Tag: The Mighty Creatives

Day 28 of the 26 Day Big Shut Up:  feeling the potent kick of ‘history’.

We take on New Walk at pace past the shishy offices, university buildings and comfortable hotel offers, with barely a glance to The Clothier, a marble statue made by John Atkin to commemorate the legacy of Leicester’s clothing industry in 2010. According to the Friends of New Walk website,

“From 1970 onwards the industry was in decline, but in the last few years there have been indications of a slow rebirth. Manufacturing is growing slowly in the hands of new investors and locally-based retailers, such as Next, Bodens and Joules, have shown that textiles are still very much a Leicester industry.”

Nothing showed us that as clearly as the garment industry scandal which emerged in Leicester during the Covid-19 lockdowns. In July 2020, the city’s dirty “open secret”of underpaid workers in Leicester’s garment industry was dragged out of its silence. 

The retail giant Boohoo were implicated in contracting with suppliers who ‘employed’ workers in unsafe conditions, forcing them to come to work even when ill with coronavirus.

Boohoo found itself at the centre of a media storm when came to light as some of their suppliers were accused of modern slavery.  But they were by no means the exception: the authorities’ efforts to stamp out bad practice in many employers have consistently failed over many years.  

As you walk on past De Montford Hall to see the work of Natasha Muluswela, another potent kick of ‘history’ makes itself felt:  the hall takes its name from the late Simon de Montfort, after whom Leicester’s De Montfort University was also named.  The university acknowledges the potency of this naming on its website:  

While Simon de Montfort is remembered chiefly for his achievements as an architect of and campaigner for a representative parliament – achievements which originally inspired DMU to take his name – it is argued, too, that he bears responsibility for the persecution of Jewish people because in 1231 Montfort issued a charter expelling Leicester’s Jewish community in an overtly anti-Semitic act.

Fortunately, resistance isn’t futile but is alive and kicking not just through the DMU Students Union but also through the work of the Fashion-workers Advice Bureau Leicester (FAB-L) based in Highfields which is fighting back against modern day employment slavery practices.  It’s where we head to next as the afternoon’s temperature continues to drop and the autumn leaf slush makes the journey discovery a little more treacherous, step by step.

This walk is not just about visiting 10 Globe Sculptures on an art trail: you’re reminded every step of the way of the necessity of The World Reimagined programme.  The history of enslaved Africans isn’t just someone else’s history, it’s our history.  And it’s not just our his-story or her-story: it’s our here-and-now-story.

The Mighty Creatives staff team took part in the Mighty (UN)Mute, a day-long vow of silence, on 5th October 2022.  Check out the campaign here and donate your hard-earned disposable income here.

Or if neither of these is possible (and heaven knows we’re all in tough financial times right now), then anything you can do to share and shout about the campaign would be equally welcome and appreciated.

Day 27 of the 26 Day Big Shut Up:  on the trail to reimagine a world.

The morning team TMC mute session finishes just before 2pm and following some loud closing of laptops, shuffling of chairs and waves across the office, we’ve all gathered down in Rutland Street to explore the Globe Sculptures on the trail of The World Reimagined.  Our Orange Mighty Unmute badges are prominent on our coats, and we’re determined to show them to anyone who’s interested, albeit in silence.

The World Reimagined is billed as “a Journey of Discovery to transform how we understand the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans and its impact on all of us, so that we can make justice a reality.”

So we head over first to the Globe Sculpture made by artist Laura-Kate Pontefract, inspired by the theme Mother Africa, being shown at Leicester Station.

Except it’s not there: we discover that the rail dispute has led to the globe being moved over to Leicester’s New Walk.  The doors to the station are locked, there’s no sign of the globe and the only significant signage is a notification from East Midlands Railway about the station’s closure.

Outside the station, we wave to the members of picket line who wave back and show some interest in our orange Mighty Unmute badges although no-one steps up to snap the QR code on the badges. One missed fundraising moment silently passes us by. 

Somewhere in the back of my memory, I’m reminded of the links between the railways and the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans but as we’re all on mute for the day, that conversation will have to wait for another time. One missed understanding moment silently passes us by.

We continue at pace to where Laura-Kate Pontefract’s Globe Sculpture is located at New Walk.  Within close proximity to the second globe on the trail by Roy Meats. (theme: The Reality of Being Enslaved) the effect of the globes is audible.  Our muteness becomes even quieter and our silence even noisier.

We stare, we read, we reflect, we genuflect.  One passer by looks at us quizzically and tries asking us what we’re doing and what the globes are about.  We direct his stare to our orange badges but he’s in a hurry and won’t be hanging around to find out.  He sees the word ‘mute’ on them and thinks that’s a reason for him not to talk to us any more so he hurries off after his walking partner. One missed understanding moment silently passes him by.

But it’s soon time for us to move on to the third Globe Sculpture up in Victoria Park.  The autumn chill is finding its way into our joints and we still have a lot of walking to do.

The Mighty Creatives staff team took part in the Mighty (UN)Mute, a day-long vow of silence, on the 5th October. You can check out the campaign here and donate your hard-earned disposable income here.

Or if neither of these is possible (and heaven knows we’re all in tough financial times right now), then anything you can do to share and shout about the campaign would be equally welcome and appreciated.

Day 26 of the 26 Day Big Shut Up:  the noise of silence.

It’s an odd start to our Mighty UnMute Day; usually you’d drive into town and keep muted until you park up, walk to the entry doors which someone opens for you and you hold back from thanking them and you get micro-glimpse of what it is to silence yourself. Rude Man! Someone is probably thinking right now.

You walk over to Gray’s café where you interact by pointing, gesticulating, a thumbs up when the server remembers your usual order and semi-normal service is resumed. Cappuccino in hand, it’s up to the office, trying to avoid any awkward conversations which could involve more complex signage, gesticulations and strangers getting the wrong idea.

In the office, everyone’s heads are down, getting on with it.  People look away, concentrating on screens, post, spreadsheets. Laptops are tapping away, unaware of the need to be mute.  Rubbish shifts, furniture scrapes.  The inanimate speak ever loudly, immune to a call for silence.

You try anything to fill the silence: a conversation attempted in charade like gestures soon evaporates when you can’t figure out the charade symbols for hol-i-day.  I resort to digging the headphones out of my laptop bag and the noisy silence is replaced with something more melodic, urgent, meaningful. 

At lunch, you weigh up how difficult it is going to be to be able order something to eat something which is beyond a coke and a burger.  Your first choice is to go straight to an automated MacDonalds pay station which asks you no questions, you tell it no lies and in theory you can type in anything you want to.  Unless there’s no spare ordering station, so it’s back out into the street weighing up the options again.  You opt for safety and familiarity; they know you back at Grays and they’ll be sympathetic to the campaign, so you can point at a menu, make the finger sign for tea and get on with it.  

Back to the office and some others have gone off to negotiate lunch, the photocopier is in full swooshing swing and there’s an odd laugh or rustle of a packet of crisps.  A lever arch file snapped shut.

Listen more often to things than to beings springs to mind, and whilst I did have a vague idea about listening to the furniture at some point today, I opted for safety first this morning with the headphones so hadn’t encountered the challenge of listening to the tables and chairs.  Although my back has, and it’s not especially happy with the chairs it is being asked to communicate with.

Do things speak more vociferously now we’re in the office and have the time to listen to them with more intent?  I’m looking at a bookcase which was part of the Without Walls event of a couple of weeks ago and wonder what that’s saying right now?

It’s got a quirky little lamp and shade on top of it; a top row of books, a couple of picture frames and looks like it’s been covered with off cuts of newspapers or wrapping paper.  4 of the 6 shelves are empty. They’ve been unpacked and its waiting to go? Or have just arrived and waiting to be filled up?

I’m reminded of the story on the radio this morning about the parable of looking at 11 roses through a garden gate: the premise is that that wherever you stand, you’ll never see them all at once and you’ll never get the whole picture or story.

So much for listening to things more often than to beings on this occasion.  My muteness just encourages the furniture to provide even more complex, noisier messaging than listening to the people who occasionally sit in those chairs.

The Mighty Creatives staff team took part in the Mighty (UN)Mute, a day-long vow of silence, on the 5th October. You can check out the campaign here and donate your hard-earned disposable income here.

Or if neither of these is possible (and heaven knows we’re all in tough financial times right now), then anything you can do to share and shout about the campaign would be equally welcome and appreciated.

Day 22 of the 26 Day Big Shut Up:  vocalising a World Reimagined.

I’m watching a visiting artist, Lisa, in a Year 6 class with the teacher, Sally, present one Friday afternoon.  Lisa has started a project on Wilberforce, making a model slave ship, an African village and delivering a percussion project. She kicks off asking who Wilberforce is and what slavery is.  

She introduces the task of making a slave ship which the class will show at the end of the week as part of an impressive piece of work. “We’re going to make a slave ship out of pipe cleaners and mudroc” she announces. 

Lisa demonstrates how to make a figure out of mudroc and pipe cleaners and takes questions as she goes.   Little slave figures made from pipe cleaners.  “We don’t want arms sticking out, they should be down at the side”.  She sets up a little production line by asking them to make 2 or 3 figures each.  The class is set on a task of making about 50 – 75 different slave figures between them. “Mould the pipe cleaner, cut up mudroc, soak it, wrap it, repeat”. 

As pipe cleaner figures start emerging, a few laughs are generated by children – feet are either too big or heads too small. “He’s hop-along… what’s happened to his arms… mine’s called Gordon, mine’s Edmund… this one’s paraplegic”.

 Groups work semi-independently, Sally the teacher is engaged in co-delivery of the session, moving from one table to another as Lisa does. “Wrap the mudroc tightly around the skeleton otherwise it will fall off”.  Perhaps it would have been closer to the truth to make people figures who had homes first and who were then enforced into slavery – channelling the pupil’s enthusiasm for the figures to its advantage rather than opt for making slaves from the beginning. 

 The production line aspect of this approach echoes the values which make the slave trade possible.   We’re not making a character which has a personal connection to its sculptor.  There’s one black lad in the class who is joining in with all the activities; a small crowd of white mud roc figures starts being assembled; some of which are splendid creations, others of which are not so splendid….

The project continues through the afternoon, with no time for play time which means for some pupils that making slaves out of pipe cleaners is becoming a bit of drudgery. The figures are now to be painted black, to represent the figures seen in the picture at the start of the session.  

Blackened mudroc figures start to appear on tabletops and are taken to the window ledge to dry; of course, they’re various in shape, size and coverage of black paint – but they are still faceless and the products of several cheerful production lines.  No shades of black, brown or tone… End of class, and Lisa moves the furniture back to where it started before I entered the classroom.  

The figures are to be placed in the slave boat which is to be built tomorrow.  

This classroom observation opened up some key questions about how we approach the histories of the slave trade, not the least of them being how we can provide a different educational perspective which doesn’t rely on ‘pipe cleaners and mudroc’ to make its point.

Fortunately, The World Reimagined progamme does exactly that. You can find more on their learning resources here.

(Photo credit: The World Reimagined Sculpture Trails: 103 unique globes across the UK exploring the history, legacy and future of the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans through the work of incredible artists.)

The Mighty Creatives staff team are going to support the campaign by taking part in the Mighty (UN)Mute, a day-long vow of silence, on the 5th October. If you want to join us on the day and take a vow of silence, then please check out the campaign here. 

Of if the thought of donating your silence for 24 hours is really too much, then you can donate your hard-earned disposable income here.

Or if neither of these is possible (and heaven knows we’re all in tough financial times right now), then anything you can do to share and shout about the campaign would be equally welcome and appreciated.

So… come and help me to shut up, once and for all. You know you want to.

Day 21 of the 26 Day Big Shut Up: using creativity to lift the Big Shut Down.

You’re in a meeting; it’s bumbling along; minutes are handed out and people frown and glare or pass out in the heat of the moment. There’s mutterings under breaths; there’s sighs, grunts and the occasional fart. Everyone’s been shut up and the meeting’s been shut down.

But some bright spark says ‘what we need is a creative something something something‘ and suddenly the whole room has lit up in technicolour: the sighs become shouts, the grunts become groans of delight and the farts metamorphose into sounds of rejoicing: the whoopee cushion is something we all want to sit on now the creativity cat is out of the bag.

Because make no mistake: dropping the ‘c’ word into any meeting is bound to galvanise your workforce, impress your investors and stoke up the heat of admiration upon you. It doesn’t matter what the ‘something something something’ is, the fact that you’ve introduced the ‘c’ word to your proposal is what’s fired up the meeting.

In the olden days we would have used the words ‘magic’ and the effect would have been the same. These days, ‘creativity’ replaces the word for ‘magic’ and the world becomes a far happier place as a result, if only for a short time.

So, if in future you’re feeling shut down, shut up or just stuck in an oppressive silence, just drop the word ‘creative’ into proceedings and see your colleagues grow wings and fly to the heavens. They may not last long up there as they get too close to the sun, but they will thank you for liberating them from their non-magical silent daily grind.

The Mighty Creatives staff team are going to support the campaign by taking part in the Mighty (UN)Mute, a day-long vow of silence, on the 5th October. If you want to join us on the day and take a vow of silence, then please check out the campaign here. 

Of if the thought of donating your silence for 24 hours is really too much, then you can donate your hard-earned disposable income here.

Or if neither of these is possible (and heaven knows we’re all in tough financial times right now), then anything you can do to share and shout about the campaign would be equally welcome and appreciated.

So… come and help me to shut up, once and for all. You know you want to.

The Ratcliffe-on-Soar Boss Bike Ride: navigating the elusive volcanoes.

Dan Lamoon from Colab Creation and I set off on our Boss Bike Ride from Nottingham train station in pursuit of some conversations about transitioning: not our own gender re-identification issues on this occasion, but reflections on what identity challenges our respective businesses were facing up to in the months ahead.

Dan was puzzling out about how we transition into a new way of working and how what ‘hybrid working’ really means these days when the novelty of WFH has well and truly worn off and the pleasure of back to back Zoom calls has long since lost its sheen.  What are we now aiming at in this transitioning world we wondered?

We decided to set ourselves a quite straight froward target for this ride: the cooling towers at Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station.  A regional monument to the days when Coal was King, the towers have always offered me a welcome home signal, whenever I’ve travelled back to Nottingham from some distant location.  A few years ago, one of those journeys was marked for ever in my memory by a young girl who remarked to her mum as we passed through East Midlands Parkway, ‘Look mummy, the volcanoes!’  What an evocative, natural world description of power for something so obviously modern and industrial.

Whilst they weren’t smoking on the day Dan and I rode out there, there is something about their elusive behaviour that conjures up a fog of political smoke and mirrors at work.

You’ll experience that elusive behaviour if you ride out to those towers as they show some very strange behaviour en route: one minute they’re directly in front of you, the next they’re on your left, then they’re behind you and before you know it, in front of you again.  

It’s a bit disconcerting and doesn’t help you orientate yourself too easily as you’re riding along.  It’s made worse when you think you’re nearly there, only to see them having shifted way off into the distance again.  And yet whilst you think they’re still miles away, lo and behold, you blink and there they are again.  You’ve inadvertently crept up on them and they’re there in all their volcanic, industrial magnificence.

This elusiveness echoed itself in our chats on the bikes. Whilst we thought we had plotted out some clear transitions and targets for our businesses, in reality these are quite difficult things to navigate at the moment. Many of us are trying to steer a path through the fog of Brexit, Covid, the cost-of-living crisis and the deep fog of the unknown unknowns that the Ukraine-Russia war is generating. One minute you’re looking at your targets face on, the next they’re behind you and then before you know it, they’ve metamorphosed into something completely different.

The cooling towers are supposed to make their own transition to closure by September 2024; but whether their future is also as elusive as their presence remains to be seen. We’re taking bets on whether they’ve seen their last days or whether the current fogginess of the world’s economy might just reconfigure that future and we’ll see them fired up and supplying the region with coal fired power, just one more time.

You can support The Mighty Creatives Boss Bike Ride Campaign here.

The Mablethorpe Boss Bike Ride: blowing away the preconceptions of Lincolnshire.

RAF Binbrook and its significance in the Cold War; a 1400 Megawatt high voltage electricity link connecting the electricity transmission systems at Bicker Fen in Lincolnshire, and Revsing in southern Jutland, Denmark, (also known as the Viking Link); and the Alford butchers who make Tomato Sausages for Yorkshire Immigrants. Who knew a pre-supposed isolated county life could conceal so much?

Riding out from Mablethorpe today with Aenaes Richardson from Magna Vitae was a great reminder of Lincolnshire’s significance in the 2nd World War and more latterly on the energy agenda.  Wind turbines are never out of view; the talk of nuclear dumps in Threddlethorpe is literally a hot topic; and cycling across the Viking Way which scars its way across fields and the ocean all the way to Denmark is a startling discovery when all you’re expecting are peaceful country lanes trailing down to the sea and the sky in Sutton on Sea.

But perhaps the biggest reveal of the rural idyll is that, actually, rural doesn’t mean isolation, it doesn’t mean disconnected and it doesn’t mean that it’s separated from the turbulence of economic, cultural and climate changes which are battering our more populated areas around the country. 

On the contrary, the region is in the thick of it as much as anywhere else.

Skegness has been at the forefront of hosting refuges from Afghanistan recently at its seaside Bed and Breakfasts  (only for them to be temporarily shipped to Leicester and back again on account of the poor standard of accommodation but that’s another story); climate emergency planning is expecting to see flooding in the City of Lincoln down at the Brayford Pool  in the not too distant future; and in the meantime we’re planning for large scale industrial expansion and new jobs for young people, and for industries looking for young new leaders.

Whilst Mablethorpe might have one of the biggest static caravan sites in the UK, one thing that isn’t static are the winds of change that are gusting along the roads, down the dykes and across the plains to Denmark and beyond.

If you’re young, want to play hard, work hard and shape your life in Lincolnshire, then now is an exceedingly good time to plan for that vibrant future.  Rural isolation? No chance.

If you’d like to get involved in future Boss Bike Rides, just check us out here.

This is what a Boss looks like!

This is what a Boss looks like!

But you don’t have to be a BMX champ like GB Olympic Gold Medallist Charlotte Worthington to take part in our #BossBikeRides campaign and ride for our Creative Mentoring programme.

Want to learn more? Get on your bike over to the website now! 🚴🚴🚴https://themightycreatives.com/boss-bike-rides/

Boss Bike Rides: exploring Market Bosworth on Sunday 4 July from 12 noon.

 Set up with Nottingham’s Switch Up! Boss Bike Rides provide informal opportunities for CEOs, founders and senior managers of any business (family business, small and medium to corporate or even sole traders) to meet, network, socialise and become a peer support network  – all through the medium of shared bike rides around the East Midlands and beyond.

 Our next major ride will be on Sunday 4 July, starting at the Market Square in Market Bosworth in North West Leicestershire.  The ride is a circular one and lasts about 3 hours and is suitable for riders who want to take it easy and have plenty of stops along the way!

 The route is here.

You are very welcome to join us for some or all of the part of the ride: it’s not a race either so you’ll be able to go at your own pace too with like minded colleagues.  It’s as much about sharing your experience of being ‘the boss’ as it is about riding a bike!

 If you would like to know more, or would like to join up, please get in touch any time.

Boss Bike Rides: how to create a bit of Urban Magic.

The basic premises of Boss Bike Rides are that you spend time on a bike with someone else and that you then share your experiences of boss-ness, boss-dom and boss-icity or a combination of all of the above.

But what if you don’t have some-one to ride with? And what if you’re not sure about how to start up a conversation with someone you may have known a long time?

This might sound an odd supposition but given many of us have just spent 16+ months in various degrees of isolation and separateness, it’s not surprising that perhaps our previous confidence in social settings may have taken a bit of a shaking since the onset of social distancing.  So perhaps we could do with a bit of help in getting those conversations going again.

One way of doing that is suggested by the venture Street Wisdom who describe themselves as a “social enterprise that offers mind-opening WalkShops on streets all over the world. Run by volunteers, our immersive public experiences turn the city into your creative playground – a place to unlock fresh thinking and set new direction.”

Now, whilst their focus is on walking, the principles apply to cycling in general and to Boss Bike Riding in particular.

“All you need is to turn up with a question you’d like some fresh answers to. It could be a business-related question, a personal one. Or both. Come by yourself, tell your friends to sign up or even enrol your whole team – this is a great way for business colleagues to hit the refresh button.”

You can keep your question secret if you want, but it’s good to have something in mind. Nothing as big as ‘when am I going to win the Lottery?’ or as small as ‘Left or Right Lion?’ – but something that matters to you, right here, right now.

What happens next on a Street Wisdom walk is that you ‘tune into’ the street over four shorts walks: each walk you can make alone or with friends, and each walk had an instruction to guide you:

“Look for what you’re drawn to.”

“Slow right down.”

“Notice the patterns.”

“See the beauty in everything.”

When I undertook a Street Wisdom walk in Nottingham with a group of five complete strangers, the walks and the focus given by the instructions generated for all of us on the walks a quite astounding set of responses.

I found myself being drawn to the fountains on the other side of the square, feeling quite wistful about the lack of water features in the city and the distance we were from the coastline.

The instruction to Slow Right Down had me stopped dead still in my tracks for over fifteen minutes which enabled me to see how fast everyone rushes around the city: always with intent and a job to do or a place to go or a person to visit. Staying much longer under this instruction would have seen me draining away through the concrete, I was relaxing that rapidly.

It was on the third walk – Notice the Patterns – that I really started to feel the effects of the process. Normally I brush off patterns or pay no attention to them at all: but given ten minutes just to look at them made me hugely aware of just how patterned and ordered our city scape is: it was intoxicating to see patterns in every nook and cranny and in every small piece of iron railing, shop window and bus stop. Had this been after a Friday evening at the Cross Keys, one might have explained this with 15 pints of IPA: but no, this was Friday lunchtime and I was technically still at work.

The fourth walk – See the Beauty in everything – was the peak of the afternoon. It meant that it was impossible to go anywhere with stopping to marvel at everything. I found myself marvelling at all of modern technology when I overheard a couple of tourists extol loudly the wonder that was Skype, which had allowed them to talk to a long lost aunt in Australia that very morning.  Fast forward five years to the middle of the pandemic, and our familiarity with Teams and Zoom makes that appreciation of Skype has a warm cosy nostalgic glow woven through every strand of that moment.

After the four short walks, you’re encouraged to go off on a journey by yourself: your own street quest.   You do this with your own question at the back of your mind and later on meet up with the rest of the group to share your experiences and improved wisdom. I can’t tell you whether the question I had posed was answered other than to say that your first question may not be the right question; but I can tell you that all six of us were swept away by the experience and promised to go divining for more Nottingham in the weeks to come.

“It’s urban magic on your doorstep” say Street Wisdom and for once in your life, the reality lives up to the promise.

You can  interpret these Street Wisdom walks into 4 phases of your Boss Bike Ride of course and we look forward to seeing how your Boss Bike Ride can generate it’s own brand of urban magic.

Why Boss Bike Rides?  Here’s an answer.