It's GCSE results day!

Today sees teenagers across the country eagerly awaiting the delivery of their GCSE exam results. However, this year is a little different - there are also 89 excited individuals from all over the North West waiting for the postman to arrive. These 89 individuals made history back in May by sitting the first ever prototype exam paper on GCSE Level LGBT Studies and are now part of a small revolution within the current UK teaching curriculum.

An overview of all EXAM results is available online at a new website called EXAM PROJECT dedicated to EXAM and it's future manifestations. Take a look at the site to see how everyone did. We hope to add new documentation as the project expands over the coming months.

Everyone at Ultimate Holding Company feels that EXAM was a huge success and only made possible through the participation of the candidates, thank you and congratulations to you all.

We are also excited to announce that we are going to be hosting a series of reading groups over the autumn months open to all EXAM candidates and their friends. The meetings will continue the themes and topics explored in the EXAM paper and will be a chance to discuss the different areas covered in the exam, as well as hear from guest speakers about LGBT history and culture. The first Reading Group will meet on Wednesday 29th Sept with a focus on Polari. Further details can be found below;

Date: Wednesday 29th Sept 2010
Time: 6pm - 8pm
Location: Hotspur House, 2 Gloucester Street, M1 5QR

For more information visit www.examproject.org.uk 
or call 0161 238 8523.

Class Portrait

Via the Creative Review Blog - The D&AD Best New Blood Winners 2010 were announced and although there were some particularly thought provoking and stimulating design pieces, what caught our attention was the somewhat controversial topic of child photography.

The project we liked most, by Anna Brooks and Samantha Harvey entitled Class Portrait, looks at 'the ethical issues and paranoia surrounding the laws of photographing children' in a visually arresting series of images.

Student Details:

anna-brooks.com

samantha-harvey.co.uk

What BP could have bought with all the money they lost!

An interesting thought !
Lets see some things that they could have bought :

// 10 years of water for each of the 884 million people in the world without access to it.
// A year's sponsorship for 1 million needy kids at Children International.
// A Pogo stick for every elementary Kid in the US.
// An ice cream sandwich for everyone on the earth.

An incredible loss and one that will effect us all - with a huge environmental impact it has and continues to destroy everything within its reach.

See more at:
http://www.visualeconomics.com/what-bp-could-have-bought-with-all-the-money-they-lost/

EXAM - UHC host the first ever GCSE level examination in LGBT studies!

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in late May at the University of Salford's Maxwell Hall, one hundred members of the public made history by sitting the first ever GCSE level examination in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) History, Culture and Politics.

'I took part in Exam, it was a unique experience for me. As a gay man, I came out at school aged 14. School became impossible and I hardly attended barr the last five exams. ~ Sitting that exam yesterday was an emotional and deeply personal experience that worked on many levels, thank you for the chance for me to participate in this.' Exam Candidate, 24/05/2010.

Commissioned by Queer Up North as part of their 2010 festival, Exam is a result of a four-month community engagement project with LGBT groups and individuals of all ages throughout the North West.

The artist, Joe Richardson hopes that Exam will feed a campaign to see perspectives and histories from Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people recognised within all subjects of the National Curriculum.

Photograph by Roshana Rubin-Mayhew.

A Horse Walks Into A Bar at Castlefield Gallery

Ultimate Holding Company will be part of Castlefield's A Horse Walks Into A Bar show, which opens at 6pm tomorrow evening (17th June, 2010). We've submitted a couple of the gorgeous Anatomy Projects portraits of Ambassadors from extInked, the original drawings of the 100 endangered species, the almanac of all our research and the applications to become an ambassador. The exhibition follows our Ambassadors' Reunion, which we held at the gallery last Saturday (the 12th of June), and our work will be shown alongside artists like Dan Staincliffe, Maddi Nicholson, Richard Billingham and Turner Prize-winner Mark Wallinger.

All Day I Dream About suffering.

Ultimate holding company have responded to last weekend's Manchester Adidas street party (at Granada's Coronation Street studio) with the special release of this commemorative Stove Pipe Top Hat.

Released to mark the return of clothes factory worker's exploitation to the city which gave birth to it, the hat is this season's must have fashion accessory - here as a timely reminder that modern manufacturing process has not eradicated the poor-house, merely exported it abroad.

Keith Taylor MEP website live

We've just built a website for the new Green Party MEP Keith Taylor in record time. The design and build was all done in a week and we're quite proud and excited about the work, check the new site out here.

Keith is very passionate about the issues close to his heart, which includes social justice, peace and human rights, and economic development. Read more about him and follow the process of his latest work on his website. We look forward to continuing our work with Keith as he settles into his new role.

Lastly, congratulations to Caroline Lucas for winning the first Green MP seat in Brighton. We wish her all the best in this new position!

Music Plus Evaluation

We've just had a very productive meeting with Naomi Kashiwagi and thought we would share our notes. We'll be working with Naomi and some of Manchester's cultural venues over the next six months to help them evaluate the success of the new Music Plus event. We are all a bit excited about the project's potential so we will keep you updated on the progress we make.

Just The Ticket

Just The Ticket was a series of courses run by the Workers' Education Authority. WEA aims to engage people from isolated communities and enable them to realise their full potential through learning. The Just the Ticket courses ranged from 2 to 120 hours, covering a wide variety of topics, from history to needle-craft and took place in both Liverpool and Manchester.

Friday 26th of March saw an awards ceremony and workshop sessions held at The Whitworth Art Gallery, to celebrate the achievements of the participants. We were there to host commemorative plate making workshops, for the learners and the staff involved with Just the Ticket and to commend the success of the project.

We are now currently working on a book for the dedicated learners as a memory of the project.

For more information on the courses and venues, see the Just the Ticket website www.weacreative.org.uk or for more about the WEA visit www.wea.org.uk.

Photography by Gill Moore, www.gillmoorephotography.co.uk.

Appeal - Western Capercaillie

Although the tattooing element of extInked is now finished, the project is far from over with many of the ambassadors launching fundamental follow-up awareness raising projects. The ambassador for the Wetsren Capercaillie, Nick Dixon, is starting a grassroots group to support the RSPB affiliated 'Friends of the Western Capercaillie'.

As the minimum joining fee for the group is a £25o, which is too expensive for the average individual, Nick is looking for 125 people to donate £2 per year each to start. Members will receive a periodic newsletter from 'Friends of the Western Capercaillie', giving information about the conservation progress made to keep this Scottish species alive.

For further information, or to join the group, please contact us at mail@uhc.org.uk.