Category: Australia

Cocktails at the end of the world

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Some nice feedback from a recent professional development session for library staff in Moreton Bay, Queensland.

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Project officer Karen Hewett from the town of Noosa evaluated an Innovation in Libraries training day run by State Library of Queensland together with Moreton Bay Libraries.

She wrote:

“If you have already had the pleasure of hearing Matt present, you will know to expect the unexpected. He had us replicating cocktails to find a solution to stop the world ending. Using a pack of playing cards with STEM careers on them, we managed to do just that.”

Sounds a bit far out? Here were the practical and applicable insights Karen took away from the session:

“We could easily replicate this activity in the branches during a team meeting. It would take about 10-15 minutes. It really cemented the concept that no matter what is thrown at you, if you look at it creatively you will find the tools to solve the problem.”

“Library staff constantly think on their feet to meet customers’ changing needs. It really made me appreciate the diversity of our team and how each of us has specialised skills making the collective team adaptable and resourceful.”

Read Karen’s full report at the State Library of Queensland website.

Let’s Do Something Awesome

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I’m off to the Australian capital Canberra tomorrow to work with Libraries ACT on their annual training day.

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We’ll be looking at creative approaches to community engagement, and sharing some neat little tools from my team, including the WELCOME Toolkit for programme design. Read more →

Marvellous, Electrical returns

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My newsletter Marvellous, Electrical is back, after a brief pause to get sorted with my next job.

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In this instalment, we’re joined by a quiet triathlete who was once the highest ranked openly gay civilian in Australia’s Defence Intelligence Organisation.

From beer-fuelled military ventures to haunted television shows and the strange world of endurance sport, check out Marvellous, Electrical: The Artists’ Rifles here.

What’s next

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From May, I’ll be joining the University of Southern Queensland for six months supporting “proactive, strategic, and sustainable engagement with key stakeholders and communities internal and external to USQ.”

Working with Professor Helen Partridge and her fab team in USQ’s Scholarly Information and Learning Services division, I’ll be acting as a coach and catalyst to raise awareness, understanding, and capacity in maintaining a sustainable community engagement program.

I visited USQ last year to talk about community engagement, healthcare, storytelling, digital media, and what really listening to people and technology in Australia might entail.

This new adventure is going to be cracking good fun – but there’s still a few more exciting things to come out of my extended residency with the State Library of Queensland, so watch this space.

Visions from Bundaberg

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Last weekend I was the guest artist at “Dispatches from Bundy”, a writing workshop in the Queensland town of Bundaberg.

Working with staff from Creative Regions and Queensland University of Technology, our team took a group of local writers and storytellers through a two-day session aimed at engaging with stories from the past, exploring visions of the future, and nurturing regional literature.

One of our activities saw participants creating science fiction stories and postcards from future worlds. We stitched these stories into a timeline of future history stretching a thousand years hence.

Check out the result via YouTube, incorporating images by Peter Miller aka Scribbletronics and music from Disasteradio.

Lake Mac GLAM

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I’ll be speaking at the inaugural Lake Mac GLAM Symposium for museum, gallery, library, arts, and culture professionals in Lake Macquarie, New South Wales next month.

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On 10th April, join me and other GLAMourpusses from across Victoria, Queensland, and New South Wales to look at trends, challenges, and opportunities for Australia’s cultural sector.

Find out more & get your tickets here.

Peace for the Immortal Sock Monkey

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My friend Stevie made the sock monkey – a placid purple chap with chubby limbs and buttons for eyes. He seemed pretty satisfied with existence, but his deeper woes had gone unseen.

Two Student Occupational Therapists from Griffith University pose with their client, an immortal sock monkey

It turned out that the sock monkey was cursed to live forever, and as the centuries rolled by, he was succumbing to despair. Two students from the Occupational Therapy course at Australia’s Griffith University decided to help, using their professional skills to explore ways of reconciling him to a happier immortality.

Read more →

Writing the Digital Future: Dispatches from Bundaberg

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I’m joining the team from Queensland University of Technology’s Writing the Digital Futures project to deliver a two-day creative writing event in Bundaberg next month.

It’s part of the broader Digital Futures season at the State Library of Queensland this year.

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“Dispatches from Bundy: Visions from the Future, Stories From the Past” will blend digital media, oral storytelling, play, speculative fiction, and archival materials to help local people explore the past, present, and future of their town.

You can join in the fun on 4th-5th March, and check out the flyer here..

Social Media Training at the Queensland Country Women’s Association

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It’s a busy old month here in Brisbane…

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Hot on the heels of a robot-training, cocktail-mixing event for librarians in Moreton Bay, I’ll be joining forces with my colleague Lyn Thompson to deliver three hours of training for the Queensland Country Women’s Assosciation (QCWA), the largest women’s group in Queensland.

Since 1922, the QCWA has helped women from across the state to celebrate their friendship and interests while supporting opportunities to make a difference in the fields of health, education, and the broader community.

Lyn and I will be teaming up on Saturday to deliver social media training for QCWA members across the regions, helping them make the most of the digital age.

 

Outback adventures with Tammy & Matt

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I spent last week on the road with the State Library of Queensland’s Tammy Joynson, delivering professional development with a twist & consulting with librarians & local government on future policies, strategies, plans and schemes.

You can see a 2-minute recap of our adventures here.