Winter is Coming…!
Hey VoQ followers (and unsuspecting Game of Thrones fans!) Welcome to November! Despite it being hibernation season, theres lots of Voices of the Quarter action going on…
This month, we’re looking forward to ex-VoQ volunteer Freddy Slater giving a talk entitled “Colchester War Memorial: Imagery and Memory“ about the iconic Memorial near the gates to Castle Park.
“Colchester Borough war memorial is one of the most intriguing monuments to the conflict in Britain.
A tribute to men and women killed in a thoroughly modern conflict, it none-the-less uses symbols drawn from the language of medievalism and classicism, with medieval knights and Grecian ladies standing in as anachronistic facsimiles for 20th century people.
Why were these symbols chosen and what does this tell us about the war and its commemoration both locally nationally?
Using a range of sources from poetry, art and literature to public records, this lecture will explore the reasons behind the stylistic choices made by the council planners and sculptor Henry Charles Fuhr in giving Colchester one of its most recognisable landmarks.”
The lecture will be in firstsites Auditorium, Saturday 8th November 7.15-9pm. Tickets: on the door, £5/£3 conc.
We’d like to invite all attendees of the talk to Your Bar at the Waiting Room afterwards for further discussion/reminiscence.
Our Priory St chain letter is still in progress, and on Saturday 15th November we’ll be launching our Roman Rd/Castle Rd chain letter at the Foresters Pub. Each street will have their own scroll to pass along from house to house, in a race against the residents of the other street! The aim of the chain letters are to collect memories, stories and images from people that live in the St.Botolphs Quarter. If you live on either of these streets, come along to the Foresters from 7.30pm to find out more information. Find out more on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1559774077575382/
Also if your currently living on Priory St and would like to take part in the Priory St chain letter, get in touch and let us know which number you live at, we’ll make sure the letter makes its way to you.
The nights they are a drawing in, so unfortunately we’ll not be opening VoQ HQ as regularly as we would like. Wednesday nights are getting a bit dark and chilly, and our volunteers have other commitments which mean they can’t always be there on a Saturday afternoon. We recommend following us on Facebook or Twitter, where we will post whether or not we will be open. If you’re desperate to get a story to us, you can email us, or write us a letter and pop it in our postbox. Alternatively, contact us to set up a meeting if you’d like to chat face to face.
Community based and run by volunteers the mission of the VoQ is to inspire creative response, discussion and debate about what it is to live, work or play in the St Botolphs’ Quarter, Colchester.
We’re searching for recent tales, personal memories, stories, audio files, photos, films and other artefacts relating to the social history of the area and are researching as far back as 1650.
The stories that we uncover and creative responses inspired by them will be published in a variety of formats, digitally online, physically at our current home at The Waiting Room, and occasionally as workshops, collaborations with other groups, events or surprise interventions in public spaces dotted around our community.
Email your story to us at [email protected] or add it to the Facebook page.
VoQ needs you!
If you want to get involved in the project, we are on the lookout for more volunteer researchers, and creative people to collaborate with to help us come up with interesting outcomes from the stories that we collect. Contact us online or pop in and see us!