If you have any news to share, please email us at website@lapidus.org.uk

New Board takes on challenge of future funding.

Four new Board members have joined the existing management team - Monica Suswin, Jane Reece, Celia Hunt and Sheelagh Gallagher who was voted in as the new Chair. The first meeting took place last month (June 10th 2008) in Nottingham. Existing members Sue Ashby, Kate Thompson and Wendy French brought everyone up to speed on recent developments with Arts Council England.

Lapidus Scotland set to take on the World

Members of Lapidus Scotland are gearing up to take part in "Words in the World", a year-long project inspiring people to explore their responses to the environment using writing. Starting in Glasgow in October 2007 it fans out over summer '08 to Falkirk, Edinburgh, Inverness, Assynt, Lothian and Fife. The project is run by Lapidus Scotland and the main event takes place at the Big Tent Festival, Falkland Palace on Saturday 26th - Sunday 27th July 2008.Click here for full details of the programme

It's followed by a Residential Conference at Newbattle Abbey near Edinburgh in October.

The Lapidus Journal

The Lapidus Journal is now produced 3 times a year and is an on-line version. This month we have produced a Special Edition covering everything you need to know about digital storytelling. Editor, Marie Crook has commissioned many new and exciting contributions to the journal. We hope you enjoy it. For members to access their copy of the journal please go to the Members only area of the website.

Prompted to Write - Order your copy now!!

Lapidus has several active local groups, including one in Cornwall who launched an exciting new book on Tuesday 25th September 2007 at Truro Waterstones.

Entitled 'Prompted to Write', the book contains articles, poems and stories by over 30 contributors who participated in a three year lottery-funded series of workshops and training events. Some of the contributors are renowned in the field of reading and writing for health and well-being, for others, the book contains their first published piece of writing. This level playing field is one the characteristics of Lapidus work. During the three years programme, Lapidus Cornwall worked with a variety of partners including the Peninsula Medical School, Mount Edgecumbe Hospice, Cornwall Care, Arts for Health, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly and University College, Falmouth.

The book is edited by Zeeba Ansari from Truro and Victoria Field from Falmouth.

Prompted to Write is available directly from Lapidus Cornwall (send a cheque for £4.50 plus £1 p&p payable to Lapidus Cornwall to 2, Burley Court, New Street, Falmouth TR11 3HJ), from bookshops and also on Amazon.
It is published by fal: ISBN: 978-0-9544980-9-2

Mentoring Scheme

Sue Ashby and Elanora Ferry have been working together to develop a mentoring scheme for members. The scheme was launched at the Lapidus One Day Conference in April 2008 in Bristol.

Accreditation

Since 2004 we have consulted with key people in the field (such as Dr. Celia Hunt, University of Sussex, Kathleen Adams, past president of NAPT & director, Center for Journal Therapy) and looked at different models of accreditation used by comparable organisations (NAPT, BACP) Kate Thompson drew up a proposal for a Certification Scheme drawing on models of accreditation already in use. This could be implemented on a short timescale (beginning in January 2008) and would build on the professional Membership category which has now been established. This was presented to the Board for discussion and after agreement it was taken to the 2007 conference for consultation with the membership. A working party will be established to carry this proposal further.

Membership

There will be an active drive this year to attract new members. Please renew your membership now if you haven't already done and encourage others to join as well. If every present member could recruit one new member then our financial status would be considerably improved.

SOUTH WEST BRANCH MEETING

Lapidus SW have now planned a series of events/meetings for members in the Bristol and South West region to attend. They will take place at the Pierian Centre, 27 Portland Square, St Pauls, Bristol. Refreshments provided. For further details available from janereece@hotmail.com

New Thames Valley group invite members to join their new group

Two years after first suggesting the idea at the Cirencester Conference, members Roz Cawley, Geraldine Bridges, Sara Seal and Elanora Ferry have decided to form a Thames Valley Lapidus Group.

At the moment it just consists of these four members but Roz and Geraldine are hoping that others in the region will want to join them. Until they can meet as a group, and between " live " meetings everybody can keep in touch through a Yahoo Group they have set up - Lapidus TV which can be found at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LapidusTV

Lapidus in Poetry & Mental health project supported by the Wellcome Trust

Lapidus is collaborating in an exciting project aimed at raising awareness of mental health and emotional intelligence issues amongst teenagers. The Poetry Society Education Department is advising on best practice and the project is being coordinated by Graham Henderson, Chief Executive, Poet in the City

The project aims to stimulate thought, raise awareness and dissolve prejudice prevalent in perceptions relating to mental health. A programme of 22 days worth of schools placements will be delivered by Lapidus, Samaritans and The Poetry Society in schools around the UK from January 2007.

Cheryl Moskowitz, who is delivering and evaluating the programme for Lapidus, has produced sample teaching notes and stimulus poems as models for the poets/educators taking part in the programme. This is a pilot project and it is hoped that the 22 days of placements will help Lapidus to develop a model for the delivery of such poetry and mental health/emotional intelligence placements more widely in the future.

The poetry placements form an integral part of the national programme of placements being run by the Samaritans' Developing Emotional Awareness and Learning (DEAL) programme. You can see how the poetry placements fit into this larger programme by visiting Samaritans DEAL

As part of the project, a poetry event was organised by Poet in the City at the Royal College of Psychiatrists on 11 April 2006, at which Professor Femi Oyebode, senior psychiatrist and poet, gave a talk and there were readings by actors Ruth Rosen and Peter Forbes of poems by Ivor Gurney, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, Stevie Smith, John Burnside and others.

The event represented an exciting new form of collaboration between poetry and the mental health sector and was recorded by the British Library Sound Archive and is therefore available for study and use. Poet in the City has already produced some extracts from the event as audio downloads for use (in due course) on its website. You can listen to samples of these at Archive