When I arrived back from my holiday in September, Arwel and Lowri had been discussing the idea further with Galactig and things were moving forward at a fast pace.  Following on from Skype meeting, Derick created a clear document outlining the possibilities of the platform and Arwel thought of the name ‘Sibrwd’. I went on to research the objectives and aims of NESTA, the Welsh Arts Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, who fund the grant, so that we could transfer what we knew about the three into the answers on the application form. Our idea was so simple that it was hard to believe that no-one else had already thought of this. The last thing we wanted was that our innovative idea was already done!  Rob Ashelford mentioned that National Theatre of Scotland had a similar project which involved access to the arts, but for people who are disabled not regarding the language.  Working with others who were already doing similar projects to learn from them would be seen as a strength when filling out the application. So we decided that we’d work as much as possible with NTS, to learn from them and share experiences. So we decided to carry on and start the application! After a full week of writing and re-writing, we sent the applications with a few minutes to spare and waited for an answer.  We discussed that if we weren’t successful then we’d try again in January and look for other funds. Sibrwd was too good and idea to leave it alone.

At the end of September we learnt that we’d reached the shortlist and were invited to an interview. I received the email whilst on a course in Chapter and I nearly shouted out in the middle of someone’s talk! I sent everyone and email, and phoned Mam of course. We spent a whole day preparing for the interview in Y Llwyfan, discussing who would present which part of the 10 minute presentation and how we’d do it.  The interview went really well and we found out the next day that we were successful, yay! Keeping everything quiet until we were allowed to announce it was a bit of a challenge, we just wanted to start the work and SHOUT about Sibrwd!