Settle Stories is a registered charity and company founded in 2011 by Sita Brand, following the running of the Settle Storytelling Festival in 2010. The charity seeks to promote storytelling for individuals, communities and organisations.

History

In 2010, Sita Brand, a performance storyteller, theatre director, writer, and producer, established ran the first Settle Storytelling Festival in

Settle Settle or SETTLE may refer to: __NOTOC__ Places * Settle, Kentucky, United States, an unincorporated community * Settle, North Yorkshire, a town in England ** Settle Rural District, a historical administrative district Music * Settle (band), an in ...

, a small market town in

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...

. The aims of the festival were : # To increase access to traditional and modern forms of storytelling. # To improve the storytelling skills of users. # To increase the availability of, access to, and diversity of stories and storytelling. At the core of the initiative was a belief by Brand in the power of storytelling to help people learn and communicate universal truths. Brand believes that stories ignite the imagination in ways that help people to listen, learn, make emotional connections with ideas and effectively communicate with others. She also saw the festival as a way of contributing to the economic development of the market town. Funding was obtained from the

Arts Council England Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council o ...

, with additional contributions from Craven District Council, Settle Town Council. The first Settle Storytelling Festival was successfully launched in 2010, involving professional storytellers, musicians and other artists. Over 500 people attended, with a similar number of local children taking part in schools-based workshops. Following the success of the 2010 festival, Settle Stories became a registered charity (registered charity no.1141649). Subsequent festivals in each of the following years saw a steady increase in visitors, with over 1,000 attending the 2013 event. The festival has since grown to become the largest storytelling festival in the north of England with over 70 events in 2018. In June 2011, Settle Stories established the W R Mitchell Archive, which is a unique collection of audio and visual recordings of life in the

North West of England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of 7,4 ...

, particularly the

Yorkshire Dales The Yorkshire Dales are a series of valleys, or Dale (landform), dales, in the Pennines, an Highland, upland range in England. They are mostly located in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, but extend into C ...

. The charity is now in the process of digitising the material and making it available as a resource for learning (see below). In 2018, Settle Stories established The Joinery, a venue and creative space for users to meet, create and share arts work, The company is funded by

Arts Council An arts council is a government or private non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the arts; mainly by funding local artists, awarding prizes, and organizing arts events. They often operate at arms-length from the government to prevent pol ...

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

, Settle Town Council, Trusts and Foundations, commercial sponsors and individuals. The company continues to innovate and has developed a number of digital projects including a live streamed events. and Interactive Fiction. In 2019 the company created the world's first Listening Gallery in a BT heritage phone box. In 2019 they worked with Shanthamani Muddaiah to create a new work Life in our Hands.

W R Mitchell Archive

The W R Mitchell Archive is a collection of oral history recordings, photographs and other materials collected by W. R. Mitchell over a 60-year period to record the history of

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

and

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

. Mitchell (Bill) (1928 - 2015) was a journalist, historian, and author of over 100 books and articles on the

. He joined ''The

Dalesman ''Dalesman'' is a British monthly regional magazine, based in Skipton, serving the English county of Yorkshire. Its first edition was published in March 1939, under the original title of ''The Yorkshire Dalesman: A Monthly Magazine of Dales' L ...

'' magazine in 1948 and was its editor from 1968–88. From the 1980s onward, Bill toured the region recording on cassette tape the memories of local people on a wide range of topics, but particularly the everyday experiences of people, as remembered and told by Dales people in their own words and dialects. In 1996, in recognition of his work, he was awarded the MBE and was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Bradford. By 2010, Dr Mitchell had amassed a collection of over 300 audio tapes, with an accompanying collection of photographs and some video footage, of his interviewees. In January 2012, Settle Stories received a £50,000 Heritage Lottery Fund Grant for a pilot project to digitise a selection of cassette tapes and make the recordings available online. The archive continues with the support of volunteers.

References

External links

Settle Stories homepage
*
W R Mitchell Archives online
{{Authority control Charities based in North Yorkshire Organizations established in 2010 Art festivals in the United Kingdom Oral history Storytelling events Storytelling organizations Settle, North Yorkshire 2010 establishments in England