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Urdd EisteddBlog: Day 4 Blog 2

Posted by dirty from Cardiff - Published on 02/06/2011 at 16:33
2 comments » - Tagged as Culture, Festivals, Music, People, Topical, Yn Gymraeg

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Yn Gymraeg

This week, CLIC is at the Urdd National Eisteddfod in Swansea. Each day, one of our writers will be sharing their experience of the festival. These are the Urdd EisteddBlogs, and this is dirty blogging on day four...

The Thursday of the Urdd Eisteddfod in Swansea is marked by a wide range of events that specifically deal with young people and for young people in their teenage years.

Therefore, this was the first thing that was prominent at the beginning of our day which was marked by a press conference where chairmen and women spoke about what the day had in store.

Many things were on the agenda, from widening provision of actives such as the Duke Of Edinburgh to the Welsh medium, information of various activities and most importantly, the Bard Chair.

The Chair, for those of you not in the know, is a figurehead of the tradition that we now know as the Eisteddfod whereby a poet ('bard', in Welsh) is crowned the poet of the Eisteddfod. The roots of the Eisteddfod go back to the original Druid culture and each year, a different chair is made.

This year's chair is made out of locally sourced ash wood from the Swansea area and incorporates images and feelings of the city; for example, copper was used throughout the chair, nodding to Swansea's industrial past.

In addition, the wood was fashioned into wave-like structures at points to bring in a feeling of the coast and the harbour. Needless to say, the Chair plays a large part, and especially today on all days when the Bard was named as Llyr Gwyn Lewis, who had gained his Bachelor's degree from Cardiff University and his masters from Oxford.

With the midday sun we promoted CLIC at the Eisteddfod, handing out items such as pens, CLICzines and badges, alongside talking to young people about what it is that we do. Many were highly interested and took details of their regional magazines with whom to get in contact.

The festival was alive with human activity, singing, dancing, performances, and the more people we met, the more we met who were interested in aspects of media and how to get involved specifically with CLIC.

Nonetheless, we still had time for fun. Sam and Arielle tried a type of Latin American dance named 'Zumba' (let me assure you that there's video footage!) and I managed to visit the Amgueddfa Cenedlaethol Cymru, or as it's known in English, the stall for the Welsh Nation Museum that's based in Aberystwyth who had an exhibition of photos from the mining age.

Many other organisations had made themselves known at the Urdd, such as the Open University who are now offering short course aptly named 'Short Courses' which were explained as a 'bridging' gap between A Levels and Degree-level.

Services like 101, the police and Saint John's Ambulance were all there alongside more traditionally 'fun' things like the fairground and the food stalls that offered food ranging from traditional Welsh food to Chinese and Indian Food.

Today had unarguably more happening and more going on than any other day, and today isn't even the highlight of the festival.

EISTEDDBLOGS
Day 1 Blog 1
Day 1 Blog 2
Day 2 Blog 1
Day 2 Blog 2
Day 3 Blog 1
Day 3 Blog 2