The Mayor of Weston-super-Mare’s twin city in Germany has visited Weston College to see how it has grown in recent years.

Mayor of Hildesheim, Dr Ingo Meyer, and his Civic Officer, Oliver Roesner, visited the College on Wednesday 18th May.

The two German visitors were joined by Weston Town Mayor Raymond Armstrong, Mayoress Joan Dunne, and North Somerset Councillor and College Governor Ian Porter.

The German city of Hildesheim has been twinned with Weston-super-Mare since 1983 and the duo were eager to learn more about the College.

They visited Knightstone Campus to meet with Senior Assistant Principal Linda Burlison and Executive Director for Apprenticeships and Commercial Strategy Liz Redwood.

The German Mayor discovered how the College has grown throughout the past 15 years, about the course offerings, its provision for students with learning difficulties and disabilities, and the ongoing building developments.

The group then visited the College’s South West Skills Campus, in Locking Road, to have a tour of engineering facilities from the College’s Executive Director for Professional and Technical Curriculum, Andy Davidson.

Dr Meyer said: “It was a very interesting visit. What I particularly liked is that Weston College has a focus on the needs of businesses it works with and I think this is very, very important, and what I would like to have more of in Hildesheim, it’s the area of focus for me. We need to create good workers for the future.”

WESTON College Higher Education media students premiered their films at the Watershed cinema in Bristol last week (Thursday June 9th).

The aspiring filmmakers from the College’s Film and Media Arts Production foundation degree, which is run in partnership with Bath Spa University, presented 14 short films to an audience of more than 100 people at the venue on Bristol’s Harbourside. 

The eclectic mix of traditional, experimental, corporate and documentary flicks included ‘Ghosts’, a collaborative effort by all of the second year students, and ‘That’s Life’, which was shot by the first year students on their residential trip to Granada, Spain.

Samuel Wiggins, who directed ‘Ghosts’, said: “Working on a professional set of such a big size and scale was new to us all, but it was such a rewarding and enjoyable experience. We’re all really pleased with the film.”

The event was also organised and promoted by the multi-talented students.

Emily Eades, who led the organising committee, said: “Everyone came together really well to work on staging the showcase.

“The response was better than we could ever have hoped for, and we’re grateful to everyone who came along to share our memorable evening with us.”

As well as counting as coursework towards their degrees, the students will be submitting the shorts to competitions and festivals and also using them to support their applications to join professional shoots in the coming months.

Jimmy Hay, the coordinator of the FdA Film and Media Arts Production course at Weston College’s Loxton Campus, said: “As lecturers, we were incredibly proud to see the films being played on the big screen at a cinema as prestigious as the Watershed.

“We have a really strong group of students and the quality of the films they’ve made this year is a testament to the amount of work and dedication they’ve put into developing their craft and how effectively they’ve worked together as a team.”

The programme also included ‘The Fatal Deal’ by Miguel Fonseca and Jessie Clayton; ‘Choco Factory’ by Tanicka Fenty; ‘The Ring’ by Miguel Fonseca; ‘The Truth Is In The Groove’ by Becki Couch; ‘Jooxter’ by Seb Harris and Poppy Mobsby; ‘Under The Bridge’ by Emily Eades; ‘8 Mil Memories’ by John Peeke; ‘Play Dead For Me’ by Alex Shepherd; ‘Moth’ by Harley Sanderson; ‘The Different Sides of Helsinki?’ by Lizzy Holbrook; ‘Below The Neck’ by Samuel Wiggins; and ‘INTIMAE’ by Seb Harris and Poppy Mobsby.

You can view the showcase trailer by visiting: https://vimeo.com/169445451

As Weston College’s popular Creative Art’s Summer Show opens to the public today (Wednesday 15th June), students have revealed their inspiration behind this year’s theme.

Laura Martins (19) and Lauren Poole (20), who are both studying Graphic Design Foundation Degrees in partnership with Bath Spa University at Weston College’s Loxton Campus, were tasked with creating the show’s branding and its overall theme.

Their concept ‘Infinity’ was chosen as it depicted the many different possibilities that students studying creative arts courses could pursue in the future.

Lauren said: “This is a showcase of hundreds of students’ work, each one with their own journey behind and ahead of them, with an infinite number of possibilities.

“We decided to create a brand around the idea that the artists on show here are infinitely expanding and growing as artists, exploring an infinite number of possibilities and artistic routes.

“Despite the huge scope of the event, we decided to keep the brand itself simple and approachable as it has to relate to everyone who sees it.”

The Weston College Summer Show allows the College’s Creative Arts students the opportunity to display their work to the public and forms a part of their assessment.

The show sees the campus, in Loxton Road, transformed into an art gallery with students on courses such art, graphic design and film exhibiting their work inside the building, while students studying music perform outside the venue.

The show is free to enter and open to the public until Thursday 23rd June between 10am - 4pm, and on Saturday 18th June from 10am - 2pm.