The Sumac Centre

The Sumac Centre is a social meeting space ran by volunteers. A computer resources room, café, library and gardens all reside on the property of the Sumac Centre which is located in Forest Fields, Nottingham.

A group of people during the 1980’s with the Environmental Fact Shop, Friends of the Earth (FoE) and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) had an idea to form a ‘rainbow centre’. In 1985 the Rainbow Co-operative obtained its location at 180 Mansfield Road, next door to the new FoE shop in Nottingham. In 1988 FoE closed its shop in Nottingham resulting in the Rainbow Centre inheriting the FoE’s library materials. This allowed the Rainbow Centre to increase the range of inventory in its boutique, which was originally sold by the FoE.

The Rainbow Centre over the next few years started to team up with the upcoming Veggies Organisation which specialises in vegan catering. Veggies developed their work from their own homes, however they wished to acquire their own kitchen. As years proceeded, the Rainbow Centre’s initial members had to move on.

Veggies began employing more and more full-time workers, this was their opportunity to maintain the centre themselves. In 1989 the Rainbow Centre expanded its library once again by signing a lease for the property next door. As years came and went, the Rainbow Centre and Veggies Catering Campaign incorporated themselves within its community.

Image from veggies.org.uk

From 1985 to 2001 the Rainbow Centre was established between the Victoria Shopping Centre and Forest Recreation Ground on Mansfield Road junction however all of the buildings part of it were rented and not properly maintained. This led them to move their establishment by purchasing a Ukrainian Social Club within the Forest Fields/New Basford area of Nottingham.

After purchasing and renovating the building hey grasped the buildings character to be known as the Sumac Centre. The centre opened up in 2003 and became home to its café, library, computer resources and gardens.

The Sumac Centre is a support community resistance project and home to the Nottingham Animal Rights and Veggies Catering Campaign. The centre is used for hosting meetings for making an impact on social justice, environemtnal awareness, peace and animal rights within the area of Nottingham, however if given the opportunity to spread this across other areas of England, or the world, “We would be ever so happy to do that.” Says Libby, one of the members of the Sumac Centre, during a talk with journalism students at the NCN Adams Building.   

Image from sumac.org.uk

Musical events such as a ‘DJ Night with The Lizard King “Matt” and Scratch & Sniff “Owen’ on the 4^th of March 2016. These musical events at the Sumac Centre to help raise funds for the Sumac Centre, to improve its providing’s towards the community of Nottingham, as well as help raise money for the charities they support. For example there is a People’s kitchen that is hosted some days, where people are allowed to give a reasonable donation in order to obtain a good vegan meal. One half of the donations are used to help keep the Sumac Centre open, the other half would go towards fundraisers for grassroots causes.

“The Sumac Centre is fab, I’ve only been there once but I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. I’m not much of a vegan, but veggies make a great veggie burger. Everyone is really nice too. I would like to go back there but places like that aren’t exactly a priority during your free time.” – Mike Adams, Nottingham citizen.

The Sumac Centre is overall a fantastic place for anyone interested in improving the quality of communal living-space and wellbeing within Nottingham. The members at Sumac are all incredibly supportive and are willing to give up their free time in order to bring joy into people’s lives, whether it be through vegan catering, or a games night of scrabble; backgammon and Cluedo. They may have had a confusing past in terms of accommodation, however they appear to have got back onto their feet and are eager to please and help anyone that is in need, or looking to make new friends.


Sources: All research gathered from sumac.org.uk, veggies.org.uk

Contractual Brief Examples

Contractual Brief example 1

Here is an example of a contractual production brief (example 1). As you can see it contains the necessities in order for agreement, description of the project, who the client is and the producers. There is detailed information as to what the client expects of the production company as well as that the client will be proofing each stage of development to make sure they’re doing as they asked. It is stated that and delay in completion of the project that is out of the producers control shall alter the delivery date. This means the producers must notify the client of any delays. This brief has been kept at a simplistic format I order to waste less time reading for production companies. This still accomplishes everything as a normal contractual brief would, it has just been broken down into fewer paragraphs and less detail on price/payment.

Contractual Brief example 2

This brief (example 2) is a little different because it includes a lot more terms and conditions. This brief is a lot more thorough and would require a bit more time to anaylse compared to the other one. This contractual brief is not more complex, it is very similar to the other one in terms of what the client expects from the production company. However this brief provides projected costs that gives the production company a lot more preparation and perhaps motivation. This contractual brief also has an addendum with a large box. The client provides their detailed description on what their production idea is within this box.

Negotiation Brief Example

An example for a negotiation brief would be negotiating with estate agents in order to buy your own house. The client would be the one wanting to buy the house, resulting in a discussion between client and estate agent on the types of deals they can get with different houses. The client and business will come to a conclusion in which the client will eventually sign the release papers when happy with the house. The estate agent will try to convince the client to buy the house by remaining positive and showing them all fo the great aspects of the household.

Another example which is similar to the previous would be negotiating with car dealerships. You would have to negotiate a deal with the car dealer  in order to purchase one of their vehicles. The whole process is very similar to buying a house, the company will try to persuade you as well as giving you a 'test ride' of the vehicle. They'll show you the interior, let you sit in it etc. Eventually the client will have to come to a decision, if they end up buying a vehicle they will need to go through the signing process.

Types of Brief

Contractual Brief

A contractual brief is a contract between a client and a production company. The production company is employed by the client and will go over the contract with the client before agreeing to the terms and conditions which are constructed by the client in an easy-to-understand format. If the production company break the guidelines set by the client in the contractual brief, they will consequently be led towards legal charges.

The client and employer may discuss the total project cost, as well as the other payments at specific times like: Contingency day cost, due upon signing of contract, due upon approval of storyboard & scripts and due upon final completion and delivery of all media. Payment to the production company is usually split in half, payment before the project, then payment once the project is complete for the client.

This form of brief allows the employer to analyse specifically what the client is expecting from them, and if they can provide it before signing, therefore the employer is given the final decision. However this means that the employer doesn’t know what to expect to provide the client before encountering the contract.

These contracts also have a big box for the client to describe the project and deliverables needed. If this box were to not be filled out in complete detail, it could be misleading and/or confusing for the employer, potentially leading to the client burdening the employer due to heavy workflow.

Negotiated Brief

A negotiated brief is discussed and negotiated between the client and production company. This allows both the client and production company to consult both of their ideas and wrap up how they will achieve their final product through the use of their creative ideas.

Meetings will take place for a negotiated brief, during these meetings; all details will be discussed until a brief is agreed upon, which both parties will end up signing and agreeing to. Due to the negotiation, it allows the client to have their own input included in the brief.

It is advantageous for the production company also as it allows them to gather ideas from other perspectives, leading to a brief that they may not have thought of before. This is likely to lead to less arguments and conflict as the company and the client are brought together to form a more sucessful brief overall that it suitable for both of them. However, there is a possibilty that the company and the client may disagree with the ideas suggested, which could lead to the creation of the brief being time consuming and a potential loss of a client for the company if they cannot come to an agreement over the ideas.

Formal Brief

A formal brief is a contract which details the rules and regulations for a company to follow – decided by the client – when carrying out the production of product they want, but only covers the information needed for the production and nothing else.

The formal brief is given by the client to the production company, which is agreed on between the two parties before the production is carried out. The brief contains only the details needed for the project, so it does not cover legal issues. One advantage of using a formal brief is that it is easy to read and simple for the client to understand, as it is open and only contains the information needed to produce the product, therefore it is not time consuming.

 

As the brief is decided upon before the project is carried out, it cannot be changed which is advantageous as it means that the contract will be stuck to. However, this could also be problem because it means that the company is unable to buy any more resources if they need to, due to how fixed the contract is. Also formal briefs are not always legally binding, so this could be risky for the client if the company breaches legal guidelines.

Informal Brief

An informal brief is created through informal discussions through the client and production company, such as over the phone or face to face in an informal meeting. The brief is formed through a number of informal meetings to discuss what each party requires. The terms are then verbally agreed on. Due to this, the brief is not down in writing therefore both parties must rely on each other to uphold their agreement based on trust.

An informal brief contains basic information exchanged between two or more individuals, groups or companies, without formal need. The brief does not contain any contracts or documents, but the brief must appeal to the client and company and be verbally agreed on in order for the project to go ahead without any formal contracts.

One advantage of using an informal brief is that there are no strings attatched, so the process is not time consuming and it allows changes to be made within the project without having to adhere to the terms of the brief. This makes it easier for both the client and the company, as if anything is not going as planned both parties can discuss changes to be made without the fuss of going against the brief. However as this brief is not written down, it can be disorganised and this means it cannot be assured that everything will go as planned. This is risky for the client as well as the company as there is no contract and both parties do not know whether they will have the desired outcome.

Commissioned Briefs

When a client or company hires an independent media company to come up with innovative ideas for the product that the client desires, this is a commisioned brief. An amibiguous description will be given by the client for the media company  to work with and develop the kinds of ideas the client desires from them.

The company will proceed to pitch the ideas that they came up with to the client, which the client then also adds their own ideas too. Therefore the final ideas the media company came up with, is their final input until the client has reached a conclusion with the final product whilst inputting their own ideas and are happy with the justification.

This type of brief means less work for the client, however the company should be getting paid well by the client and also a chance in obtaining a share of the profits. Therefore this could be disadvantageous for the client as well, due to them losing money for work which they could essentially be doing themselves, but might not have the time. However whilst the company they hired is doing work the client paid them to do, the client could be working on other projects in the mean time.

The client also doesn’t exactly have an effective part within the decision making, since the ideas are mostly revolving around the media company accordingly forming something to what they may not had anticipated.

Tendered Briefs

A Tendered brief is what a client will use in order to advertise that they want a media product. An ambiguous exlplanation is given as to what they require, resulting in multiple production companies responding to the advertisement.

These production companies then begin to produce a proposal that reveales projected costs and who will be producing the material that the client requires. The client then chooses the proposal which they admire most, contact the company that made it and then negotiate with them on how they can perfect their proposal.

This brief is similar to a negotiational brief in the aspect that a negotiation is involved once the media company is chosen by the client. It is also similar to a commissional brief due to the fact that in a tendered brief, the client is asking the media company to come to them with ideas up front. A commissional brief is very much the same in terms of being ready with ideas up front and then negotiatiing them afterwards.

A tendered brief  provides the client access to a much larger range of ideas from multiple companies. This provides them with many ideas they have not yet thoguht of, they can then incorporate some of these ideas for their own, or choose between them. However a disadvantage for this brief would be that not all companies that applied will get the job. A disadvantage for the client would be that there’s a possibility of no compnay applying, or no company applying with the proposal they’re looking for.

Cooperative Brief

A cooperative brief is when a company works with another company for a client. These briefs are usually done when the requirements of the brief request a specific set of skills that cannot be obtained by only one company. However the amount of work required might be abundent, meaning more than one company is needed to be hired to share the workload

An example of this brief being used in the industry would be Weta Digital working with the production team on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Weta Digital cooperated with other teams on the visual effects for Lord of the Rings.

An advantage to this brief would be that the client will be provided with a more thorough and open minded product because two companies will be combining their ideas. The two companies working on the brief will also be at an advantage if they are both organised, by dividing the times they’ll both work and what they will both work on. This can also help them evaluate on each of their strengths and weaknesses.

The biggest disadvantage for this brief overall would be the chance that the two companies won’t be able to work together very well, or at times be out of sync with one another. This can lead to bad reputation, or an unfinished product.

Ashley Carter

Our class had the privilege of being introduced to a Left Lion article writer Ashley Carter who has contributed to the magazine within every public interest that it covers. However the main interest that he writes about is film and television.

He was a very honest man when it came to presenting what it is he does, how to write better and what to do to motivate yourself. He mentioned that the fact that everyone at the Left Lion (except the chief editor) works for free is a good thing, because this means everyone working there has proven that they do indeed have a passion for writing.

He mentioned that the worst thing you will ever see as a write, your worst nightmare, is a blank word document. I completely understood and agreed with this. Furthermore he elaborated by mentioning that you should write even if what you’re writing is bad, it can be improved upon later, ‘no need to worry’.

There wasn’t anything in particular that helped me improve upon my presentation, however I did learn quite a bit about confidence from him. Confidence as in, you shouldn’t worry about the criticism you receive about your writing. You should use this criticism, whether it be negative or positive; in a constructive manner.

Overall he seemed like a very interesting person and writer. I learnt more about the world of a writer, what it is like to get something published and write about the things. I believed that these were the most important things from his talk.

Evaluation of Presentation

I made my presentation on Prezi which is a professional’s website for creating presentations. I prepared for my presentation by first writing my blogs onto my blogger. From these blogs I gathered all of the relevant information required for an informative presentation on social action and community media. After writing my relevant points on my presentation to pre-ordered and titled slides, I then rehearsed my finished presentation whilst also correcting any typos.

In hindsight I would have improved my presentation by showing it to someone in order to improve the quality instead of quantity. I believe that the biggest improvement in which I could have done for my presentation would have been making it shorter. I had a lot of information to cover in a short amount of time, I think the time-limit provided me with the pressure to speak too quickly during my presentation.

I engaged my audience by addressing particular points toward the audience and elaborating on the matter. For example for one of my slides I explained the three different typed of social action, traditional, affectional and value-rational. This engaged the audience by introducing them to something new, they learned something from my presentation because it was a unique thing I did that stood out from the other presentations. This lured my audience into my presentation further, making them interested in what I had to say.

I was happy with all of the points which I covered, come to think of it I might had covered a little bit too much because I had to present it at an increased speed compared to most people. Saoirse Rose a member of my course had this to say, “He had clear knowledge of the topics featured in the presentation, the three types of social action really stood out in his presentation. I think that George’s Prezi presentation was excellently portrayed –I learnt things which I didn’t know before.”

More feedback was obtained from another one of my peers called Megan Naylor, “Not only did George give extensive, knowledge-able information to the class, but also his presentation was very well executed, he was well spoken and knew what he was talking about, and his presentation was well perceived.”

One last feedback that I will mention was from Jamie Atkinson, “He showed a vast understanding of all aspects of community media and social action. The use of Prezi engaged the audience well in a way nobody else did. Gave illustrious examples throughout the presentation.”

Reflecting on this feedback provides me with extremely positive confidence and pleased with the final result of my presentation. Although my presentation required me to speak slightly faster than usual, I believe I managed to get my point across and cover all necessary information as well as provide people with newer information on the topic, Therefore I believe that i have obtained a distinction grade. 

Presentation

Here is a screenshot of the presentation I did on social actions and community media.

Here is a link to the full presentation: http://prezi.com/mpk3sy7mhrdc/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Community Media: Left Lion & Nottingham Post

Community media is any form of media that is produced and ran by a community. It is separated from commercial media, state run media and public broadcasting. 

Left Lion is a good example of this as it is controlled and only published within the community of Nottingham. It has a strong focus on the local arts and music scene. It is more of a magazine than a newspaper since it talks mostly about projects going on in Nottingham and the local creative interests. For example they conduct interviews with new and upcoming local bands like ‘Unknown Era’, this is a good way to promote the local music scene and get Nottingham’s name out there. The kind of things that Left Lion post on Facebook are related to social action within Nottingham. On the 5th November they posted a status about the Hockley Arts Club, showing that they're taking applications from people related to anything creative, this is social action as creativity is a free aspiration for everyone and visiting the Art Club is free as well as being a gathering for the communities love for art.


On the other hand, the Nottingham Post reports on more factual news rather than recreational activities. It’s a tabloid newspaper therefore the word count is usually at a minimum, whereas the Left Lion contains feature articles with background imagery, containing up to one or two pages of words. The Nottingham Post structures their articles into separate sentences as paragraphs, whilst including large imagery and brief information.  The Nottingham Post keeps its news solely within the Nottingham area just like the Left Lion, but delivers its news in a straight forward manner, rather than descriptive interviews used in Left Lion.

Left Lion’s audience is mostly tailored towards the younger members of Nottingham and those that are interested in the local creative scene. This can be shown by Jack Garofalo in his live review of DJ Yoda. “This left virtually the whole room as a dancefloor, slowly filling up as more punters made their way through the door”. You can tell by the language used in this sentence that it caters further toward the youth side of Nottingham due to the use of slang, and also alcoholic terms throughout the review.

The Nottingham Post’s audience is in theory for everyone within the region of Nottinghamshire. However I decided to study the content it provides which caters more toward the older citizens of Nottingham. For example these could be crime reports, like the fire at Rushcliffe Arena, or property, to jobs within the area. “A planning Application has been submitted to Rushcliffe Borough Council by Nottingham firm CBP Architects on behalf of Mark Fielding, of Winlatter Drive, West Bridgford.” This quote is taken from the article ‘Neighbours object to new apartment block in West Bridgford’ written by the Nottingham Post. This shows the simplistic language used to appeal to a wider audience, as well as the structure, because this is what each paragraph would look like; a single sentence.

Left Lion also contribute within social media. They have a Twitter and Facebook, bringing their readers together, to communicate with one another, and share opinions. You will notice that the only people that follow the Left Lion on these social media sites are residents of Nottingham, or used to live in Nottingham. Being a magazine on a social media website is beneficial as it keeps your readers up to date as well as increasing the amount of publicity within your local area. If somebody follows Left Lion on Twitter, that person most likely has friends that are also form Nottingham, this forms a continuous chain of local peoples following their esteemed local magazine.

Left Lion and the Nottingham Post have their similarities, such as the focus on the local area. However they are written in completely different formats, which aim towards different means. Community media also intertwines more onto the side of the Left Lion as it is a lot more community driven instead of being more commercially driven like the Nottingham Post.