Great Brisbane Bike Ride

Well done Bicycle Queensland for organising yet another Bike Week and the many cycle events on today. I managed the 45km Great Brisbane Bike ride - yey!

We descended down, down into the Clem7 version of subterranean hell and ascended somewhat more slowly into the fresh on the other side.

What a pleasant change it was to be riding without cars and trucks thundering everywhere. There was just the whirring of bike chains, puffing of riders, the clicking up and down the gears and the pleasant warnings of passing speedsters 'passing right'.

Riding with my friends Bill and Isabelle, I remembered the sort of riding I used to do with my sister and cousins as kids - up to Jolley's Lookout and down the goat track to Highvale and back in through Samford. That was a longish day adventure. No one seemed to mind. Must have been a different universe. Today was too in a way, a bicycle universe.

Bit funny though, I collected my t-shirt and stuff at the Southbank finish line and road home, and, would you believe it, coming up that last hill to our place, my leg muscles finally said, 'Enough!' and they all decided to cramp at once. Took a bit of stretching to persuade them that I wasn't going to ride any more k's, at least not today.

Stories about Digital Stories

Got invited this week by Dr Christina Spurgeon to drop along as guest lecturer to her Digital Stories course at QUT Creative Industries.

I really enjoyed telling students stories about the Digital Stories I've either created or helped create in the various community digital storytelling projects I've organised, co-ordinated and facilitated. Digital Stories are one of the wonders of the digital age. If done well, they help keep the old traditional storytelling skills alive in a low cost digital production way. We had some interesting debates about what was 'Digital Story' and what was 'documentary' or 'interview'.

It's great to interact with students discovering the way in which creating a digital story about one of one's own important stories can be so transforming. Hearing their draft scripts was a real gift.

It will be interesting to see how the Digital Story develops in this digital age. The relatively low cost software like MovieMaker and iMovie and hardware like laptops and digital cameras will keep changing and digital stories will change with them for better or worse.

In the meantime, if you would like to see some Queensland digital stories, you can go to YouTube and do a search for 'queensland storylines' (without the apostrophes). There are even some there that I did. Look out for 'Lucas Papaw Ointment' or 'Growing up with the Princess', for example.

Lizard Tales

The Lizard Tales project created by Sophie Chapman as part of the West End Live section of the Brisbane Festival was a real buzz. We made good use of the shade of the trees and the ABSOE lawn and had a really pleasant audience of adults and children.

Sophie is still waiting for the edited audio versions of the stories and I'll post them as soon as she gets them to me but in the meantime here are some photos from the day.

Sophie Chapman & Daryll Bellingham, Lizard Tales, October 2009

Community Story creation event at West End Live

Really looking forward to the community story creation session called
Lizard Tales at West End Live on Saturday 3rd October, 2009

Initiated by Sophie Chapman and now part of the Brisbane Festival's West End Live event, you are invited to come and have some fun creating some new West End stories. Can you imagine what 'The Lizard' might get up to if it woke up and had a walk around West End? Would it meet Kuril the local Indigenous totem in Kurilpa its home? And what would Kuril, the water rat think? Would it go for a climb up Stefan's tower or get a haircut from Phil the Barber?

You'll be able to watch the stories being transformed into illustrations by local artist Emmanuel Hernaez.

Lizard Tales Saturday 3rd October, 2:00 pm to 3:30pm.

Turning new pages.

Sometimes it feels like I've got those Book Week Goes On Forever blues .......

Not really. Been having fun. Just had a great week at the Belmont State School Literary Festival. Told lots of stories and created and recorded heaps as Belmont Stories podcasts. Will slowly add them to my austoryplace blog over the next week.

Felt like I was turning a new page on multimedia/storytelling work with students by creating a new storytelling/creation performance/workshop podcasting session. It was pretty easy fitting it in the 80 minute sessions with the gifted and talented students but an interesting challenge getting it to fit in the 45 min sessions. We did but the stories are pretty short. Even did some with the preps.

Kids loved the sessions.

Speaking of a new page, here's a great video you can find on YouTube. CONTACT is up to there usual good work with young people on Brisbane's southside.

Brisbane Conversations - B150 event at Brisbane Square Library

BCC has asked me to compere a 'Brisbane Conversations' session at the Brisbane Square Library community meeting room on Monday 10th August from 10:00 am to 11:30.

It will be a wonderfully eclectic mix of stories, songs, poems, raps and historical information as part of BCC Libraries Services B150 contributions. Expect subjects as diverse as Jacarandas, 'Brisbane Lovely Brisbane', Brisbane Utopian dreamers of the 1890's, maybe the Ship Inn Hotel, Newstead House, an elephant escape and much more.

It's free but you do have to book Ring 3403 4166 to reserve a place. If you would like a 5 minute spot to tell a story, sing a song or read a poem about Brisbane and the 150 celebration let me know.

You can download the PDF of the leaflet at files.me.com/austory/okfaen Please pass this link on to anyone you think may be interested.

Queensland Conservation Council 40th Birthday

The QCC shares a birthday with the moon landing! And for those of you that still think that the moon landing was just one big story, that's not so bad because I just spent this last weekend immersed in stories from conservationists and environmentalists from Queensland Conservation. There was a gala dinner at the Legends Room at the Gabba and a Telling Conservation Tales afternoon at the Queensland Museum.

I had the honour of compering the three 'on the couch' sessions with such notable Queensland environmentalists as John Sinclair from Fraser Island, Eddie Hegerl from the Save the Barrier Reef campaign, Drew Hutton and hard working Coordinators like Liz Bourne, Felicity Wishart and Imogen Zethoven. We heard about the successes and the disappointments, the unexpected outcomes, brushes with the law and the courage and dogged determination of a gallant bunch of Queenslanders determined to ensure that the environment had the best chance possible.

Telling and listen to stories like this is a wonderfully healing and sustaining community building exercise for any organisation but, for one like the QCC, which at many times has had to run major environmental campaigns on the smell of a gum leaf, it is essential.

I also had the pleasure of being employed to do 10 oral history interviews with 10 environmentalists who have contributed to QCC's history. Well done Q150 for making the money available and well done QCC for having the wisdom to realise how important it is to do so.

Next step is help get the DVD of interviews together looking forward to adding it to my collection.