Update

Things have been fairly quiet of late but preparations are almost there for the Waterfront Museum Launch on 20 September.  Also, going on in the background is the preparation of the information packs to go with the DVD. 

On a slightly different note - I am running the Cardiff Half Marathon on October 6 and raising funds for the Calon Lan Centre at Mynyddbach.  Yes - I have been training for this event and am looking forward to it!  I am in the process of setting up an online donation link and would be extremely happy if you would sponsor me.  I will post up more information about this as soon as it is ready.

Waterfront Museum Exhibition

Preparations are underway for the Connected Communities Exhibition Launch in September.  The Daniel James Project will be one of the featured projects - more information nearer the time!

Oral History

Bev and I recently spent an informative morning with Ivor Williams of Treboeth Historical Society where we discussed the origins of the Society and Ivor's involvement, personal and local history and of course Daniel James.  This was the second oral history we have completed plus we have some written memories from Alan Beddoe highlighting aspects of life at Mynyddbach.  In due course we will spend some time transcribing and summarising this information along with that provided by Miriam Evans.  There are also some other people who we are going to speak to and who knows what we may find out!

'News' round up!

Upcoming events include:

• Report on progress of oral hisories
• Translation of some of Daniel James's poems
• A feature on Mynyddbach Chapel
• July 10 - viewing of animation at Mynyddbach Chapel
• Information on the exhibition at the Waterfront Museum in September

School Workshops

All of the 'pre-animation' workshops have now taken place.

Geraint Williams and Ivor Williams met with the children in Tirdeunaw school on Tuesday 26 March and Geraint and I met with the children in Bryn Tawe on Thursday 28 March.  They all know have lots of information about Daniel James which they will be using in conjunction with the animation company Turnip Starfish.  Gwenno Ffrancon also visited Bryn Tawe where she inspired the children with her talk on their forthcoming work with the animation.

In addition to the above, some of the project team were put to the test on Friday 22 March by pupils from Tirdeunaw.  We were quizzed on topics which included Daniel James (of course), Mynyddbach Chapel and local history.  It was a great effort by Ivor, Geraint, Kate, Catrin and myself and of course the pupils!  They took lots of notes and were really interested in the topics and were well informed.  They had already been out to visit some of the sites of interest and shared their information with us.

The next steps for the project will be the animation after the Easter holidays so things seem to be moving at a fast pace.

Connected Communities Come Together

As part of Swansea University's Research Week, an event was held yesterday afternoon to celebrate the continued development of local community-based research through the Connected Communities project.  Professor Huw Bowen who leads the project spoke of how the research will help to shape the future development of the Swansea Valley which includes the regeneration of the Hafod and Morfa Copperworks.

Each of the local community projects which secured Heritage Lottery Funding gave a brief talk about how their research and activities were progressing and our representative for The Daniel James Project was Ivor Williams.  Teresa, Catrin and myself were in the audience lending moral support!

It was a great event which allows the different groups to interact and share ideas in a positive environment.  Each group has a very different research goal but we all share a combined passion - a love of local history and a recognition that memories need to be preserved.