mastercrafts bbc second series

The HCA had been helping Ricochet on the second series of mastercrafts and were very disappointed to learn this week that the BBC have decided not to commission the second series after all.


HCA set up a facebook page to ask BBC to change their mind and give people the information they need to give their voice the greatest weight with the BBC. This is the page http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=133737523309730&ref=mf 


If you are not on facebook you can still access the page, click on the info link and get details of how best to respond to BBC. We are delighted that the whole UK craft community seems to have pulled together into one campaign, one single group with 20,000 members would have much more meaning for the BBC that 5 groups of 4000 each. We have a way to go though. Less than 3 days in the group is over 600 members and growing rapidly. We hope that many folk have also followed the details and mailed the BBC.


If you want to help promote the campaign you could add one of these banners to your blog/website etc.






If you want one of those visit here and cut and paste the code into your blog, very easy even for technophobes like me. http://www.heritagecrafts.org.uk/promote.html#mastercrafts


So that finishes a busy week, in which HCA also responded to the HLF press release earlier in the week announcing £17m for heritage skills training, you would think we would be delighted and we are very happy for the building, conservation and museum skills covered but there is little in it for the smaller traditional crafts see HCA news release for more detail here. Tonight I drive to Reading ready for a demonstration of bowlturning at the Museum of English Rural Life where George Lailey's lathe is kept. I was chatting earlier with Sophie the glass mentor from the Mastercrafts program about how unglamorous the craftspersons lifestyle is. She is coming to demonstrate with HCA at MERL too. Sophie recently had her old ford escort stolen so is trying to find a cheap hire car to fetch her gear from London to Reading and I am driving down after work, arriving late, sleeping in my van ready for an 8.30 start at the museum. Neither of us would swap for a desk job though.