The Final Countdown!

Just over a week until our Voice Box competition and planning and preparation is truly under way. We will be spending the coming days shortlisting the children who will be performing at our competition next week and allowing them time to practice delivering their jokes. We are all very excited as BBC Look North are coming.

The lunch time joke clubs and joke workshops (on No Pens Day) have all been going really well and it’s lovely to see the children’s enthusiasm for telling jokes. The joke workshops also highlighted which children struggled with the concept of jokes and those whom found it difficult to understand the jokes due to the vocabulary (e.g. many of them struggled with ‘Why did the boy go to bed with a pencil? So he could draw the curtains!). This allowed opportunity to talk about what makes a joke funny and also explore some of the vocabulary they didn’t understand (i.e. duel meaning of draw in this example).

I cannot walk down the corridor at break time without a child telling me they have a joke. It’s also lovely to hear the children telling jokes to each other and I’d like to think this is something that will continue after Voice Box is over!

 

My niece is telling her school about Voice Box tomorrow in assembly and they are having their competition on Friday (with tomorrow night to think about their jokes!) I am so proud that Toni has taken this into school and asked if they can take part. It’s not too late for you to do the same!

Last Friday, my dad hosted a launch of his new DVD ‘The Spirit Lives on’ (about Ashington Coal Company) and a preview was screened at the new community cinema in Ashington. He invited Ian Lavery, MP to the event and I was delighted to have the opportunity to chat to him again. He said he noticed on Twitter that I met Richard Burgon and told me to keep up the good work. I told him about why I met Richard and about my involvement in Voice Box in Leeds. Not wanting to miss an opportunity, I gave him another Giving Voice pen and got a photo with him. I told him I brought another pen for him in case his previous ones ran out and he said the last one had just before he left the house! Haha. It was nice to see him again, and see him continue to support the local community. It was a lovely evening and I was proud to be there and support my dad.

Ian Lavery, MP and me

 

I am looking forward to the next week and getting ready for Voice Box! The children have  worked so hard and I am looking forward to hearing them perform their jokes on stage! Thank you for reading!