Illuminate Bath in 2010 was a lovely, surprising way to see Bath in a different… well, light! So it’s great to announce that our RELAYS colleagues based at Bath Spa University have built on the success of their first venture and created another festival to lighten the dark January evenings.

Illuminate Bath returns this week from Wednesday 25 to Saturday 28 January 2012, bringing beautiful and engaging projected artworks to the city centre, which can all be seen free of charge.

Visit the Illuminate Bath website for further details of the artworks, timing of activities and events and to download a programme.

After three years of preparation, THE year is finally here and RELAYS is entering its final leg – suitable sporting analogy there.

As you would imagine, from such a fantastic project, this definitive year will be packed with action, surprises, creativity and inspiration and we thought that you would like to see a little taste of what we have in store for young people across our region – see outline of programme examples at the end of this post

To date, RELAYS has far exceeded all expectations set at the beginning. Together, we have involved nearly 70,000 young people in activities, many of whom were able to visit a university campus or work with university students for the first time. Over 330,000 people have attended our events and festivals, extending and enhancing the reputation of our organisations and enriching our communities. For over 4,000 students and volunteers, this has been an incredible opportunity to gain experience and employability skills which many have found to be invaluable to their career development. And, in what is often an overlooked story, the project has supported over 1,000 local businesses to understand and exploit the many commercial opportunities the 2012 Games will offer.

So please keep an eye on our website for news and events over the coming months  – and we hope that, as members of the project, you will help us celebrate our successes past and future and come along and support our events.

Hope to see you there!

The RELAYS Team

We’re pleased to announce that David Goldblatt, our long-term collaborator at Watershed on Media Literacy and Citizen Journalism  projects, has been invited to be Visiting Professor at Pitzer College, in Claremont, Los Angeles for 5 months where he will be teaching the history of World Football, and the history, politics and Culture of the Olympics.

Happily for us he’ll be back in time for next year’s Media Literacy Workshops in June, and after that he’ll be joining us and some of our young citizen journalists at the Olympic Games in Weymouth!

We hope to have occasional reports from him on what he’s getting up to and how London 2012 is perceived from the Pacific Coast! We wish him an enjoyable and productive visit and hope he’ll have some great stories to tell on his return!

Bristol has been chosen as a training venue for Kenyan Olympic and Paralympic athletes.

A delegation previously visited the city and looked at sporting facilities at the University of the West of England and Filton College.

Their visit also included a sightseeing trip of the city before a ceremony at the Council House where contracts were signed.

Both locations will be used in the run-up to the London 2012 Olympics.

This announcement comes one year after Kenyan Olympic Kipchoge “Kip” Keino opened the £1.3m Kip Keino Athletic Stadium at Filton College.

The 70-year-old is the chairman of the Kenyan Olympic Committee.

He described the facilities in Bristol as “wonderful”.

“The people of Bristol have given us a very friendly welcome. We feel we are at home. It’s a wonderful thing for sports development in this country,” he added.

Ths could provide a great opportunity for our young citizen journalists to visit and report on the Kenyan team’s experiences in the UK.

This high-speed project (see below) is now complete and the final blog posts uploaded so please visit the students’ project blog and a new post on our RELAYS at Watershed blog with a few photos courtesy of Matt Swindells.

The students also participated in making a film which will be completed in the New Year and screened at Watershed – details to be confirmed.

Great news for the young team who made Tick Tock – one of the Short Cuts films selected for this year’s Electric December – at the launch event on Thursday evening, 1st December, they were awarded the prize for best music. Ashante Lake, who performed in and helped make the film, closed the award ceremony with one of her songs before everyone enjoyed some drinks and nibbles.

Well done Team Tick Tock! You can see them on Day 21.

Must be nearly Christmas! Electric December launches today, and we’re delighted that two of the Short Cuts films made late last year have been included in this annual advent-style calendar. You really should wait until the 8th and 21st to open the window’s on Counterpunch and Tick Tock – but at least  you know where to look!

There’s plenty of other great films in there too, all under 5 minutes long and made by young people under 21 from across Europe so do take a look at this talent showcase for young filmmakers.

The students will be interviewing and filming young athletes in training at Bath University’s Sports Village which is hosting individuals and squads who are in training for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and beyond. There’s also a good chance the citizen journalists will get an interview with Ben Rushgrove, a professional disability runner from Bath.

Here’s a link to the students’ blog.

At the launch of his new book How to Watch the Olympics on November 25th, David Goldblatt treated the audience to some of the odder moments of Olympic history – the accidental chargrilling of hundreds of Olympic doves by the lighting of the torch at Seoul, the ferocious competition between women BMX competitors and the bizarre world of synchronised swimming, originating apparently on the Thames in 1726 with Benjamin Franklin  – he called it ‘ornamental swimming’ and also invented the swimming flipper.

These are just a handful of fascinating facts from David’s talk that can also be found – in the company of many more, in his book which can be bought at Watershed Box Office – great for Christmas presents!

If you come to Watershed on Friday 25th November at 7.00 pm, you can find out everything you’ll need to know about How to Watch the Olympics at the launch of David’s Goldblatt’s new book of the same name. David and co-author Jonny Acton have provided a clear, but humorous account of all the Olympic sports – including photographs and some intriguing diagrams.

David and Jonny will be at the event to give some background to the book and show a selection of some of their favourite Olympic film clips – see Watershed’s website for more details of the event and how to buy tickets.