Louise

Dave Moutrey, chair of the panel on The Fundraising Landscape, stand at a microphone to introduce the topic and his three fellow panellists seated alongside him. An audience of FAC members gathered around circular tables in the Rich Mix Studio watches on.

A panel of seven people sitting in front of a projection screen showing images of several Future Arts Centres venues.

Ending October with reflections from our recent Members’ Meeting which tackled the capital challenge head-on. From urgent repairs to future-proofing, the message was clear: arts centres are civic infrastructure. Investing in them means investing in community: futureartscentres.org.uk/building-for...

Young people taking part in a movement session. Photo credit: Bradford Arts Centre.

💡 Arts centres are delivering culture with purpose - supporting wellbeing, learning, and local regeneration.

Future Arts Centres’ latest Sector Insight Report shows a resilient, community-rooted sector ready to lead - with the right support.

📖 Read it here: futureartscentres.org.uk/new-sector-i...

The early morning sun coming through the trees to light up a carpet of copper-coloured autumn leaves.

Morning! ☀️🍂

Si and James from Hope & Social during a playful moment on stage

Si, lead singer of Hope & Social, playing guitar and singing

All you'll need is here 💙

The brilliant Hope & Social at @nathbrudenell.bsky.social last night ✨️

Yellow autumn leaves on the ground underneath a lime tree in a park.

Morning!

Yoshika, seated, playing guitar and singing.

Gorgeous set from Yoshika Colwell, opening for Fionn Regan in Great Ayton last night ✨️

Chris Helme and Simon Snaize, both seated with guitars, playing at The Waiting Room.

Fantastic night at The Waiting Room with Chris Helme & Simon Snaize. Great way to round off the weekend! 👌

D. Paleschi's bike and ice cream cart.

Partial display of peg dolls.

Rose arch over a path in the Walled Garden.

Also nipped into The Stores, caught the final day of the 'Memory of a journey' peg doll exhibition, and had a wander around the lovely Walled Garden. (And I bought an annual pass, so I'm looking forward to some more visits to Preston Park Museum over the next 12 months!)

Corridors - Preston Park Corridors is a breath-taking new installation by internationally acclaimed artist Rebecca Louise Law.

Can't recommend this highly enough - it's such a beautiful experience, focused on our connections with each other and the natural world. If you haven't been yet, there's still time - it's on until Sunday 4 January (I'll definitely be going back!).

prestonparkmuseum.co.uk/corridors

Glass exterior of the Spence Building extension to Preston Park Museum on a sunny autumn day. The sky is bright blue above, with just a smattering of thin white cloud visible.

A 'corridor' between two walls of preserved flowers, with lighting creating shadows on the floor.

Close up of some of the preserved flowers, with colours including orange and pink.

From the river, I headed up to the fantastic new Spence Building at Preston Park Museum to to see #Corridors, a stunning exhibition by Rebecca Louise Law 🌸🌻

The River Tees seen through the trees on the riverbank on a sunny autumn day. The blue sky and white clouds above are reflected in the water.

Change of location this Sunday morning, and a beautiful river walk by the Tees at Preston Park ☀️🍂

Mezanmi (Fran O'Hanlon) seated, singing and playing guitar, in the Teesside Uni SU Lounge at Twisterella. In front of him is a keyboard and other equipment he used to play other songs.

Parissa Zarifi, singing and playing guitar, in the Teesside SU Lounge at Twisterella

The lead singer of Swim School (rest of the band out of shot) on stage, singing and playing guitar, at Twisterella

Just a few highlights from today's #TwisterellaFest, another brilliant day of live music in the heart of Boro 🙌❤️ #UTB

Exterior of the double-fronted Drake The Bookshop on Silver Street in Stockton. The sky above the tall buildings is blue with thin white clouds.

A glass of 'Nosecco' being held up in front of a table with flowers, a cake, snacks, and more drinks being poured.

Back at home, a pile of books and a couple of pin badges, from my visit to Drake The Bookshop, sit on the middle table of a set of 3 light oak side tables.

Happy 10th birthday, @drakebookshop.bsky.social! 🥳 🥂 📚

Starting Saturday with a visit to Stockton. Would have been rude not to, wouldn't it? On #BookshopDay as well!

My favourite bookshop, and one of Teesside's best independents 🧡

#ChooseBookshops @booksaremybag.bsky.social

Idlewild on stage at the Boiler Shop.

One of my all-time favourite bands ❤️

Brilliant night watching Idlewild at @boilershop.bsky.social in Newcastle 🙌

Writers Christy Ducker, David Mark, and Harry Man seated in front of a Royal Literary Fund banner. Christy and David are listening as Harry reads.

Brilliant evening in conversation with the Northern Writers Panel of Christy Ducker, David Mark and @harrymanonbluesky.bsky.social talking about writing and place at Sunderland Libraries' City Library. Thanks to the writers and @royalliteraryfund.bsky.social for this insightful,entertaining session!

writing workshop the ghost story Wednesday 22 October 7pm-8.30pm on zoom £15/£7 amylordauthor.com

writing workshop the ghost story Wednesday 22 October 7pm-8.30pm £15/£7 Create your own haunting this Halloween, as we explore and experiment with the ghost story. In this fun writing workshop, we’ll think about what makes a chilling or creepy ghost story, while focusing on a key aspect: the spirit themselves. We’ll think about who’s doing the haunting – and why – and who’s being haunted. This workshop will take place on Zoom. There are a limited number of places available for those on a low income. We’ll be doing a variety of writing exercises during the session, which will be designed to get you working on a ghost story of your own. amylordauthor.com

👻👻 Getting in the spooky season mood? I'm running an online writing workshop focused on the ghost story this month! 👻👻

📆 Wednesday 22 October, 7pm

Book here: www.amylordauthor.com/events 🎃 #WritingCommunity

Eight piece band Hope & Social on stage at The Crescent in York.

Fantastic night with Hope & Social at @thecrescentyork.bsky.social 💙

Roll on @nathbrudenell.bsky.social in two weeks' time! 🙌

Tawny owl

Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet.

After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵

The early morning autumn sun shines through the trees in a wooded area of a park.

Morning!

John Bramwell sitting on a tall stool, playing guitar and singing.

The brilliant John Bramwell at Middlesbrough Cathedral tonight ✨️

Barry Hyde seated at a keyboard, playing and singing, against a backdrop of Darlington Children's Library, with gig lighting and fairy lights.

Faithful Johannes, standing and singing, against a backdrop of Darlington Children's Library, with gig lighting and fairy lights.

Truly wonderful night with Barry Hyde and Faithful Johannes (@fjwords.bsky.social) at Hark! The Sound of Stories at Darlington Library ✨️

(Well worth the trip down the A66 on a wet and windy Friday night!)

#HARK @tracksdarlington.bsky.social

Fireworks shoot up into the night sky above a replica of Locomotion 1 sitting on top of a huge stage set for Ghost Train: The Arrival

A replica railwaybwagon carrying a clock bearing the words 'Stockton Darlington'

Dancers performing in Southpaw Company's STEAM on Stockton High Street

Brilliant day at S&DR200 in Stockton town centre watching Southpaw Company's #STEAM, and #GhostTrain: The Arrival by Avanti Display and Walk the Plank 🚂 ✨️

#SDR200 #StocktonAndDarlingtonRailway

Hope & Social playing in the middle of a seated audience at The Attic in Leeds.

Who knew there was such beautiful music to be made with a bunch of toy instruments?! Fun, chilled out Tuesday night at the Hope & Social Club at The Attic, Leeds ✨️💙

Sun shining on a grassy area of parkland, with trees in the middle and far distance. The sky is bright blue above with thin white clouds.

Morning!

The crowd cheers a winning Boro team under the floodlights at the Riverside Stadium

#UTB 🙌

Rosie Garland's book, with a pink, wilted rose on the front cover, sits on a small, light oak side table, with a coffee in a Golden Smog mug next to it.

A poem from the collection, titled The logic of the situation: These are the girls with shields up and huddling out of sensor range; girls whose only communication is classmates demanding the answers to last night's homework, who are geek and gawky-awkward, brimful with science and maths and art and history, none of it filling their empty quarters. Girls bent double with the struggle to contain their turmoil, who never see themselves reflected in the lives of pretty girls nor in the TV shows that are their only company. These are the girls on stun, till they see him stride onto the bridge of his starship. Spock: half-human, half-Vulcan, pointed ears and upswept eyebrows, a vortex of green-blooded otherness. Tonight, on red alert and shuffled to the edge of their seats, these are the girls discovering a being who shares their struggles, who understands the vigilance needed to conceal a core of churning magma. These are the girls who hug the TV for one hour each week, resonating with new life and new connection, as Spock negotiates the ion storms of being both and neither. Girls who realise, for all his difference, he is not lonely; who dare to believe that if Spock can build a federation of friends and lovers, if he can calculate the probabilities of failure and do it anyway, then so can they, even if it takes till Stardate Whenever. These are the girls who hang on, counting the years marooned on hostile planets where hope shrinks to a dot in the centre of a viewscreen. Girls who practice the Vulcan disciplines of patience and concealment, who lay in a course for the future, carrying the alien knowledge they are not alone, who have faith that out beyond Antares is a universe of civilisations where optimism is not confined to black-and-white TV screens, but floods galaxies with bright and brilliant colour. Ahead, Warp Factor Maybe.

I adored What Girls Do In The Dark, and I was hanging on to every word again in This Is How I Fight, the incredible new collection from @rosiegarlandwriter.bsky.social 🥀 ✨️

(Nine Arches Press, June 2025)

The sun shines on fallen, copper-coloured leaves on the grass, underneath trees that are still green. The sky is a clear, bright blue.

Morning!

Gill Landry (solo) on stage at The Cluny, singing and playing guitar.

So good to see the brilliant @gilllandry.bsky.social again at The Cluny tonight. It's been far too long, but also worth every minute of the wait ✨️

#CinnamonCanyonBlues

An expanse of blue sky and white clouds above a line of trees in a park.

Morning!

Dupla on stage, taken from the back of an enthusiastic crowd watching them

Baby Said on stage

Mt Misery on stage

Loren Heat on stage

Incredible night with Dupla, Baby Said, Mt Misery, and Loren Heat at @teessideuni.bsky.social Students' Union 🙌

The spirit of the Westgarth lives on ❤️

#LiveMusic #MiddlesbroughGigs #UTB