Page 67 - Phonebox Magazine November 2015

Olney CoderDojo
CoderDojo Olney officially launched at the Olney Centre on Tuesday 22nd September, beginning with two “taster” weeks of demonstrations by the mentors of the myriad of possibilities available to
members as they start to learn to code. In week three, the young people began work on their own ideas and projects – some of them building apps, some creating websites, and some even learning how to program their own robots. Already kindly supported by Stephen Oakley estate agents and Fernley Electrical, the club is in need of further sponsorship, particularly in the form of equipment such as robotics sensors, Arduino platforms, and even old Android smartphones on which to test the apps. If any local businesses would like to support this initiative, please contact Caroline on caroline. graham@coderdojoolney.com.
There is a waiting list for new members, but new mentors are very welcome to join the friendly team – if you think you can support the club in any way please let us know.
Christmas at our House
This Christmas I’m releasing a Christmas song for Shelter and The Trussell Trust (who look after most of the food banks in the UK). I recently got involved with both charities, I was a small part of over 7,000 musicians who all worked for free
to put on over 250 gigs all over the country on the weekend of 3rd and 4th October 2015. It was an idea by some good friends of mine who asked me to get involved, I was honoured to be a part of it. Admission to the gigs was food for the food banks or cash to a local homeless project, it was a massive success. Collectively we raised over £150,000 in just one weekend. I worked with the charities, they are good people doing amazing work, so it was suggested by my management company that I release a song to raise some much needed funds for both of them.
The energy after the gigs was enormous, everyone was buzzing, so we looked at what we could do next, my manager brought the idea to those who we already knew in the charity, they liked the idea, so we were asked to send them the lyrics. Once the lyrics were approved we then met up and played them a rough demo of the song, they loved the song and said that they would be delighted to be involved. Everything moved so quickly after that, and it honestly seemed so easy to get things done, good people joined us daily and it feels like it’s all meant to be. So we have already began recording the song. We have four gold-disk recipient Tristan Ivemy mixing and co-producing the track with me, Tristan like everyone else involved is working for free, and it’s going brilliantly and sounding amazing already.
We have put a great team of people together for both the recording of the song and for the filming of a video. We have some internationally recognisable people and some brilliant local people involved in both. Filming begins at the end of this month and the video will coincide with the release of the song on the 1st December 2015.
We are currently looking for a location to film – we need a Christmas street scene, but most towns and cities don’t turn their lights on until late in November. We did ask Eastenders if we could use their set because they obviously film for Christmas months before, I have a friend who’s one of the writers and also an old mate of mine was in Eastenders for a while. I made a few phone calls and spoke with those
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Ian Roberts
who make the decisions, it almost came off too, however the timings didn’t work out but they wished us a massive amount of luck. So our search for a location continues, it has been narrowed down to two, both are wonderful looking towns and perfect for us, so when we have it all confirmed I’ll let you know more.
We have recently set up our own charity called The IndieGo Collective Charity Trust. I hold a music and arts night once a month in The Two Brewers called IndieGo Nights where I pull together friends and local artists to put on a show. They all perform for free to help others. The idea is that through music, art, and laughter, we can raise some much needed money for local people and charities. We have so far raised money for the local food bank, local homeless projects, The Olney/Newton Link, a lovely local boy who needed some help, and this month we are trying to raise some money for the local allotment project; so it’s diverse in what we try to do, and we shall continue to support local people.
The idea of the IndieGo Collective Charity is to help fund local kids who can’t afford music, art or drama lessons. We hope to raise enough money to fund some talented local kids and pay for their lessons, so we’ll continue to pass around our charity bucket at our IndieGo Nights. The nights are free entry so our wonderful audience are always willing to drop in a few pounds to help others. I’m also going to put on a local festival next year to raise awareness and money for the charity.
We hold the IndieGo Show every second Thursday of the month at The Two Brewers. Our next night is Thursday 12th November, then Thursday 10th December. Come and join us.
So the Christmas song, it’s called “Christmas at our House” will help to announce IndieGo as a charity, and also help both Shelter and The Trussell Trust, with money raised from the sale of the song going to both, so keep an eye out for it on 1st December 2015. The song will be available on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify and all other good download places. By downloading the song you will be helping those who need our help most. Christmas is a tough time for those who are homeless and hungry, but we can all do our bit to try and make it a little easier for them. Christmas is the perfect time to do just that. For more information please check Ian’s website: www.ianrobertsmusic.org
Phonebox Magazine 67