University of Local Knowledge (ULK) is a new project that celebrates the value of your local knowledge and skills, in all of their forms.

ULK will be launched at an outdoor celebration meal in Filwood on Saturday 26 June and Knowle West Media Centre (KWMC), who are running the project with Arnolfini, would be very grateful for any help you are able to give in the following areas:

• growing salad and vegetables for the meal
• donating sets of cutlery and crockery
• lending large white tablecloths (to be returned to you)
• volunteering on the day, helping with cooking and serving

Please bring any sets of cutlery and crockery to Re:store on Filwood Broadway and mark them for use at the ULK meal.

Keep an eye on the Projects page for more information.

KWMC would be very grateful for your help in launching the first phase of this exciting project.

From FareShare Bristol:

FareShare are a charity who distribute high-quality, in-date healthy food that has been rejected by supermarkets and food suppliers to projects and organisations working with vulnerable people.

Annual membership fees start at £500 and you can receive within the region of 2 tonnes of food per year (normally costing £3,000). FareShare would like to find out if there are Bristol projects and organisations who would benefit from their service. Even if you are unable to afford the annual membership cost, FareShare would like to hear from you.

Please contact FareShare on 0117 971 1005 or visit their website.

Despite local protests Knowle West has now lost two bus services – the 52 and long-campaigned for 91 which is being scrapped on the Easter weekend.

First Bus claims this is due to ‘low usage’ but has promised two new services towards the end of May. The 53a and 53c buses will run between Inns Court, Broadwalk Shopping Centre and Temple Meads – with the schedule to be confirmed.

Local resident Lyn Caple (61) was one of the protesters who helped to get the 91 bus service instated. She says: “Pensioners are suffering and Knowle West is getting more isolated. We are now being left high and dry and back to square one again.  I think this has happened since the free bus passes have come in – and they aren’t getting enough money.

“My mother is 88 and she can’t walk all the way to Melvin Square. We can now no longer get to Bedminster Down Cemetery…and it’s a hassle to get to Bedminster for shopping.”

Lyn says she has already met with First and is going to contact Labour MP for Bristol South, Dawn Primarolo, to help her cause.  First claims the 52 and 91 buses have been withdrawn because of low numbers using the services, many of whom were ‘concessionary pass holders’.

And the company says to make the services ‘commercially viable’ at least four times as many people would need to use them every day.

Justin Davies, Managing Director of First Bristol, Somerset and Avon says: “…It is not economically possible, nor environmentally friendly, for us to run empty buses, so where passenger numbers have fallen we have adjusted the frequency of bus services to better match this.

“Two bus services have been withdrawn entirely, this is because too few people have used them. We apologise for any inconvenience these changes cause local people.”

Read more about the 89/91 Bus Campaign here

Internationally renowned pinhole photographer Justin Quinnell will be working in residence at Knowle West Media Centre (KWMC) this summer on the ‘Sunrise Project’.

The Sunrise Project – Pinhole Photography

Drop into KWMC before the end of March and collect a ready-made pinhole camera or learn how to make your own from an empty can, some tape and a piece of light-sensitive paper.

300 cameras will be placed in gardens and secure positions around Knowle West for a 3 month period. During this time the photographic paper inside the camera will gradually expose, recording the movement of the sun. But what else could it record?

Justin’s residency invites you to think about the passage of time and how it is represented visually: what might have changed in your life by the time your photograph has finished developing? Might you have finished school? Welcomed a new baby?

The cameras will be collected at the end of June to coincide with Summer Solstice. Justin and KWMC hope to scan and edit the images for use in one or more of the following ways: a website archive; a book of photographs; an exhibition.

Getting Involved

If you or your group would like to learn how to make a pinhole camera please contact Justin or drop into Knowle West Media Centre (KWMC) on Leinster Avenue.  For any other enquiries please contact KWMC on 0117 903 0444 or visit their website.

Donations of empty drinks cans – particularly Red Bull – would be much appreciated. Please drop them into KWMC.

First Bus have announced a number of cuts to bus services in Bristol, including the 52 to Hengrove and the 91, which runs down Leinster Avenue and Novers Hill.

The 91 was introduced 6 months ago following a successful campaign by local residents, who protested over the removal of the 89 service, which served a similar route.  See the project article for more information.

First’s website states: “Service 91 was introduced as a trial in September, but has not proved popular with customers with on average only seven people using the service on each journey. As a result the service is being withdrawn.  Customers living on Leinster Avenue and Daventry Road may catch service 36 as an alternative.”

The service changes will come into effect on 4th April 2010.

In early 2009 Knowle West Media Centre commissioned artist Cluna Donnelly to explore the issue of transport in the area.  Cluna met with local residents and made a series of video clips that explore how life in Knowle West was affected by the withdrawal of the 89 bus service. The clips were combined to produce a longer film, which was shown at a meeting with First.