Category: News

Peter Morgan of the Heritage Lottery Fund explains the process for getting the bid in.

Stirchley baths meeting re heritage lottery fund
Half the meeting

Yesterday there was a “stage” meeting about the final and full bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund (to be submitted in June 2013).  A good few people there who’ve been involved in some area of work creating or supporting the bid.  As much as anything it was a chance for the Heritage Lottery Team and the bid team to catch up on progress.  The picture is of one half of the meeting.

Afterwards I spent a few minutes with Peter Morgan from the West Midlands team of the Heritage Lottery Fund.  He explained how these meetings help – what will happen next and what happens to the bid after the June deadline for submitting.

listen to ‘Peter Morgan from the heritage lottery fund on the process for bidding ’ on Audioboo
  • The “stage” meeting help clarify that the bid writing and community engagement process is on track.  It helps everyone focus on creating the best quality bid.
  • Once submitted in June the bid will be assigned an officer who will read is and write a report
  • The report will be checked for quality within the system then submitted to the ctte for decision
  • The ctte read the report and are given a presentation by the officer.  They then decide based on this information and other bids in that month.  Ctte members are volunteers.

    • Thoughts from the show of hands for Stirchley Baths

    Hands Up

    Here are three lovely interviews with some of the people who came out to support the community arts project at Stirchley Baths recently.

    Almost 300 hands were displayed around the Baths, each with a personal message of support for the project or an idea of how the heritage of the building can be shared with local people. You can see more on the event HERE.

    All of the hands will be displayed in Stirchley Library soon, by the way, so you can have a look at the kind of things people were saying.

    Thanks to Matthew Green for these interviews…

    listen to ‘What Katie wants from #StirchleyBaths’ on Audioboo

    listen to ‘Local businesswoman Val tells what the redevelopment of #StirchleyBaths will mean for her’ on Audioboo

    listen to ‘Hear what local resident @philbanting wants from the redeveloped #StirchleyBaths’ on Audioboo

    Place Prospectors’ artworks for Stirchley Baths

    Emma and Jayne from Place Prospectors
    Emma and Jayne from Place Prospectors

    It was great to meet Emma Larkinson and Jayne Murray from Place Prospectors to hear all about a piece of artwork they’ve been commissioned to produce as part of the project to bring Stirchley Baths back into use as a community hub.

    In fact, Emma and Jayne (who organised the Stirchley Prospects and Love Stirchley More events) will be producing two pieces of artwork.

    The first will be a piece of participatory art that will be started in June when the funding bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) is submitted. It will be called (somewhat fittingly at this critical stage in the project) ‘Sink or Swim’ and will require lots of community participation, so we’ll keep you updated on the details for this so you can get involved.

    The second piece of artwork will be housed inside the community hub and Emma and Jayne have a number of ideas that they’re working up. They talk about them in detail in the interview but some ideas include:

    • Signs made of glitterboard (a material that moves and ripples gently, giving an appearance of water) to direct people from the rear of the Baths to the entrance at the front
    • There is space in the entrance lobby for a welcome mat. In fact, an indentation in the floor shows clearly where the original would have been. Emma and Jayne are thinking of making a new welcome mat

    A large golden coloured and elaborate ceremonial key - used for opening the stirchley baths in 1911.

      • Remember the ceremonial key that was used to open the Baths in 1911? A new one could be made to mark the re-opening of the building as a community hub
      • Emma and Jayne are looking to utilise the bore hole in the Baths. When it opened, the original plan was to well for water but, unfortunately, a source was never found
    listen to ‘Place Prospectors' Emma and Jayne on their artwork for Stirchley Baths’ on Audioboo

    What do you think of Emma and Jayne’s ideas? You can get involved and pass on your thoughts and ideas by mailing stirchleybaths@gmail.com or connecting with us on Twitter and Facebook

    Some of the ideas come from the history of the site long before the Baths were built. Research by Emma and Jayne has uncovered some fascinating details of what took place on the site, including:

    1830: The Beer House Act led to the opening of many beer houses in an attempt to minimise the drinking of gin! The Black Horse beerhouse and stables opened on the site of Stirchkey Baths in this year

    In the 1890s a wonderfully named Blood Tub Theatre was on the site, a tent theatre to present old melodramas

    Inside Stirchley Baths April 2013

    Last week I was given privileged access into the baths (I did have to plead a bit!) so I could really get a sense of the physical space within the building to help us shape our interpretative proposal for the Heritage Lottery Fund Activity plan. Architect Mark Sloane patiently answered my many questions about what historic features were being kept, restored, reused and accessible for the public – what bits people would actually be able to see.

    I came away feeling decidedly grubby, but confident that the essence of the building will be maintained through the restoration – that Stirchley Baths will always be just that – but re-purposed.

    I couldn’t resist making another movie – this time with some sound effects! For those of you never to have made it to an open day – here is what it looks like inside – not just in  the pool, but also in the slipper baths, Mikvah, sauna, changing room, corridors, front entrance and in the original ticket kiosk. Very sad to see what has become of the building – but so important to show how vital this Heritage Lottery grant is!

    I’ll post some photos up at a later date.

    Show of hands for Stirchley Baths? Ooooh Yeh!

    Hands Up

    Great day at Stirchley Library and outside the baths today; collecting hands, community support and ideas about how we present ‘the heritage of the baths’ to people. Amazing turnout! We estimate we engaged with over 200 people – and a huge thanks to everyone who came along today – we doubled the amount of hands we have already collected! The official count is 282 hands!

    Such evidence that local people want to see the building restored and brought back into use. I especially love the conversation I had with an 8 year old who told me they walked past the building everyday and felt cheated she didn’t know what was inside – hopefully you will soon!

    A huge and massive thank you to the volunteers who helped us make this day a very special one, including from Stirchley Baths Community Stakeholders Group: Sue Jackson, Jess Allan and Brenda Thomas; and from Birmingham Conservation Trust: Julian Cleaver, Louise Deakin, Rachel Hoeshan and Jane Baker.  A big thank you also to Mukesh, local Stirchley resident, who was passing by on his way back from The Coop at 9.30 and offered to help us put the washing line up! He stayed and helped out until lunchtime. Talk about community spirit!

    After I have typed up all the comments on the hands, we will be putting them into Stirchley Library – so you will get a chance to see what people have said. Matthew, working for Podnosh, has also collected some great interviews for this site, so watch this space!

    Final thank you for today is for the wonderful staff at Stirchley Library who were fabulous hosts (and sorry for all the glitter left on the carpet!)

    Great day. A strong message for the Heritage Lottery Fund – this is a project worth supporting. The community certainly do!