Well, I’ve never been hugged so much after a Buzzing! performance as I was in Bridlington last Friday! Here I am with some of the great huggers of Bridlington:

Buzzing! in Bridlington (Photo by David Roberts)

My performance took place at North Bridlington Library, for an audience from Priory View. They sang and shouted very lustily (at the appropriate moments!) in the show. And they learned the difference between bluebottles and greenbottles, and how many spots ladybirds have, and how many eyes spiders have. And by the end of the show, they were turning into proper scientists, joining in with the Latin names for the creatures in the show! All very apt for a show put on as part of the BIS Learning Revolution Festival.

Some more of my Bridlington audience - with their Buzzing! bookmarks (Photo by David Roberts)

Our host, North Bridlington Library, is a fantastic place. It’s a large, light, modern building offering great facilities. I was very warmly welcomed there by all the staff, to whom many thanks (especially to David Roberts for taking these fab. photos, Margaret Helliwell for her excellent directions and efficient organisation, and Paul Hughes-Buchanan for his assistance setting up).

Thank you also to Mai Lin Li, who organised events for the project in our region.

Most importantly, happy bug hunting to everyone from Priory View! With a bit of luck, you might even be able to see butterflies around before winter sets in. (We’ve had Red admirals, a Comma and a Small copper in theBigBuzz garden in York in the last week.)

Anneliese Emmans Dean – info@theBigBuzz.biz – www.theBigBuzz.biz

The Brownies of Osbaldwick wowed the residents of Dunnington last week with their performance of ‘Compost! The (mini-)Musical‘, and got themselves in the local newspaper as a result! Take a look:

Read the article (pdf)

Thank you to all the talented performers (and the grown-ups who backed them up) for coming out on a cold October night to spread the musical word about the wonders of composting. You gave the audience a real treat!

Thank you too to Ginnie Shaw from City of York Council, for making the necessary arrangements.

Captain Compost (aka Catherine Bamford) from York Rotters and I will be teaching Compost! The (mini-)Musical to more Brownie and Cub packs around the York area next year.

If you’d like to teach Compost! The (mini-)Musical to your group, check out the Compost! The (mini-)Musical Teaching Pack with Resource CD, which contains everything you need to put on a great performance!

For more information, email me

Anneliese Emmans Dean – info@theBigBuzz.biz – www.theBigBuzz.biz

At The Bigger Picture, Festival of Interdependence, 24 October 2009

An impressive array of speakers gathered at the  Festival of Interdependence in London on Saturday, the final event in The Bigger Picture series of activities organised by the New Economics Foundation (nef).

Artists, thinkers, activists and the public joined with one another  ‘for a day of learning, making, celebrating and debating, about how we can start the Great Transition to a new economy’.

Speakers  included Green MEP, Caroline Lucas, John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace, and John Hilary, executive director of War On Want. Oh, and there was poetry from me.

The event was held in a disused industrial building, Bargehouse, at Oxo Tower Wharf on the Southbank in London, and people queued round the block to get in.

My show, entitled ‘Another Fine Mess …’ , was a 15-minute gallop through the causes of the credit crunch, and what we can do to build a better world the other side of it. Here’s the opening poem, specially written for the event:

The Bigger Picture

I

Clone towns
Drone towns
Living on your own towns

Loan towns
Moan towns
Dole-queue prone towns

Down towns
Frown towns
Drown your sorrows now towns

Slowdown
Breakdown
Shutdown
Tumbledown

II

Let’s make economics ergonomic
Shaped round our lives
And our planet, and our children
So everyone thrives

The status quo ante
Ain’t done us no good
The free-for-all led to freefall
Just like we said it would

So welcome to The Bigger Picture
The art of well-being
A different perspective
New ways of seeing

Drawing on talents
Of myriad hues
Sketching solutions
To colour in as you choose …

© Anneliese Emmans Dean
info@theBigBuzz.biz

Stalls, talks and installations at The Bigger Picture's Festival of Interdependence

The Festival of Interdependence was an extraordinary mixture of talks, workshops, installations and films,  and I was very pleased that people came up to me after my shows and said they found my poems  ‘inspiring’.

Thank you to Corrina Cordon and Elli Moody of nef for their organisational work, and to all the nef volunteers and staff who were so helpful on the day.

Find out more about The Bigger Picture

Find out more about the New Economics Foundation

Anneliese Emmans Dean – info@theBigBuzz.biz – www.theBigBuzz.biz

Catherine Heinemeyer, organiser of York Storytelling Festival

Hats off to Catherine Heinemeyer (aka storyteller Nettlefoot Kate) for bringing to life York’s first ever Storytelling Festival, which served up a feast of workshops and stories and fairy tales on Sunday. Children and adults alike were entranced, enthralled and entertained for the whole day, and well into the evening too.

Catherine had attracted some of the country’s leading storytellers to the festival, including Taffy Thomas, who has just become the UK’s first Laureate for Storytelling. (You can see his fabulous Tale Coat on the right in the photo above.)

About to perform at York Storytelling Festival

Here I am (above) about to perform my stories in verse in the beautifully decorated hall. Providing musical interludes on the piano was Jonathan Tapp (below), to whom many thanks!

Jonathan Tapp providing musical interludes at York Storytelling Festival

I thoroughly enjoyed the workshops and performances I attended, and felt very enriched by the whole experience. Much laughter (thank you Miles Salter!), much food for thought, many stories to pass on to others.

Thank you to all the volunteers who put so much into making the festival happen. It was well worth all your efforts!

Anneliese Emmans Dean – info@theBigBuzz.biz – www.theBigBuzz.biz

Not many people will have enjoyed National Poetry Day yesterday as much as I did! I was invited to spend the day with the staff and pupils of Sowerby Community Primary School in Thirsk, North Yorkshire.

Sowerby Community Primary School, North Yorkshire

The theme of National Poetry Day this year was ‘Heroes and Heroines’, so I began the day with a Buzzing! show all about my garden heroes and heroines.

After that, I got the chance to work with every class in the school (bar reception). The children wrote some fantastic poems! Take a look, for example, at this fabulous poem that Sunny wrote:

Sunny's poem, written on National Poetry Day 2009

The children at Sowerby are not only talented, they are quick workers too! Before I had left, I was presented with a big pile of  ‘Thank You’ letters, all of which were beautifully illustrated with minibeasts that had featured in my Buzzing! show. Here are a couple of examples:

'Thank You' letter from Ethan

'Thank You' letter from Millie

Aren’t they wonderful? I’ve greatly enjoyed reading every single letter, and send a big ‘Thank You’ in return!

This was my second visit to this lovely school. My first visit was last term during their ‘Nature, Nurture, Nutrition’ week, which celebrated the transformations that had taken place in the school grounds and in its food culture, thanks to Big Lottery and BBC Breathing Spaces funding.  They now have a wildlife garden and pond, a vegetable plot, an apple orchard, a copse, a wildflower meadow …  What an inspiring school, fostering a great love of nature. (I can also vouch personally for the tastiness of the school dinners!)

A beautiful mural at Sowerby Community School

Thank you to all the staff and pupils who welcomed me so warmly, and especially to the Head, Mrs Yendall. Her school is an uplifting place to be, with creative, enthusiastic, polite and happy pupils who made National Poetry Day very special indeed for me. I hope I made it special for them too.

STOP PRESS! I’ve since heard from the Head  that: ‘The children kept coming up to me telling me that we should have you back once a week!’ Well, that sounds like mission accomplished for National Poetry Day!

Anneliese Emmans Dean – info@theBigBuzz.biz – www.theBigBuzz.biz

The Society for Editors and Proofreaders held their annual conference at the University of York last week.

University of York campus (Photo: Anneliese Emmans Dean)

I was delighted to provide the entertainment for their 20th anniversary banquet – turning it into a Rhyme and Dine evening.

I enjoyed the evening enormously. As did, it would appear, the conference delegates:

‘I thought Anneliese was magnificent.’

‘Sublime!’

‘Fabulous show – I think your words were more luscious than the food!’

‘Wonderful!’

The conference organiser wrote that ‘a lot of people told me they thought you were excellent – certainly your performance made a significant contribution to the success of our conference.’

So, if you’d like to add a little word magic to your next conference, just get in touch, and I’ll transform your conference meal into a Rhyme and Dine experience!

To find out more, email me at info@theBigBuzz.biz

Many thanks to the catering staff at Vanburgh College at the University of York, particularly Jane Anness and Stuart Scott, for all their assistance and for their delicious food. Thank you too to conference organiser Lotika Singha of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders, for all her highly efficient behind-the-scenes work.

Anneliese Emmans Dean – info@theBigBuzz.biz – www.theBigBuzz.biz

Congratulations to the acclaimed early music vocal group, The Clerks, on their recitals at the Kings Place Festival in London on Sunday.

Kings Place Festival, London

I was particularly moved by their performances of the two ‘contrafacta’ I had written for them as part of their new project, The Clerks Songbook.

For this project, The Clerks have been commissioning contemporary poets, including Ian McMillan, Ian Duhig, and me, to write contrafacta, i.e. new words to old, Renaissance melodies.

It was fabulous to hear these old old songs being brought to life again in such a modern setting. (Kings Place only opened last year, and as well as being a cutting-edge arts centre, it’s also the home of the Guardian and Observer newspapers.)

Kings Place, London, creative centre and home of the Guardian and Observer

The Clerks’ recitals also included a new work by composer Christopher Fox, whom it was a pleasure to meet – especially as my husband Mike (and the choir he was in) had sung a piece they had commissioned from him some years ago.

With The Clerks director Edward Wickham and composer Christopher Fox

I wish The Clerks well with their future Clerks Songbook recitals, and look forward to hearing some of their other repertoire when they come up to York to perform at The National Centre for Early Music on 31 October, preceded by an afternoon singers’ workshop at the beautiful St Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel (where, of course,  I too have performed). Do come along …

Anneliese Emmans Dean – info@theBigBuzz.biz – www.theBigBuzz.biz

Well, they’re not called the ‘jewels of York’ for nothing. This week, after many years’ fruitless searching (wrong time of year; wrong plant; wrong stretch of the ings), I finally saw one of our rarest beetles, the exquisite Tansy beetle (Chrysolina graminis). In droves. And they were well worth the wait. Take a look:

Tansy beetles (Chrysolina graminis) on Fulford Ings, York, August 2009

Can you see the sparkling of other Tansy beetles in the background? It’s said that the Victorians were so taken by the iridescence of these beetles’ wing cases that they used them as sequins! (Though Tansy beetle expert, Dr Geoff Oxford, tells me this is a myth …)

The Tansy beetle is now very rare in Britain. One of the few places it’s found is on a short stretch of the river Ouse in and around York, where I live. And one of the best times to see it is now, August, just after the pupae have emerged.

I thoroughly recommend a walk along the river Ouse hunting for Tansy beetles. I saw these ones on Fulford Ings. Look for them on Tansy plants (see photo below) – their favoured food.

Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare)

When you come across a cluster of iridescent Tansy beetles, glistening in the sunshine … well, there’s very little to beat that gorgeous sight!

A big Thank You to Verna Campbell, Chair of Fulford Parish Council, for letting me know exactly when and where to go to find them.

Happy beetle hunting!

Anneliese Emmans Dean – info@theBigBuzz.biz – www.theBigBuzz.biz

Want to know more about compost? Then The Arboretum Trust, Kew at Castle Howard, near York, is the place to be. Tomorrow, Saturday 8 August, at 4pm, when their Discovery Lecture is entitled ‘Captivating Compost!’

Want to know more about compost and Compost! The (mini-)Musical? Then The Arboretum Trust, Kew at Castle Howard is also the place to be. For the foreseeable future.

How come? Well, the Education Development Officer there, Dr Katherine Forsey, invited me to put together a display for their Visitor Centre. Which you can see below. Along with Katherine and me.

My Compost! display at Kew at Castle Howard

The shop in the Visitor Centre now stocks my Compost! The (mini-)Musical Teaching Pack, so you can have a look at it there, and buy your copy.

If you’ve never been to Kew at Castle Howard, you’ve been missing a real treat. The arboretum there covers 150 acres, and includes a glorious lake and rolling countryside. A very inspiring place to be. I thoroughly recommend it – and their Discovery Lectures, which are open to all. (Indeed, I presented their first ever Discovery Lecture, which was a moth night, jointly put on with Dr Dave Chesmore of the University of York. Find out more about our Moth Nights.)

Oh, and if you’re a teacher, check out their excellent programme of training in a wide range of curriculum-linked outdoor activities, and their schools visits, all run by Katherine Forsey (education@kewatch.co.uk).

The Trust has a fantastic outdoor classroom (see below), and a great range of education options.

In the outdoor classroom at The Arboretum Trust, Kew at Castle Howard

Order your copy

Return to theBigBuzz website

Well, I don’t think many of the people who braved the elements today to come to Sutton Bank Visitor Centre in the glorious North York Moors were expecting to become world musical superstars today. But that’s exactly what happened!

Radio York’s own Jonathan Cowap was at the ‘My Awesome Planet’ event being held at Sutton Bank, where I was teaching ‘Compost! The (mini-)Musical‘ to any of the visitors who fancied taking part.

The children, mums, dads and grandmas who volunteered learned the complete musical in a mere 30 minutes. And then they performed it!

Their audience consisted not only of visitors to Sutton Bank, but also, thanks to the presence of Radio York, the whole of the rest of the world …

‘Even Africa?’ asked one participant. Yes, thanks to the internet, even people in Africa could hear these wonderful performers!

‘They look like they’re having a fantastic time!’ said Jonathan Cowap.

Thank you to everyone at the Visitor Centre for welcoming us so warmly. And to Jonathan Cowap from Radio York for coming and listening to us. To Sally Ann Smith for organising the My Awesome Planet event. And most of all to the fantastically talented performers.

Think global! Compost local! Now!

At the 'My Awesome Planet' event at Sutton Bank, North York Moors

Fancy putting on Compost! The (mini-)Musical yourself? Find out more about the Compost! The (mini-)Musical Teaching Pack with Resource CD here.

Return to theBigBuzz website