Isle of Wight News on Ventnor Blog

Coming to you slightly later than usual, for those who have been enjoying our weekly news podcasts, here’s our latest edition.

We are very grateful to Mick Smith, Director of Quay Arts and Lois Prior from the Big Green Project for taking time out to join in our discussion about the weekly news.

Minghella Film Festival
We started by sharing our experiences of the Minghella Film Festival that took place last weekend.

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Ha ha. Do you know what VentnorBlog is called by the inner circle of the ruling Conservative council? Not VentnorBlog, the blog, or even that bloody blog as you might expect, but we hear on good authority, VB is simply referred to as ‘The Communists’.

Makes you laugh doesn’t it? Anything slightly to the left of Attila the Hun = Communists.

Oh well, what can you do?

Well if some of the lovely Tories weren’t already concerned about our lack of enthusiasm for Capitalism, they’ll be chocking on their dry sherries when they hear what John Hurt has to say when we chatted to him at the recent Minghella Film Festival.

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Remember that we gave you the heads up about the Car Free Scheme launching on the Isle of Wight?

Well, this morning it happened at The Mission in Chale and the scheme is something for Island businesses, as well as visitors. Easy to join, with many potential benefits.

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At the end of the Minghella Film Festival we caught up with Gioia Minghella, the founder of the Minghella Film festival.

Gioia told VB how thrilled she was that the festival was once again, a huge success.

Gioia played tribute to her daughter Sophie, who was prolific in programming the festival and working all hours for weeks running up to the festival. She also thanked the businesses who have supported the festival, particular the Quay Arts Centre for playing host to the weekend.

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We caught up with the actor Alan Rickman, who had worked with Anthony on this first major film, Truly, Madly, Deeply where he acted opposite Juliet Stevenson.

Have a listen …

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Very flattering and kind words about Anthony Minghella from Patsy Puttnam and her husband, Baron Puttnam, or David Puttnam as he introduced himself.

Have a listen …

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Up next is another in the series of Vox Pops from the launch of last year’s Minghella Movie Marathon.

It was a great evening, with hundreds of people gathered to celebrate Anthony Minghella’s life.

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At the launch of the Minghella Movie Marathon last year, we made our way through the crowds of Minghella fans and asked for their memories of Anthony.

Anthony’s great sensitivity seemed to strike a chord with many of the festival goers that night.

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This week we’re joined by Richard Priest of the Riverside, the day after he received his OBE from the Queen and Helen who is behind Vintage Vacations.

After the news that, in frustration at Isle of Wight Council’s cuts, half of the Quay Advocacy volunteers have withdrawn their help, we spend quite a while talking about the reaction of the Island’s voluntary sector are feeling about the cuts and what the current state of play with the Riverside is.

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If you were at the Minghella Movie Marathon last year, you might have spotted this avid Minghella fan (in the middle) who attended all the screenings throughout the weekend.

Robbi Holman could quite easily be defined as a Minghella Super Fan (in fact she was by the CP).

Why you might ask? Well, because Robbi flew all the way from Texas to attend the festival and flew straight back home again afterwards. That’s some devotion!

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During our quest of capturing vox pops at the Minghella Film Festival last year (more to come tomorrow), we caught up with actor Michael Maloney.

He came across as a really lovely guy, oozing warmth and charisma as he chatted about his friendship with Anthony.

He told us how as they worked together on a number of projects, he became closer to Anthony’s family and fondly remembers watching two world cups with them, going on to say that those who knew Anthony will remember his love of football, always willing to give his tactical opinions.

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This coming weekend, as part of the Minghella Film Festival, the BFI will be back at Quay Arts with their Family Fun Days.

Last year, the workshops proved hugely popular with the Island’s young creatives.

A whole host of activities were on offer, all set around the theme of the No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (the last film Anthony worked on), from painting and drawing on a large mural, to creating plasticine models, animating and filming them, or face painting and making masks.

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Continuing our series of videos and podcasts from the 2009 Minghella Movie Marathon, up next is a chat we had with Reg Poerscout-Edgerton.

Reg was born and educated on the Island before heading off to develop his career in the film business.

His most recent work has included a role as casting director for Sherlock Holmes and RocknRolla.

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The weekly news chat this week was recorded on Thursday evening (4 March 2010) with Gilly Jenner, a Ventnor resident and Jonathan Bacon.

Jonathan is speaking personally on the recording, but when he’s wearing another hat, he’s an Isle of Wight councillor for St Helens – one of the three that has put in the Standards for England complaint about Cllr David Pugh over the Valentine’s ball night.

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You might have noticed that the public’s fear of crime, and how to reduce it, is in the news at the moment.

We went along to the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership day at Medina a couple of weekends ago and sat down with Norman Mellors, Police Commander for the Isle of Wight, to have a chat about how crime on the Island is falling – numbers dropped from 14,000 to 10,000 in the last three years.

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A new artist in residence takes their place at Quay Arts today, using the Learning Curve Gallery as their base.

The Medina Extended Schools Partnership in collaboration with Quay Arts and Medina High School welcome Chris Cudlip, who will be offering a range of workshops around the theme of Nomadic Life and Culture to invited schools during the month of March.

We understand that the ‘Medina Yurt’ will be the focus of the work, with workshops being held in and around the Yurt.

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We were joined this week Laurence, who was with us last week, and for the first time by John.

If you haven’t listened to our podcasts before, they centre around the week’s news, sometimes straying off slightly, but always returning.

This week’s podcast is was just over an hour long and we covered the following …

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After nine years of problems with Undercliff Drive, proposals by the Isle of Wight Council for improving Ventnor’s road access have garnered a luke-warm response from residents.

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We thought we’d do a recorded discussion about the news of the last seven days – to see how it works and if this is something that might happen on a weekly basis.

Laurence and Steve came over to join us for a chat on Friday evening to talk over the latest news stories.

Not surprisingly the discussion was dominated by two big items – the Isle of Wight council’s proposed cuts and the controversy over David Pugh’s expletives the previous Friday night.

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As you may have seen on the VB Twitter stream last night, Chris Bonney won the election at St Lawrence ward of the Ventnor Town Council. Guess we should call him Cllr Bonney now.

It was a close-run thing with him getting 107 votes and Maureen Cawley getting 99. Three ballot papers were rejected.

St Lawrence is a small ward, so the 209 votes cast represented a healthy turn out of 33.44%.

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At 10pm tonight the votes will be counted in St Lawrence for the local ward.

VentnorBlog went to the polling station today to ask voters what they had looked for in selecting their next town councillor and which issues mattered most to them.

Have a listen …

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Image: Matt From London under CC BY 2.0

Up at the polling station today, we ran into the two candidates Maureen Cawley and Chris Bonney. They spoke to us about the vote and how they went about canvassing for the elections.

If this has inspired you, you’ve still got a little time to get out and vote.

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Image: Alex Folkes/fishnik.com under CC BY-ND 2.0

At the end of the public meeting last night to discuss the Isle of Wight council’s (IWC) proposed budget cuts, we caught up with a concerned member of the audience who had raised some good points during the discussion.

She told us how disappointed she was with the proposed cuts, adding that it seemed no thought had been given to the impact those using the services would suffer.

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Around 100 concerned service users of Westminster House and other support services made their feelings known outside County Hall this afternoon.

Holding placards and chanting Save Our Services, support was shown by drivers passing by with hooting of car horns.

We spoke to several people on the demo to ask how they thought the proposed budget cuts would be affect vulnerable people on the Island.

The message was clear, cutting support to these vital services would be disastrous.

Have a listen after the jump …
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Following Steve Beynon’s presentation to the voluntary sector at the Riverside Centre in Newport just over a week ago, the proposed Island budget cuts were discussed on the Julian Clegg show on BBC Radio Solent last Tuesday.

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