Sign of the times?

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Our photos at Bettakultcha

Last night was great: we were educated and entertained by the guest speakers at Bettakultcha – and our photos were showcased in the interval.  Thanks Bettakultcha guys!

#jellywobble – Blog for Culture Vultures



After all the tweets about jellies, pimped up snacks, straw bales, space hoppers and the need for guests to sign disclaimers (for health and safety), who knew what to expect from the big Jelly Wobble party to celebrate the Culture Vultures’ 2^nd birthday?

Well, if guests were expecting a warm welcome, a bouncy castle and lots of jellies, then they weren’t going to be disappointed!

On spotting the tell-tale signs of substance abuse of a certain ‘white powder’ in the lift, I could tell this was going to be my kind of party: yes, there were Sherbert Dip Dab packets everywhere.

The lift deposited us on the 3^rd floor of Munro House, the lovely space that is to be the Culture Vultures’ new home.  The space had been transformed into an Aladdin’s cave of retro delights from the seventies .  As well as a liberal helping of Sherbet Dip Dabs, the lovely Culture vultures had also sprinkled the surroundings with a generous helping of Tutti Fruttis, lollipops and marshmallows.  Guests were at liberty to simply ‘eat’ their way around the room.  The only food that guests were not allowed to eat were the jellies because, for one night only, the humble jelly had been elevated from party food from our childhood to the status of ‘art’.

The works of art were displayed with the reverence normally bestowed upon giant marrows at country shows, but show was the serious nature of the competition.  There were four categories: Colourful, Toxic, Savoury and ‘Damien Hirst’.  But, how to choose a winner..?

“You need to find the lady with the bowl of shrimps so you can vote.” 

This prompted me to say words I never thought I’d say – especially to a total stranger, “Could you put my shrimp in the KY jelly, please?”  But I digress…

Besides the ingenious illuminated ‘KY’ jelly, there were also jelly cupcakes, body parts, a shark in jelly and even an audible jelly which gave us a performance.  In addition to these, there were pimped up snacks including a giant Malteser made up of lots of other Maltesers and possibly the world’s largest Rice Krispie buns.

As well as all this and the retro entertainment, à la children’s parties of the seventies, which included not only a bouncy castle, space hoppers and a giant DoodleArt mural for guests to colour in; there was also a wii-graffiti ‘wall’.  And, after a few drinks, guests got all artistic with the ‘spray can’ with some amazing, albeit transient, results.

This was a great networking event, a celebration, a Christening of the new premises but, most of all, it was a great party.  Happy birthday to the Culture Vultures!

By Angie Aspinall, photos ©Aspinall Ink

 

Bettakultcha

Q: What do you get when you cross a large group of urbanites with a lovely venue, a smattering of guest speakers, a projector, a laptop, a screen – and a bring a bottle policy?

 A: Bettakultcha at the Corn Exchange in Leeds or, in other words, an excellent night out.

 Q: So, what exactly is Bettakultcha?

 A: Well, it’s an event where pre-arranged guest speakers come to give a five minute presentation, accompanied with 20 PowerPoint slides, on a topic of their choosing.  It’s meant to be something they feel passionate about – and it can’t be a sales pitch.  Sounds odd?  Well, it is – kind of – until you’ve watched one or two and then it oddly starts to make sense.

 You’re not necessarily going to enjoy all the presentations or find them all interesting, amusing or entertaining but the topics and presentation styles are so diverse there really should be something for everyone.  Take the last event in Leeds for example: topics ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous via the serious and heartfelt, to the downright brave – the latter being an inspiring speech from the son of the Yorkshire Ripper’s first victim who talked about how his life was torn apart by the murder but how he has overcome that and many other obstacles to become a happy family man and a truly inspirational speaker.  (Thank you for sharing.)

 More light-hearted topics included ‘Why time travel is bad for you’ and ‘Heterosexual men in bed together in films and on television: a history’, which ended, and rightly so, with Morcambe and Wise.

 There’s not much point in this review focussing on the speakers in much depth, as the topics and speakers vary from event to event but, what is more interesting is the concept.

 Pech Kucha 20 X 20 first started this presentation style back in 2003, in Tokyo, with the idea of 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide.  Since then, their idea has been franchised to other cities across the world, including Huddersfield.

 Where Huddersfield’s Media Centre has gone for the Pecha Kucha approach, Leeds and Bradford have opted for Bettakultcha and their five minute presentations.  Whatever the reason, Bettakultcha  is a growing success, largely thanks to social media such as Twitter.  And, while the presentations are not allowed to be marketing pitches, it’s safe to say that being a guest speaker does raise your profile and it virtually guarantees more tweets and hits on their websites than they’ve ever had before.  During the last event in Leeds, the volume of tweets about #Bettakultcha made it one of the top five Twitter trends in the UK as it was happening. 

 In addition to the presentations, there is the Random Slide Challenge, where audience members are given the opportunity to ‘turn presenter’ and speak about random slides, trying to link them together in an amusing way.  Sounds easy?  Well, in that case, why don’t you give it a try?

 Tickets £5 and there is a bar.  For details go to the website:http://bettakultcha.blogspot.com/   or search #Bettakultcha on Twitter.

Culture Vulture party photos

Aspinall Ink had a great time at the 2nd birthday party of Culture Vulture.  Who wouldn’t enjoy this?

Read my review here: http://theculturevulture.co.uk/blog/reviews/jellywobble-the-aftermath/

New commercial website

We’re happy to announce the launch of our website: http://aspinallink.co.uk which promotes our commercial services and enables you to purchase canvas prints directly from Aspinall Ink.

What Aspinall Ink can do for you

Journalism, travel reviews, food reviews, guest blogs, commercial photography (interioirs, products, events), canvas prints, marketing and the use of social media to promote small businesses and events.

Areas of interest

Food, travel, lifestyle, countryside, historic houses, heritage gardens, coastal resorts, days out, marine biology, natural history, biodiversity and conservation.

Underwater photography: www.triggerfishphotography.co.uk

2010 in review

More than four passenger jets’ worth of visitors

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,700 times in 2010. That’s about 4 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 26 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 27 posts. There were 481 pictures uploaded. That’s about a picture per day.

The busiest day of the year was April 14th with 86 views. The most popular post that day was About us.

Where did visitors come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were mail.live.com, mail.yahoo.com, client.deqq.com, webmail.aol.com, and en.wordpress.com.  The aim for 2011 is to attract more customers via Facebook and Twitter.  Can you help us achieve this by ‘sharing’ the site to your contacts?  Thanks.