They will be camping for the entire festival and have 4 staff/volunteers there to assist attendees of the group.

To find out more you can Download the information sheet here or email Jacki Flower, Activity Leader, jacki@yellowsubmarine.org.uk

www.yellowsubmarine.org.uk

The post Want to go to WOMAD with Yellow Submarine? appeared first on Stay Up Late.

thought something else was going on, but instead of doing something we just asked to go on at 8pm. Not very punk!

Then one day, after we’d played a slot at The Beachcomber pub in Seaford we were enjoying an after match pint and chat when Michael (our drummer) was asked to drink up by his support worker. To be fair it was getting late, but Michael still had half a pint and it slightly spoiled what had been a triumphant night for us. At that time it was a huge deal for us, taking our chaotic performance to a packed pub of people who were largely not at all aware of the disability arts scene. And it was like one of those scenes in a Hoolywood feelgood film where the audience just looked shocked and confused for the few songs, and by the end Simon had roused the entire pub in to waving their arms over their heads and singing along. It was a fantastic moment for us. So Michael being asked to drink up and go home took the shine off it.

That was when we decided enough was enough and something needed to be done about it. But what could we do?

It wasn’t until a few days later that I remember thinking, ‘hang on a minute, we’ve got a film crew following us round. If we did something it would be in the film!’ So maybe we were a bit slow on the uptake with starting something but we went on to build a campaign which was featured in the movie and the response was amazing. People all over the UK said they were experiencing the same frustrations as us, and what was more was the people without disabilities who’d never considered that this would be an issue. We’d found a huge number of people who also shared our belief that it was a fundamental right that people with learning disabilities should be able to lead the lifestyle of their choosing and have an active social life.

You can see how it all started here, as the movie is now on Vimeo in glorious HD, along with the short film about Heavy Load’s adventures in New York, and an interview with director, Jerry Rothwell.

Click on the movie poster to go to Vimeo on demand. It costs $4. Of course if you want the DVD we’ve still got some (PAL and NTSC) so get in touch.

The post Where it all began – Heavy Load movie now on Vimeo on demand appeared first on Stay Up Late.

For those of you who missed it (and it was on quite early for some of us!) here it is.

Today on BBC Radio 4

The post Stay Up Late on BBC Radio 4 appeared first on Stay Up Late.

So if you’re on Twitter we’ll be using the hashtag #stayuplateagm and we’ll be tweeting out questions during the afternoon. We’ll also be turning it all in to a blog so you can see what comes out.

We look forward to welcoming you to our meeting. It starts at 1pm and ends at 5pm.

After we’ve done the legal part of the meeting the general outline agenda for what we’ll be talking about is:

What’s great about Stay Up Late – what inspires you about our work?

What could Stay Up Late become? - your vision for our work

How do we create a big influence without getting bigger? - And what does creating influence mean for Stay Up Late?

Paul

The post Stay Up Late AGM – Friday 12th April appeared first on Stay Up Late.

The Today Programme – BBC Radio 4

The post Stay Up Late on BBC Radio 4 appeared first on Stay Up Late.

A year on from our winning pitch I thought I’d write a longer blog than usual that covers what we talked about in our presentation to City Camp. But first things first, a big thank you to everyone at City Camp Brighton for supporting us to get to where we are now. When we won we were awarded £2000 which may not sound like a lot, but it’s a start and enabled us to apply for matched funding from various places and coupled with the support of the City Camp network we’ve managed to get from an idea to employing our first worker in the space of a year, a big step for us as a new charity which has been run on a solely voluntary basis up until now. We’re really grateful to Brighton and Hove City Council, Southdown Housing Association and The Sussex Community Foundation, and all the other people who’ve supported us through fundraising and donations.

The whole idea behind Gig Buddies was to find a way to support people with learning disabilities to go mainstream gigs and events.

I played bass in the band ‘Heavy Load’ for 15 years and as many of you will know the frustrations faced by us as a band led to us starting Stay Up Late as an awareness campaign. Being a band made up of musicians with and without learning disabilities meant we played at a lot of disability arts venues, and we tired of seeing our fans leave at 9pm because their support workers were working inflexible shifts.  At the time of starting the campaign we were also being filmed for the feature documentary about our lives and so we were able to reach a huge number of people all experiencing the same frustrations, either as people who relied on support to get out and about, or as support workers who were equally as frustrated.

Heavy Load went on to play in New York, Glastonbury festival (twice!), Copenhagen, Berlin and toured the UK as well as releasing three albums and being commissioned to write the theme tune for Channel 4 drama series ‘Cast Offs’ and were all to aware of the fantastic things people with learning disabilities can achieve when given the opportunity.

After 15 years of mayhem our drummer, the wonderful Michael White, decided to retire and we played our last gig was in Trafalgar Square as part of Paralympics festivities. Not a bad way to bow out, and the band’s legacy was Stay Up Late,

Last year, with the help of the Community and University Partnership Programme at Brighton Uni, we commissioned a piece of research where we interviewed people with learning disabilities and their carers and families about the barriers they face to going out in the evenings. Generally these were:

-       Needing support to go out.

-       Perceived and real community safety issues

-       Not having the confidence or the motivation to go out

-       Not having anyone to go with

-       Not knowing what’s on

-       Not being able to afford to

On a national scale there are 1.8M people with learning disabilities and in 2010 the Learning Disability Coalition published ‘Stories From The Frontline’, looking at impact of Government’s funding policies which showed that 47% of people with learning disabilities were spending most time of their time at home, with 51% saying they feel lonely and 64% not seeing their friends. The Guardian also reported that disabled people make up 2% of the population but are shouldering 15% of the spending cuts.

So we can either moan about this – or we can try and do something – even if it’s small, and that’s what we’re trying to do with Gig Buddies.

We’re also keen to try and help Mr Cameron in his vision to make society bigger but we think there are three main challenges to increasing the population’s capacity to volunteer:

- People don’t have the time

- They don’t know what to do

- They don’t want to

We’re hoping that the Gig Buddies works on addressing the first two – and maybe we address the third one through time.

The idea behind Gig Buddies is simple, it’s like dating without the ‘LOVE’ – we match people with and without learning disabilities through a shared loved of the same kind of music or activity. Buddies are vetted and trained and ongoing support is provided and we’ll be having social meet-ups in pubs for the community of buddies to share experiences and plan new ones.

We’re also in the process of setting up an advisory group for the project – a group of people with learning disabilities involved in the scheme and helping us steer it – and link with our board of trustees.

The main focus is that it’s all about making volunteering easy, whilst doing everything properly – to cut through as much red tape as possible.

We’re also working on developing a Gig Buddies web app to support participants in organizing their social lives and reflecting on their experiences and we’ll have more news on that in the coming months. We’re also planning to pilot a version of Gig Buddies at a major music festival in the summer and we’ll be saying more about that when we’ve confirmed things.

Brighton is a fantastic place to be right now, with City Camp, The Brightoneers, Good For Nothing a great live music scene and what with the accepting nature of our city it seems the best possible place to start the scheme.

At City Camp I was also asked to reflect on what kind of future do we want to create together for the city of Brighton and Hove. Simply I think we live in a society where being selfish has become quite legitimate and simply the future I want is one where we say that selfishness is not legitimate. And it’s great to know there’s so many people already committed to that through community work and events like City Camp. But as I always like to say ‘let’s keep things punk’ and by that I mean lets not spend too much time talking, lets get on and make things happen – so I also want to see a future that is punk!

Paul Richards

paul@stayuplate.org

(To see me and Madeline speaking at City Camp, along with all the other speakers see the Public-I webcast)

The post City Camp – Gig Buddies presentation appeared first on Stay Up Late.

Here’s a link to our presentation at City Camp 3 where Madeline and Paul look back over the year and talk about where they are now with the Gig Buddies project. We’ll also send out another update soon about the work we’re doing with Gig Buddies to reduce social isolation for people with learning disabilities in Brighton and Hove, and East Sussex.

City Camp 3 talks

The post City Camp 2 – one year on from winning with Gig Buddies appeared first on Stay Up Late.

The post In Conversation with Paul Richards appeared first on Stay Up Late.

I thought it would be a bit of a laugh to turn parts of these lessons in to punk song writing workshops where we get the kids to write, practice and perform a punk song from scratch. So far it’s worked and they’ve come up with some amazing lyrics.

The only thing they need encouragement around is that they all sing like little angels so there’s lots of direction such as ‘stop smiling’, ‘look angry’ ‘SHOUT’ – and by the end of the lesson we’ve hyped all the kids up in to pogoing punks. That’s always my cue to leave and get lunch!

Here’s some of the kids previous songs that they’ve written. Can’t wait to see what they come up with in a couple of weeks.

‘Don’t dis my ability’

Born this way baby, born to be wild.

Who in their right mind would treat us this way?

Everybody’s different

Don’t dis my ability

I’ve got the power

My abilities are cool.

‘Everyone is equal’

Just because we’re different

Doesn’t mean we can’t have fun

Everyone in human

How would you feel if it happened to you?

Live with disability

Everyone’s the same

Everyone is equal

Why can’t the kids stay up late?

Everyone is equal

Don’t treat them badly

The next Somerhill Don’t Dis My Ability day is 6th March. What a wonderful school!

Paul

The post School of punk rock appeared first on Stay Up Late.

1)    Look around for a girl you like

2)    Wait until she smiles at you

3)    Go up and ask if she would like a drink

4)    Ask her about her hobbies

5)    Speak to her about those hobbies and interests

6)    Then when she ask you, you talk about your hobbies and          interests

7)    When she leaves ask her for her number

8)    Then wait one day because if you call too soon she’ll think        you’re after sex. Leave it too late and she’ll think you’re              not interested so wait one day

9)    Always smell nice and dress smartly

10)  Always keep eye contact and smile

The post Julian’s ‘pull tips’ appeared first on Stay Up Late.