Hawthorne Corner Senior Citizens Group

Today Jamie, Alex, Saul and I traveled to Hillsborough to meet with to speak with the final group I had arranged a meeting with. This meeting was supposed to have taken place nearly three weeks ago but was unfortunately postponed until now due to some issues which arose. I had spoken to the group's leader Jack on the phone a few times before, including yesterday to check that we were still okay to visit them.

The group was one of the larger ones we had been to, with around 30 members and about 80% of them being women. On the phone Jack seemed quite enthusiastic about us coming in to meet them, and after a few minutes he introduced us formally to the group - which helped us to start conversation later and to build a sense of trust.

After this, the group split into three groups and so we split up to get to speak to as many people as possible. I spoke to my group, introduced myself and our project, and then started asking people individually if they might have some photos to share with us. Speaking for about 30 minutes, I managed to get the names and contact details of 3-4 people who were both interested in the film and comfortable with being recorded.

Following the disappointing results of yesterday's group meeting in Tinsley, I spoke with Jamie about a last resort option for the film. After speaking to many people, it became clear that some people were willing to be interviewed but not filmed, so we discussed having the option for those people of just recording audio, perhaps even in a room of the social group if necessary. Of course, we will push as hard as possible to be able to film them in their homes as we outlined in the treatment, but this was put forward as a contingency if the that's not possible.

I told those who I took contact details from that I would call them at the weekend to give them chance to find their photographs, and then from there we will either go back to the group to see them or arrange to meet them at their homes with their permission. The difficulty with waiting for them to bring it into the social group, as we have found with the other group on Tuesday, is that most simply don't remember and then we are left with more time wasted. As another idea I may ask if they will be coming in to the city centre at some point early in the week and so we could meet them and look through the photographs there.

I will also ring Bob and Ralph from the Lowedges group, and Mr/Mrs Battersby from the Tinsley group to see if they're still wanting to contribute and similarly can find photos for us to see within the next week. As previously mentioned, we were planning to film in this week following the meeting last week on Tuesday, but this is no longer possible. I have also joined the 'People of Sheffield old and new' and 'Pictures of Sheffield old and new' groups on Facebook, which have a large and active following, and I will post our film on there to get more interest and to find more potential contributors.

Example of a post from the Facebook page