Blog #9 - "We're One!"

19/06/18

As usual, we’ve been running pretty fast since the last blog and there’s lots to tell you.

Our half-term programme at Creative Workspace included an epic slime-making day led by Laura from Colourful Minds, a photowalk challenge as part of Bristol Walk Fest,  an improvised story about a witch & several dogs from the amazing Dice Tales team and a fabulous new track made by young people’s voices and the mixing wizardry of Simon Panrucker which you can hear here!

We also hosted a 2 hour live-radio broadcast with Radio Bristol in celebration of Creative Workspace’s First Birthday. Our great thanks to Radio Bristol for all their support over our first year, in particular to Martin Evans who has been a staunch supporter of all we are trying to achieve. You can listen to his special Creative Workspace programme here.

We are still a bit in awe that we have made it this far, and it was wonderful to have so many of our supporters there, Hartcliffe & Withywood Community Choir, Dandelion Music, Colourful Minds, many of our trustees & lots of our regular participants turned up for the party. Our cake was made by local BS13 company Lucy Love Cakes which was won in a raffle by a choir member, so it was shared amongst them. Perfect!

Also:

We’re writing a Song for Knowle West!

We recently started a residency at Knowle West Media Centre. We’ll be gathering lyrics, riffs & rhythms from lots of different community members in Knowle West and unleashing the resulting song on the world at the inimitable Knowle West Fest in September. As this Thursday is Make Music Day UK we are going on our first lyric, riff & rhythm-gathering expedition at Knowle West Media Centre and Filwood Community Centre. So if you’re in the area, swing by and say hi!

We went out to Play!

Funding from the Tesco Bags of Help scheme supported us to tour our early years’ imaginative play sessions PlayTimes to  Hartcliffe Children’s Centre, Bishopsworth Library & Bishopsworth Children’s Centre as part of Children's Art Week. We flew a hot air balloon, sailed a pirate ship and took a picnic to the moon. This week launched our newly forged partnership with the local children's centres following their restructing, and this is just  the beginning of many more early years arts events in BS13.

We’re making a creative community garden!

Work has started to clear our outside space at Creative Workspace so that we can offer creative activities outside as well as indoors come the long and hopefully sunny summer holidays. The area has been neglected for a long time and there’s a lot of work to be done. We have completed stage one but now need a bit of a push to get the final stages completed in time for 31st July when we next open. You can find and more, and even offer your support, on our Localgiving page here. If you can’t contribute this time, please consider sharing our appeal so that more people hear about what we’re trying to achieve.

Our Summer Programme is live!

If you want to know more about what have on offer this summer, then check out our Creative Workspace What’s On Page. Animation, costume-making, music tech, family theatre shows  and even a Youth Theatre for 8-11 year olds. Do bear in mind that it’s now a little bit cheaper if you book for our events in advance online, and all bookings can be easily accessed via our What’s On Page.

That’s all from me. Next time we will have a collaborative guest blog for you, written by Lauren and Mia, our two Year 10 Work Experience students. Can’t wait to get them on board!