The FINAL meeting

Stardate: April 27th 2006 -12 midday


Location: MMU/The Eight Day vegetarian café


Mission: Evaluate 'Taking the Plunge'

It's over, it's all gone. I shall be plunging no more.
Taking the Plunge 2006 officially ended on Thursday the 27th of April 2006.
We began by meeting up in the foyer at MMU prior to walking over to the
vegetarian place, Eighth Day, for our free lunch. NAWE sprang for our
vegetarian delights, which was nice. Jane joined us at half twelve due
to rail travel shenanigans and Kaye skipped lunch as she was en route
from Liverpool as we ate. Fran was unfortunately unable to join us as
she has a new boss at her place of work and something had been organised
that she was unable to get out of. That, I remember thinking, is a real
shame, as this is the last time we 'plungers' will all be together in
the same place at the same time. C'est la vie I suppose. So, we all
ate our meat free, free lunch and chatted about what to do next with
ourselves post plunge and also about our lives in general. Pregnancy,
squeaky cheese, impending fatherhood and new jobs all being on the
conversational menu. I like it in the Eighth Day, it's very relaxed
regardless of the time of day you go in for a meal. I can recommend the
flatbread pizza most wholeheartedly.

After lunch, back outside again and back over to MMU for the meeting
proper. The purpose being to evaluate both the evening sessions at MMU
and the time spent in schools and other environments whilst shadowing Mandy.

We talked about the programme and commented in turn on the following
five objectives of Taking the Plunge:

• To develop the skills and working practice of writers wanting to
  develop a career in using creative writing in education.
• To create an opportunity for trainee writers to observe and shadow
  the working practice of a writer in schools and a number of settings.
• To allow time for reflection and further training in specialist areas.
• To pilot ideas and resources from 'Our thoughts are Bees - Working
  with writers in schools' by Mandy Coe & Jean Sprackland
• To build on the success of NAWE's training programme of previous
  years.

You know, to be honest, I've loved doing this traineeship. It's been
very hard to see a way forward with writing that could provide income
from doing what I'd like to do that didn't involve the straight forward
teaching of English. Not that the straight forward teaching of English
isn't, of course, a very necessary and laudable profession. It's just
that I'd personally rather not have to deal with the National Curriculum
ticking of boxes. There isn't enough creativity in those classrooms in
my opinion, and this traineeship has helped me see how I can try and put
some back.

Anyway, after we'd spoken for about two hours on the points above, we
were presented with certificates from NAWE confirming that we had
successfully completed the NAWE Professional Development Programme 2006
in association with MMU. We all smiled and clapped each other as you
do. Big grins all round after that part of the day as I recall.

Next steps for me me personally now are:

• Join Tameside Arts Network [email sent]
• Contact Tameside Aim Higher officer, Andrea Waldron
• Get myself on the Artscape database
• Continue to look for jobs/work 'in the industry'
• keep writing