Tees Valley Community Media

People from several community groups met at Destinations Saltburn to discuss plans and ideas for the future. All had been engaged in the past year in one of two projects: "East Cleveland Community ICT" or "Digital Discovery Route" both of which were facilitated by the University of Teesside's Digital City. The group were meeting to take community ownership of the East Cleveland Laptops. Through a new project "Social Inclusion Demonstrators" several of the communities are getting Internet connections and wireless networks to make use of those laptops. The Teesside S.I.D. is one of just 20 such projects in the country ( info here ) and is funded by the University for Industry (UFI). The Teesside S.I.D. project or "Digital Village" features several "spokes" with Destinations UK online centre under new ownership/management of Paul Davies as the "hub".

The group met in the first floor of Destinations a former toy shop "Kings of Saltburn" which has a history of being bombed in the 1st World War. It was agreed that Steve Thompson (Community Media Coordinator) would chair the groups meetings and he outlined details of the progress made through the East Cleveland projects and how they fitted into new and future plans. Sue Anderson and Paul outlined plans for this space to compliment the learning centre and open access Internet Cafe below. the group were invited to input ideas into the plans for this space and several great ideas were forthcoming. In fact ideas were in no short supply throughout the meeting in general and all the participants expressed that their experiences of the two East Cleveland projects had left them thirsting for more. We can expect to see more animation and blogging more digital media and there was a great deal of interest in creating an Internet radio network. The group will continue to collaborate through electronic communication and further meetings. It was proposed that the meetings should move around the communities and the next one is planned to take place in Skinningrove.