Mick Jenkinson #RUOSTURNS10
Tell us how you were/are involved in Right Up Our Street. Tell us about your experience.
I was involved with the outset in the setting up of Balby Community Arts in 2013 after Balby was identified as part of RUOS’s brief as being one of the areas of Doncaster with particularly low participation in the arts. I was, and remain, treasurer of BCA and a member of the committee responsible for organising and delivering its arts projects locally. We have three regular events of which we are particularly proud: Balby by the Sea is our flagship annual fair, which is continually a triumph in providing a unifying celebration for the community; Skillshare is a craft group based at Balby Community Library, which has been successful in reaching demographics that are often not socially engaged; thirdly, Read to Write is a poetry appreciation group originally founded in Mexborough as a RUOS project in 2015 by the nationally acclaimed poet Ian Parks. The following year I was instrumental in inaugurating a Balby group at the Library, which continues still, and has been crucial to creating a vibrant wiring community in Balby – several of its regular participants are now published poets.
I have had the long-standing role of Associate and Community Advisor to ROUS, which has allowed be to contribute and have influence over the choice and delivery of projects in and around the town.
I have also worked on many occasions as an arts practitioner and performer, working in my chosen areas of poetry and music, delivering projects directly for RUOS and BCA.
What was your most memorable Right Up Our Street moment?
I find it impossible to whittle it down to one!
As the event that most captured the imagination of the town, I would have to choose the Museum of the Moon display at the Minster. Awe-inspiring.
As a life-changing event, I would choose being asked to arrange and perform, at the inaugural Ted Hughes Festival in 2015, a selection of the ballads and folksongs Ted had sung in his Cambridge undergraduate days.
From the point of view of personal satisfaction, delivering the Songs of our Town project in 2017 in collaboration with Ian Parks, which culminated in a CD of songs written during the project about our locality.
Finally, I have to add An Inside View from a Locked-down Land in 2021, the poetry compilation that formed a written dialogue between the poets of Read to Write and the residents of Doncaster’s Care homes, who had been so isolated during the lock-down periods of the Covid crisis. The sheer joy and amazement on the faces of the residents when they were presented with the final publication and the realisation that their words were part of a published book was inestimable.
Has your involvement in the project changed your approach to working in the arts?
Working with RUOS has opened my eyes to the artistic potential of the town, increased my skills in delivering arts projects, helped me learn to make connections for collaborative working, and also given me the opportunity to develop myself as a performing artist.
In your opinion, how does having a project like Right Up Our Street benefit the borough of Doncaster?
The factors that resulted in Doncaster having low arts participation are difficult to define and even more difficult to alter. The existence of a body/project such as RUOS is essential in providing a focussed message and momentum in order to engage potential audiences and inspire artistic ventures in the borough.
