NYE 2011

NYE 2011, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

We're hosting a New Years Eve fundraiser party at our centre, with help from friends Kindafunkyradio.com and Sound-hub.com

It's been two years since we last hosted an NYE party so we're very excited!

BBC East Midland Today Review

We had a brilliant interview on East Midlands today news. It was broadcast twice, the first one going out live.

If you were watching at the time, Check out the Live interview online:
BBC iPlayer film of the News

Otherwise visit: BBC East Midlands Today

Award Nomination by local MP

Pauline Latham the MP for Mid Derbyshire has kindly nominated The Drop Inn for a National award. We ae so please to be nominated it means a lot to us and shows there is a great deal of support out there. If we win we also get awarded £10,000, which is incredible.

Please visit the Pauline Latham Article

QR Scan Codes

QR Scan Code, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Scan this QR code with your smart phone. We are going to put this code on the new batch of stickers and a lot of the new wave of promotional material.

We have also had the idea of putting these codes inside the centre linking to relevant information about what we do online. For example there will be a code for our band room that will give information about the band room when scanned off the wall.

Di Promotional Banner

Di Promotional Banner, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Thank You Signs Express Derby for making a very bold and colourful pop-up banner for us. It will get used with our new promotional hand outs when we do presentations.

Eighteenth Safe Rave Promo

F710[4]_Eighteenth, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The last 'Safe Rave' of 2011 is coming round. It may be the last of this year but it's a first for Live music. We have booked Just James the winners of the Sound Hub Battle of the Bands 2011 for the headlines. They do originals and covers of Dnb, Hiphop, Electro and dubstep. They are well worth seeing. Also on the Line up we wil see the legendary Shookz and resident DJ's Patchwerk and Skairpigg <<<

Node56 - Update

We've not got a website up and running yet but we have set up a Facebook page to get people introduced to Node56. Which if you are unfamiliar with Node56, it is a Limited company set up to trade with the great assets the Drop Inn has build over the ten years of opening as a charity.

Please get familiar with The Drop Inn's new family member, and Like on Facebook:

Halloween Party 2011

IMG_0936, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The staff had to wear compulsory fancy dress costumes.

IMG_0933, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

One of a favorite Scary costumes. There wasn't many Youth that dressed up, but the ones that did had make the effort with some brilliant costumes.

IMG_0926, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

This is some of the scary decorations put up to make the Drop inn look haunted. It looks amazing! Thank You to Andrea, Shush, Ant and some of the Drop In Youth so setting it all up.

Please Follow

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New stickers

We have made a few new sticker designs, and printed off a few hundred. Grab them at our centre and get tagging everywhere.

NODE56

NODE56 rev2, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Node56 is a Limited company ran buy volunteers of the Drop Inn. It is a Events organising and marketing company, who also run media workshops in communities. Node56 also trades for the Drop Inn and will raise regular small amounts of money to donate to the Youth Charity. It's planning to start trading the beginning of 2012. Looks like next year will start of with another new member to the Drop Inn family. We will keep everyone updated with the progress of Node56.

Deviantart Profile

We have set up a Deviantart profile to upload all out creative idea's. We have got a Sound Cloud Profile for our music, Youtube for films, Flickr for Photo's, and on most of the major social networks for contacts. There was never a play for our creative arts projects, so we've set this profile up to share our art ideas. There isn't much on there yet but keep watching it will be filled with art soon enough.

Click Here to see Deviantart profile

Halloween Party Poster 2011

Halloween 2011, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

We do a Christmas party every year, so this year we have decided to celebrate Halloween in a bigger way as well.

There is loads of work going into the decorations and planning of this event. The Drop Inn is going to look really spooky and haunted.

FORUM Concept

FORUM isn't our internet forum it will be our the Drop Inn's art collective, much similar to the JamJar being the music collective and the Cinn being our Film collective. We like to keep each side of the Drop Inn organisation fresh with different brands for each area.

Really looking forward to getting this one moving, we've created some amazing art pieces in the past, so we want to push more of the arts side this year.

/// Creative Projects 2011 (End)

/// Creative Projects 2011 End, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

We are starting to promote our projects seasonal and in groups of 4. This is the first line-up of /// Creative Projects leading up to the new year.
- Dance + Poi
- Djing
- Reactive Graffiti
- Games Design

Each creative projects season we will try and run 2 or 3 standard projects we always run, and then at least 1 or 2 new ones.

The new project in this line-up is the Games design, which we are really excited to announce and can't wait to start!

Child Care starts again

The Belper School contract for Child Care alternative education has started again. We've had an excellent pass rate so far so good look to the new group

12 / 09 / 11

DSC03018, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

What we look like now, it will be all changing for the even better soon. We have some big plans for next year

New Stickers 2011

To follow the styling of the new logo brand we have also launched some new stickers to put around. The original ones were made up of vinyl and didn't last very long, and also didn't have the website included. Now the new ones are printed and laminated so they last longer, they look smarter because they are digitally printed and they also include the website.

Look out for the new stickers there is plenty to go around (especially around the world)

Bank Holiday BBQ and Party

It was a great turn out with loads of new faces turning up for the BBQ and party. It was lots of fun. We were hoping to have a release on the dates for the projects plan up until December for everyone, but it's not quite ready, so anyone that is interested in what we have planned please either look on here, the social networks or call in and visit again.

Cheers,
The Drop Inn Team x

Signed up to Grant Net

We have signed up to the brilliant Grant Net in the hope we can find some funding for next year. Things are looking extremely tight again, so we nee to start looking for some big bids to ensure our survival of next year and the future. If anyone finds anything they think will fit our organisation or is good with funding bids please let us know. Thank you

Frankenstein level up

We are looking for funding to mend two of Frankensteins feet (Bass speakers), repair an amp, buy new cables and hopefully buiod some massive bass speakers to bring him up to a 5k system

Olympic Torch Next Stage

Adie has made it to the next stage after being nominated by V to carry the Olympic Torch next year. Well done Adie, this is getting really exciting now. We'll find out in December if He gets this opportunity.

Wikipedia Setup

We are still in the process of setting up a Wikipedia page of information. We are still looking for help with the account set up if anyone knows anything about it please.

New News Structure

We have been falling behind on our Blog this year due to the amount of projects and events we've been involved in. You will get to hear about all the positive work we've been doing this year in the next few weeks. This is the second apology this year for the lack of blogging. We think we have come up with a new idea to keep things updated better.

We are now going to be running blog sessions every Thursday, so as well as the staff blogging the news the youth will also get the chance to voice their opinions and evaluate projects, workshops and events. This way everyone following our blog will get a wider news coverage, written in different styles. It will also create opportunities for the youth to get into creative writing and start covering their own events as youth reporters. We're starting it next Thursday if anyone is interested.

For everyone else please keep looking at our blog and clicking on previous dates as the news will be filling all the gaps for each Month we've been open.

Y Not Festival 2011

Y Not Festival, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The Y Not festival involvement was different again. We only supplied a P.A system, a few games, and DJ's. So we could focus on the music more than the artwork.

This was the open mic sessions on the Saturday in the Cider and Hog roast tent.

All weekend the tent we helped out with got a brilliant response.

Jasper at Y Not Festival, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

We managed to get Jasper one of our volunteers onto the open mic. He only got to play a few songs but blew everyone away. It was awesome, and made us feel very proud. Thanks Jasper!

Y Not Festival, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

This is the tent at night just before the DJ's stepped up to play some house and techno.

The whole weekend had a brilliant response and raised £400 for the Drop Inn.

Re:space Cinn Plans

We are looking at ways to improve our projection space. We are thinking of adding surround sound and boxing the projector in properly. The essential work will be the re-building of the roof, so we can use the space above for storage and put better lighting inside. We are trying to raise some funds for all this work, and hoping to start the work before the New Year.

Coppice Brook Clean up

Coppice Brook Clean up, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

We started where the Coppice Brook meets the River Derwent, near Belper Rugby Club.

We fetched 4 bin bags full of rubbish from the first section of the brook.

Coppice Brook Clean up, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The second section of the Coppice brook we cleared was through Belper Parks Nature reserve. It was here we found an old inflatable boat, sledges, newspaper bag, and loads of broken glass. This section took a lot longer to clean up.

We filled the back of a land rover with all the rubbish. The next stage is to sort through all the bags and send it off to be recycled.

Olympic Torch Nomination

Adie has been nominated to carry the Olympic Torch to represent the voluntary sector. He was nominated by V after winning the Vinspired National award earlier this year. Fingers crossed Adie, it's amazing news!

Skate-BasketBall

The sun or lack of sun must be getting to us. First the concept of Street Animation now the invention of a sumer extremely extreme sport. It could work we have a skate ramp and a basketball hoop, just need to work out how to make it a little more safe, then game on.

Street Animation Concept

We've done Street Dance, Street Graffiti, Street Music styles so we thought we would try and develop a Street art concept. Lets see where this idea goes

Shookz New Music Video

Summer Programme

We have wanted to put a summer program together for years and aim it to a slightly younger age and up to 17. It would run like an out of school arts and crafts projects. With all the busy events we've had over this year we won't have tim to plan one, but it's in te pipeline for 2012. We probably wont do as many festivals so we're thinking of staying local to our centre and running some creative workshops.

Build-a-Band wk3 - Changes

A few people were a bit unhappy about the song choices to try and cover. Everyone in the group has different music tastes, which is a great thing but difficult to find a happy medium for playing in a band together.

We have decided to move this project to next year, or the end of this year. Instead we are running Jamming sessions every Thursday and other open night by request. The jamming was the most enjoyable part of this project, and it also gives people the chance to musically gel with others, then potentially think about building a band.

We will keep people posted on the progress of Jam sessions and let everyone know when we are ready to run the Build-a-band project again.

Roots Project 2011

Roots / Back in the day project is getting the current generation of youth to look through our files of old pictures and projects and scan it, then the staff will type a brief bit of news about it and blog it. Whilst the youth can find some current news and photo's and blog it next to the old news to compare we we are 10 years later. It's similar to the bygones page of the Belper news and should be a lot of fun doing it. It will also show the current generation of youth how we started up over 10 years ago

Press Pack Idea

After all the attention we are getting over this summer we would really like to put a press pack together for when we are doing out reach work so people can discover who we are when we come out to work with them.

Build-a-Band wk2 - Jammin'

Drum Marathons, then added bass lines, with Keys and Guitar. The second session everyone really enjoyed, just having an extended Jam session.
There was some disagreement on what to try and cover, but everyone worked it out and covered a couple of tracks. Everything is sounding pretty good so far.

Out The Box Festival 2011

JamSource Tent, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Setting up our tent on arrival. There is still loads of work to do from this point.

JamSource Tent, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The JamCorner with some of the Nano Peeps from Bearded Theory Festival

JamSource Tent, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Looking across the tent from the JamCorner you can see the 3D Bird Jigsaw and right the other side you can see a P.A system set up with more art created by Adie. The other art piece was some levitating boxes to represent out the box influences. When finished it looked a small but very intriguing tent.

Recording of some of the Jam sessions in the Jam source tent.
Jam session at Out the box festival by thedropinn

Build-a-Band wk1 - Intro

We will fill all these gaps in the news very very soon, keep looking back at dates, because we keep filling in loads of other news from as far back as March now :) Build a band news will pop up in the next week!

Website Update

The new site has had over 1000 views now in it's pre-launch. The official launch will be announced as soon as we have finished the planned updates on it. There is some new links ad images being added to it. There is 8 new pages planned, and some changes in design. The template will remain the same, it works really well. Now we've had a few months of feedback we can make the improvements and then announce the official launch. It's really exciting, we have some amazing new idea's to improve the site.

Follow us on Twitter

Follow @dropinntweet

Qype Profile

We have just registered to the QYPE website, which will hopefully give some people the chance to find us and write reviews about their visits to the centre.

Visit The Drop Inn, Belper on Qype

If your familiar with QYPE please add us as a contact and write a short review and rate our Charity. If you don't have a profile it doesn't take long to sign up for one.

Hope to see you on their with reviews about us.

Thank You

Jamsource tent Promo

Jamsource tent Promo, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

We are really excited about this festival especially after the buzz of our first in May.

At this one we are only supplying some experimental workshops, so we can focus more on the art side for this festival.

Hope to see you all on the 17th June

2011 Marketing Campaign

Work has begun on our 2011 Marketing Campaign. We have never really done one, but are going to try. The idea is to tie all the amazing idea's and projects we have done and are doing this year and then promote them better.
The organisation is taking some great new directions which is changing the face of it again, while keeping the focus back on the Youth in our community. Hopefully this Marketing Campaign will be fun to create, with the idea's coming from our current young people, which will be giving most of the information and content to put into it. This will hopefully attract even more young people in the future, and also get the positive work the Young people have done noticed to a wider audience.

Belper People Profile

We've just found this website for local businesses which we thought we should be on. Check it out on:BELPER PEOPLE !!

Building Plan final decision

We have decided we cant afford the extra rent for the other building joined to our Jamjar room. After the survey done, the surveyor had said we would have to put too much money into making it safe, which unfortunately we couldn't afford as well at paying the extra rent on the building.

It was going to be our own dance studio, so instead we will look at improving the facilities in the main room for dance projects.

Build-a-Band Poster

Build-a-Band Poster, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The Build-a-band project is starting a week after people get back from the half term break.
It will run on every Tuesday night from the 14th June. This project has been in the pipe line for a while, but it seems now we are involved in quite a few events it would be even better to have some bands who started from our centre.
Plus the people involved in this project will get some amazing opportunities to play some exciting live events.
Come down and meet some new musicians and have fun Jamming the first few weeks. Hopefully see you on the 14th June.

New Company Name?

We have been setting a company up to act as the Drop Inn's trading arm, with all the extra money passing through for all the events. We just need a name for it, any suggestions please email us

Jamsource tent Promo

Jamsource tent Promo, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The crazy poster for the crazy Jamsource tent @ Out The Box Festival.

We'll be Jamming with open Source Art creating some unique sounds and visuals to compliment the already exciting local festival.

Graffiti Academy Live

The Drop Inn Teamed up with Urban Canvas and Urban Projection to help put on an under 18's night on at Donut Studios in Chesterfield. The night was organised by Urban Canvas who had ben running a graffiti project at the centre and set up a group of young people known as The Graffiti Academy. This event was set up to exhibit the work and hopefully sell some of the art work on. The event also included live workshops from Urban Projection, who were running Light Graffiti workshops and supplying some amazing visuals for the DJ back drop. The VJing was very impressive, see the video below. The young people in attendance were more attracted to the light graffiti workshops which were a huge success.
The Drop Inn supplied the resident youth DJ Skairpigg and DJ Shookz who has ran DJ workshops for over 6 months at The Drop Inn centre. The music was enjoyed by a group of young street dancers from the Donut Centre. Unfortunately the music was a bit too heavy and a bit much for the younger members attending the centre. The Drop Inn aims the Friday night youth provisions to the young people on the street and attracts more 14 - 17 year olds, where as the Graffiti Academy Live was geared up more for 11 - 14 year olds with live workshops to engage in. If The Drop Inn was to get involved next time we would know to pitch the music for a younger age. It was still fun all around. Our resident youth DJ really enjoyed it. It was also very nice to finally make contact with The Donut Studio and meet the staff you guys are doing a brilliant job, keep up the good work. It was also a great pleasure to finally meet Urban Projections which we would love to do some projects in the near future with. Please check their video for the night out below.

Festival Vibe Pics of BTF '11

Please Check out the Festival Vibe pitures of Bearded Theory Festival they look awesome!

BTF 2011 - Film

Here is what we did over the 3 days at Bearded Theory 2011. We were very busy for a tiny organisation. It was an incredible response from all who attended our arena, we had so much fun doing it. We hope to return in future and do more, it was one of the best weekends of The Drop Inn's life. Thanks Again BTF !!

BBC Radio coverage of Bearded Theory 2011

We get a few mentions through this show. Whitemoor were really good, they impressed everyone and covered the whole festival in promo stickers and posters, thats the way to do it Derby! Check the BBC Interview with Whitemoor who had just come out of the Drop Inn arena after playing their very enjoyable performance. Looking forward to seeing you guys in the near future!

BTF 2011 Day 3

What an amazing weekend so far, we are on the final day now. After the hectic and very lively performances the Friday and Saturday we have programmed a more chilled out line-up for the Sunday with acoustic, Jazz and a Hip-hop DJ to finish. To open the Sunday we had an acoustic Duo from Derby called "Hayley and Andra" who were beautiful to listen to first thing Sunday, it really set the mood for the planned line-up for the rest of the day. The second act was booked by Bearded Theory and from Sheffield called "Chloe Jade" who is a solo acoustic artist, all we can say is wow what a beautiful and powerful voice. So far so beautiful, what a contract to the heavy music we played last night. Perfect balance. Check her out - Chloe Jade "Paradise 9" followed Chloe-Jade who were also booked by Bearded Theory and played some psychedelic-rock which picked the pace up a bit but remained chilled enough for the Sunday vibe. Next we had Belper Based Band "Unknown Creatures" who are an experimental Jazz / breaks band, very interesting and very creative music. They were very much appreciated with there funky Jazz styles. They don't rehears it's almost like a Jazz Jam session where all 3 musical geniuses follow each other and take it in turns to lead. Amazing! The 5th Sunday act sees the return of "Jasper in The Company of Others" one of the amazing bands to play on the Friday early on. They have returned already to give the crowd more of their happy Vibe excellence. This time round there was twice as many people in our tent. What a performance, one of the high lights of the weekend!! "Richard Clark and the Rafters" from Worcester and known as illustrators in music stepped on the stage to lead up for the Sunday headline. Their style was very technical and original again. No-one was jumping around to these guys just sat mesmerized by the lovely sounds. The last of the Sunday Bands saw "Robinson" who is also from Worcester and has played the Bearded Theory before. He returns after touring America with some amazing sounds. The gypsy style music was awesome and got everybody back up drinking and having a lot of fun. Great end to the live performances check Robinson out here: England Bleeding Music Video The last act of the weekend to close The Drop Inn arena is "Squigz" a insanely talented Hip-hop DJ, master at turntablism, scratching that itch. He wowed people with his beat juggling and scratching skills. What a great show to end with, we've covered as many genre's of music we can this weekend, this was the final wow till our tent finished and went quiet. Over the weekend we have had Graffiti Workshops, Art Installations, Jazz, Acoustic, Rock and Blues, Indie, Gypsy Rock Electro, House, Techno, Dubstep , Drum and Bass, Beat boxing, MCing, and many more styles. Di-versity! We've had so much fun, please check out the film documenting the whole weekend. Massive Thanks to All involved all who supported us and especially Bearded Theory for having us there.

Website over 500 hits

Our new generation of website has had over 500 hits in it's first Month. Most of this is due to the success of the Drop Innvaders game. We are hoping to do a press release about the website after the Bearded Theory Festival is out the way.

BTF 2011 Day 2

Opening our the second Day of The Drop Inn Arena is "Smoke Stack" a Worcester based Rock and Blues band. They blew everybody away with there amazing performance, unbelievable Rock and Blues which instantly drew people into our tent and set us up with an amazing start to the day. Through the day as well as the live entertainment on the stage we also have a 30 foot Graffiti wall being created through the day from Urban Canvas. Check them out here - Urban Canvas.

The second band to perform was Belper Based band "Whitemoor" who have been very supportive of The Drop Inn over the years, and always put on a brilliant show and get great media coverage. They were interviewed by Radio Derby straight after the performance. Well done Whitemoor it was a great performance, we're very happy to have a widely recognised local band perform on our stage.

"SuperKaine" were the 3rd band to perform who are also from Worcester. This 3 piece band make such a heavy sound which absolutely rocked out tent and pushed the sound systems limits. Proper Rock and Rock! We had seen SuperKaine perform as only a two piece band at our 10th Birthday weekend, after we heard they now have a new bass player as an extra person we booked them straight away.

The next act was "Panic Dance" a due from London who were booked by Bearded Theory to perform in our tent. They were very different but also very good. Using a laptop with backing music they produced, it gave a electro feel to the live music you were hearing, great performance which set up perfectly to our main headline. Check Panic Dance out on - Panic Dance SoundCloud.

HEADLINE: "THePETEBOX" one of the Uk's best Beat boxers! The Petebox absolutely boomed out tent we had 800+ people crammed into out arena all mesmerized by this beat box legend from Nottingham. We had all generations of people watching this completely different kind of performance. Definitely the busiest response of the weekend, and a great choice for headliner! check THePETEBOX out: Where is My Mind Performed by THePETEBOX.

Check out this vid of our headline act THePETEBOX on facebook:

THePETEBOX @ BTF 2011

After the unbelievable performance from our headliner, we followed it up with our resident Youth DJ's Patchwerk and Skairpigg, who had attended our DJ workshops ran by Shookz. After the workshops they kept practicing their DJ skills and became resident DJ's at our National Award Winning 'Safe Raves' under 18's night. Now they are playing in front of 100's of people at massive local festival. As Shookz said in the interview, "I'm proud of them!" We all are, what an amazing Youth opportunity! Well done to both of you for standing up there and performing outstanding DJ sets.

The 3rd DJ to step up is known as the dub demon "Operand" who we met through running events at our own centre and aslo one of the resident DJ's for Kindafunkyradio.com. Operand tore the place appart with some fearsome dubstep nasties.

 Taking over from the dubstep was "Maestro" who boomed out the Drum and Bass which attracted a lot of ravers to our tent who stomped and kicked the grass away. The atmosphere was unreal, the teant was busier again, alive with everybody inside dancing and skanking to the sounds of Drum and Bass.

Finally our last act to close the Saturday night was "Shookz" a Local signed DJ and producer who has made an appearance on Radio 1 and played some massive venues and festivals. Shookz was playing alongside "MC Spyda" one of the legendary MC's you may know from the Pendulum track Tarantula. This was our 2nd Headline for the weekend. It finished the second night on a massive high again with everyone leaving our tent bouncing. Check out a track from Shookz and MC Spyda: Balaclava.

You can't really compare the second day to the first because of the extreme diversity between the artists performing. The second day was much busier, but the whole festival was much busier on the Saturday. Was a phenomenal response over the two days, we are absolutely buzzing about what we've done so far, really looking forward to our programmed chilled out band Sunday tomorrow.

BTF 2011 Day1

Our first day at Bearded Theory and we are still panicking around setting things up. We have all the sound system set up and stage 80% ready. Just need to finish walking all the art work around, attach the graffiti boards to a fence and finish moving the stage around to work with bands and a movable DJ box. First band has arrived and everything is ready ... Lets rock this! Opening the Drop In Arena is Youth Band "Monkey's Uncles" a Youth band from Pinxton, Derbyshire. Their Youngest member is 14 and oldest 17. What an opening! They are an Arctic Monkey's tribute band and were amazing! Well done guys. Next up we've got "Jasper in Company of Others" (Jasper Tunes) Who are a Indie Folk band from Worcester. Jasper is one of our volunteers, and has run some amazing live music projects with our youth. They had a brilliant response, "Happy Vibes all around." The 3rd Band is another Worcester based band called "This Wicked Tongue" They absolutely rocked our tent with there big stadium style sound, really powerful rock and roll music. (Check their SoundCloud) 4th We have good friends of The Drop Inn, Belper Based band "Riptide" who are a high energy indie / pop band. They performed really well with some of the catchiest songs. The kind that were in our head all day. Cheers Riptide, check this track out - This Could Be The One. What an awesome start to the Weekend! The bands were all amazing and all so different in their own style. Quick celebration for band diversity for the first day. Now we are swapping over to DJ's ... Our opening DJ is a local house DJ and producer called "Dirty Sh**TY Bear" who warmed the stage up nicely with some rolling deep house beats, funky fresh and a nice smooth change over from Indie bands. Nice work Mr Bear. Check his SoundCloud out (Dirty Sh**ty Bear) Stepping the tempo up a bit from house to more Elecro House, we have "The Stunt Brothers" who are based in Matlock, Derbyshire. They have played loads of venues and ran their own electro night around Derbyshire. Everybody is waking up and starting to party hard in our tent. Following the Stunt brothers is "Ricky Meakin" who runs a big electro night called Love Bug and is a resident for Gatecrasher. Things are warming up even more in The Drop Inn arena, it's now fully converted into a club style night. (Ricky Meakin SoundCloud) The 4th DJ of the night is "Nathan Hadley" who is a resident for Gatecrasher and also a resident DJ out in Ibiza. Now the techno starts, floor filler after floor filler. Our Arena suddenly gets a lot more packed with crazy dancers loving the Ibiza style vibes. (Nathan Hadley) The closing DJ and last performer of the first night at Bearded Theory is "Dave Angle" another close friend of The Drop Inn and runs Kindafunkyradio.com. Angle played some absolute blinding tunes, whipping the crowd into a dance frenzy. What a finish to the first night, everyone left with huge smiles on their face. We had an amazing first day, Thank You for all the support on our first day, same again tomorrow. Well kind of, we have a totally different line-up style with 2 headline acts!!

Future Sponsors

We've sent some begging letter out at the beginning of the year, and heard back from a couple of companies who are willing to sponsor our community project. Please let us know if you know of an established company willing to sponsor our Local Youth Project, currently we only have one Sponsor. Companies can sponsor us a week a year which is £200, a lot of money to us, but it would mean then we would only have to find 51 more weeks of rent next year.

Please help us find a couple more sponsors,

Thank You x

Heage DnB night II

After the success of the First DnB night set up by Shookz, the Windmill Inn booked 3 more nights.
This was the second one and saw some more people turning out to have a bounce.
Each time the Drop Inn gets £40 for the hire of their P.A system and Decks, (Frankensteins Arms and head)

Out The Box Festival Promo

Out The Box Festival Promo, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Just a little Promotional Profile Picture ready for Out The Box Festival June 17th.

DJ booth for BTF

DJ booth for BTF, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

We build our own customised DJ booth for The Bearded Theory Festival. This was after panicking realising we didn't have a table big enough for all the DJ equipment.

It does look quite smart even if we do say so our selves.

Company update

If we haven't told you before we are in the process of setting up a sister company to the Drop Inn, which will act as a trading are to sell the services of the charity at a commercial rate. The profits will then feed back into the charity like a social enterprise to support and stabilize the charity financially in the future.

Graffiti Academy Live Poster

Graffiti Academy Live Poster, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Advert for the Graffiti Academy Live event where we are supplying the music to go with Urban Canvas and Urban Projections workshops. We'll be bringing along our two Youth DJ's

Willington Arts Festival illustration board

Willington Arts Festival illustration board, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

This was one of the illustration pieces the young people at Willington Arts festival created. The Young people who took part had to think how to get different shades and create illusions of different colours using patterns and different shading techniques with the selection of limited coloured marker pens.

BTF Drop Inn Arena Boards

We are designing the Arena boards today. We'll have three for the Main arena explaining what is programmed for when, with all the correct times for the artists. There will also be one for the workshop tent which will also have a description of all the live art pieces. Then we are having a final one explaining what the Drop Inn is as an organisation.

Drop Innvaders New Designs

New Space Ship

New Space Ship, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Here is one of the new designs for the Drop Innvaders Game competition to design new items for the online game

Wip Boss Alien

Wip Boss Alien, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

This is another design. Very interesting idea to introduce aliens to the game. Think the idea with this new enemy would be that they emerge from a planet and you have to blow the planet up to stop the aliens coming out and attacking you.

BTF Drop Inn Arena Programme

Programme

Arena Programme, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

This is the Full Arena Programme with all the Programmed entertainment over the weekend.

Drop Innvaders Update

We still haven't promoted or had any press release on our game yet, we have just slowly been passing it around Facebook.

So far it has had 360 plays in it's first month, we are so happy. If you haven't played it yet follow the link below:

DROP INNVADERS GAME

Coppice Brook Clean up

We are joining another local community group to help clean up sections of the Coppice brook that runs through Belper.

This project will involve some of our Young people and we are hoping to make it an intergenerational project and involve some of the older members of the community through Linking Lives.

The idea being the Young people will clean it up and document the Clean up and the Older Members of the Community can help out by pointing out rubbish and maybe supply refreshments at certain check points, they can also tell stories and the history of the Coppice Brook, to illustrate the importance of keeping it clean.

This project is planned for some time in July, We will keep you all posted on the planning and updates.

New Graffiti Illustrations

New Graffiti Illustrations, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Adie and Billy have added more to the Graffiti Illustration wall. It's really starting to fill out now and look amazing!

New Graffiti Illustrations, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Looking great on the close up, there is so much detail going into it

Kindafunkyradio.com Broadcast 21/04/11

Catch The Drop Inn Show this Tonight on Kindafunkyradio.com at 6pm till 7pm feat DJs Skairpigg & Patchwerk (The Drop Inn Resident DJ's)

Dance Peer 2 Peer Workshops

Some of the Youth that have been involved in previous Dance Workshops have put together some basic dance routines to teach people at The Bearded Theory Festival in workshops.

They are looking very good and a lot of fun. Some of the dances are being put into a performance being put together by Adie and Sarah the student on Placement from Derby Uni.

Soundcloud Remix Competition Idea

Now we have our Soundcloud profile up and running with some of our own tracks on their we are wanting to promote the profile, and get some more interesting tunes on their.

Shookz and Jasper collaborated on a Drum and Bass track a few months ago and have given it to The Drop Inn. Then Shookz came up with the idea of running a remix competition and host it on our Soundcloud.

Soon we will be uploading the different elements to this track for people to download and remix, The best remix will get featured on the home page for thedropinn.org. There might even be more free music give aways for the winner.

We'll let you know when the track is up there ready to start remixing, it will be after the Bearded Theory Festival, so some time the end of May early June.

Formula 'Safe Rave'

Formula 'Safe Rave', a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The 3rd 'Safe Rave' of 2011 is the Formula filth one, with resident DJ's and volunteer Ben Gregory Performing.

We tried some new toys out like MP3 encoded decks fed into the iMac.

It was an unusual 'Safe Rave' wasn't as busy as the others but it was still a good one.

Clothes Order [9]

We are hoping to have this order ready for the Bearded Theory Festival. We have a few t-shirt designs done for the Resident Youth DJ's and for the staff. We have also tried to get the logo embroidered onto a jacket. There is even more items on this order, the orders keep growing each time

Build-a-band Idea

Many years ago in the first couple of years The Drop Inn had it's very own House band. Now we have the Jamjar (Band Room) and no house band to use it all the time. We have bands come down to Jam in there, but we want to set up a Drop Inn house band again now. It would be amazing now we are getting involved in local festivals, the house band could open our stage each time.

It would be a lot of fun and also useful for communication between the local band scene. The student from Belper School who did the 3rd week of work experience enquired about the dormant project and was more than happy to take it on.

We'll post up when this project is planned to start, it should be not too long after The Bearded Theory Festival

Skydive Money collection

We are hoping to have collected all the Skydiving money by the end of May, could all the people collecting try and have the last bits in by then please.

Thank You everyone that has sponsored this crazy fundraiser, when it's all collected it should be a fair bit.

Work Experience WK3

We have our final Student who is from Belper School. The first group cleaned up in the first week, the second week was a lot of paperwork and data basing. Now this final week is aimed at sorting the music space out and planning some of the future projects.
The Student we have this week is studying music technology, so we can again cater for the different need of the student so they get the most out of their work experience week.
We have already asked them back to help with the build-a-band project and the Bearded Theory Festival, which gave them unbelievable motivation. They work very hard all week and really organised our JamJar music space.

All three work experience weeks have been completely different, all a great success with the students getting a great work experience out of it.

BTF Drop Inn Arena Face

Arena Face Poster

Arena Face Poster, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Blur Your Eyes to see The Drop Inn's Arena Face!

Heage DnB night

We hired some of the Frankenstein speakers to Shookz to run a Drum and Bass night in Heage at The Windmill Pub. It was a pretty good night. We've been given some more dates which will raise a little money for The Drop Inn each time.

Y Not Festival Proposal

After the confirmation we had for getting in Bearded Theory Festival we have approached a few others for this year. Y Not is the the other huge Derbyshire based festival of the year. Fingers crossed we get this one as well.

The Big Drop (Skydive Footage)

The Big Drop Footage is here from the 25 / 03 /11



Pals Take Leap of Faith
Pals leap of faith - Local - Belper News

Out The Box Festival Workshop List

Our tent at Out The Box festival is called Jam Source, and promoted Jamming with Open Source Art: Here are some of the workshops we will be running!

[1] Industrial Trash Drumming – build a one–of-a–kind percussion kit to jam with, devise a jumping industrial sound.

[2] Light Sculptures – bounce light off people and places to generate light sculptures, experiment with light trails then project your light traces as live visuals.

[3] Reactive Graffiti Illustrations – Design graffiti marker art foundation then add a U.V mask to make a unique 2 layer graffiti wall.

[4] 3D Jigsaw relays – We have a picture of what this 3D Jigsaw looks like complete, we want teams to build it as fast as they can. The fastest time wins a prize!

Work Experience WK2

This week we have a student for Landau Forte College who is training in Law. This week was different to the last week, with the student more involved in Paper Work and planning, which doesn't sound fun. The student did comment on how useful the week was and also how much they enjoyed their placement. Another successful week of work experience, one more week left.

Willington Arts Festival Poster

Willington Arts Festival Poster, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The Drop Inn team are running some workshops at Willington Arts festival on the 30th of April and the 1st of May.

We'll be running a drumming workshop on the first day and then illustration workshops on the second day.

Please check out the festival on: Willington Arts Festival

Derby 10k Run

Becky Haigh a member of the community who supports the Drop Inn has decided to do one of the Derby 10K runs and donate the money she raises to the Drop Inn Charity.

Becky managed to raise £150, which is amazing.

Thank You So much Becky x

Kindafunky Warehouse Party

KFR, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Dave Angle the headline DJ for the Kindafunky Warehouse Party.
Photo By Angel Simpson.

KFR2, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The smoke machine and some of the crowd at the warehouse party.

KFR3, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Kindafunkyradio warehouse party.
Picture by Angel Simpson

Linking Lives Coffee Morning

Linking Lives held a coffee morning, this included refreshments and some entertainment.

There was a series of films screened and some interesting live performances by Adie and Jasper.

The work experience students from Belper School enticed people in, and did a very good job helping out through out the event.

We saw a lot of new faces, looking forward to the next one.

Bearded Theory - Arena Story Poster

Arena Story Poster, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

This is a story of the Drop Inn's Bearded Theory Adventure!

This weekend will be full of SUPERKAINE’d individuals, and UNKNOWN CREATURES of the night who are INTERAVINIT. We’ll be travelling in RICHARD AND THE RAFTERS vessel known as the PARADISE 9. We’ll be sheltered under the URBAN CANVAS sails which are meant to be WHITEMOOR than black, they are shaped in a huge rectANGLE, and have been covered in u.v NANO dust and graffiti. Travelling Over RIPTIDE’s and through SMOKE STACK’s to support ROBINSON, a man who knows THE BEARDED THEORY, and is on YOUR PLATFORM’s. On the way RICKY MEAKIN shouts “Hey MAESTRO, where’s the happy music, I’m in the mood for a crazy PANIC DANCE, you know how it goes.” OPERAND searched for some good GRADE of music on the WIRELESS to warm the hearts of the travellers, and get people in the mood for this big weekend. He gets SQUIGZ to stop scratching his itch and lay down a SHOOKZ track, featuring MC SPYDA, who’s got has THIS WICKED TONGUE for lyrics. Suddenly these STUNT BROTHERS burst through the PATCHWERKS of THePETEBOX, which was sat full of beer on Richards vessel next to HAYLEY & ANDRA. The two brothers Accidentally SKAIRPIGG’s not JASPER AND THE COMPANY OF OTHERS. Who had been teasing this DIRTY BEAR who was happy BASKing in the sun with the PANTS PRIEST all the way to the DROP INN ARENA, which is one of 7 amazing areas at this Derbyshire Festival. NATHAN HADLEY tries to put on a serious face and tells them to Stop acting a MONKEYS UNCLE. He recites from THE CODE written years ago by one of the original traveller’s know as JIMBO DOOMFACE the pirate. The Travellers code speaks of KEDLESTON HALL island. The original tail of the island was discovered by Dr FRANKENSTEIN and inherited by CHLOE-JADES grandfather, who kindly translated the pirates code so people can find this PARTY.

If this story of adventure doesn’t makes sense, please visit the Drop Inn Arena 13^th – 15^th May 2011 at the Bearded theory Festival, Kedleston Hall. The only gaps in this story are you guys!

DJ workshops 2011 update

The DJ workshops are going very well with the experienced resident DJ's learning new more advanced skills ready for their performance at Bearded Theory in May. They are working on perfecting their set lists and getting loads of practice in.
The Monday night Drop-in DJ sessions are still going well with new faces calling in to have a go and mixing.

There will be a broadcast in April live on Kindafunkyradio.com for the young DJ's to perform their new sets. Looking forward to hearing them.

Work Experience WK1

7 Students from Belper School are on work placement at The Drop Inn. They are planning and running the Linking Lives Coffee morning planned for this Friday. They are also cleaning everywhere and re-painting some of the wall to smarten the place up.

They have re-painted the Games room and the Lads Toilet. The Drop Inn has never looked so clean, hope they all come back to keep it this clean.

Skydive for Charity Write up

Please have a look at this really good write up on This Is Derbyshire. We should have raised even more when it's all collected.

Signing preparation for Skydive

Signing prep for Skydive, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Adie signed all the safety preparation to Billy before they're were allowed to do the Skydive

The Big Drop (Skydive)

The Big Drop, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

7 People have decide to throw themselves out of a perfectly good plane to raise money for the Drop Inn charity.

Adie Stone: Inclusion Officer
Tom Stone: PP Manager
Ben Gregory: Trustee
Ant Baker: Volunteer
Ant Winson: Volunteer
Billy Alton-Wood: Young Member of the Drop Inn and deaf community
Dave Mellor: The Band Riptide

We've not counted how much we have all raised collectively.

Just before first Skydive, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The First Skydive Team look ready ...

Just after 1st Skydive, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The first team landing and with huge smiles on their faces

Skydive Media Coverage

Skydive known as THE BIG DROP for The Drop Inn. Not long now!

Pals take Leap of Faith, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Photo Taken by Belper News just before the Just!

Excuse for no news

Please excuse us while we fill in the massive gap in news from December. Should all be posted up in the next week now the website is working.

Bad excuse but it is an excuse.

x

New Building Survey

We have had two surveyors come out and look at the building. Truth be told the first one laughed and the ambitious project to convert the tattered building into a smart dance studio.

We have only asked the surveyors to price up the basics of the building first, so it becomes a usable space. It need repairs to the Roof, walls and the floor, before you find this amusing though, it is still possible!

We are now putting all our focus on raising what money we can towards the new building, it looks like the work is going to cost around £2000. No we have our target we will do what we can to raise these funds and hopefully take over the new building.

A Spring 'Safe Rave'

F710[2]_A Spring a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

This was all about the Drum and Bass mad March Hare. It saw the return of the favored DJ SHOOKZ, back by popular demand, and supported by the Resident Youth DJ's Skairpigg and PatchWerk!

We tried a new room lay out again, which made it sound even better and made a nice dance area, what the DJ's looked over.

This 'Safe Rave' was also dedicated to celebrate the life of Tom Chandler, one of our members who is sadly pass on. We stopped the music to have a minutes silence, and had a book to write messages to send to his family and close friends.

Vinspired National Awards 2011

Adie WON the Vinspired National Connect Award !!! Well done Adie, it's a very deserved award for all the voluntary work you have done in your community. We are so proud of you and so happy to have you on our team, well done again!



The Belper News Report:
Adrian lands top honour - Local - Belper News

Choreograph workshops

The Choreograph workshops are going well, the young team have come up with a few different short dance routines to teach people and are starting to think about the more complex routine.

It looks like a lt of fun, we cant wait to see how people respond at the Bearded Theory Festival

Uni Student Placements '11

Sarah has started from Derby University as this years student placement. She's been thrown straight in the deep end with a 'safe rave' to look out for and also all the build up to the confirmed festivals

My 1st Tattoo

My 1st Tattoo, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

This is not to encourage anyone else to get a Drop Inn tattoo. It's just to show the dedication from a staff member who has expressed how much the Drop Inn means to him.

Drop Innvaders

Drop_Innvaders, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The Drop Inn has become the first Youth Centre in The midlands to have it's own online game.

Drop Innvaders was design by John Hole a young person who has been involved in the Drop Inn and supported it for years.

We hope everyone enjoys our new game. Follow the link below:

Drop Innvaders Game

Out The Box Festival Proposal

We have been in touch with the organisers of Out The Box festival discussing what we might be able to bring to their festival.
Out The Box is held in Alfreton and is a small friendly festival, they have organised over 70 acts to perform over 3 days.
These acts include Jasper and Shookz two of the volunteers from the drop inn and the headline is Petebox also one of our friends.

The organisers would like the Drop Inn team to host a tent that will be running creative workshops. We are thinking of calling our tent 'Jam Source' which will promote Jamming with open source art. Once we have more final details of what workshops we will be bringing along we will keep you up to date. More exciting things to look forward to this year.

EdDi Proposal

EdDi (Education: Drop Inn) is going to be a package designed for Schools. It will offer 27 different alternative education courses.

We already run a variety of different courses for Belper School. Now we are offering them more courses and would like to start and approach other schools. This package is being designed now and hopefully finalised and being send out just after Easter.

Most of the package will probably not start till after the summer break, in September. We'll keep you up to date with any progress.

safe rave Package

We are putting together a business plan for rolling the safe raves out to other communities.

The package will include a series of courses and workshops to help develop the communities capability.

Choreograph workshop intro

From the success and interests that came out of the Dance workshops last year, we have planned to let some of the Young members involved run their own workshops.

This is the first planning meeting but the sessions will start immediately. The goal is to design some simple dance routines to teach people at the Bearded Theory Festival. It's kind of like peer to peer mentoring.

The Young people involved are going to Choreograph a few different dance levels of difficulty, so there will be some easy and very short routines and then a couple of longer ones that take around an hour to teach in full.

DJ Workshops 2011 update

The Dj workshops are going even better than the ones run lat year. There is loads of new young people Dropping in to have a go.
This time round there is a broader range of ability. The two resident Youth DJ's who were on the last DJ workshop round are now learning more advanced skills and also teaching the other young people the basics of Djing.

As before they are working hard towards a live broadcast on Kindafunkyradio.com which will be sometime in April!

10K Run Promo

10K Run Promo, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Becky Haige is running the Derby 10K run to raise some money for The Drop Inn Charity.
This is the first time someone outside the Drop Inn volunteer list has decided to do a fund raiser for us. It's very kind of Her, Thank You for thinking of us. Hopefully more people in future will thing of us when doing a Charity Fund raiser event.

Kindafunkyradio warehouse Party Promo

Kindafunkyradio warehouse Party Promo, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

The poster for The Kindafunkyradio warehouse party at The Drop Inn on the second of April. It's got a wicked line up, with DJ's traveling down from Manchester to play at our venue.

Jamjar Radio

Jamjar Radio Page Illustration, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

Our new website will eventually include an online radio broadcaster, called the Jamjar Radio.

It will be part of an Intergenerational Media Project.

We'll let you know when we start broadcasting!

New Website Pilot Launch

Projects Page Illustration, a photo by thedropinn on Flickr.

We have unofficially launched the website.

Which means the new design and generation of site is live and people can go on it, but we haven't promoted it and gone for an official launch yet.

We want feedback as to what people think of it so far!

Try it out: thedropinn.org