Dreaming and Planning Day and AGM - REMINDER. 2 March 2014

Kate Lawrence will be leading the STORYTELLING AUSTRALIA (VICTORIA) DREAMING AND PLANNING DAY: to explore the why, what, how and who of advancing storytelling in Victoria (and Australia).

Followed by the AGM

We’re hoping for an abundance of ideas and enthusiasm.  Come and have your say. If you can’t make it, send your ideas along with your apologies via a colleague or email our secretary Anne E Stewart: anne@anneestewart.com.au 

 ALL WELCOME including non-members.

WHERE: *Boyd 207 City Road, Southbank

ROOM: The Assembly Hall

DATE: Sunday 2 March

TIME: 10.30am – 4.30pm

Melway reference: Map 1D, M6
 Tram: 55

*Boyd is the of Melbourne’s multi-use facilities featuring the Southbank Library, KereKere cafe, Family Services, community meeting rooms and Creative Spaces studios.

NB It looks like the Cafe is closed on Sundays but between now and March we'll check out where hungry storytellers can eat.

Christine Willison visiting storyteller from Wales Footscray Library 9 January 2014

Christine Willison arrived in Melbourne from Wales just before Christmas. Although extremely jet lagged, she made it to the final Ladders to the Moon Traditional storytelling Night, telling a story and meeting many of the Vic tellers before they scattered for the holidays.

If you are in Melbourne and you haven't met Christine or heard her tell you can catch her at the Footscray Library.

This will be a family event with stories from Wales (where Christine lives) as well as stories from Ireland and Europe.

DATE: Thursday 9 January
TIME: 2 - 3.30pm
PLACE: 56 Paisley Street Footscray (close to Foostcray Station)

Christine's contact and website HERE

Anne E Stewart: telling stories with children 2013

Anne E Stewart was recently contracted by the Raising Children Network to record a series of videos on the importance of oral storytelling and early childhood. Anne is a versatile teller, her repertoire is vast including stories for all ages and she has a remarkable ability to adapt and create stories for special events. Anne is one of Storytelling Victoria's most travelled tellers building relationships and sharing Australian stories wherever she goes.

We're unable to embed a video sample from the series but if you're interested in the subject of storytelling  and the role it plays in language development and literacy, we urge you to have a look at Anne on the  Raising Children Network site HERE

Visit Anne's website HERE 

Cygnet Festival (Tasmania) Storytelling Workshop 10 January 2014

Tasmanians – would you like to meet up at the Cygnet Festival?

My daughter moved to Tasmania to study two years ago and I enjoy this excuse to visit the Apple Isle as often as I can. She is very supportive of Storytelling and has previously organised  House Concerts and an evening of tales in her favourite café, Frankie’s Empire. With her support and with the encouragement of Martin Jefferd (UK storyteller from Bristol and friend of Storytelling Australia Vic), trad storytelling has a place in the Cygnet Festival program.

The plan is to meet, warm up and get  stuck into learning some stories but importantly - build the story connections. The focus will be on traditional stories that mention either apples, cider or both. Seemed like a good idea, as Willie Smith’s Organic Cider is one of the Festival’s major sponsors!

There'll be opportunities to try out the stories at the chalkboard events that run throughout the weekend.

Workshop: Friday 10 January. Details HERE

The Cygnet Festival runs from 10 – 12 January. Full details HERE

 Jackie Kerin HERE

photo: Hobart House Concert

Storytelling for Change 15 January - 26 February 2014

Vic Storyteller Kate Lawrence learned of this course and thought it was worth sharing. We do a lot of swapping of information on Facebook but not all of us like connecting via FB so here it is for the bloggers.

Thanks for sharing Kate.

Storytelling for Change

(This  free course involves working in teams either on line or face to face if possible as well as some individual assignments.)

Acumen and The Ariel Group have created a hands-on course to help you develop your practical skills as a storyteller. Whether you work in an office making presentations in the boardroom, as a teacher with 30 to 300 students, interacting with customers, or one-on-one with individuals, using the elements of story bring you closer to your audience. 

Using stories makes your messages memorable, gives your audience something to relate to, and above all captures their attention, motivating and inspiring them in new ways. A story taps into more than one element of communicating. Great storytellers are great communicators and effective leaders.

Acumen believes that storytelling is an essential tool for changing the way the world tackles poverty because it starts with changing conversations around what we see, hear, feel and know to be true. Change leaders see the world’s potential, and tell powerful stories that inspire action. 

More information HERE

Visit Kate HERE

Invitation from the Dutch Storytelling Foundation: World Storytelling Day 20 March 2014

In June I represented storytelling Australia (Vic) at the Federation for European Storytelling Conference in Rome and on behalf of the Victorian Tellers, I made many wonderful contacts with individuals and groups across Europe. Here is an invitation to you all from Gottfrid van Eck from the Dutch Storytelling Foundation.  

On March 20th 2014 there will be another World Storytelling Day. This edition will have "Dragons and Monsters" as it's central theme. In the Netherlands we will organize quite a few storytelling events on and around the date of WSD, but what about other countries and participants?

Hopefully you are making plans too in order to stimulate storytelling and make it (more) public.

We'd like you all to contribute to our Dutch World Wide Storytelling Café (in 2 or 3 cities) where short films from national and international storytellers - telling a monster or dragon story - will be shown.

Who of you is willing to make a short movie of a storytelling performance in English (max. 15 minutes), upload it to YouTube of Vimeo and send us a weblink (info@wereldverteldag.nl) before 10 March 2014?

We hope many of you will respond and join in. Perhaps this World Wide Storytelling Café - combining live storytelling with short movies of storytellers - is a good idea for your own country too. Then it will really show that World Storytelling Day is an international initiative.

This recorded event was  in the Netherlands during World Storytelling Day (WSD) in 2012. Back then we were using Skype contact with international storytellers instead of YouTube movies of storytellers as we plan to do in March 2014. But this video gives you a general impression of the World Wide Storytelling café in Amsterdam.

It's fine to record stories with small digital camera's, the short movies (10 - 15 minutes) don't have to be technically perfect.

All the best,

Gottfrid van Eck

Dutch Storytelling Foundation

info@wereldverteldag.nl

For those of you who find the filming of a story a stumbling block, let me know, there are several of us with small cameras and you tube accounts who maybe willing to help.

Jackie K