Skinningrove Digital Village

Heartbeat Bus Weekend

cimm — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:08:14 +0000

Next weekend June 26th & 27th NewtonAycliffe Bus Preservation Society will once again bringing their vintage United bus, as featured in ITV’s Heartbeat TV programme, to the Skinningrove’s Cleveland Ironstone Mining Museum.

The Museum will be open on both days from 10.30 – 3.30

Why not enjoy a ride on the bus and also take half price underground tour

Plans For Jetty in 1945

Steve T — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 07:36:42 +0000

Myself and Barry Hunt were in Loftus Library last Thursday when we were shown some amazing plans (circa 1945) for the Skinningrove Jetty. Click on the image below and in opens out into a very large version that you can study. Note how the proposed Jetty dwarfs the existing one. Picture courtesy East Cleveland Image Archive.

Click to Enlarge

Rubber Blocks to Loftus

Steve T — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:08:24 +0000

What have Middlesbrough Music Live and Loftus Library got in common? Four rubber blocks that’s what. Thanks to Martie at Music Live I took charge of 4 rubber blocks and shipped them down to Lofus calling on Mr Motivator, Barry Hunt to help offload. They’re now sitting under John the librarians desk so when he gets back off holiday he will be delighted. These blocks will form the basis of the Octorama soon to be built in the Mayor of Loftus’s Barn and if these work out we’ll need another 12. Interestingly, I found out after shipping these all the way from Middlesbrough that Skinningrove already have a supply!

Cleveland Ironstone Mining Museum

Steve T — Fri, 14 May 2010 06:31:21 +0000

We had an excellent visit to the Mining Museum in Skinningrove this week and we’d like to thank CIMM for their hospitality. Particularly we’d like to mention the three volunteers Alan, Liz and Ian who took us through various parts of the mine and told us of the working and the history. We had a pretty large group on this visit with Friends of Redcar Cemetery joining us. Actually we’ve learned that there is a fair bit of networking happening on these visits with East Cleveland people attending Middlesbrough ones and vice versa. This will be the first visit to become a “Digital Visit”, an experiment to map, display images and tell stories about community visits.

The Ochre Trail

Steve T — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:02:33 +0000

Following on from yesterdays Marske visit we once again hit the Healthy Heritage Highway and had an afternoons walk right through Skinningrove. We were met at the Tom Leonard Mining Museum by Barry Hunt and by the time we reached the Doorstep Green we were also joined by Tommy Evans so we had the full compliment of the famous Skinningrove dynamic duo. Tales of folklore, history, nature and regeneration abounded as the team snapped away with their cameras.

Image below the team at the Sealife Mosaic (click here for the story)

June had brought along her mum and whilst she matched us step for step she had her own Skinningrove stories having herself lived there and attended school in what is now the Riverside building. There was some tale of buying cigarettes at school aged 6 but we turned a deaf ear to this. Luckily our route took us past the Riverside building so we enjoyed tea and lemon cakes (no cigarettes this time) We have heard stories about the German air raids during WW2 from the school log but but Junes mum had actually experienced the evacuation from the school and taking cover in the mine.

After tea we went onwards through the village. At 14 Stone Row we stopped for my own little bit of Skinningrove heritage about how I installed the first public computer in the village there. Then it was back to the professional raconteurs (Tommy and Barry) whilst we visited the landmarks of the Sylvania Anchor, the Village Mosaic and the Repus. Barry even repeated the story of “The Boat Comes Home” (The Repus) for some passing walkers on the Cleveland Way. How times have changed, walkers used to hurry through here without pause.

Our visit ended with a privileged visit to the Skinningrove Chapel. The Tour Goes On ! if you want to be involved email s.d.thompson@tees.ac.uk

The gallery below (click to enlarge) shows the team at work. The actual pictures will be seen at the exhibition in the summer.

The Force is With You

Steve T — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 07:51:16 +0000

The community animation event in Saltburn on Thursday was a tremendous successes with a full house for the matinee (in which we hooked up with children and police in Latvia) and around 80 people for the evening event. We even made it onto Latvian National TV !

You can relive the event on the blog at www.saltburn.org.uk or if you really want to re-run the event in the order it happened click here ( it builds slow but quickly gets media rich) – just read each page, scrolling down and then click “older entries” at the bottom. As well as the hook-up with Latvia, the event was followed by people in Greece, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey, Sweden, Finland and the UK.

The event saw the world premier of “The Force is With You” which you can enjoy below.

Animex Fringe Event Goes International

Steve T — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 09:10:18 +0000

With the assistance of Northern Film and Media and the UK Film Council there will be a Fringe Animex event in Saltburn featuring community produced animations. This will take place at 7.30pm on February 11^th at Saltburn Community Theatre, Albion Terrace, Saltburn, TS12 1JW.

Featured this year will be World Première of “The Force is With You” which has been produced in partnership with the Institute of Digital Innovation, the Skinningrove Community, Whitecliffe Primary School and Redcar & Cleveland Community Safety Partnership. The school children will get their own matinee screening at 1.30 on the same date.

During a recent International workshop in Vienna one of scenes in “The Force is With You” was “voiced” using the services of some of the workshop attendees. The film clip below is a sneak preview of one of the scenes and a behind the scenes look at how it was put together.

Trouper 1 is played by Markus Petz from Finland, Trouper 2 by Thomas Chepaitis the Minister of foreign affairs of Uzhupis Republic (Lithuania) Arthur Vador is played by Steve Thompson and Barry Hunt the Mayor of Loftus is camera operator.

In the background is Laura Pakalne, Senior Officer in the Public Relations Department in the Ministry of Justice, Latvia who is most interested in our working with the British police and the movie production team on more collaborative projects. Markus has delayed his return to Finland to travel to Saltburn to assist with a hook-up with Latvia during the event on the 11^th. It’s quite possible that people all over the world will be able to participate in the event. More information on this will be released closer to the event.

The Need For Jetties World Wide

Barry Hunt — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 10:58:36 +0000

I am currently at a workshop in Vienna about video bridging,I have discused a project about a jetty in my home community that has been badly neglected.Yesterday when I was watching the news it spoke of the people in Haiti not being able to land urgently needed supplies by sea as the jetty was not strong enough to support the wweight of the containers.This i think relates to my plan to regenerate old jetties bring them back to life and give them a purpus.

Posted via email from barryskinningrove’s posterous

The Need For Jetties World Wide

Barry Hunt — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 10:58:30 +0000

Posted via email from barryskinningrove’s posterous

Merry Xmas

Steve T — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:49:11 +0000

Institute of Digital Innovation Xmas Card from IDI on Vimeo.

No prizes for identifying the voice of the Geordie, Elvis Santa Clause.

I came across some pages from Christmas 2000. This was when the only public computer was in 14 Stone Row and the flood defences were just being built. This makes an interesting record of the time. Click here.