Moorsholm Digital Postcards

A journey of images through the village of Moorsholm with comments from the villagers.

The DVN map is now available to view.

The Map can be found under the findings tab on the navigation bar. Just click on DVN map.

DVN Map. You can find this map on the finding tab on the navigation bar

On the map you will find facilities in Redcar & East Cleveland that provide ICT access and training.  Also Village halls and community centres that provide training and community group functions. The Map was compiled by the DVN project community researchers,  who carried out a survey with questionaires,  and were able to map the area and supply the information so that the DVN map could be built. The map can accessed by the public to gain information on ICT training, community and leisure facilities in their area.

It is hoped that this map could be an on-going and continually updated process, where any new or reorganised facilities can be included to provide the information on ICT training available to the community in the future.

Skinningrove Focus Group

TheVillage Hall was the venue for the Skinningrove focus group.

With two members of the group pulling out because of illness (and there was a lot of it about) we had six participants in total.

Skinningrove Village Hall

The group was very passionate about their community and provided some very interesting discussion on the topics of ICT use on a personal and community level.

Once the heating in the hall kicked in and the coffee and tea had warmed through, the discussion flowed and provided the project with some great data.

All in all a very interesting and enjoyable evening with what could be some good results and progress in the future of community involvement in ICT.

We are looking forward to a follow up meeting in the near future.

Thank goodness for the internet.

Life in a rural village is a great experience.  Having been born and bred in the hustle and bustle of city life whilst growing up in London, I can really appreciate the quiet, good life of living in a rural community.

View from our garden in Moorsholm

However, come the winter it can have some disadvantages.  The countryside here on the edge of the North York Moors is stunningly beautiful and full of fantastic photo opportunities. As the winter arrives it gives us some amazing winter scenes. In fact the picture shows this, and was featured on ITV’s North East Tonight local weather news on Thursday 25th November.

The problem is,  getting out and about to capture these scenes. So, in only our second winter in Moorsholm, we are yet again snowed in.  With the local roads being very dangerous to drive on,  it is the best option to stay put.

But life and work must carry on, and we are lucky to be able to work from home. Most of this work at the moment can be carried out on the computer and the internet. Although we love to be out in the communities of East Cleveland the winter wonderland as it is restricts that.

So thank goodness for the internet.  It gives us the chance to carry on through the weather (poor broadband connection permitting) and keep in contact with the outside world.

See you all sometime soon.

The Toad Hall Arms & Moorsholm Memorial Hall were the venues

The Digital postcard event held in Moorsholm during the summer was a great success.

The slide show of the village and surrounding area amounted to over 200 images, and many visitors came to the two venues over the two evenings to view the show and make comments on the images.

Both Lynne and I are looking forward to moving the digital postcards on to a different village and hopefully repeating the success.

The summer was a very busy time for us with the workshops and the interviewing phase. The workshops on interviewing were a great help and put everything into place. So a special thanks to Carrie for the interesting training and making the interviewing  phase a more  pleasant task.

Lynne and I took on more interviews covering Skelton, Skinningrove, Moorsholm and Saltburn, we meet and interviewed some interesting people and it was great to be out and about right into the heart of the communities.

All of this became easy for us thanks to the workshops  which certainly gave me the confidence to carry it all through.

Digital Postcards At The Local

The Toad Hall Arms was the first venue for the two planned “Digital postcard open evenings”.

With a running slide show featuring the homes, views, animals and interesting locations of Moorsholm it stimulated interest and conversation with the local residents.  It also encouraged some written comments to go with some of the images.

Amongst some of the visitors were two Lockwood Parish councillors Mike Jefferson and Vic Davison together with local resident and Redcar & Cleveland Borough Councillor Steve Kay. They were very impressed with the photography and this resulted in an invitation to do a similar project in Lingdale/Stanghow.

Overall it is fair to say that the evening was a success.

Enjoying a pint after viewing the "Digital Postcards" of Moorsholm ( Left to right Mike Jefferson, Steve Kay and Vic Davison)

A pilot run of the DVN digital postcard will take place in Moorsholm over two days, 14th & 15th June.

There will be posters placed and every household will receive a leaflet inviting them to come along to view and comment on Moorsholm and the images. The images will projected onto a large screen and will run through a journey of views, households, and interesting areas of the village. Info sheets and comment forms as well as a audio recorder will be there to record interesting stories and quotes on Moorsholm.

Of course the event is not just for the residents and will be open to all, so please come along and support the project.

DVN Researchers Out And About

Out and around the communities (Part 4)

A Community Mapping Postcard By Stephen Nicholls

As we continue our community mapping exercise.  It takes us around Marske Visiting places like  St Marks Church and Its own community centre “The White House”.  The Leisure Centre which is run by volunteers and self funding. Marske libarary,  Bydales School and Thrushwood Community Centre which in turn led us on to Coast & Country’s H/Q in Dormanstown. Also to Bankfields School in Eston where the offices of Redcar & Cleveland’s adult learning are situated.  We gathered the information for the Community Map.

Out and about in the communities

(Part 2)

A Community Mapping Postcard

By Stephen Nicholls.

Lynne and I went to the Grangetown, South Bank and Eston areas to map more community facilities and meet some very helpful and interesting people working hard  to bring help, learning  and ICT to the local communities.