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.

Mohammed spoke to me about swimming during his days at Dame Elizabeth Cadbury’s and his aspirations to enjoy the building again with his family. –

We gathered some great ideas from both parents and their children about the sorts of events that they might enjoy together; having fun and learning about the history of the Baths at the same time. These included quizzes and ‘spot the historic feature’ treasure hunts around the building. For the older generation, talks would be welcome, with Bengali interpretors on hand. Women only activities were also suggested as a way to involve the local Muslim community in the centre’s programming.

I also had a great chat with Margaret and Joe from Birmingham Karate Club who see the future move to the Baths as a great opportunity to recruit new members to the club and widen their audience further. They have been running the club from Stirchley Community Centre for 6-7 years. Here is a brief history of how the club has grown in the area, and the mix of excitement and apprehension they feel towards the transition from  the Community Centre to the Baths.

They would want to ask:

• How many people visited the Baths?
• Why did it close?
• When it was built?
• How many baths were there?
• What happens if the floor boards broke if people were dancing on them?
• Were Germans allowed to visit the Baths during WWII?

They all agreed that seeing the building in its current state is a waste of a building and they  thought it was important to restore it. If they went on a school visit they would like to learn some old fashioned dances, be ‘history detectives’ around the building and see an old bath tub!  What a great 15 minute session!

Thank you to headteacher Mr Clifford for arranging my meeting with the School Council. He is very keen that the school and the Baths work in partnership in the future – including the new school film club and radio station reporting on the Baths project during its restoration period.

One of the ideas they came up with is for an intergenerational dance-themed project where older Stirchley residents could teach them dances of the 1940s, as illustrated in the wonderful pictures we have of Den Jones at Stirchley Baths, and the teenagers pass on these skills to school children – sounds like the making of a great community showcase event somewhere down the line! The members of the Tea Dance at Stirchley Community Centre I spoke with today are certainly up for the challenge!

I was a bit cheeky earlier and asked if I could film a dance that would have probably graced the floorboards of the covered pool back in the 1940s. John was more than happy to volunteer the services of the Tea Dance members who gave us a wonderful demonstration of the Palais Glide. Watch them in action:

(Apologies for another low budget movie)! We had a great afternoon at Stirchley Community Centre, where we were running our second Splash Back in Time reminiscence event.

Coming up in the next week or so you’ll hear a few stories of people dancing at the Baths. Massive thank you to John and the members of the Tea Dance for being such good sports today!

The previous week I met 11 of the young people up at the Den Youth House in Dawberry Road where we talked about possible history and heritage-related activities that they might be interested in getting involved with as part of the restoration project.

On Wednesday, armed with flip cams, they interviewed each other talking about the Baths. Here is some very rough and ready footage – busy roads, lots of excitement – but some useful insight into how these young people view the Baths.
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The girls were really interested in the black and white pictures of the dancing taken in the 1940s and came up with the idea of organising a night of dancing back at the Baths – for the community!  It was great to see them talking about this on camera; about how they would enjoy talking to the older generation about the kind of dances they would have done there – and even learning some moves, and teaching older people some of their own!

Brian and Rowena from the Friends of Stirchley Park joined us to talk to the young people about possible future graffiti art work in the park which illustrated the history of Stirchley, including the baths. and we asked for a hands up who would like to be involved if the money can be raised? And that would be everyone then!

A massive thank you to youth workers Stuart and Martin for rallying up these brilliant young Stirchley-ites and thanks to everyone for their contributions.

As part of the second-stage Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) bid for the Stirchley Baths project, Suzanne Carter from the Birmingham Conservation Trust is putting together a plan of activities and events focused on the history of the building.

A successful bid – as well as seeing the building transformed into a community hub – will also provide funds for the heritage activity plan. The building will not be a swimming pool but we need to keep its history and heritage alive for current and future generations of Stirchley people.

One idea discussed at the Neighbourhood Forum on 11th March at Stirchley Community Church was a Stirchley History Group. There was a really good group discussion, after a presentation by Suzanne, where people considered how a History Group could work and the wealth of community groups in the village and wider partners who could be involved.

Would you like to be involved in a Stirchley History Group? What other heritage activities would you like to see as part of the Stirchley Baths project? Please email stirchleybaths@gmail.com – pop it on our Facebook page here or tell us on Twitter using @stirchleybaths or #stirchleybaths

Many people at the Neighbourhood Forum also added their hands to the community art challenge that is designed to show the Heritage Lottery Fund the support in Stirchley for the baths project. The hands – complete with messages of support – will be displayed around Stirchley Baths on Saturday 6th April. Lots more information and how you can get involved HERE.

Of course, if you can’t make the events, please post memories on this blog. If you know a non-internet user who wants to share some tales please ask them to write down their stories and drop them in to the District Office, Library or Community Centre!

Can’t wait to Splash Back in time and hear your stories!

When: 6.30pm – Feb 13th 2013.

Part one was general update before part two – an exercise for the activity plan.   These are rough notes from the first part of the meeting:

The group introduced themselves – some key facts reported by Karen Cheney

Planning application for the bath’s development will go to the Birmingham City Council planning ctte on 7th March

Next for the Heritage Lottery Fund is the second stage bid – which will also require an activity plan, covering activity which will support the heritage side of the work during the build and afterwards.  Suzanne Carter from Birmingham Conservation Trust will work with Chris Rice from Birmingham Museums Trust to create the plan.

It was reported that the stage two bid needs item to be as strong as possible – so currently aiming for June to submit the bid.

Suzanne Carter explained:

Activity plan is a report which covers all the activity that the Heritage Lottery Fund which isn’t building work.  It’s the work that involves people in history and heritage.  Suzanne will be talking to lots of people in the community to help her create the planning and is focused on what people can learn about the history of the baths – how to bring it alive.  It can also involve plans to train people in conservation skills and hands on experience of heritage work.  this will also focus on how people get involved in making decisions about heritage in the area.

3 important roles for the plan

• to demonstrate that local people love the building and want it back in some form of use
• demonstrates that people are interested
• demonstrate that there is an interest in developing the heritage plan.

Nick Booth outlined the use of this new website to capture news of the project,  stories from the baths and the community centre and how people are getting involved with the activity plan.

Chris Rice said  that the reason the project got a stage one HLF bid was because of local people’s enthusiasm and ‘agitation’.  A successful stage two bid is not a given – so the work and enthusiasm from here on in really helps the bid for the money for construction.

A discussion about timing – including frustration/argument about delays.  A further point made about how long the preparation for the project has gone on –  and how important that stage two of HLF bid will provide the money to get the work started.  When was it actually closed: 5th March 1988 –  so 25 years since it was closed, with 12 years of planning to get something to this stage.

A query about finding archives from the central library on the history of the baths – might that be found in Birmingham Central Library or  Cadbury Archives or Worcester?

7.15 pm onto Part two, Suzanne Carter led on ideas for the activity plan… (see separate notes)