Features

With the World Cup up and running and a family with connections to Denmark, England, Wales, Germany and France I'm left wondering who to support and what sport as a form of live theatre brings to social care.

Whilst sport may seem unscripted it conforms to all the rules of theatre. With sports, people rehearse, learn a script, play a role and then have to 'ad lib' when the 'live' performance starts.

"When I am an old woman," says Jenny Joseph, I shall get up to all sorts of tricks. But 50 years on, her famous poem Warning with its wearing of red hats and sitting on the pavement doesn’t seem that outlandish. A D-Day veteran makes a trip to France perfectly competently. Yet the newspapers, in a desire to evoke derring-do wartime language, talk about his "escape" from his nursing home.

As I pondered the theme for my first Creative Bite, the name sparked a thought.

How come most workers don’t make the most of their lunch breaks?

Why do so many people just grab a quick bite, return to their desks, then carry on working through?

After a few clicks on Google, it seems only one in five people have lunch away from their desks.

I’m not sure how accurate this is, but having worked in quite a few offices it seems about right to me.

Which, when you think about it, is more work sandwiched between work and even more work.

On 12 June 2014, the Scottish Recovery Network (SRN) launched its Write to Recovery website at The Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh. The launch forms part of the organisation's 10-year anniversary celebrations. It was a very inspiring day that featured guest speakers, Linda Gillard, an acclaimed, self-published fiction writer who spoke about the importance of writing in her recovery journey; and Robin Ross, a man who has experienced some 'serious life challenges' speak about how he has managed to turn his life around through writing and telling his story.

Whilst in years gone by, disabled people have been specifically excluded, this is not the case anymore as many organisations communicate - sometimes boast - inclusive values. Organisational leaders, however, seemingly assume that when ‘protective’ mechanisms against exclusiveness are put in place, inclusive outcomes naturally follow.

Music. What is it good for? "Playing," said Francois Matarraso at the Everyone Deserves Music conference I recently chaired. But of course that answer isn’t enough. Is "playing," in turn, good for anything?

 The creative power of personal outcomes

‘Motivated people think more clearly. They focus more resources on their current project and the result is more creativity’
— Zig Ziglar, Success for Dummies.

The short, professionally made film Rufus Stone is the key output of the three-year ‘Gay and Pleasant Land?’ research project led by Bournemouth University academic, Dr Kip Jones.

One of the projects I'm involved with at the moment is focused on end of life care and understanding the skills that people have to offer and the skills that they can learn even as they approach the end of their lives.

Listening to one of the projects I was struck by how little I know or understand about different art forms. In particular, how knowing more about how and why people paint pictures in the way that they do can bring a whole new perspective to visiting an art gallery.

This week I started a new project.

Reconstructing Ourselves is an artist in residency project combined with a research strand. It has been funded by Arts Council of Wales. We will be working with women undergoing complex breast reconstruction.