Topic: Past and current projects

[Seeing the Light] So at any one we time we might be working on a huge project like 'The People and the City' exhibition, which basically is in this book, which profiles some of the people who actually live and work in the city and also profiles what the city actually looks like from the air and that in an extraordinarily creative way. This was commissioned to support the Capital of Culture bid for 2008. We were one of the six cities in the running. And that was an extraordinarily well paid commission, which I stole from an agency in London because when I saw what they were actually going to do with the city of Birmingham through a series of photographs, we just knew that we could do it better. And luckily - it's a very long story and it's a lovely story but I haven't got time now - we actually got the commission. We had six weeks to produce the show. We commissioned two people, Brian Griffin and Tom Merilion, both who have their roots here in Birmingham. And Brian made portraits of people and Tom took the pictures from the air. And then we opened the show in London in the architect Richard Roger's new building, on the sixth floor of his building in Soho. And we invited the world and the world came. And it was a very successful opening and it made the local and national news and Sunday magazines. And gave Birmingham a really brilliant profile. And although we didn't actually win the Capital of Culture 2008 award, I think that opportunity allowed us to both profile ourselves, our photographers and the city - nationally and also internationally. 
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[Seeing the Light] At the same time we were actually running a management course for photographers, which has been a ongoing thing that we've done ever since we started. So, every year we have some sort of programme, where we work with photographers to develop their skills for promoting themselves, finding new markets, networking. And we're linked into different schemes. We have contact, very good contact with UK trade investment. And we work with them every year to do some sort of scheme whereby photographers learn more about how to export their work. So, for instance, at the moment we're having ten books made. One from each of ten photographers who live in this region. So that in five weeks time, I can take the books to PhotoFest in Houston in Texas to try and interest other people in taking the work and also to take it to review in New York - obviously in New York - in April. 
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[Seeing the Light] At the same time we run what's now known as the world's most technically advanced photography festival, in terms of a portfolio review, where last year we had 160 photographers from fifteen countries come to show their work to 50 reviewers from seventeen countries, who we fly in annually every July. So we have this huge festival and unlike other portfolio reviews, photographers who want to show their work to potential buyers can actually visit our website, see who the buyers are, and they can book times in advance over the weekend of the festival, so that they can specifically target their work to those particular people at particular times. And they know in advance who they're going to see. And the reviewers also know in advance who they're going to be seeing. And we've got a sort of joke about it; we sort of call it the dating agency for photographers. And it's actually working out very well because that online matching means that photographers have time to prepare the materials exactly for that reviewer. And so this year we had about 60% result of photographers having work published, being represented by international agents, having exhibitions or being commissioned. But the greatest thing about 'Rhubarb' and I suppose the greatest thing about what we do here is that we try and network together partners, potential buyers, photographers with interested others. So we have whole a series of exhibitions that go on in the public domain around the festival itself.
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[Bishopswood Centre] I suppose we could start from when they're very young. And we've got a forest school that's based here at Bishopswood, but part of our job is to actually get that out into the community. So we've got a forest school coordinator who has managed to get about 35 forest schools going round the county that are attached to schools, where they've gotten mostly nurseries, pre-five and -six year olds going out into natural habitats every day. Then we've got <break/> We've <break/> At the moment we've got a number of waste projects happening, looking at waste in schools and how they can cope with waste right from sort of composting in schools through to <break/> we've got a big project with Zary, which is an international project, where we've got secondary schools teaming up with businesses to look at how they can utilise each other's waste. So it's trying to actually close the system so there isn't any waste. So we've got schools working on that. We have a number of energy projects going on with schools, looking at energy management in schools, but also linking that particularly with how to <break/> to climate change and what's happening with climate change and our use of energy and how that's contributing to climate change. Which leads me on to <break/> we've got a <break/> we've had for a few years a project going on with the Gambia where we've had teachers exchanging ideas with teachers in the Gambia and there's been resources written for Gambian schools and also for schools over here. 
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[Bishopswood Centre] And then we're heavily involved with eco-schools which is a European-wide project. In this country it's administered by a national organisation called EnCams but each county have <break/> the local authority often takes that on board to really support that. So it's looking at the whole environmental management, on the environmental curriculum within schools and how the whole school is involved: the parents, kids, the caretakers, the teachers, local businesses all get together to look at how the school can manage itself more effectively and how it teaches about environmental issues. So that's like a European kite mark, which we've over the last three years really been pushing and supporting. And we've now got <break/> there's about three hundred and sixty schools in the county and there's about a hundred and twenty signed up to eco-schools. And I think it's about thirty that have got the award. There's three different levels of award you can get: it's a bronze, a silver, and then you actually get a green flag that <break/> which is like fully blown. So it's different stages you can go through. And that's <break/> We're putting a lot of effort into that because that works alongside other government initiatives that have come out and one of which is healthy schools. And healthy environment also links up with healthy people, so we've batched those two together. So that's an ongoing big project that we've been involved with for a number of years. That's some of them.
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[The Mayor ] <sp>Linda:</sp> All right, let's talk about our rail yard project here in Santa Fe.  <sp>Mayor:</sp> Right now, I met with the <break> Steve Robinson, who is the chair of the rail yard commission. Excuse me. And they're working at it. They're getting a lot of the leases, taking care of the existing tenants that are on the property right now. The design has been picked. As you know they had that competition of architects from all over the country, submitted plans for the development of the yard and how it should go, and one actual scheme was picked. I got the opportunity to <unclear>governing body</unclear> many, many hundreds of people in Santa Fe got to look at it. The competition was very, very, very intense. Great pieces of work. The one <break/> one design was picked, and right now it's moving forward. But then, you know, there's a lot of things that go on. As you know, there were many tenants already on the rail yard. And when the city chose the landlords, we also, at that time, took a responsibility in how these tenants were going to be treated. So, they negotiated very hard the leases. We had some of those tenants on there, Linda, with leases, thirty-day leases. If you know, in the business world, with a thirty day lease you can't borrow a nickel from the bank to improve your business with that kind of lease. So now they're talking about thirty to forty year leases are being discussed. Some have already been approved. People can start improving the property that they own on the rail land. What you got to keep in mind is the only thing they own is the structure, the land still belongs to the city of Santa Fe. So Steve, he's working hard with his <break/> we got a great committee on it. We have architects, real estate lawyers, real estate agents, who know the world of real estate. That's exactly what it is. And we've got to come up with something as mayor, we've got to come up with something that's going to be able to pay for itself. We turned it over to a private non-profit organization to run it, and it's got to be able to pay for itself. So, it's fifty acres in the heart of Santa Fe. And I've always said this, and many members of the governing body agree that we've got to do this right, because after this is done, we don't get another chance in this area. There's no more, that, you know <break/> there's no land, additional land that you could do anything like this. So this has to be done right. 
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