

Other Writing

First Prize: Travelling Light  by Glenys Adams, Waterloo L22.

Runners-up:  Persona Non Grata by Kay Frame,  Maghull; Trudge of the Valyries  by Andrew Highton,  Waterloo L22; Holiday Journey by Alison Rutherford, Cardiff; Aliens Welcome by Frank Conlan, Maghull;

For more information on next years Sefton Writing Competition please contact Netherton Arts Centre on 0151 525 0417 or email: Philip.Wroe@leisure.sefton.gov.uk

The Penny Readings 2009

Sunday 6th December, 7pm at St George’s Hall

The sixth annual Penny Readings, hosted by The Reader Organisation will take place at 7pm on Sunday 6th December in the Small Concert Room in Liverpool’s magnificent St. George’s Hall.

A wonderful start to Christmas – like mulled wine for the soul.

This year, the Penny Readings will feature readings by Liverpool’s award-winning author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce.

In Dickens’ time public readings were the equivalent of a big music gig today – think Beyoncé at the Echo Arena – Dickens was a hot ticket! For the past six years, the Penny Readings has continued the tradition that Charles Dickens began in the 1840s, when he would travel around Liverpool reading to thousands of ordinary people and charging just one penny.

Previous years have included readings from actor and director Janet Suzman, actor Annabelle Dowler and poet Jenny Joseph. The 2009 line-up is still under wraps (announcements coming soon), but it can be guaranteed that the fantastic live-readings will be combined with the usual exciting array of music and dance. All this and a good measure of festive cheer, still available at the rock-bottom price of one penny!

Tickets will be available for collection from 10am on Monday 16th November from both Liverpool Central Library (William Brown Street, Liverpool, L3 8EW, 2nd floor Helpdesk – 0151 233 5829 – ask for Mike Taylor or Janet Graham) and Birkenhead Central Library (Borough Rd, Birkenhead, CH41 2XB, Music Counter – 0151 652 6106 – ask for Susan Boote). But don’t forget to pay your penny on the night!

The ever-popular readings have repeatedly sold out well-short of demand in previous years, so those wishing to attend are advised to get their tickets early to avoid disappointment.

In addition, twenty tickets will be released on eBay on Friday 27th November, for those really keen to come and willing to bid away!

In addition to the Get Into Reading Project Worker job advertised last week, there is another job opportunity available at The Reader Organisation (TRO):

TRO Business Manager

Please follow this link for details on how to apply and for further information about the job.

The deadline for applications is 5pm, Monday 9th November.

Reminder: The deadline for the Get Into Reading Project Worker job is next Monday (2nd November). If you’d like to apply, please click here for full details about the job and how to apply.

I am: yet what I am none cares or knows…

John Clare

Job Opportunity: GIR Project Worker

This is a dynamic and varied job requiring you to set-up, establish and facilitate weekly reading groups in order to promote well-being and good mental health, mainly, but not exclusively, for adults.

Read more about the job role and how to apply on our website.

Dr David Fearnley has been named Psychiatrist of the Year in the first annual Royal College of Psychiatrists Awards. David is a consultant psychiatrist at Ashworth Hospital in Maghull, where he has championed innovative ways of care and treatment including a Get Into Reading group for patients, which he runs himself.

Dr David Fearnley (left) receives his award

He also has a wider role as Medical Director and Deputy Chief Executive of Mersey Care NHS Trust, the specialist mental health trust for adults in Liverpool, Sefton and Kirkby. The Trust has around 10,000 people who use its services at any one time, most of them living and supported in the community.

David did his postgraduate studies in psychiatry in South Wales and moved to Merseyside in 1998 to train as a forensic psychiatrist before being appointed as consultant forensic psychiatrist at Ashworth in 2001. In August 2005 he was appointed medical director and deputy chief executive in 2007. He says:

I enjoy the challenge of management as well as my role as a clinician. I work closely with service users to improve our services and as part of a process which helps keep me focused on the right approach to take I involve service users and carers in my annual consultant appraisal.

David received his award at a prestigious ceremony at the Royal Society of Medicine in London, hosted by journalist and broadcaster Libby Purves, of The Times and Radio 4. He was nominated by Catherine Mills, Chair of the Service User and Carer Forum at Mersey Care, which represents the views of people who use mental health services.

Entrants for the award had to demonstrate they had made a positive impact at a national or local level to service user and carers’ wellbeing. They also had to show how they had improved the perception of mental health issues, encouraged change in the development of mental health policy, and been an accessible role model to the general public. David says:

I am delighted to be the first winner of this award. It is also recognition of some of the pioneering work we are doing here in Merseyside with in-patients and community-based service users. I am particularly proud of the success of our network of 27 therapeutic reading groups which we run in partnership with The Reader Organisation across all our services.

The Time To Read website has recently been updated with new news.

Jane Mathieson, Regional Reader Development Co-ordinator for North West Libraries, has drawn our attention to a completely unedited piece supplied by a user of Halton Lea Library, giving his initial impressions of the newly refurbished library.

It’s very refreshing to read something so positive, which has been written spontaneously and generously. You can read the piece by clicking here.