Sandford Cascade Project
Sandford Cascade Project 
Funded by Heritage Lottery Fund East Midland Cascade Media Partner – ‘Sandford Shorts’
Introduction
The Sandford Cascade Project is a new and innovative East Midlands based project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund to provide bespoke professional development for staff and volunteers at heritage venues so that more sites and collections apply for the prestigious Sandford Award.
An aspiring site (called an Advancer) will be linked with a Sandford Award winning site (called a Supporter) and will be given support through training, volunteer involvement, funding, student placements and a range of e-learning resources. We intend to ‘match’ around 100 ‘Advancer’ sites with 15 ‘Supporter’ sites, and aim to have 50% of Advancers applying for a Sandford Award by year 4 of the project.
The project will develop and utilise a range of e-learning resources and curate a digital archive generated by project activities to include professional development resources.
A major element of the project is a series of short films which will be located at Sandford Award winning sites throughout the East Midlands. These films (‘Sandford Shorts’) will feature Sandford Judges delivering good practice information based on the Sandford Award criteria.
The four year project is already underway, and is based at Bishop Grosseteste University in Lincoln; an impressive number of sites and collections are engaged and the project is gaining momentum within the sector.
Cascade Media Partner
The project’s media partner will work with Sandford Judges and other heritage professionals to develop short accessible films to enable participants in the project to better understand ‘good practice’ in heritage education. Project participants will use the video as the basis for online discussion about their own practice to inform their development planning.
This model was piloted during the project’s development stage and was deemed successful. The pilot video can be accessed at: http://sandfordaward.org/cascade
The Sandford Shorts will be available on the Sandford Learning Cascade website and shared on You Tube and other Social Media channels. The project is based in the East Midlands, but it is anticipated these films will have national and potentially international reach.
Ten short films (average length of 10 minutes or less) will be made over the 4 year duration of the project (i.e. 2-3 per year). The tendering process will be repeated annually.
Project workers will identify the topics and presenters for the films. The Cascade Media Partner will be expected to work with the presenter and project staff to identify a suitable location, work with the presenter to plan the content of the film, shoot the film in HD and edit the film using the project branding. The deliverable will include both the final version of the film with appropriate metadata added as well as the video project file (either in Premiere or Final Cut).
Tender Requirements
- Knowledge and understanding of the heritage learning sector;
- Understanding and understanding of the Sandford Awards;
- Experience of interviewing people on film;
- Experience of producing factual short films;
- Outline project proposal and outline budget;
- 2 references.
Budget
The total budget for Year 1 (3 films) is £6,984 (£2,328 per film). Filming will take place at Sandford Award winning historic sites based in the East Midlands, and this budget is inclusive of travel and VAT.
The partnership will be reviewed and evaluated at the conclusion of the contract.
How to Apply
Experienced producers of online video content are invited to express an interest in being Sandford Learning Cascade’s Media Partner in a document outlining the nature of your organisation, your experience and the above Tender Requirements.
Submissions and expressions of interest should be made to Rachel Bryant (Sandford Cascade Co-ordinator): rachel.bryant@bishopg.ac.uk
by midday on Monday 4th April 2016.
Submissions will be considered by the Sandford Cascade Project Steering Group.
