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

Ladders to the Moon: plans for 2014

Ladders to the Moon is currently the only monthly night of traditional storytelling in Melbourne (we know of) that is open for experienced and beginner storytellers to exchange stories. The tellers gather from around Melbourne and beyond, and in a cozy and welcoming space, and in front of an audience curled up on comfy couches, the magic takes place. Although this is a night for adults, all are welcome.  MC Simon Oats and the Ladders team could not do more to make both the audience and tellers feel at home.

 Simon explains the Ladders vision for 2014.

Check for DATES and TIMES and for Ladders to the Moon: HERE

WHERE: 303 High street Northcote

COST: $10

EMAIL: storyladders@gmail.com

Pic: December Ladders marked the end of a wonderful year of traditional storytelling featuring storytellers from around Victoria, and some from as far away as Ireland, Wales and Berlin.

Celebrating Marriage Equality in Australia 2013

At midnight last night, the first wedding took place when West Australian politician Stephen Dawson and his partner Dennis Liddelow exchanged vows outside Parliament House in Canberra. These marriages may be short-lived, as the High Court of Australia will rule on the constitutionality of the law on Thursday.

But in the meantime, many families and friends are celebrating this step towards marriage equality in Australia.

Here’s a little story I recorded for my storytelling friend Gael Cresp who requested a story gift for her grand daughter who is being lovingly raised by two happily married woman in America. Production values are a little rough but sometimes you just have to get the story out there I think!

Congratulations from me to all who are celebrating Marriage Equality in Australia.

Jackie Kerin

The Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past: Conference 20-23 March 2014

SSCIP Seventh International Conference: 
Telling Tales - Children, Narrative and Image. Melbourne, Australia 


SSCIP is an international, multi-disciplinary society to promote the study of childhood and children in the past, from earliest human society to the twentieth century. 

La Trobe University is delighted to host the 2014 conference of the Society of the Study of Childhood in the Past. The timing and conference theme is designed to coincide with the 2014 Children’s Book Festival (late March: dates tbc) in Melbourne.

The Children’s Book Festival, organised by the State Library of Victoria and the Wheeler Centre, is a major festival which attracts over 10,000 members of the public to its various events and displays.

A centrepiece of the 2014 Festival will be an exhibition of works from the Scholastic Dromkeen Children’s Literature Collection, recently moved to the State Library of Victoria. The Collection consists of some 7500 original artworks from Australia’s best-loved children’s books.

The SSCIP international conference will add an academic component to the Festival and aims to bring together scholars from a wide range of academic disciplines including literature, anthropology, history, sociology, archaeology and art history to consider the forms and roles of narrative, and its evolving nature, in the lives of children from antiquity to the modern period. Major conference themes HERE

CALL FOR PAPERS