Regent Park Focus

Last week, the ladies from the Diva’s Media Group attended the second meeting involving members who are actively working with Regent Park Focus, to discuss the upcoming project of the Mobile Media Bike. This project will encourage the development of new media ideas that will promote Regent Park Focus. The meeting allowed members to underline the main advantages and disadvantages that were listed at the previous meeting, to now form concrete ideas that will narrow down the Mobile Media Bike’s purpose. The Divas were able to participate and give ideas on the focus of the utility of the bike within the community. The girls chose to present a specific event, in which the bike can be utilized. The “Sunday In The Park” is an event in July that occurs in the Regent Park community, was an excellent choice for the girls as they recognized the volume of families and young girls that participate at the annual fair. The girls explained the ways the Mobile Media Bike could be used with the parti...

On August 9th, Regent Park Focus broadcasted live at Sunday in the Park, Regent Park’s annual community festival. The youth summer media group prepared two radio shows and some live music for the day. Maeashah and Aidan rode the mobile media lab from Focus over to Regent Park, attracting quite a bit of attention along the way. Once they arrived at the park, the group started their first radio show, a live interview with Beixi Liu from the Workers’ Action Centre, which was hosted by Sadie and Sarah. Beixi answered questions about workers’ rights, youth rights at work, and told the crowd all about Ontario’s fight for $15 and fairness, which is a campaign to raise the minimum wage in Ontario to $15. The next show was about Canada’s upcoming election, and how to get Canada’s youth more involved, hosted by Vina and Sarah. The first guest was Toronto Centre NDP candidate Linda McQuaig. Linda answered Vina and Sarah’s questions and gave her perspective on how to get youth more involved...

The Regent Park Multicultural Harvest Festival took place at the Daniels Spectum (585 Dundas Street East) on Saturday October 6th, 2012 between the time of 11:00am and 4pm. The event featured entertainment, food, games, prizes, seminars and a whole lot more! Even the Regent Park Focus House Band preformed along-side other talented artists from the community. We took the Mobile Media Bike Lab (also known as The Mammal) along with us for the visit of the festival; stationed along-side with residents that had set up booths to sell artwork and clothing that reflect the diverse cultures that exist within the Regent Park Community. We transformed The Mammal into a radio recording station and interviewed a few people that were involved in the festival. We'd like to thank Karen Boucher, the event volunteer coordinator for inviting us to the event.  ~ Tyrone

A very busy month for ‘The Mammal’ (the mobile medialab)… The Mammal as mentioned from some of our blogs, is a 2 rider-bicycle that looks like a boxy looking snail that carries media equipments such as speakers, radio transmitter, soundboards, microphones etc. We take this bike lab into community events and do live broadcasts and radio performances. We can show films on the bikelab as well because we can set it up as a mini stage. The Mammal is soo amazing! We took this bike lab into so many different community events the last 2 months of the summer and did our radio show and live interviews. The Sunday in the Park is one of them, Show Love, and EID, and the Last Friday events are just among the few that got The Mammal some exposure. We had a bunch of hilarity as usual for our radio shows this month. Rob Ford was busy too, with all the scrutiny surrounding him these past few months with regards to his ignorant comments to getting caught reading and driving! As if he had already l...

The Mobile Media Lab also known as "The Mammal" is a customized bike built by students at U of T architect program in partnership with Regent Park Focus. It is a radio studio on wheels that can screen videos as well as provide for various multi-media related functions. For the summer of 2012 we have committed to taking out the bike to as many different community events in Regent Park as we can. One event in particular is a weekly event called Show Love which takes place in South Regent Park. We conducted various interviews at the event to get an understanding of what Show Love is and why the residents and local community agencies decided it was important to have this weekly event for the summer, in Regent Park. In the following link you can listen to our per-produced radio show recorded from the Mobile Media Lab that evening at Show Love: Listen Now: http://www.regentparkfocus.com/radio/media/2012-08-22.mp3 ~ Tyrone

For the final day of Summer we celebrated with a jam packed night full of music, story telling and free food at our August Last Friday event. The event took place at the Daniels Presentation Centre at 500 Dundas Street East. The event kicked off at 6:30pm with the Catch da Flava Radio crew with "The Mammal" (The Mobile Media Lab Bike), whom interviewed members of the Regent Park community about their Summer experiences, back to school and even talked about the issues with Facebook sharing information of minors under the age of 13. We will be airing the pre-produced Catch da Flava radio show that was recorded at Last Fridays on September 12th, 2012. So be sure to check that out. Some of the musical guests that delighted the crowd, were the Roots Drummers, Jessica Stuart and Trace Minerals. Thanks to Paul Corby, Kerry and Jerry for finding these great talents. ~ Tyrone

The Mobile Media Lab also known as "The Mammal" takes another trip to Regent Park's very own Show Love event. Tonight's show love event celebrated EID. You can listen to the pre-produced Catch da Flava radio show we conducted at the event, interviewing young residents and organizers in the community. Listen Now: http://www.regentparkfocus.com/radio/media/2012-08-29.mp3

This afternoon we took the Mobile Media Lab Bike out for a test run using some new equipment. Positioned just outside of Regent Park Focus at 38 Regent Street we conducted a few test recordings of interviews between each-other and played some live music. Many residents in the community came to check out the bike after hearing the music and live recordings blare from its speakers, out of curiosity as to what the contraption was and what it was designed to do. Several of the designers of the bike were on site to help train some of the youth, volunteers and staff how to use the bike and how to set it up and take it down. It was a pretty fun fill day working with something as unique as the Mammal. Be sure to see the mammal in other sites around Regent Park in the future! ~ Tyrone

Today is the first time we took the Mobile Media Lab also known as "The Mammal" to Regent Park's new weekly summer event called "Show Love". We played music from the bike after unfolding it like a Transformer and entertained the visitors at the event.

The Sunday in the Park Festival 2012 – the longest running annual event in Regent Park – celebrated its 21st Anniversary on July 8! The Regent Park Focus House Band was busy delighting the audience with music and entertainment while The Catch da Flava radio crew conducted an onsite radio show from The Mobile Media Lab Bike (The Mammal). We interviewed Glen Murrey, Firefighters and many organizations and residents in the Regent Park area. ~ Tyrone

 Youth set up Mobile Media Lab aka the MAMMAL outside focus for Jane's Walk stop at Focus Diva Girls Group participants talk about the impact the group has had on their lives and how more young girls should get involved.  Youth wait outside Focus to present the MAMMAL to visitors  Visitors from Jane's Walk at Focus.  Visitors watch RPTV videos created by youth at Focus.  The Mammal display.  Tresvonne from the Regent Park Focus House Band and Catch da Flava Radio Show participant explains his participation at Focus.  Youth inside the computer lab doing their homework and working on articles for Catch da Flava Magazine.  Youth riding the Mammal in the community for the Jane's Walk community event.  Some of the youth who are involved in the radio show every Tuesday night talk about the importance of having youth's voice heard and their perspective on social issues and hot topics.  Michele, Youth ...

 M.C Michele and Adonis start the show Regent Park Focus House Band represent as usual at every Last Friday Siblings Loyal and Layia perform and support each other The Mammal arrives at Last Friday and youth involved in the Mammal project speak at Last Friday Ruth Mathiang and Amelia LeClair perform a duet  Ruth Royes and band member perform a soulful jazz set  Youth involved in creating the Mammal give a speech at Last Friday  Young dancers from the Regent Park community put on a surprise performance  Preparing the Mammal the Mobile Media Lab before entering Last Friday Regent Park Staff and volunteers at Last Friday! Last Fridays is back! Thanks to Daniels Corporation, we are able to bring back Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre’s Last Fridays event for the next 3 months. Our April Last Friday was a success! We had an array of diverse young talent who performed at 246 Sackville. As always we provided free ...