Leeds 800th Anniversary celebrations,or lack of.

[wiggy]

munki wrote: In answer to your questions above...I think that your comments about the Celebrate Leeds 2007 festival are, in some senses appropriate. It should be pointed out that Liverpool's birthday has been & gone (August), whereas the actual birthday of Leeds 'the Morrow of Saint Martin'smass' is yet to come.There is a programme of events around that date, which will not be on the scale of Liverpool's events. In the run up to Liverpool's 2008 european City of Culture, their council have been given several million pounds in order to celebrate the birthday, directly from the funding for City of Culture. Sadly, Leeds does not have this luxury.We haven't yet been able to publicise all the events around the birthday celebrations as there are protocols around announcing these kinds of things. Events will be publicised via the website, www.celebrateleeds2007.com, & via a special supplement published by our media partner, the Yorkshire Evening Post, nearer the time. I hope that there will be something in there for you to enjoy.The dinner at the Queen's Hotel is happening because of the happy coincidence that the hotel itself is 70 years old on the same day that the city is 800 years old. The price of the tickets reflects this occasion, but it should be pointed out that event is designed to raise as much money on the night as possible for local charities. See www.celebrateleeds07.com/celebrateleedsatthequeensON A SEPARATE NOTE. Wiggy - your comments are wholly, wholly inappropriate for a site like this. Celebrate Leeds 2007 is a festival designed for all the people of Leeds. If you think that it should be run for some ethnic groups of the city & not for others then you have no place on this site to comment on such things.I will leave your comment up for a few hours so that people know what I am talking about. It will then be deleted. Any repeat of such comments from yourself will lead to you being blocked as a user. In future, people making similar comments will be deleted without a 'second chance'. i do not think it should be run for some ethnic group,that is my point,if my sarcasm has gone down the wrong way then i can only say sorry.but it was sarcasm aimed at apathy,not the good folk of leeds.

[cnosni]

Well im glad that this thread has had some replies, i was beginning to get a bit worried that nobody cared.I am aware that secret Leeds was introduced as part of the 800th year celebrations,and very successful and enjoyable it is.Yes Liverpool has been given a substantial amount of money for the City of culture,but to be fair they went for it and got it,im afraid that,as far as i know,we as a city did not try for the European city of culture.If you're not in it,you wont win it!Over many generations Liverpool's education authorities have ensured that pupils learn a great deal about the history of their city and as a consequence they seem to have a greater sense of pride and belonging than we have as a whole in Leeds.We have as much to be proud of in Leeds,but our authorities seem to be happy to pay lip service to this.I hate to sound negative but civic pride and belonging are not only the realm of the citys inhabitants but should also be that of the authorities whom we elect and clearly those that we elect do not seem to share the passion and pride that many Loiners have.I feel let down,quite badly,by our Leaders.We are not an overly rich city and i would be the first to stand on a soap box if the council were throwing away money on petty little schemes and money swallowing quangos,but neither are we a poor city.We could,and should,have been able to afford a much more high profile series of events to publicise Leeds as a whole through a once in a lifetime celebration that we have had 800 years notice of arrival.If necessary we could have brought such a large event to the summer months with a civic celebration in November.Yes this is a matter of the barn door /horse bolting now but its only recently that i realised that the council has done Jack Sh**,and even if i had have looked at the itinerary on Celebrate Leeds it would have not changed the fact it was all going to be a big let down.

[carrotol]

I remember going to Bradford a few years ago and they had a beach (sand, lifeguard, food etc) in the square. Was this anything to do with their centenary events?

[wiggy]

cnosni wrote: Well im glad that this thread has had some replies, i was beginning to get a bit worried that nobody cared.I am aware that secret Leeds was introduced as part of the 800th year celebrations,and very successful and enjoyable it is.Yes Liverpool has been given a substantial amount of money for the City of culture,but to be fair they went for it and got it,im afraid that,as far as i know,we as a city did not try for the European city of culture.If you're not in it,you wont win it!Over many generations Liverpool's education authorities have ensured that pupils learn a great deal about the history of their city and as a consequence they seem to have a greater sense of pride and belonging than we have as a whole in Leeds.We have as much to be proud of in Leeds,but our authorities seem to be happy to pay lip service to this.I hate to sound negative but civic pride and belonging are not only the realm of the citys inhabitants but should also be that of the authorities whom we elect and clearly those that we elect do not seem to share the passion and pride that many Loiners have.I feel let down,quite badly,by our Leaders.We are not an overly rich city and i would be the first to stand on a soap box if the council were throwing away money on petty little schemes and money swallowing quangos,but neither are we a poor city.We could,and should,have been able to afford a much more high profile series of events to publicise Leeds as a whole through a once in a lifetime celebration that we have had 800 years notice of arrival.If necessary we could have brought such a large event to the summer months with a civic celebration in November.Yes this is a matter of the barn door /horse bolting now but its only recently that i realised that the council has done Jack Sh**,and even if i had have looked at the itinerary on Celebrate Leeds it would have not changed the fact it was all going to be a big let down. this is what i was driving at,but without the drunken sarcasm(sorry once more to the ofended).well put that man,we should all be much more proud of our city,not just us on this site,but all citizens.yes, we know its cleaner and more beautiful than most other cities(except york)but instead of been all smug and knowing,we should tell the world about it.

[dsco]

In response to previous comments about the launch of the 'Leeds, Live it, Love it' brand:Firstly, it's unlikely that anyone heard any fireworks at the Civic Hall from the launch, as the launch was at the Victoria Quarter and there were no fireworks. I can say this for sure as I was there (what with being both great and good n'all).Secondly, SecretLeeds.com was conceived, developed and paid for by Marketing Leeds (who developed the Leeds city brand) as part of the Celebrate Leeds 2007 celebrations. With 25,000 individual visitors so far, making a total of 62,000 visits between them, and nearly 8,000 posts - well, you can't get much more inclusive than that, can you?And yes, Hong Kong do use a Live it Love it campaign ... but where's the alliteration eh?Regards,dsco

[JanCee]

dsco wrote: Firstly, it's unlikely that anyone heard any fireworks at the Civic Hall from the launch, as the launch was at the Victoria Quarter and there were no fireworks. I can say this for sure as I was there (what with being both great and good n'all).Secondly, SecretLeeds.com was conceived, developed and paid for by Marketing Leeds (who developed the Leeds city brand) as part of the Celebrate Leeds 2007 celebrations. With 25,000 individual visitors so far, making a total of 62,000 visits between them, and nearly 8,000 posts - well, you can't get much more inclusive than that, can you?And yes, Hong Kong do use a Live it Love it campaign ... but where's the alliteration eh?Regards,dsco Indeed you're right. I had assumed Civic Hall. From the YEP: '...Around 500 guests from the city's business, tourism and education sectors attended last night's champagne launch which ended with a laser light and ticker tape celebration..'Laser lights and ticker tape. I knew something had made me twitch me nets. And where was my invite? Eh? Hong Kong hasn't the alliteration admittedly. But it did have the originality. *cough*plagiarism*cough*

[dsco]

Don't you have anything to say about the fact that this company which you are so keen to criticise, also provides the site which you seem to spend so much of your free time on?dsco

[JanCee]

dsco wrote: Don't you have anything to say about the fact that this company which you are so keen to criticise, also provides the site which you seem to spend so much of your free time on?dsco Since you ask, yes I do.I may be naive, and do correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagined that at least some of the company's funding is from Leeds City Council. Which I help to fund through my council tax. So in effect, I am paying for the site, albeit in a minor way. It also occurred to me that there is a lot of valuable research available to you here once you sort the wheat from the chaff [I suppose I'm part of the chaff ]. I work in that industry and know how much it would cost for such a resource. So I do think the site is to the company's benefit too. And if you personally are giving up your time voluntarily to help run the site I'm much obliged. But I did assume it was part of your job. Sorry if I was wrong.

[LS1]

Just seems to me that there is nothing really that evereyone can participate in, like closing off town for a saturday and getting a fair in along the headrow, or setting tables up and feeding people for free. - It's a bit late now for that i guess as its freezing out side.I went to the Chapel Allerton festival a few weeks ago and the community atmosphere was great, people knew something was going on. Now I'm not saying that this would work with the whole of Leeds as it is so big, but so many people i speak to don't even know that it is Leeds' 800th anniversary.Please can there be something we can do collectively that will mark the occasion?

[dsco]

Jan,Leeds City Council contributes a relatively small proportion of our funding, whilst half comes from the local business community, with the rest currently made up by Yorkshire Forward as part of a matched funding agreement.So yes your council tax (and mine, and everybody else's) does fund this project, though the majority of it comes from elsewhere.As to the uses for this information, I cannot think of many ways to put it to commercial profit or advantage, fascinating though it may be.And yes, a large chunk of my free time has gone into it, from the point at which I came up with the idea, to eventually securing funding for it over a year later, site development, ongoing technical upgrades, and finally managing content and moderating posts. Due to recent events I am now having to spend office hours on it as well, though this is not sustainable long term as I am already a rather busy boy... quite what job would pay me to sit on here I do not know. If you hear of one do tell.dsco