The first  incident shocked and saddened  me because these were people who consider themselves to be open minded and not racist and yet they can come out with comments and generalisations for a whole race of people like this. However, these two incidents have made me realise how important Romany Theatre Company’s work “improving the wider community’s understanding of what it means to be Gypsy, Romany, or Traveller” is.  Our Atching Tan Project has made several contributions towards this work including the Atching Tan Radio Drama series and our Atching Tan Education Pack both of which are available on our web-site

The next step of the Atching Tan Project is research. We want to carry out research on Gypsy, Romany, Traveller Women and the 2 World Wars.  To undertake the research we are looking for volunteers who are able to work on their own to look at one of two different topics:-

• The role of Gypsy, Romany, Traveller women in the community over the last 50 years.
• The role of the Gypsy, Romany, Travellers in the first and second world wars

We will be asking volunteers to decide which topic they would like to research and to carry out that research.  Carry out the research using the Internet, books, libraries any sources that they have access to.  The volunteers will need to give at least 20 hours to their research and writing a report of what they find.  As part of their volunteering there is an opportunity to gain the OCN Developing and Using Research Skills accreditation as part of their research.

We still need a few more volunteers and for those interested we are holding a volunteer meeting at our office in Cambridge on Wednesday 5^th October 2011 at 3pm.  If you are interested, please contact us and we will give you further information of what you will need to do and can give you directions to Llandaff Chambers.

As for me, this is my first attempt at blogging and I hope that I do justice to what Daniela has started.  My name is CJ and my roles include co-ordinating the project, OCN course verification and finding new volunteers for the remainder of the Atching Tan Project.

Atching Tan has received a 4 month extension from HLF and will now continue on until November so that we can continue the work we are doing with volunteers and we hope to encourage some more people to come forward to carry out some research for us on the role or Gypsy, Romany, Traveller Women in the community. Whilst volunteering all our volunteers have the opportunity of taking part in the Research module at level 2 which Daniela developed for us and is accredited by OCN. If you live in the Cambridgeshire / Suffolk area then go to our Atching Tan site to find out more.

This is also the day that the Dalefarm evictions start.  It has been in the news all day and the media is on site to see what happens.  Our thoughts are with those living on Dalefarm who are at risk of eviction and those brave people who have gone to stay on the site and show their support.  Kushti Bok and Dootchiparen!

Since the education pack launched, I’ve been working on preparing everything that the Atching Tan project has produced over the past two years – from the education pack through to press releases – for archiving with Cambridge Records Office. My office has been swamped with pieces of paper, CDs, and cables. It’s been a feat of organisation, but it’s just about done.

However, it hasn’t all be administration! I’ve also been assisting not one, but two museums as they prepare exhibitions that feature the Gypsy, Romany, Traveller community. Both the Museum of East Anglian Life in Stowmarket and the Cambridge and County Folk Museum will be using materials produced by RTC, including the education pack and some of the reminiscence recordings.

MEAL will be hosting a brand new Gypsy, Romany, Traveller room, whilst the Folk Museum is opening its Missing Pieces exhibition, which looks at communities resident in Cambridge that haven’t had much of a look-in across the museum. Missing Pieces opens next week, but you’ll have to wait a while yet for the dedicated room at MEAL, I’m afraid! These are both going to be fabulous exhibitions, and when they’re up and running, I recommend that you pay them a visit.

As for me and Atching Tan, it has been a pleasure and a privilege. I’ve had the opportunity to work with some dedicated and inspiring people and I’ve been involved in a project that I really hope will make a difference. I’ve learned new things and I hope that I’ve helped other people to learn new things, too.

So now I’m moving on. I’ve a very exciting project lined up that should keep me occupied for a while, but before I start on that I’ve a holiday with my family to enjoy.

I’ll be seeing you around the intergoogles, though, I’m sure.

Take care of yourselves. I hope that you’ve enjoyed this ride as much as I have,

- Daniela

The pack comprises information, activities, and resources. It was really important to me that the pack worked to educate children and young people about Gypsies, Romanies, and Travellers, but at the same time developed their skills in other areas; consequently, it has been designed so that it can form a discrete scheme of work or so that individual elements of it can support different elements of the curriculum. For example, the ‘Where to build a Travellers’ site?’ activity in the Homes section could be used in Geography lessons, whilst the ‘Freeze frame’ activity found in the Education section would be great used in a drama lesson.

Teachers also spend enough time doing paperwork, so we tried to make the pack as easy to use as possible. Any sheets that are designed to be photocopied are loose-leaf; different themes are colour-coded; and different activities have easy-to-spot logos on them indicating if they are about speaking, listening, or doing.

If you’d like a copy, please drop me an email and I’ll arrange for one to be sent to you. Alternatively, it is available as a download. However you get it, it’s free.

I’m immensely proud of the pack and I hope that it makes a difference, for teachers, for learners, and for the Gypsy, Romany, Traveller community. We’ve all a long way to go towards creating a more tolerant, more accepting community; this is one step along that road.

I’ve reached the end of my journey with it; I hope that it is the beginning for many other people.

- Daniela

If you’d like to take a peek at the script, BBC Writersroom have thrown it up on their site for general perusal, and you can read a blog post by Dan, our director and Atching Tan’s writer, there as well.

Things really are moving very quickly, though. The text of the education pack is now with the designer for drafting, and we’re thrashing out details that include how to differentiate teacher-materials from student-materials. The recordings are having what I hope will be their final edit so that they can be included in the pack without being so long they send people to sleep. I’m rounding up paperwork to ensure that nothing goes unmentioned or is overlooked.

Tomorrow, I’m meeting with the lovely people from Traveller Education Services in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to talk over final points for the pack. They’ve been so helpful and so supportive over the past two years that I’m not sure where I’d be without them. Then I shall move on to plan the official launch.

I’m getting the feeling that I should be more stressed than I am. No, I’m perfectly calm about all of this. Right now, I feel in control. How much longer will this last, I wonder?

Take care and catch up again soon.

- Daniela

The entertainment section of the pack is anomalous when compared with the the rest of the project: every other theme’s activities are built around people talking about these aspects of their lives, such as going to school or where they live. No one talks about entertainment, which is odd but true. As a consequence, I couldn’t approach it and attempt to use the standard format of the pack. It needed to be original.

This is why the entertainment section pack is centred around a story-telling project. Story-telling is of course something that is widely practised amongst the Gypsy/Romany/Community and it is a wonderful skill. The idea is, therefore, to encourage learners to consider the entire genre of story-telling: why we do it, what the origins of telling stories is, what makes a good told story, and finally telling a story oneself.

I’m proud of it; I hope that everyone who comes to use it enjoys it as much.

- Daniela

In June, Damien Le Bas and Candis Nergaard—two of Atching Tan’s writers and actors—performed their play Gypsies in Disguise at the Romale Arts Festival in Graz, Austria. More details here. It went down really well, and it’s so exciting that RTC is getting international exposure!

Marrow Bones, a black comedy written by Damien, was given its first ever reading at Chapter in Cardiff in March. Damien and Candis performed the work, which looks at the disruption caused to a Gypsy’s life by an unexpected visitor. It was a piece specially commissioned for a weekend of Romany culture, which is great news for Damien.

Recording of series of three of Atching Tan starts in September. We’re getting quite excited about that, as I’m sure that you imagine.

Right, people, it’s my housewarming party this weekend. I’m praying for sun, seeing as it is currently pelting down. Oh joy! Take care and have fun.

- Daniela

The age range of the participants I’ve listened to this week has spanned from early 20s to somewhere around 80, and this age range has shown me something very interesting. Many of the younger people have a yearning to return to the lives of their forefathers, to be able to move from place-to-place at will, to travel the country stopping wherever is convenient. Yet for the older generation, the existence of permanent sites, where there is hot and cold running water, proper baths, electricity, and security, is some form of bliss.

This disparity intrigues me. I wonder if, in fifty years, those who have returned to the travelling way of life will be once more content to pull up to a permanent site and establish a home there, or if the pull of the open road will continue to draw them.

I hope that you have sunshine wherever you are; I do. I’m going to make the most of it this weekend. Take care.

- Daniela

As part of Gypsy, Roma, Traveller History Month, Sinead and her husband, Rory took their vardo to Newport in South Wales, where Rory ran a wagon painting workshop. Although their vardo would originally have been drawn by a horse, they transport it places on the back of a trailer. Still, getting a vardo from deepest, darkest Suffolk across the Severn to Wales, via an event in Surrey, is a bit of an undertaking.

It started at 4am on a Tuesday morning!

After spending the day at an family fun day in Surrey, they moved on to camp in a woods between Hungerford and Wantage, but were on their way early again on Wednesday morning. Having made it to the mouth of the Severn, they pitched camp on a deserted track and were able to relax looking out over the river. How idyllic does that sound?

The next morning they headed to Newport for an event at the Riverside Theatre. Here, Rory ran a wagon painting workshop and Sinead showed anyone who was interested around the vardo. It was a shame that she couldn’t enjoy so many of the events that were happening at the theatre, but showing off the vardo is always fun. That evening they headed for home, pitching camp close to Buntingford at 11:30 at night but were back on the road again by 6:30 the next morning, and home later that day.

What a great trip! I hope that everyone who saw the vardo thought that it was great, too.

Enjoy the fabulous summer weather, make sure to use sunscreen, and let’s see how Andy Murray does at Wimbledon.

- Daniela