Call for proposals

Hillaballoo is an annual event funded by Lewisham Council for £1,000. Running since 2007, it aims:

- to celebrate the creative community of Telegraph Hill

- to celebrate the environment and beauty of its parks and views, and the heritage of this Conservation Area

- to encourage inclusive participation in the creative life of the community, drawing together a range of groups such as the Community Centre, the Young Friends of the Park/Park Users Group, local schools and nurseries and the Telegraph Hill Society

- to celebrate the start of the summer holidays, highlighting the park as the centre of community life outside of school time.

In previous years, Hillaballoo has been like a fete focused on the top park, with a portable Camera Obscura as the centrepiece. There are usually activities in the lower park too, and it is timed to coincide with the monthly Farmers Market located there. We have also organised indoor events, such as a Crafts Fair and music show in the Community Centre. This has proved to be a rather disparate spread of locations. Each year, the weather has been very poor and events in the top park were particularly weather beaten. We have reviewed the format and decided to simplify it, and so would like to commission a creative community facilitator(s) to organise an activity to the following brief:

To organise an innovative participatory activity that is open to all visitors to the parks, including adults and children.

The activity should be planned and developed in consultation with local children and adults, for example, through a creative workshop.

The main activity will take place on Saturday July 18^th 2009, the first day of the school holidays.

The activity should encourage active exploration and visual appreciation of the natural environment and cultural heritage of the Hill, especially the parks.

The activity may explore themes such as:

- The legacy of children’s play: George Livesey’s role in funding Telegraph Hill’s parks, related to the recent closure of the Livesey Museum for Children

- Communications: The optical telegraph station and visual messaging across to other hills in the chain

- Plants and food: Make use of the presence of the Farmer’s Market, relating to plants in the park and peoples’ own gardens and kitchens.

There should be some celebratory finale, for example, a dusk light parade, a revealing of a final work or sharing of food.

There should be some legacy, for example, in the form of things that participants can exchange, take away or continue to create after the event, and photographs should be shared on the Flickr group ‘Telegraph Hill Visions’.

We also plan to hold a drop-in indoor music & poetry event on this date, so your proposal may wish to take account of that.

The budget for the activity is £800 and proposals should show how best value will be obtained for this amount, for example by involving volunteers or using recycled/donated materials.

The proposal will need to take account of risk, in keeping with Lewisham Council’s health & safety policy.

Proposals should be submitted by April 10^th and informal interviews held at the end of April (TBC). Proposals will be assessed by members of the Park Users Group and Telegraph Hill Society.

Please send proposals by email to bridget.mckenzie@flowassociates.com