Pioneering People: the post-war photography of Richard Sadler

Exhibition catalogue from one of three Sadler exhibitions Jan - June 202

Monstrosity of Marvellous:An insight into William Mitchell’s Coventry sculptural artworks by Aaron Law

William Mitchell was an artist most known for his sculpture work in the 1960s and 70s. He has works across the world including San Francisco, Hawaii, Qatar, London and Coventry. Often abstract, his art can be seen in many public spaces and buildings utilising materials available to him such as fibreglass and concrete reliefs to add features to new developments. Over the years this work has been neglected but more recently many successful listing applications have been made in the UK including the Three Tuns mural in Bull Yard, Coventry. Some other notable examples include the stations of the cross in Clifton Cathedral, entrance panels at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral and the Hockley climbing wall in Birmingham. Further information about Mitchell’s work in his autobiography Self Portrait, The Eyes Within

How young volunteers learn in practice from established volunteers: an examination of volunteer learning in community radio in the UK

In this thesis I examined the learning in practice of fourteen young volunteers at four community radio stations in the UK. I queried what learning in practice as a volunteer constituted by examining how the participants accessed support and knowledge from established members, and how practice defined their volunteering and learning. Using an interpretivist methodology applied to private blogs and group interviews, participants recorded their perspectives for between six and nine months. Communities of Practice theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991) was applied to understand how the participants developed their learning relationship with established members. Analysis reveals that established members legitimised participant practice through three phases; an initial phase of broadcasting training where participants began at the periphery of the membership; a second phase of broadcast reviews that sought to develop their relationship with members; and a third phase of non broadcast activities to establish their membership. The relationship between the participants and established members meant the phases were not linear. Participants creatively constructed their broadcasts by developing a fragile, embryonic network of active citizenship (Kenny et al., 2015) to generate community content. In doing so not all participants wanted to establish themselves as members and engage in non-broadcast activities, and drew distinctions between broadcast practice on the periphery and the community development practice of established members. My original contribution to the literature is that by examining volunteering as a learning practice the hidden pressures and conflicts in relationship between newcomers and established members are revealed. I argue that becoming an established member of a voluntary organisation may not be for everyone, but that this does necessarily mean a loss of committed practice to the organisation. Initial volunteering opportunities that are exploratory and creative can establish commitment. I therefore link commitment to practice as a volunteer, rather than as a biographic strategy as suggested elsewhere in the literature

Spon End Doesn't Matter:by Martina Irwin, Judith Craig and Terry Sandison, Adele Mary Reed

An art/activist created film exploring how Coventry City Council ignored locals and their own guidelines to forge ahead with a road widening scheme

West Midlands Combined Authority State of the Region Report VR

VR Version of the State of the Region report, an annual report by WMCA which updates the public on the work of WMCA against a series of measure