Story: Amy Palmer | Photo: Jess Hanson
Back in February Martin Currie was granted a licence from TED – a charity encouraging the sharing of ideas through public speaking events to run an independent Pitsmoor themed evening of talks. Pitsmoor TEDx was held at Christ Church on 27th June and was a great success.
Clare Burnell kicked off the Pitsmoor themed talks by using objects found in a storage box to take the audience on a journey of Pitsmoor celebrations and events from the first Abbeyfield Festival to present day. The next speaker, Kim Streets, was the editor of the Burngreave Voices book. Kim has gone from being an unpaid volunteer to head of Sheffield Museums and she made a plea to the audience for more exhibits from Pitsmoor. She lives here and wants to tell stories that are from here.
Later, we were treated to philosophy demonstrated with a bag of sweets from Huw Thomas, a talk about a favourite cup by potter Victoria Dawes, and an explanation around the snooker triangle from Paul Beck. Debjani Chatterjee from the Hindu Samaj spoke about the healing powers of poetry and performed poems about her cancer journey. After the event Debjani said:
“The audience felt wonderfully supportive. One young woman thanked me, saying that, while she had not had cancer, she had also suffered serious illness and been ‘mistreated’ by GPs and the same hospital; and it was the first time that she could tell anyone outside her family what she had suffered. The trauma I had endured was virtually her experience too; my talk had given her ‘a voice’, she said, and my ‘revenge’ poem in particular had given her a good feeling!”
There were twelve talks in total supported by Lee Furness from the Public Speaking Academy alongside entertainment from Dave Kirby reading his ‘micro fiction’, talented young singers Saskia, Carys and Alice singing harmonies, and the hilarious Pitsmoor Ladies’ Ukulele Chorale.
The audience was made up from a mix of locals and people from further afield. Local Giulia Djaha commented that “It was great! Inspiring, entertaining and made me and my husband feel part of a stimulating community that is different from what everyone else thinks of Pitsmoor.”
The evening was an overwhelming success and there have already been rumours of a ‘next time’…
If you missed the event or would like to listen to the talks again you can find them by visiting the TEDx Pitsmoor website at http://m80398.wix.com/tedxpitsmoor.
Martin’s next event will be the free ‘Cheap Thrills’ zero budget film festival on 10th October in the Burngreave Cemetery Chapel at 7pm.