Archive for July, 2015

Here’s an interview with Paul by NESTA asking about our experience of social franchising abroad with Gig Buddies Sydney. Why did you choose to franchise? When the opportunity came to share our work with ACL Disability Services in Sydney we weren’t sure of the best model to use. However, we wanted to share Gig Buddies […]

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Who is present? Madeline Kate Jade Monica Bernie Claire Daniel David Jamie Group Agreement No mobile phones Really listen to each other when somebody is talking Share ideas Agenda  News! Venues! Mystery Shopping Biographies Trustees Meeting Volunteering for Stay Up Late News General: Kiss My Disco tomorrow night at Eastbourne Jamie: Ordered a Red Bowling […]

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Tune in to the latest edition of Mencap’s ‘Our Radio’ to listen to Andrew and Paul talking about Gig Buddies Gig Buddies Interview – Music Special 17.07.15 by Ourradioonline on Mixcloud

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10 things that we think makes Gig Buddies special At our Annual General Meeting last year we had a conversation about how we might share our Gig Buddies project, and if we did, what are the things we need to make sure are replicated well. These are the things that our participants, volunteers, participants families […]

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Tilley and Del’s speech celebrating Magna Carta One of the crazier things we managed to organise this year was a tea party at the British High Commissioner’s home in Malta to celebrate 800 years of Magna Carta. The event was opened by our friends Tilley and Del and here’s their ‘doyley speech’: It is hard to […]

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In our previous blog we listed the 10 things that make up Stay Up Late’s Manifesto For Change, playfully referred to by the team as our Magna Carta for people with learning disabilities.           The reason we were talking about the Magna Carta was because we had been invited to a […]

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I went to Glastonbury this year with Gig Buddies and Stay Up Late. We all needed to drop off our stuff at the office because Paul was going to travel up to Glastonbury a couple of days before and set up everyone’s tents with Madeline’s help, and also the Stay Up Late tent as well. […]

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I’ve just been going through all the papers from our recent trip to Malta and found the fantastic lyrics to the song which Daniel Wakeford, Berhana Wells and Susanna Hall-Hirst wrote and performed at the festival (and featuring Aldean Blaire)                 Here’s the song: A night of paradise […]

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When we started the Gig Buddies project we were clear that we hadn’t claimed to re-invent traditional befriending schemes, we were just looking at using the hook of a shared interest in the same kind of music as a good platform for developing longer-term meaningful friendships between people with learning disabilities and volunteers. As I […]

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