Posts Tagged ‘BSCS Bradley Stoke Community School Challenge’

Battle of Bands is A Sell-Out Success

Sunday, November 7th, 2010

Last night’s ‘Battle of the Bands’ at Bradley Stoke Community School, organised by Joel Ip and Sam Beaumont as part of their World Challenge fundraising activities, was a massive success. All 200 tickets snapped up in advance by local music fans.

Thornbury-based CASSETTE secured the highest number of votes from the enthusiastic audience, earning themselves a £200 First Prize courtesy of Bradley Stoke Matters as well as the chance to play a set at the Bradley Stoke Festival 2011, courtesy of Southern Brooks Community Partnership.

Runners-up, with an incredibly close number of votes, were Pan Arcadia – who very generously described the winning act as ‘awesome’ and Rasta Man Time.   All nine acts had the audience foot-tapping, arm-waving, clapping and – as the mood became more laid back – ‘moshing’ in a great music festival-like atmosphere.

Cassette told Bradley Stoke Matters “We are stunned and gobsmacked to have won. It’s surreal. We didn’t think we stood much of a chance against the local competition, especially Pan Arcadia who were amazing.”

Georgia Orwell (17), Rachel Osborne (17), Tim Boothman (16), Pete Brown (16) and Ed Ashford (16) have been playing together for 18 months, and previously came second in the Marlwood Battle of the Bands. This is their first competition win and they are delighted.

Organisers Joel and Sam were also delighted with the outcome. The event has added £1190 to their fundraising total, bring them a step closer to the experience of their lives of travelling to Cochin India.

Joel’s Mum, Kandis said “This has been a fantastic achievement on two levels. The first is the fact that it has really brought the community together, that so many people have been prepared to give up their time and resources to support the event. The second is that it has been such a great opportunity for young people to share their love of music. We really appreciate the publicity and sponsorship from Bradley Stoke Matters and would like to thank everyone for making the event such a success.”

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Local Bands Go Head To Head in Battle of Bands

Monday, November 1st, 2010
Nine young local bands will battle it out at 7pm on Saturday 6th November before a live audience who will vote for their favourite band and select the overall champion.

The evening promises a memorable event as these young talented musicians are bursting with enthusiasm and excitement. For recently formed bands Motivate, Empty Within and the Students this will be their first gig, while other entries like Cassette have been together for over two years and have a string of successful gigs. One thing they all share is a vision for success:

“Our dream is to play to thousands of people and they then sing our songs back to us!”  pan Arcadia

The winning band will be invited to play a 45 minute set, centre stage at the Bradley Stoke Community Festival in June 2011, courtesy of Southern Brooks Community Partnership and a cash prize of £200 courtesy of Bradley Stoke Matters Magazine.

All monies raised will be used by the event organisers, Sam Beaumont and Joel Ip, – two 15 year olds at Bradley Stoke Community School to fund an educational trip to India in August 2011 where they will be working on a community project as well as exploring the country and culture.

Full details are available on from the event website www.battlebands.org.uk.

Picture shows Bradley Stoke Band ‘Not So Anonymous’ with members Josh, Dylan, Ben, Joe and Hariet.
Do go along to this great event – tickets are just £5 and are available through the event website.

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Students at BSCS Raising Funds with Funny Feet for Abigail!

Friday, October 22nd, 2010

The young people at Bradley Stoke Community School raised an amazing £867.64 today for the Footsteps4Abigail campaign to help send 9 year old Abigail to the USA for an operation to help her walk.

The campaign, driven by Abigail’s mum, Carrie Newton-Smith, had declared 22 October ‘Funny Feet Day’ and has been busy encouraging local schools and businesses to do something funny, such as wear odd socks or strange shoes for the day, in order to raise funds for Abigail’s campaign.

Bradley Stoke Community School were happy to join in with the fundraising and organised a ‘no school uniform day’ for which students paid a minimum donation of £1 to NOT wear their uniform today. Some students fully entered into the fun of the day and came to school in their slippers and with ‘feet’ face-painted on their cheeks! A group of Year 8 students went even further, making a special effort to do an extra collection for Abigail asking teachers and friends to dig a little deeper and donate what they could spare. In just a few hours they had collected an additional £60!! Well done girls!

One of these Year 8 girls, Charlie, told me “We really want Abigail to be able to walk – we know just how very much it means to her and want to do what we can to help.”

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Battle of the Bands!

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

BSCS students, Joel Ip and Sam Beaumont, are are organising a ‘Battle of the Bands’ to help them to raise £3000 to fund a three week educational trip to South India in August 2011. They plan to make a difference by participating in a building project to benefit a local school and also to take on a trek.

Bradley Stoke Matters is sponsoring the event by providing the £200 First Prize money. In addition to the cash, the winning band / performer will be given the oppotrtunity to play a 45 minute set at the Bradley Stoke Community Festival 2011.

All local bands and performers are encouraged to enter the Bradley Stoke Battle of the Bands 2010. This could be your chance to promote your talent and help your band/act become a household name! Jo says “Whether you are a solo performer, a band looking for an opportunity to perform, or a group of friends wanting to share their music, please come and join us for what should be a great event”.

Application forms can be downloaded from the dedicated website www.battlebands.org.uk. The first stage of the competition is an audition, where competitors will be asked to perform live in front of judges. From the auditions, in October 2010, the panel of judges will select a maximum of 8 acts to perform live on stage at the battle final on 6th November 2010, where the audience will be able to vote for their favourite band and select the overall champion. Do make a diary note of this date, as it should be a great celebration of local music talent.

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Bradley Stoke’s Olympic Run

Friday, July 2nd, 2010
BSCS Students and teachers

Raring to go! The beginning of the 'Olympic Run' around Bradley Stoke

In celebration of National Sports Week and to promote working closely with their neighbouring schools, Bradley Stoke Community School organised two Olympic Runs on the afternoon of Thursday 1st July.

PE Teacher Ed Owen and seven Year 9 students ran with two specially hand-made ‘olympic torches’ to each of Bradley Stoke’s six primary schools in turn. Abbie Pearce, Duncan Bendall, Manga Ndlovu, Kate Brown, Sean Fahay, Jamie Williams and Will Macaulay set off from BSCS at 1.30pm on their 6+mile challenge.

Pupils and staff at St Mary’s Primary School gave the group a fabulous loud welcome, with cheers and by forming a human horseshoe for the runners to perform a lap of honour. The entourage collected two St Mary’s pupils, Tasha Draper and Nathan Hall, both in year 6, plus a chaperone , and continued their run to Baileys Court. Pupils from Baileys Court lined both sides of their playing field, clapping and cheering and enabling the runners to arrive in style. The pace had been so fast that the group were ahead of schedule, so a few impromptu races were held between the secondary school pupils and between the St Mary’s and Baileys Court pupils. The crowd went wild!

Heidi Sermulins and George Curnock, both in year 6, joined the run at Baileys Court, and continued with the BSCS students on to Meadowbrook. As they rounded the corner the group could hear the enthusiastic clapping and cheerig, and they were welcomed onto the school field with a massive human circle to run through, lined on both sides by pupils. The olympic torches were passed on to Sadelle and Jack , both in year 5 who could not wait to start their leg of the journey.

At Wheatfield there was yet more cheering, plus an impresssive Mexican wave from the whole school on the playground. Not content with putting two children forward for the event, Wheatfield produced 5 runners: year 6 Adam Thorpe and Matthew Farrant; year 5 Rebecca Halford and Emily Smart plus year 4 Matthew Binding. All 5 enjoyed the 0.8 mile run to Holy Trinity (they had looked up the distance so knew what they were letting themselves in for!)

Sports Day was in full flow at Holy Trinity school when the group arrived, though this did not dampen the welcome given. The runners enjoyed a lap of honour inside a human circle on the playground, before picking up the new team members Dominic Williams-Sarkar and Tasha Okoye. At this stage the year 9 runners were beginning to tire, so the year 6′s had to be asked not to run too fast for fear of leaving the older pupils behind!

On arrival at Bowsland Green, the last of the 6 primary schools, year 9′s took the opportunity to lie down on the grass for 2 minutes – but were soon on their feet again taking part in a couple of sprinted laps around the playing field – much to the delight of all the onlookers. Tejaswi Tiruvuru and Ben Sayers, both in year 6, took the olympic torches and joined the team for the final leg of the challenge back to BSCS. By this time, everyone was grateful to PE teacher, Ian Henry, who showed them a short-cut down through the Three Brooks Nature Reserve.

The team arrived back at BSCS to cheers from fellow students just after 3pm – well ahead of schedule and enthused by the experience. Tejaswi from Bowsland Green summed up everyone’s thoughts when she said “That was tiring but great fun!”

Bradley Stoke Matters followed the whole event with a camera (by bike) and you can see a range of photos of the whole challenge on our flickr album.

Wheatfield Pupils

Wheatfield Pupils set the pace for BSCS students to keep up!

At the same time a Senior Olympic Run took place, with BSCS pupils and a member of staff taking their own olympic torch between the schools in the Concorde Partnership – from Bradley Stoke to Patchway, to Filton High and back to BSCS.

The events were a great success, and culminated in a joint schools cross country festival in the late afternoon involving pupils in years 3 to 6. Congratulations to Dena Young and Ed Owen for organising such a great day!

We are pleased to have posted a full set of photographs depicting the challenge from beginning to end on our Flickr photo album. Do feel free to have a browse.

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BSCS Students Take on the Challenge of a Lifetime

Monday, June 21st, 2010

Bradley Stoke Community School students are planning for an educational expedition to South India.

16 year 10 and year 11 students from the school have committed to completing an 18-month programme of planning, Money Management and training in preparation for an expedition to South India in the summer of 2011.

The developmental programme managed by organisers, World Challenge, will encourage the students to learn through experience by confronting challenges they have never faced before while liaising with the company to organise their itinerary and working through a Money Management programme to raise their own expedition funds.

They will complete a 3-day Training Expedition at World Challenges Leadership and Development Centre in the Peak District to develop team working, leadership, communications and organisation skills as well as the vital expedition survival techniques.

Money Management events are already being planned to raise funds towards their £2995 expedition fee including:
Sponsorship from local businesses
Bag Packing at local supermarkets
Numerous School Cake Sales
Various other events in school

Their objective is to raise the money as a team and independently, without relying on their parents’ pockets.

In the summer of 2011, the team will depart for South India accompanied by their teachers, Mr Hill and Miss Edwards, and a World Challenge Leader who is responsible for ensuring the safety of all team members. The Challengers will alternate roles such as leader, accountant, cook, health and safety officer and transport coordinator to operate efficiently as a team. During the 3-week expedition, they will complete an acclimatisation phase to adapt to the food, culture and trekking conditions before tackling their physical phase, a main challenging trek and a cultural phase, a worthwhile project to enable the Challengers to give something back to the community in which they are travelling.

Although students will experience new boundaries of adventure, safety is the key priority of World Challenge. A tried and tested 24-hour safety and back-up system, In-Country Agents, highly experienced and qualified Leaders and comprehensive insurance ensure the highest safety standards possible.

Mr Hill said “The next 18 months are going to be a life changing experience for these students as they will gain skills they can use for the rest of their lives.”

There are still spaces available at the fundraising quiz evening taking place on Friday 25th June – see our events diary for full details. Students will also be bag packing at Morrisons on 11th September – and keep an eye on our events diary for future events and dates as soon as they are confirmed.

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