Beckie Saunders

I stumbled across this video just now on Youtube.

It’s very funny, I’m sure you’ll all agree!

On Friday night I went to Chichester University’s summer ball with friends who go there which was great fun, Nizlopi played. Now, I hadn’t really heard anything of Nizlopi since the JCB song. But Wow! They were awesome. Consisting of Luke Concannon (vocals/guitar) and John Parker (human beatbox, double bass and guitar) they are great performers and great muscians. My love for Jason Mraz is well documented and if you like him, you’ll like them!

Check out this song, ‘Extraordinary’…trust me it’ll get stuck in your head!

Witty lyrics, soulful sounds and fantastic rhythms that’ll get you tapping your feet and humming the words after 30seconds…they are not to be missed!

I would definitely recommend catching these guys live, or if not live at least get their albums here!

My first exam is tomorrow, Chemistry practical, should be fine…please pray for me this next month and a bit whilst I take these exams again - I’m desperate to get rid of A Levels once and for all!

God Bless
xx

Recently, it has been mentioned to me by several parties, that I have not posted a blog in a long time.

They are of course correct - it’s been ages! I don’t have an excuse, just haven’t got round to it! So here it is, a new blog entry!…

At the moment, I am deep in the horrible exam season, my exams haven’t actually started yet - I am currently ‘revising’. For the last few weeks, my every waking moment has been timetabled and scheduled. If I’m not at work or college then I am revising, if I’m not revising then I’m sleeping!

I am only retaking two subjects, Chemistry and Biology, both seem to have an extraordinary amount of exams and I am getting increasingly more stressed as each day goes by!

The current news in the Saunders’ family, is that Mum has won a gold award for a photo she entered into the 2008 Mencap Snap! photo competition. It was a photo of Alice that Mum took as she jumped over a hurdle in her Sport’s day at school last year. Alice has Down’s Syndrome for those of you who don’t know her (can’t imagine that’s many people, she’s (in)famous around these parts!). Apparently in all her practices before hand she had refused to jump over the hurdles. The teachers agreed she could run around them and her LSA reminded her before the race that she could run around them. To which, Alice looked incredulously at her and said ‘No I am going to jump them’. So she did!

You can see the photo here.

The Mencap competition was this year judged by big names in the world of photography including Rankin, Alex Proud, Eamonn McCabe, Frances Sorrell and many others! The photos will be on show at the Proud Gallery in London for 2 weeks after the launch party in June, then will go on tour across the country. It is sponsored by Fuijifilm so Mum also gets a nice new camera! Alice is already planning her party outfit for when she, Mum and Dad go to the star-studded winner’s party in June!

Tomorrow I am joining them on the boat for the rest of the bank holiday weekend. They sailed to Portsmouth today where I will join them for a spot of shopping and then the sail to Chichester Harbour, then home on Monday! I will of course have my revision books with me!

Hope all is well wherever you all are.

Love

B x

Firstly you can now catch my 3MW online here.

If you missed it, or just want to see it again - this is the place to go!

Last week, Jack and I went to Berlin for a little trip. We flew out on the Monday, this was Jack’s first flight and luckily it all went smoothly without any delays! We managed to cram in lots of interesting and fun things, including Checkpoint Charlie, the Mauermuseum, the Denkmal (holocaust memorial), the Reichstag (parliament buildings), Brandenburg Gate, Potsdamer platz (lots of glass and modern buildings), the Sony Centre and Imax 3D cinema in Potsdamer platz, Deutsches-Technik-Museum (the technology museum, Berlin Zoo, the Fernsehturm (television tower), Rathaus (city hall), the olympic stadium, Museum Insel (museum island), the Pergamon-museum, and some shopping of course!

It was pretty rubbish weather; grey, wet and cold but we got nicer weather the day we decided to go to the television tower and the Zoo which was good! It was nice to revisit places I had already been to and to see Jack’s point of view on them. The hotel which we were staying at was really central which was fab. It was reassuring to see that my German is still at a reasonable standard and Jack got a bit of practice as well (even if it was just because I spent a lot of time refusing to speak English to him!).

We arrived back last Thursday evening and were early despite leaving late! We had a minor panic in baggage reclaim when Jack’s bag took a very long time to make an appearance whilst mine came out first! I didn’t help the situation as I was giggling too much about it!

So despite my very best attempts to lose him in Germany or even just his luggage, we both made it back in one piece even if we were exhausted!

I had Friday morning to quickly pack a weekend bag to get away to the Parish church weekend at Ashburnham Place in East Sussex. There were 170 of us going from church which gave me a good opportunity to catch up with those who I haven’t seen properly for a while and to forge some new friendships. We had fantastic teaching from Rev. Andrew Mote, he took us through Acts and looked at when the gospel began to be taken further than the jewish community. Ending up at a point of church being free for all - without prejudice or limits. He taught it brilliantly, looking at the details which I normally scan over but are actually so vital to the message! It’s left a lot of food for thought, which is nice.

It was nice that someone else (Richard Knowles commonly known as ‘cookie’) was leading the teenage youth work. It meant that I got to be in 2 of the adult sessions and I didn’t have to plan anything! Neil popped up on Saturday - Jenny gave birth on Valentine’s day to a beautiful baby girl called Amelia Rose, so he was understandably a bit pre-occupied at home! Anyway, Ashburnham place was a great place to spend the weekend, a time for reflection, friendship and prayer.

I was glad to get home on Sunday night, to get a good night’s sleep in my own bed!

Unfortunately that was half term over, so it was back to sixth form on Monday. I am very aware that time is running away from me towards exam time again!

Love Bex

P.S: Photos from Berlin will be following soon!

That’s it - the films been broadcast - definitely no turning back now!

So far the reaction from friend’s and family has been amazing - so thankyou!

I hope you all saw it, and enjoyed it.  I was so nervous but now I’m just really excited!

Anyway, I’m off to watch it again on Channel 4+1!

love to all

xxx

Today’s Littlehampton Gazette contains an interview/article with me about my 3MW that goes out on Monday. The online version can be read here. The photo used online and in the newspaper I had completely forgotten about!! It’s my official ‘press photo’ taken at the Channel 4 HQ in the summer.

Last night we had the preview screenings/premieres of the Raw Cuts films at the Electric Cinema in Portobello Road, Notting Hill. It’s a beautiful old cinema, and it was a lovely setting to see the films finished and on a big screen! All the films were fantastic, they all looked great and the feedback from the audience was brilliant! There were lots of people who had helped with the making of the films, or had been involved in someway or another and it was nice to catch up with people who I had met along the way!

So, don’t forget, Monday 11th, Channel 4, 7:55pm!!

xxx

Today in Chemistry we were studying the theory of Entropy and Free energy, and with that the theory of chaos and disorder.  It’s all links in with the philosophical theories, such as the Butterfly Effect.  That states that a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world can start a Tsunami on the other.  The chemistry-based theory says that everything in the world is becoming more chaotic - and that there a very few reactions that create order from chaos.  A easy example of increasing chaos is a melting icecube.  The icecube melts into liquid water (higher entropy - more chaotic) which in turn evaporates into water vapour (even more chaos).  Photosynthesis however takes chaotic molecules and turns them into a less chaotic compound - glucose.

Anyway, this isn’t meant to be a chemistry lecture.   It get’s much more complicated than that, involving spontaneous reactions, feasibility and such-like but the reason I’ve found it so interesting is this;

If the world is constantly becoming more chaotic, and more and more reactions result in chaos and less in order, (Chemically speaking), then what are we heading towards?  Do we have to begin to artificially create order to try and rebalance?  But what are we trying to rebalance?  Are we measuring chaos (my bedroom has a high value i believe) in Joules as many of the calculations to do with energy, entropy and enthalpy are??  Is chaos and order something that will come full circle - will chaos right itself and become more ordered?  But how can gases become more ordered by themselves without vast quantities of energy (bringing me back to Free energy and spontaneity).  Philosophically that could be a whole other question but it’s an interesting one!  Of course there is also the theory that the universe is still expanding from the ‘big bang’  which surely is very chaotic? but that is definitely a whole other debate!

Answers on a postcard!

Love xxx

Well it’s been a manic few months…

We threw a huge party for Dad’s birthday in December (yes - it was a big one!), which was a brilliant night, although as I was hosting and organising I was a tad stressed. I had catered for the party myself - a buffet for 150 people is no mean feat! Family and friends from all areas of our lives were there which made it a fantastic get together - and the marquee even stayed up in the horrific weather we had that weekend!

Christmas was nice - lots of work to do at church including organising the nativity crib service with Neil and being at 6 (!) services within 3 days! For those of you who were (un)lucky enough to be there you would have spotted me fully dressed up as an angel! Yes I am that cool!

I spent Christmas day at Mum and Dad’s and we were joined by my Uncle. Boxing day and the day after were both family affairs spent in the New Forest and Headley.

Kate and I went to SoulSurvivor Watford for New Year’s, to their all night prayer and worship event for Hope 2008 and to see us into 2008 surrounded with prayer and listening to God’s word. Needless to say, we were very tired by the time 7am came around as we’d been there since 10pm, but felt very blessed to be there and I can’t think of a better way to start 2008!

January has been exam month again, which has been stressful but I’m very glad that my last exam was yesterday. The next lot aren’t until May.

My 3 Minute Wonder is due to be broadcast in a few weeks, the week commencing 11th February - I will let everyone know the exact date as soon as I know!

We are having a screening party the week before at the Electric Cinema in Notting Hill, with everyone involved in the project which will be really good fun!

There is at least one other now definite project that I am going to be working on that has come out from Raw Cuts - which is very exciting and I will be letting more slip when I can!

Today I got an offer from Bristol University for Medicine which is really nice and came as a bit of a surprise to be honest!

The next few months are looking just as manic but I promise to blog more in the next few weeks than I have been!!

Must dash,

God Bless

Beckie xxx

My night at the BFI was on Monday and went really well!  When Jade and I finally made it there, slightly damp and wind-swept, we met the others in the green room.  I felt pretty nervous but was relieved to see Craig, my director, already there so I knew one person!  We were also soon joined by Jason, the exec Producer for the Raw Cuts scheme.  It threw me a bit when a couple of the senior producers from C4 introduced themselves to me and not only already knew who I was but had also seen the film so far!  Flattering but scary!

There were 3 other people showing in the same event, from 4Laughs, 4Docs and the Researcher Training Programme.  The others were in their 20s and I felt very young!  We each had 25minute slots, to show our films and to be interviewed about them!  After we had all been the debate section was then opened up for the audience to ask questions.

It was quite surreal to see my film up on that big screen, and it both Craig and I were feeling very precious about it as it is still in the offline stage - it has yet to go up to Glasgow studios for the online edit and sound dub.  That will be happening sometime in December and I will hopefully be going up for that stage too.  However, it was really well recieved and everyone had only positive things to say which was very encouraging!  The debate was funny as there was a particular character in the audience set to just have a moan about the amount of violence and swearing on Television and how that affects the youth of today.  We all sat there at the front trying to keep a straight face and be restrained in our answers - it became harder to stop ourselves laughing when she started on at Eastenders - wrong channel!!  Secretly, we think she gets some royalties from Desmond’s as according to her, that was the only decent show every made!  When the mic was handed to me at the end for my opinion on what TV will look like in 25 years time, I had to be very restrained not to direct my answer at her and say ‘in 25 years time you may find that the off button is 5 times as big so you can switch off the TV more easily’, however I behaved myself and answered properly instead!!

Afterwards we all headed to the bar for the networking to begin!  Some audience members joined us and it was nice to have a better chat with some of them.   It was also good to meet the industry people who had come as well, people from both BFI and Channel 4 were there to support us and have a good chat with afterwards!  I found myself pinching myself a couple of times to remind myself exactly who I was talking to!  Ahh well, they are only human!

It was a great night, I was so pleased my film had been so well recieved and it was funny when afterwards everyone wanted to ask me questions.  My uncle, Will, had also made it as he had been working in London that day, which was really good, not only was it lovely to see him and he got to meet a lot of people who I had worked with, but he gave Jade and I a lift home afterwards!

There is talk of the possibility of a few more events like that, and Jason said he is hoping to send my film out to some of the International film festivals - which would be amazing!  So watch this space!!!

Blessings as always

Beckie xx

I haven’t mentioned Raw Cuts for a while, but my 3 minute wonder has been made and pieced together! Excitingly, Craig (director) and I have been invited to showcase our film and have a Q&A time at a debate/presentation event on Monday evening at the BFI in London. I’m pretty nervous as it will be the first time our film has been shown - it’s not set for broadcast until January on C4! This is part of the Celebrating C4 event that’s happening as it is 25 years old this year!

If anyone happens to be in London on Monday night and would like to come along to the debate section of the event then tickets are available from this site. I will be there, along with my friend Jade and the team I worked with on my film.

I’m currently on Youthwork: The Conference in Eastbourne this weekend, have survived the first 24 hours for employed youthworkers and this evening was joined by about 5 x as many people for the main weekends seminars. It’s been fantastic so far, a lot of things to ponder and hopefully put into action. I will blog about that after the weekend!

Love to all

Beckie

This weekend was a whistle-stop tour of Greenwich and Sheffield! I spent Friday night at Greenwich university with the ever so wonderful Ashleigh. We made good use of our time and the uni bar, I met her flatmates and other amusing characters and we managed to consume probably slightly too much alcohol. The next morning I had to get up at 5:30 - hmm 3 hours sleep was had! I felt absolutely fine which amazed me, and I probably spoke to soon as after managing to get myself and my rather large bag to London Victoria I started to feel a tad off-colour. By the time I was on the megabus up to Sheffield (£7 - bargain), I was feeling very much worse for wear and as Eleanor pointed out to me later on that day, I was probably still drunk when I woke up and that was just my hangover kicking in. Hmph.

I arrived in Sheffield after 4 hours and was met by Eleanor and Alex! It was lovely to see both of them again, we all went to Primary school together. Eleanor and I have seen a lot of each other as we went to the same high school and live in the same village, but Alex went to a different high school and I haven’t seen as much of her! Saturday was Eleanor’s 20th birthday. I can’t believe my best friend is 20 already!! We got some shopping time in straight away and then progressed from Meadowhall to the biggest Asda/Walmart you have ever seen. Transported by Samantha’s driving (Ele’s flatmate’s friend), narrowly escaping on a few occasions whilst singing along to a mixture of Scissor Sisters and Leona Lewis, we finally made it back to Ele’s house which she shares with 5 other lovely 2nd years. After having the grand tour and collapsing on the sofa, it was time to get ready for the grand night out. Our destination: Pop Tarts.

Now there had been quite a lot of drama surrounding this night out, arranged a few months ago, Ele had settled on getting everyone to go to Pop Tarts on that Saturday night to celebrate her 20th with some good old retro pop. However, last week, with only a few days to go, a massive power cut meant that the union shut down and said it wouldn’t be open until today. A quickly arranged house party replaced the Pop Tarts night out and messages were sent out, facebook status’s changed and such like to ensure everyone knew! It doesn’t stop there…whilst we were shopping in Meadowhall - a matter of hours before the party, Ele got a phone call from a friend that works at the union to say that Pop Tarts was back on and would be open that night!! Major panic descended, as she tried to contact everyone to let them know that Pop Tarts was back on and we would be going there instead as everyone who had bought tickets would now not get them refunded!!!

After more texts, emails and facebook messages, the latest plans were made known to everyone! We all met in BarOne for some pre-club drinks. Including making sure that Ele had a shot…or two. Then off we went into Pop Tarts. There are two main rooms - one a 60s music room, and the other 80s and 90s retro pop. A very good mix! Completed by the ‘Pop Tarts pop’ sold, amongst a great deal of other things, at the bar. A glass of apple sours and cranberry juice! We danced the night away to all the greatest pop songs from our childhood, took lots of photos and got introduced to Sheffield’s clan of smurfs.

(l-r, Alex, Jamie, Me, Dom)

(Alex and Eleanor - Miss Birthday Girl!)

Sunday morning came, and we were still dancing but found our way home in time to get a reasonable amount of sleep before I had to be at Sheffield station for a 11am train home. 6 hours later I was back in Angmering, just in time for our Youth group’s i:Worship event which I was singing at.

Steve Cooper, from Cry in the Dark, was speaking and told us about the work they do over in Romania. It was truly heartbreaking to hear the stories about the orphanages and made me even more certain that we are doing the right thing by taking a group of the 16+ youth out there next summer to do a mission trip.

I crashed into bed last night and slept like a log. It was a hectic weekend but a fantastic one, which was well worth the rush!!

God bless,

Beckie xx

(l-r Kat, Alex, Me, Emily, Eleanor and Jen)