We Got It!

Its finally started! After months of waiting to see if our bid had been successful, at the end of April 2012 The People’s Health Trust announced to us that we had been successful in our funding application and would receieve £9,948 to undertake our Survivors Guide project.

From that moment on, we became really busy with emails back and forth and signing papers etc, but now we’re here, at the start of our project and it is so exciting!

Most of this month was taken up with meeting with our designer, Dave Gee at Jame Cre8tive, who has been a constant source of support and been with us since day 1 of the organisation (a true star!); various people such as a poet, artist, photographer, researcher and creative writer who may, at some point, be involved in helping us along the way; and most importantly, talking with male survivors themselves and explaining the idea behind the funding bid and inviting them to join our editorial team.

Then on 27/06/2012, we had our first official editorial team meeting… and what an absolute joy it was!

The agenda for the evening looked something like this:

1. Welcome and introductions
2. Explaination of the bid and the funds
3. The task at hand
4. The plan, including introduction of the Information Standard
5. Presentation of notebooks and stationery
6. Diary and notebook techniques (including presentation of artist/researcher, Michael Atkins, work)
7. “Homework”
8. Next meeting

A packed agenda, to say the least.

What came out of discussions in that meeting blew everyone away. The enthusiasm and ideas were pouring out and as scribe, i found it diffciult at times to caputure everything being said. But i managed it and this is the outcome:

Click here to see the 27-06-2012 Meeting Notes.

It seems that everyone who attended thoroughly enjoyed themselves and already, it looks like this is going to be a truely remarkable project.