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: Places * Settle, Kentucky, United States * Settle, North Yorkshire, a town in England ** Settle Rural District, a historical administrative district Music * Settle (band), an indie rock band from Pennsylvania * ''S ...

, a small market town in

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...

. 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. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three s ...

, 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 administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of 7,052,000 in 2011. It is the th ...

, particularly the

Yorkshire Dales The Yorkshire Dales is an upland area of the Pennines in the Historic counties of England, historic county of Yorkshire, England, most of it in the Yorkshire Dales National Park created in 1954. The Dales comprise river valleys and the hills ri ...

. 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,

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 William Reginald Mitchell (15 January 1928 – 7 October 2015) was a British writer who was the editor of ''Dalesman'' magazine for twenty years and over a sixty-year period wrote over 200 books, hundreds of articles, and delivered many talks o ...

over a 60-year period to record the history of

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...

and

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

. 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, and 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 ...

'' 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