Watch out lee evans

PCSurgery in DOVE has been a hoot this morning! I think there is scope for a residency at jongleurs with this lot!

Colin's capers part 1

Banwen have skipped autumn

Mae hi'n oer iawn! Its blinkin' freezing up here in sunny Banwen but lunchtime is approaching so a nice cup of tea should help with the whole internal central heating...

Back to reality

Monday was a blur of activity with meetings left right and centre. The afternoon meant a trip down to the wild west (Ammanford) with the communities first team there, to discuss a project for the summer. That seems to be well on its way (Ha! famous last words) and on my way back to the car I met an awesome little chap who goes by the name of Patch! I managed to get him to stay still for almost a whole 5 seconds in order to immortalize our meeting in photographic form...



Tuesday we were joined by Roger, who is a long standing PCSurgery volunteer and is currently gaining some work experience with us and the technicians. We were up in Glynneath first thing where we caught up with one half of the elusive 'Bloggers too' before heading up the mountain to see Lesley in DOVE Workshop. The rest of the day was mostly planning (with a sprinkle of lunch thrown into the mix...) and the odd practical joke!

Buffets, Banwen and beyond the DCN

Today found the Digital Community Network partners all brought together in sunny Banwen for a strategic meeting regarding our plans for world domination....(just like ol' pinky and the brain!)

Well, actually it was to discuss the future of the project and how we can improve the service that we currently provide but it all amounts to the same end result...ha!

A lot was discussed and ideas were thrown about the table before we were treated to a lunch that resembled what I would imagine Julius Caeser was accustomed to, so top marks to the hard working staff at Cafe Sarn Helen. Stay tuned for details of the masterplan. . .

I'm still going

Tuesday - Glynneath was fit to burst this morning and I think between myself and Claire we managed to cover the full spectrum of technology troubles and squeeze a monitoring visit in too! The afternoon was spent catching up on admin (snoozeville!) and inspecting second lieutenant Grey's ongoing improvements to the ARC!

Monday - We had our DCN meeting in the morning which was very kindly hosted by Lesley and Julie in the DOVE Workshop. It was a productive meeting (you can always tell because you seem to leave with 20 new meetings to attend as a result of it) and we'll be spending some time developing exit strategies...

Friday - After popping in to AVE Ammanford and discussing the pro's and cons of laptops with Albert we started working on Karen's digital story, and I think we may all see a different side to the dynamic Dowley once its finished...Keep your eyes peeled!

Then it was back to Swansea for a special screening of Portmead's anniversary concert in the school itself! If I'm being brutally honest I really wasn't bursting with excitement with the prospect of watching the play for the 47th time, but the addition of everyone in the juniors made it an absolute hoot!


Following the movie, it was down the road to the ARC for a meeting with Mr. Brito before hometime!

monday monday

Its all systems go in the DOVE this morning and we kept our pedals to the metal for the full 2.5hours, with our friends from Appalachia, Onllwyn and Seven Sisters, its an international pop in! Then it was back for a shotgun meeting with Mr. Brito at the ARC which meant it was a case of eating my lunch whilst travelling westbound on the m4! It does wonders for my digestive system...We had fun in the afternoon down in the ABC with the communities first team helping them to edit their video footage (and playing on their shiny apple macs!), but we need to get the on the case with their blog, they're even more infrequent than me!

Speaking of which, I should be back on the wagon from here on in with regular updates...

Tuesday

It was my turn to attend the meetings this morning whilst Claire held down the fort in Glynneath. I was treated to a cracking cup of coffee courtesy of the lovely Lesley before kicking off with the serious business. It was all ticking along nicely when I noticed that an outsider had infiltrated the perimeter and was hiding under the table, but luckily Chris (all the way from Virginia, USA) escorted our visitor out!

Back on the blog

It was pop in at the DOVE workshop in the morning, but I was flying solo as Claire was in the first meeting (of 4) with our funders. However, I needn't have worried as Jeannette was to join me there. After an hour or so of digital video lessons I was introduced to 3 students who have travelled all the way from the Appalachian State University. I got a little bit too excited and bombarded them with a heap of random questions about their homeland, and emparted as much useless information about the UK as I could fit into a half hour. Then it was off to Ammanford for meeting number 2, before heading all the way back to Banwen (my carbon footprint has grown a ful 3 sizes in one day) where I met up with the 'Flowerpots' and slowly watched my remaining slivers of sanity peel away as the hyperactive gardeners frazzled my brain!

I'm bringing blogging back

Ok here is a brief update to bring you up to speed with the last week. I know its been hard for you all to get by without your daily dose of my rambling but fear not, I won't be neglecting you again!

Wednesday - Pop in at the Arc. Cyril kept me entertained with stories whilst we learnt how to cut people out of pictures and put them in a different scene...hours of fun if you have a mischievous streak!

Thursday - We hit up Seven Sisters and were serenaded by a top class male voice choir before, and then treated to a few numbers from the local brass band (A for effort...).

Friday - Staff day at the DOVE. A chance to reveal embarrassing secrets about yourself to the people you have to see day to day! I think I probably came out worst and the people all look at me funny now.

Too much sugar makes Debbie dippy

Good evening one and all (well, one I guess...), its monday, its sunny and its adult learners week and we're kicking off in DOVE. We had reinforcements with us in the form of Jeanette, the newest member of the DCN team. Jeanette is trainee Community development worker with SCVS who will be our skivvy until september.

HA! Not really, (just until august..), no seriously, Jeanette will be with us every monday and thursday, and if she continues to pick up the skills as quickly as she has done today (she had a blog up and running by 11am!) she'll be a proper geek like Claire and myself. There's something for her to look forward to!

Speaking of Claire, she has just had the internet installed in her house and has taken her next major step towards nerdsville, square eyes ahoy!

We are bribing, sorry, I mean enticing learners into our pop in sessions this week with tea and cake, but we had loads left over today, and decided to treat the staff at the ARC to a well deserved sugar rush. However, I think the e-numbers had an adverse effect on Debbie, and following a few fateful bites she came over all adhd in the office! Not content with assaulting the phone in a chocolate fuelled frenzy, it was Julie (or should I say 'the fuhrer'?) who felt the force of her funny five minutes!

Then we hit up the old M4 and gunned it down to the ABC building to meet up with the Pantyffynnon Teen crew to help them with some editing and to set up a blog (which I think will prove to be very entertaining in the future).

tired I am

I dropped Deb off at Dove this morning with Mr.Michael before heading over the mountains to Tairgwaith with the other Miss Jones. We had a quiet session but spent the time productively (as always...) and caught up with Sharon, and discovered that she lives on a farm! I'm hoping that we can go and do some outreach work there, or at least get to drive a tractor.

We headed back to Blaenymaes after a quick petrol stop and forgetting to pick up Debbie, but the noble Mr. Pritchard acted as chauffeur. The rest of the afternoon was a bit of a blur which mostly involved preparing for the evening at Daniel James (again) for the second, and final performance of Portmead's concert.

I dashed home for a quick tea with my wife who is suffering with shin splints at the moment before heading back over to the school. I armed myself with a can of 'Relentless' and braced myself for the 200+ kids and 300+ parents who were queuing outside.

The performance was great and there were no casualties despite the temperature equalling that of the sahara desert...I then staggered home for a well needed shower and sleep. Ammanford tommorrow, lets hope the market don't let us down again.

tremendous tuesday

The horticultural society are perfecting their powerpoint skills and our 'authors too' are hyperlinking to Hain, all in all a busy morning at the Glynneath Training Centre. The 'pop in' sessions are building momentum which is great, but our energy levels are on the opposite scale...falling fast!

After that we made our way up the winding roads to Banwen and the delights of DOVE. We're busy getting ready for adult learners week which starts on Monday, so we were making sure that we have plenty of cakes at our disposal for our event next monday lunchtime, call by if you're in the area!

I helped Portia with her homework (about the red hot chili peppers) and then dashed over the common to Daniel James school to capture the mayhem that was the Portmead Primary rehearsals for their concert which opens...tomorrow! The DVD is shaping up to be hilarious, I'm holding out for some 'you've been framed' gold.

I could sleep for days

Monday Monday, I'm still half asleep, and given the chance I'd skip it next week...although that would mean missing our pop in session at DOVE which was good fun again today. I think we're in for a treat with some of the people we'll be working with over the next few months! After a busy hour or two it was off to Swansea to grab some lunch before heading further west to communities first to play with their shiny new macbook!

We we're hoping to set up a blog for the youth group who are working with the team down in the ABC building but Blogger was bloomin well on the blink! However, the girls enjoyed playing with the new computer and reviewing some of the footage the filmed down in the botanical gardens. I'm not sure if the mobility scooters available there were designed for 'tokyo drift' style racing, but they certainly did the job!

Then it was back down the M4 for some printing before hometime!

Please hold the line

Claire's motor was struggling this morning so I called to pick her up and then hit the road to Glynneath. After a lovely cup of Fairtrade tea I was functioning at about 35% and was working up to full speed steadily (I should be there by about 4 o'clock Friday at this rate!).

After meeting the Horticultural society it was up the mountain to the delightful DOVE workshop to meet with a lovely lady from Seven Sisters. Val was hoping we could give her some help with digital video and converting old VHS tapes. As it happened, she is nearly more knowledgeable about technology than I am (not that that would take long, ha!) and I'm going to have to step up and get researching to be able to help with some of her technical queries.

I foud myself bombarded in Banwen by phonecalls from all directions. I was chatting to Deb on my mobile when I was informed that Eric had tracked me down on the centre phone (which was spooky as no-one really knew I was going to be there - I think Eric may have access to MI5 technology), so I had to cut short one call for another, I'm going to have a word with Anthony about utilising some of our underspend on a personal assistant to deal with my admin and calls!

By this point it was fast approaching 3pm and neither Claire or myself had had lunch, and by the time we made it back to the ARC Joanne had already closed the kitchen, so I indulged in a mars bar to avoid a blood sugar crash...(chocolate probably accounts for a third of my daily intake of food!).

We capped the day off with some video editing for the Portmead school film project, which I'm sure I'll be posting about over the next week...

But I had a treat when arrived home and checked my e-mails, my friend Cameron had sent me a message! He wasn't very well but was being well looked after and watching cartoons so I hope he's recovered (well, enough to feel better but still have a day off school...)

don't panic. I'm alive

This post is going to be 3 for the price of 1 as I have fallen behind with the old updating malarkey. So, to bring you up to speed, Monday started in Banwen, with some digital camera troubleshooting. Its always a worry when people have a problem with these an they ask you to save their pictures because if you make a mistake then the pictures are gone forever . . .eek!

The afternoon brought me back to the ARC before heading down for a meeting with communities first in Ammanford who've just invested in a shiny new macbook in black. So we planned a new course of activities (keep your eyes peeled for a comm. first blog...) which will keep us busy down west for a good few months to come!

Tuesday arrived as usual,(always a relief when days don't go missing) and Glynneath's pop in session was hectic! With two meetings running simultaneously and then people dropping in we were restricted to just one cup of tea! I know, pretty serious stuff eh?

We dropped down into Banwen to deliver their PCSurgery mouse mats and Pens, so it was smiles all around up on the mountain, I felt like Santa on Christmas morning! Then I treated myself to a quick jaunt over to the playground outside and carried out a risk assessment on behalf of the centre... I documented some of my findings, here you can see that the swings are safe for use ->
Wednesday brought more sunshine with it and another busy day in the ARC. We had a few people pop in for help, including our very own technician Nicholas Jones, who had a problem with his digital camera - rumours that he cracked the lens posing are unsubstantiated...
Our caretaker Ayhan also took time out from being the most helpful man in south wales to find out how to use the bluetooth function on his mobile phone. It took a little bit longer than I first anticipated though due to the fact that his phone's menus are all written in turkish! Whilst I was puzzling over the çeviri of the menus (you'll have to google to see my linguistic skills) Ayhan thought he'd see if wearing my glasses would help him with the computer -> the jury is still out on that one...

Nicky's notes and misty mondays

(N.B. - Pretend this is still monday when you read this.)

I docked at DOVE around 10:15 am running late due to an eight car pile up on the M4. The mist had become torrential rain as I climbed higher up the mountain and it was quite a challenge negotiating from my car to the office without ruining my 'just rolled out of bed' hairstyle, but I just about carried it off. I had an informative meeting with 'Community Archives Wales' before Lesley, Julie and Sue joined me to start their own Blogs! They were up and running in no time (showoffs) and I felt a little redundant so I am going to scare them with html next week! ha! So make sure you check in with the Banwen Bloggers, their links are over on the right of your screen --->

Then I ventured back to the ARC (which was fortunate due to the non-stop rain) and caught up with Claire who brought me up to speed with the DCN meeting hat took place in Glynnneath that morning. However, I needn't have fretted, as Nicky excelled as a scribe and I received a comprehensive set of minutes in my inbox later that afternoon! So, if computers don't work out for you Nick you've got a promising career as a secretary ahead...

I moved into the hall before the tai chi ninjas arrived to hop on our wireless network (that has a range of approx. 3ft) and geeked out writing codes to pull the blog rss feeds together and convert them into h t m lzzzz zzz....sorry I sent myself to sleep talking about it.

Climb every mountain

Setting off from the ARC this morning after trimming l o a d s of flyers with a wonky guillotine (I am convinced there is a disgruntled employee working in a guillotine factory who sets them just a couple of degrees off square!) I ventured up to sunny Tairgwaith. It was a surprise to see Karen from Ammanford there, she was busy moving computers around ( I made a mental note to warn Nicky to expect a call!). I then proceeded to treat myself to an extra 40 minutes of flyer trimming (with guess what, a wonky guillotine).

From AVE it was over the mountain and then over another one to Glynneath where I was stood up at the allotments by the volunteers, who were busy in the classroom expanding their knowledge of all things that grow in the ground. So I popped in to the training centre just in time to catch Nicky receiving a call from . . . thats right, Karen in Ammanford regarding a computer that she had moved earlier in the day! Check out Dr. Nicks cracking Blog here, or follow the link on the left. Stay tuned for Michaels!

Whilst I was waiting for Claire to make her way up the valley from Portmead where she had been busy filming in the school for their 50th anniversary celebration preparations, I popped up to visit the DOVE Workshop. I grabbed a quick word with Sue who had been out in the sun soaked garden all day but was suffering with an awful cold. Then I was treated to a cup of tea courtesy of the lovely Leslie, and we had a quick catch up along with Julie, but just as I had made myself comfortable it was time to hit the road again.

On the way back down the hill you are treated to a fantastic view of the valleys, but they aren't normally on fire!



I met up with Claire and we headed over to Resolven to the Play session in a local park. The next hour mainly consisted of playing parachute games, running around making loads of noise and generally acting like an 8 year old (a far cry from my sophisticated, mature demeanour that you are all accustomed to!) and at some point I ended up as a carthorse dragging a tarpaulin UPHILL with an army of tiny tearaways hitching a lift...My poor old joints will be suffering tomorrow I tell thee. I also made a new friend from the animal Kingdom on the way to the park - He was straight out of a gangsta rap video, check him out --->

And so with a new friend made Claire dropped my weary bones off at Glynneath training centre at 6pm just in time for their youth club. After working with two girls that I am convinced must eat unhealthy amounts of sugar and caffiene we had a digital story in the bag and a digital outreach worker fit to drop! I plonked myself in the car and headed for swansea, just in time to catch the sun setting on the home stretch.

Corsa Crisis and Bloggers at Banwen

Today was our first 'pop in 4 help' session at the DOVE workshop, but before I even saw the sign for the M4 I was stopped in my tracks by a phonecall from Claire. Having enjoyed a weekend away in the 'big smoke' (thats London for those of you not down with street lingo) she had returned home only to find that her beloved 'Little Betty' (her silver vauxhall corsa) wouldn't start! After a quick brainstorming session in a layby just outside Blaenymaes, the decision was reached that I would check in at the ARC, then pick up some jump leads and do my best impression of a mechanic.

After nearly electrocuting both Claire and myself, we managed to create a controlled explosion leading to combustion and a running engine, just call me minty!(One for all you Eastenders fans out there.)

So, with a running engine and a newly aquired skill in jumpstarting cars I left Claire in the hafod to haggle over the cost of a replacement battery and made my way to the rarefied air of Banwen. I had (as always) a lovely time and have booked Leslie and Sue (and I'm still holding out for Julie) in for a blogging lesson next Monday. By this time next week we should all be able to keep up with whats going on with DOVE and the community garden project, and hopefully a lot more, so stay tuned for more details on that...

After that I trundled back to Blaenymaes for a spot of lunch, followed by a run in with a mean tom-cat who has been picking on the ARC's adopted cat. Lisa and I tried to chase him off before there was a feline felony but both cats disappeared, but I'm sure they will have managed to resolve their differences by now.

After dealing with the animal crisis it was back to work. Nicky returned from his travels and he, Debbie and I had a meeting outside Deb's office (I felt like I was in the IBM advert where they all meet standing up to save time). With a lot of positive ideas and enthusiasm bouncing around the corridors we knuckled down to finishing up for the day. I didn't manage to get any exciting photographs to share with you today but tomorrow I'm off to Glynneath in the morning which is as good a place as any to encounter bizarre scenarios... Nos da.