Cafe News: Old Editions

[Jill]

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Welcome to Creative Cafe News

Week 9 January 2008

 

So the decorations are down and the holidays are over.

Time to look forward to a creative and exciting New Year 2008.

 On Creative Cafe we will build on the good start we have made

in the last eight weeks to make this a dynamic and friendly

community where YOUR creativity is noticed, encouraged

and appreciated. Where you have the opportunity to sell your

work on our  Salesrooms and buy unique originals in there to.

And where you can make new friends with other members

To go with the New Year in our spotlight this week we have NEW

members works which have not been featured before.Thanks

to our members Druben, Mary, Angela,Wendy, Rebecca, Dotgale,

Leslie Wilson-Rutterford, Angela Hayden, Lizzy T, Tina Donavan,

Green Tangerine Designs, Loiuse, Alec Morrison, Azzami Bell,

Kathryn Rushent, Margaret Hamilton of Slackstitches,Cathy,

zarumbatus, Karen Houser, Kerri, and Mandy Lawrence for their

contributions to our Spotlight slideshow.

Thanks also to Mandy Lawrence for her suggestion we have an

ecofriendly theme which will run from next week and as this is a

huge subject these days please put up plenty of your creative 

contributions on the subject.From pictures of ecofriendly transport

like bicycles to recycling your decorations and saving the rainforest

all ideas are welcome and plenty will feature on the Main page.

Finally in this weeks Cafe news I can announce this January

we have 4 prizes to award in the form of £5 or $10 off

any purchase in our Salesrooms. These prizes will be awarded

at the end of the month to 1) Most Active Member of Creative Cafe

2)Friendliest Member of Creative Cafe 3)Funniest Member of Creative

Cafe 4) Most Provocative Member of Creative Cafe! Members are

welcome to have their say on who they nominate to win these

prizes and I will put up a discussion for your opinons.

Also don't forget there are 3 more prizes of a friendship bracelet

or handmade wooden pen to be won for being in the first 10 to

put your work up for sale in our Salesrooms.

Have a great week. Bye for Now Jill

 

 

[Jill]

Welcome to our 10th week open on Creative Cafe in January 2008.

 In celebration of having our 100th member join we have members 

 People pictures in the spotlight slideshow. Thanks to you our

 members for providing such a talented selection of paintings and

photographs depicting people of all ages

Our ecofriendly theme has been postponed this week as we have

exciting news on MUSIC and SONG instead.

In the first place we now have not just one but two of our own

Creative Cafe music players on the right side of the main page.

The top one plays the highest ratest music and the one underneath

plays the latest music  downloaded onto Creative Cafe. I hope

these encourage you to put up your favourite music by other

artists and add compositions of your own. Thanks to the Mad Planet

site for lending us their music player while we have been getting

going but now we can chose our own music on Creative Cafe!

Secondly I bring you exciting news about our new

CREATIVE CAFE THEME SONG GROUP

Our member Bright Spenser who wrote 100 songs and won

seven awards last year has kindly offered to write  a Creative Cafe

 theme song! We want members to get involved by writing lyrics,

 playing the tunes, singing, recording, mixing and joining in the fun!

 There will be prizes to be won by those joining our

CREATIVE CAFE THEME SONG GROUP , getting involved

and making the best contributions. 

To join go to groups below and follow the link.

Finally in this weeks Cafe news I will remind you this January  

we have 4 prizes to award in the form of £5 or $10 off

any purchase in our Salesrooms. These prizes will be awarded

at the end of the month to 1) Most Active Member of Creative Cafe

2)Friendliest Member of Creative Cafe 3)Funniest Member of Creative

Cafe 4) Most Provocative Member of Creative Cafe! Members are

welcome to have their say on who they nominate to win these

prizes and I will put up a discussion for your opinons.

Also don't forget there are 3 more prizes of a friendship bracelet

or handmade wooden pen to be won for being in the first 10 to

put your work up for sale in our Salesrooms.

Thanks for all your great contributions on Creative Cafe

and keep them coming in!

Have a great week

Jill

 

 

 

 

[Jill]

Welcome to our 11th week open on Creative Cafe in January

 2008. This week our Spotlight is on members with work

listed in our Salesrooms. Have a look at their lovely art,

jewelery, and crafts for sale HERE! And here is the rest of

 the weeks Cafe news.

 Apparently this is Blue Monday and the start of the most

depressing week of the year. Dr Arnall at Cardiff University

used mathematical equations to reach this conclusion.

He worked out that people are most likely to get the blues

 in the final full week of January because of the combination of

bad weather, Christmas debts and broken New Year resolutions.

But on Creative Cafe we should be fine. On the Beat Blue Monday

website top of the list of 10 things to do to beat the blues is:

 Be Creative. Other suggestions include:learn something new

to get your brain active; contact someone you havn't been in

touch with for a while; do a random act of kindness; pamper yourself;

help the planet and even create your own beach! By turning your

 home or office into a carnival or beach the site says you can

pretend your somewhere relaxing! It occurs to me that we can

achieve all of the above suggestions right here on Creative Cafe.

 I will be interested to see how many of you make your pages look

like a beach when I go around this week! If you don't fancy that

then at least you can contact other members you have not been

 in touch with recently and it is a known fact that being active on

Creative Cafe also helps the planet!

For those of you who are keen on photography and writing stories

Snap!  is a photo and story competition run by Mencap.

They are looking for photos of people with or taken by someone

 with a learning difficulty along with stories of what makes you

happy,sad,angry, excited and proud.Prizes include some top of the

range cameras which will be awarded at a special prize winners party.

The closing date is Ist March  2008 and applications are on their

website at  http ://www.mencap.org.uk

Speaking of photos and stories our members have put up plenty

of new great photos and blogs on Creative Cafe recently.

If you have not already then do read Sharons sad story about her

lost red wellington boots, Margaret Hamiltons' battle with

 bureaucracy over labels and maybe help Mandy Lawrence find

out more about the mysterious artist who painted her new

picture. We also have some great new original music

up that is well worth a listen. Keep your great contributions

coming in. They are very much appreciated.

We now have 9 members in the CREATIVE CAFE THEME SONG

GROUP and are having a lively discussion with plenty of ideas

 being put forward. Why not join the group and join in to help

make us a hit! There will be prizes to be won later. Please

also feel free to start up  groups and discussions you

 want to see on Creative Cafe as well.

 Well that's all for now and I hope you all have a good week.

Jill

 

 

 

 

[Jill]

Welcome to Week 12 Creative Cafe news. (Sorry we are not in colour this week but Ning seem to be doing things to the text editor and the usual codes do not work)
This week’s Creative Cafe theme is ecofriendly with an emphasis on everything recycled and in hand with this goes the popular mantra reduce, reuse, recycle:
Reduce :the amount of the Earth's resources that we use.
Reuse : Don't just bin it, could someone else make use of it?
Recycle : Can the materials be made into something new?
We can take simple steps to REDUCE the resources we use by doing things like: boycotting over-packaged products and cutting down on using paper or when essential using both sides.
We can REUSE by doing things like getting printer cartridges refilled and making sure clothes we no longer want go to charity shops or are resold on auction sites or given up at sites like Freecycle (http://www.freecycle.org/) Items which are too tatty to wear again can be cut up and used as dish and floor cloths.
Our member in the Spotlight this week Leslie Wilson-Rutterford provides a splendid account of RECYCLING using all kinds of bits and pieces to make some wonderful artworks. As well as the usual suspects like paper and bottles that we are urged to recycle today creative people
have been exploring all kinds of ways of using recycled things in their art and crafts. Have a look at and join in with the discussion Art Made from Recycled Materials which we are adding to as the news of these projects arrives.
On another subject I would like to remind members that this month’s competition for members who have been the friendliest, most active, most provocative and funniest ends at the end of January this week. So please nominate your winners in the discussion on this subject and the
winners will be announced in a Creative Cafe news soon.
We also have some other discussions just waiting for your contributions including an earlier one which asks you to tell us about where you live? Although we are international with members from 22 countries already it is nice to develop more local connections as well.
Thanks to Valerie, a Brighton UK member, for suggesting we do a Creative Café promotion at a local Carnival in May and I hope members in other areas will be able to build contacts and some local connections via Creative Cafe. Please put news that we are open on other community and social networking sites you visit so we can carry on building a strong and interesting group.
And finally this week here is an easy recycling idea for everyone who gets a lot of snail mail:
Recycling Postage Stamps
RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People) can raise money from both British and overseas used stamps. The stamps are sorted by their volunteers and then sold on to dealers or collectors. They normally sell
them by weight (generally 90p-£1 for a pound of stamps), with overseas stamps raising more and valuable stamps being sold for a higher price. This is such an easy way to recycle and raise money! So rip your stamps off your envelopes and when you have a good sized collection pop them in an envelope and send them to the RNIB,
Recycling, PO Box 185, Benfleet, SS7 9BH.
That’s all for now and I hope you have a very good
week ahead. Jill

[Jill]

Opening Week's Activities (November 2007)
Featuring
Spotlight on the award winning photography of Richard Spasoff
now a member of Creative Cafe
Interview with Azzami Bell now a member and a trustee of Creative Cafe
Beginners Video on making your own movies with music and pictures using Audacity and Movie Maker by Solarfizzikins now a member of Creative Cafe.
Chatbox with a Creative Cafe channel on the right side of your page if you want to chat with other members.
Slideshows of members work on the main page
Plus a variety of gadgets and widgets to entertain you.

Fairtrade handmade friendship bracelets from Peru or Handmade wooden pens will be given to the ten most active members this week.
So please makes friends, write comments, add your photos and
blogs, invite new members and put up your goods for sale in our Salesrooms.


AND THANKYOU FOR BEING HERE FOR OUR OPENING

[Jill]

Week 2 Activities (November 19th 2007)

The winners of the 10 most active pages so far according to
Google Analytics are in alphabetical order : Desik, Earthling Cool.
Green Tambourine Designs, Kerrie, Leslie Wilson Rutherford,
Mandy Laurence, Richard Spasoff, Solarfizzikins, Tabitha Emma
and Zarumbatus. So let me have the address where you want your
prize of a fairtrade friendship bracelet from Peru or a handmade
wooden pen sent!
According to the statistics there have been over a 1000 visits to
the site and over 5500 page views so far and we hope these
numbers keep going up and up! Admittedly I was not able to send
out invitations as I expected last week and hope to make up for
that soon. Please Please do invite your friends to join us and help
grow Creative Cafe.
I also seem to be pretty bad at persuading you to list items for sale
in our Salesrooms and so to encourage everyone there will be no
commission on the first 50 sales. That means the Salesrooms are
FREE to list items for sale, FREE to have your own SALEROOM
AND FREE when you have a sucessful SALE. Everything is FREE
and the first 10 members to list items for sale will ALSO be
rewarded with either a fairtrade friendship bracelet or a handmade
wooden pen. So PLEASE list your items for sale in our
SALESROOMS!

This week in Creative Cafe we have original artist member
Zarumbatus featuring in the Spotlight on the main page. Richard
Spasoff's award winning photographs are still featuring on the
main page and also check out Richards' hilarious and clever videos
along with the other videos members are putting up and showing
what a wealth of talent we already have in Creative Cafe. We have
some original music, interesting blogs and poetry as well as more
members art and photographs going up. Please take time to put up
your own work and look around to see and get to know other
members contributions.
We have one group on 'What is Creativity' with 5 members and 2
of us are just having a laugh in the 'Messing Around Group'. Join
us or start your own interest groups. Suggestions for Creative Cafe
are welcome and I hope you all have a good week.

Bye for Now
Jill

[Jill]

Week 3 Activities November 25th 2007
Featuring this week

1. Phil Lancaster is our member in the spotlight on the Main page this week with his incredible surreal digital images. See Phil’s account of how a diagnosis of schizophrenia affects the way he creates art. Links to sites about Disability arts and Outsider art are included.

2. Following on members are asked to contribute to the discussion
‘Surrealism. A revolutionary movement?

3. According to Google analytics this site has already had visits from 22 countries! A more light hearted discussion asks all our members to write something about the place where you live?

4. There is still time to see the lovely work of member Zarumbatus in his slideshow on the main page. The slideshow of member Richard Spasoff’s award winning photography is also still up.

5) It has been pointed out some members find our Salesrooms site confusing and are still not convinced about putting things up for sale. I will be putting some information in the Frequently Asked Questions group and on a discussion about the Salesrooms and hope this helps.

6. Coming next week: In the spotlight next week will be ALL our members who have made contributions to Creative Café so put up all your great photos and writings and music and so on to feature on the main page in Week 4.

Hope everyone has a good week and please invite new members to join us!
Bye for Now
Jill

[Jill]

Week 4 Activities (December 3rd 2007)

As promised last week all our members who have contributed to Creative Cafe are on our main page in the Spotlight.
Thirty members’ names and links to their pages are up. This means they have done more than just writing a profile, putting up their web link and adding some comments. I know members are busy but it really helps build our Creative Cafe community when members contribute and communicate. So thanks to everyone in our Spotlight this week. Next week we will keep this spotlight and add more details about members’ contributions so there is still time to have your name added and Spotlight expanded.

December 3rd is International Disability Day and there is a blog post up with some information. Please add to this if you know more and I will just add my usual comment on this subject which is: Don't let Disability Mean Inequality

So far 5 members have put things up for sale in our Salesrooms and 3 have listings at the moment. There have been 2 sales so far with at least one other being negotiated now. I am hoping we will have a lot more listing and sales soon so please support our SALESROOMS as sellers and as buyers.

I would like opinions on whether members want various widgets and gadgets taken out and if so which ones? Having fewer may speed up the page loading times and to this end I have already reduced the number of slideshows (a bit!) Anyway there is a discussion on problems with the site already started and I hope members will voice their opinions freely.

I will be away some of Tuesday, all of Wednesday and some of Thursday next week and will not be able to be on the computer much at all so please ask Azzami Bell if you have any questions. Also please welcome any new members that might arrive and take it in turns to make the Cafe coffee!
And I will hope to see lots more creative and interesting stuff on here when I return!
Hope you all have a very good week.
Bye for Now
Jill

[Jill]

Week 5 Activities December 10th 2007

Featuring:

Three more members are now listed on the main page for
having made contributions to Creative Cafe in the last week.
According to the site analytics those members who have
made contributions and have been listed on the main page
have many more visits to their own pages and their own site
links. So the moral of this story is : join in on Creative Cafe
and you will become famous!

Thank you to new member Gabrielle Swain for giving
permission for her item ‘The Creative Personality’ to be
put up as a discussion topic. Hope to see lots of comments on
this subject this week.

I am hoping to have a festive theme on the main page next
week and am looking for as many contributions as you can
all deliver about our winter holidays season, from wherever
you live in the world and whichever festivals you celebrate.
We are a multi festivals site. (The more holidays the better as
far as I am concerned!) So please put up your festive pics,
music, videos, blogs, discussions, crafts, decorations, jokes
and anything else you fancy so I can put items on the main
page next weekend.

There seems to have been one error on the Salesrooms site which is to do
with resizing of images and we are waiting for Rainworx who run the software
to amend this situation. There should be no problems listing your items but
let me know if you do have any issues. Several more sales have been and are
being negotiated as I write so it is worth listing your items to catch the last minute present buyers.

I am glad to write that we now have over 70 members on Creative Cafe and
it is lovely to have you with us. I know this is a busy time of year for everyone
but please do invite new members along to join us.

Thanks and Bye for Now

Jill

[Jill]

Week 6 Activities (December 18th 2007)

Featuring



See the Festive and Trees Slideshow

of members work and other tree items

on the main page. Thanks to members

who have made the effort to contribute.

Read about the Tate Modern and

the Living Wage campaign. Are they

being modern Scrouges ?

I have now taken out quite a few

widgets and some slideshows and

hope the site runs faster. More about this

is in the discussion Internet Connectivity.



Thanks to Desik, Tina Donavan, Rebecca,

Green Tambourine Designs, Margaret Hamilton

of Slackstitches, Leslie Wilson-Rutterford

and Lionel Ross for being the first seven

members to list their work in our Salesrooms.

They all win either a fairtrade friendship

bracelet or a handmade wooden pen and

there are still 3 more of these prizes

for being in the first 10 to be won



I want to wish everyone very Happy Holidays

but also a word of warning that this

can be a difficult time of year for many.

Calls to helplines for all kinds of problems

and depression rise by nearly ten per cent

during the festive season. Creatve Cafe

will be open all over the holidays

and I hope to put up some quizzes,

competitions, puzzles, jokes

and so on next week for entertainment.

If you have any contributions

please do add these and make an effort

to communicate with other members.



Thanks for all your contributions

to Creative Cafe since we opened

six weeks ago.



Bye for Now

Jill

[Jill]

Weeks 7 and 8 December 29th 2007

So here is a double Cafe news for you with

Week 7 being our last for 2007 and

Week 8 our first for 2008.

Looking back since we opened many

thanks to Richard Spasoff for being our

award winning photographer in the

Spotlight for our opening,to zarumbatus

for giving us his characterful artworks

in Week 2, to Phil Lancaster for his

fabulous digital images in Week 3

and to all the members who have made

contributions to Creative Cafe for being

in the Spotlight in Weeks 4 and 5.

That brings us to last week with our

festive and trees theme and many thanks to

all those who participated. I have now taken

the story of the Tate Modern playing Scrouge

to a discussion and would be glad to hear

any comments you have on that.

For Weeks Seven and Eight because we

members seem to love animals and pets

these are the theme and I have made up

a Spotlight slideshow of members artworks

Please put up more animal and pet photos

if you want yours added to the slideshow

I do hope everyone has been having

a good time over the Holidays and

wish you all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR

We now have quite a few new members

so a BIG WELCOME to you all.

The theme for the next week will be

on NEW works that have not been

featured in the Spotlight yet so please

keep putting up your photos and see

if your work will go on the main page?

I usually ask members to keep inviting

more people to join us and to support our

Salesrooms and this week is no exception!

It is also good to see members making

friends and communicating with each

other more in recent weeks. Creative Cafe is

YOUR site and I hope we have an interesting

and friendly year ahead here in 2008.

All suggestions are welcome.

Bye for Now

Jill

[Jill]

Valentines Feature Week 13/14

From The Mail:
THE world’s most politically-correct Valentine card has been launched – designed not to offend ANYONE.
On the front is a single red heart surrounded by cupids of every gender, race, religion, marital status and relationship type.
There is a single mum cupid with a pram, a chav cupid, Orthodox Jew cupid, naturist cupid, albino cupid and even Siamese Sikh cupids.
The hilarious message inside sends up the PC times in which we live. Last year, for instance, a legal advisory service warned firms that unwanted cards could land them at an industrial tribunal.

Some cards have been viewed as unwanted sexual advances – and the basis for harassment claims.
So inside the new PC card the message reads:
“Please accept with no obligation my nonsexually harassing, potentially platonic Valentine’s regards as a token of my/our love, lust or friendship within a relationship that we may or may not choose to be monogamous, whilst understanding that the romantic sentiment that it signifies does in no way guarantee the success or progression of the said relationship over any length of time. The sender reserves the right to remain anonymous.”
Creator Jon Gledstone, 26, of Hertford, Herts, said: “Pals spoke of the problems they faced giving out Valentine cards. I wanted a one-size-fits-all Valentine card.” To buy Jon's original card, go to pcstgeorge.co.uk

[Jill]

Hard  to  believe  we are already in February 2008 and here I   

am bringing  you our  13th & 14th Weeks Creative Cafe News

   with a special focus on Valentines Day around the corner    

When starting this I thought of  the traditional flowers   and    

chocolates but soon found out there is nothing simple about

either these days. Even the conservative Sunday Mail reported

"Forget an extravagant bouquet of roses or an exquisitely     

packaged box of chocolates this Valentines. If you want to be

good lover, start thinking about the impact your romance has

on the environment. Campaigners say the traditional tokens

of affection exchanged on February 14th should be ditched   

because they damage the planet." For example a bunch of cut

flowers may be produced using toxic chemicals, by exploited

workers and then flown 1000s of polluting airmiles before you

 buy them. An answer can be found at  the Ethical Superstore

which supplies fairtrade, organic flowers, chocolate and other

ecofriendly products. Ethical Superstore  operates the UK's

first Mail Order Carbon Offset Delivery scheme which means

any environmental damage caused by your delivery is offset .