So Many Bits....

The pipe organ at George Street Chapel has been dismantled and made ready for transportation to Huddersfield and the workshop of David Wood Organs. There it will be given a good clean and conservations work will begin. We uncovered some new facts about the history of the organ during the dismantling operations, which will be reported on later once we have made some further research enquiries about the names and dates that have been found stamped and scratched on the organ parts or on a business card found inside the organ.

Pipes ready for transport.

David Wood Organs, Huddersfield
left to right: Paul Rayner, David Wood, Michael Hynes, Michael Leadbeater

Dismantling our Organ

Log in for a report about the dismantling of our pipe organ that is taking place from Monday 26 November.

My Own Story

To understand the social background to the lives and living conditions of people in Oldham and surrounding district there is a wealth of written material to study. Some of these experiences influenced people who lived in George Street or became Independent Methodists. On-line publications enable many out of print books to be easily accessed.
My Own Story is the autobiography by Emmeline Pankhurst.
In it she describes the background to her campaign to get votes for women. She has vivid descriptions about how the poor lived and the social conditions experienced by many people. It is hard to believe that women only received the right to vote in elections in 1918 through the Representation of the people Act, but even then it was only granted to women over the age of 30.

Emmeline Pankhurst (born Emmeline Goulden) (15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement which helped women win the right to vote. In 1999 Time named Pankhurst as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating: "she shaped an idea of women for our time; she shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back." She was widely criticized for her militant tactics, and historians disagree about their effectiveness, but her work is recognized as a crucial element in achieving women's suffrage in Britain.
Born Emmeline Goulden and raised in Moss Side, Manchester by politically active parents, Pankhurst was introduced at the age of 8 to the women's suffrage movement.
In 1987 one of her homes in Manchester was opened as the Pankhurst Centre, an all-women gathering space and museum.

Oldham from a Distance

Julian Baum and Clair Duval of Take 27 spent another wet and windy day today trying to film a long shot of Oldham from a distance. Great cloud shots as the wild weather of 2012 continues into October, but just the right view. The idea is to try to reconstruct the view to show the countryside reaching right up towards the centre of the present town, as it was about 1815 when George Street Chapel was built.
Click on the link or browse the Video Bar to the lower right side of this blog.
A View Over Oldham

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Reconstruction Filming - first cut

Take 27 have made a first draft of the photo-montage filming we carried out yesterday, Sunday 30 September. The attempt to make 30 people look like a congregation of 150 is really taking shape.

Reconstruction Filming Day 30 Sept 2012

We spent all day today filming a reconstruction of a congregation at George Street Chapel. This will feature within our interpretation video, which will describing the history of the chapel from its construction to the present day. Our 'congregation' was made up of Friends of George Street and Age UK Oldham staff, friends and relatives. Many thanks to you all.
A short video of the filming day will be uploaded to our new 'FriendsofGeorgeSt' Youtube video channel. Link from the embedded video in this post, or the video bar on the right.
                                                          http://youtu.be/V5ahi_HChbk

Claire Duval and Julian Baum filming 'close-ups'.

Nomination for National Diversity Awards 2012

Age UK Oldham were nominated for an award at the National Diversity Awards held at the Midland Hotel, Manchester on 21 September.
The nomination was in recognition of twelve years of inter-generational work in Oldham.
The category we were in was for Community Organisations and split into different sections. Our section was for Age related projects, the others being Disability, Gender, LGBT and Race.
The Age section included two other nominees - the Asian Elders Resource Centre and the Northampton Youth Forum. The winners were judged to be the Northampton Youth Forum.
It would have been nice to have won overall, but, it was fantastic that our project was selected for the final shortlist and is national recognition for the value of the work we do in Oldham. By the end of next year we will be able to develop this work in the restored George Street chapel.

Our work was judged on a 10 week long inter-generational and ethnic project involving older people voluntarily visiting primary school children, sharing their favourite memories.
Maggie Hurley, our Volunteer & Community Co-ordinator praised the project for its success in allowing children to meet older people and boost their confidence.
The children have the chance to interact well with the volunteers on a one-to-one basis by asking them questions about their life and then publishing a brief biography for the school. One child was able to ask volunteer Haravadan Chauhan, born in 1946, about the time he moved to Britain from India and Kathleen Barnes about her famous cousin, Donny Osmond.
The volunteers are able to help show the children what their life was like. Edna Standring, who turned 93 this year, showed children an empty munitions shell like the ones she produced during World War ll.

Maggie Hurley and CEO, Yvonne Lee attended the prestigious awards evening, which was hosted by TV presenter and former Big Brother winner, Brian Dowling.