Creative Company

We are very excited to be starting a new project – Creative Company – intended to support people living with dementia and their carers.

The idea for the project came out of a conversation with Camella Pugh at the Sue Ryder charity, in which she told us about members attending their Synergy Cafes who were keen to get involved in creative activities, but who lacked the confidence to put themselves forward to initiate a programme.

Creative Company will work with groups attending the Cafes – and other local groups – to identify what art form they would like to pursue; this will be achieved via a series of taster sessions. Once the group has chosen their preferred art form, an artist will be appointed to run a series of sessions, to build confidence in the core group and enable the volunteer to gain experience in running a creative activity. This experience will be developed through a series of six artist-supported sessions, where the volunteer will take lead role; the artist will take part occasionally and be available to advise. Finally, the volunteer will run the programme by themselves.

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Clown Round

February saw the Clown Doctors across the region bringing happiness and distraction to children and young people disadvantaged by illness.

Dr Fidget retuned from an adventure in Iceland with a slight Nordic twang and a definite essence of mischievous elf about her! After her Nordic jaunt, Dr Fidget got to work with Dr Misschief helping children and young people feel better about being in hospital. One parent commented “They really cheered our daughter up and had her smiling in no time!”

The Clown Doctors are gearing up for a busy month ahead with a Play Day at the COOP Education Centre in Ipswich and visits across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. We are also very excited to be heading up to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital again soon, with the Clown Doctors bringing relief and laughter to those who need it most.

Suffolk at Play
Stradbroke celebration

In early March, we held a celebratory assembly for Years 7 and 8 at Stradbroke High School, in which we played the animations created by the Suffolk at Play participants and awarded certificates to the 10 children who took part.

Later the same day, we hosted a lunch for both the children and adult participants. Each received a copy of the DVD and the full colour booklet of their stories of games and capers they got up to when they were young.

It was also a chance for them to experience the Suffolk at Play Cube. This is now sited in the school library, where it will remain for several weeks, so that the entire school can watch the animations, enjoy the scrapbooks and other items created during the project.

You can see the animation, and the booklet produced by the Stradbroke Suffolk at Play participants by visiting

suffolkatplay.primaryblogger.co.uk/animations

Meanwhile, over in Stowmarket, the project is drawing to a close. The animations have been made, and last week we interviewed the children, to produce voice-overs for the films and also get an idea of how they felt about the project.

What really struck all of the children was how naughty the residents had been, when they were younger. “I expected them to do things like play board games and be outside a bit – but they all got up to all sorts of things, particularly Naughty Nancy.”

When asked what he had got out of the project, one boy commented: – “Before this started, I was anxious, because I just wasn’t sure how to talk to the residents, how to talk to people who are older, and one thing I’ve got from this is that I’ve learnt how to talk to them now.”

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Rock Up

Things are hotting up at Rock Up – despite the freezing temperature outside – as the band rehearses for a gig later this month.

Details have yet to be finalised, but it’s hoped that the band will take part in the end of term showcase, held as a regular Ampifier Music event at The Cut in Halesworth.

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Interchange

The group of Young Adult Carers have been working hard on their individual designs creating cyanotypes and screen prints over the last month. They are now starting to work collaboratively, overlaying their designs to create new, exciting artwork. We are making plans for a trip in April and the group are starting to work on flyers and publicity for their showcase event later in April.

JumpstART!

The Jumpstart Carnival Arts project has started across Bury St Edmunds, Lowestoft and Ipswich.

In Bury, artists Hannah Garland and Kasia Posen kicked off the course with some exciting workshops in painting to music and sound – everyone enjoyed making giant paintings with lots of messy mark making using pine cones and feathers tied to sticks.  There’s lots planned for the coming weeks, with Chris Draude coming to teach circus skills, Caitlin Howells making giant willow structures, a drummer, and workshops covering costume making, face painting and prop making.

The new course in Ispwich at the Ipswich Art School Gallery has been led by artist Linda Farrow.  We’ll be making costumes and masks and props for a film to be screened by the end of the course.  There are still places available in Ipswich as it’s a new location for Jumpstart – so contact Fran or Charlie if you’re interested on 01986 873 955 or [email protected] or [email protected]

In Lowestoft the session have started being led by artist Kasia Posen.  It has been a really exciting start, Kasia has some really bright and colourful ideas to engage the students which have quickly captured the imagination of the students.  We started the course by drawing to the sounds of instruments and how music has an affect on our feelings.

Kasia put a big sheet down of the floor and the students danced round it with pens on sticks and we ended up with a masterpiece of colourful shapes and squiggles!

We are looking forward to our trip to Africa Alive with our sketchbooks to start researching our ideas for the carnival masks and hope to come back with lots of photographs to share with everyone.

As a member of the the Strategic Overview Group (SOG) of Arts Council England’s Suffolk Music Education Hub we are circulating the survey below in order to develop a current comprehensive ‘needs analysis’ in terms of both opportunities and gaps in the music provision available to children and young people in Suffolk.

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Creative Employment Programme

30 arts organisations have provided 57 paid apprenticeships and internships for young unemployed people with support from the Creative Employment Programme. These talented young people have made a fantastic contribution to arts in Suffolk. We at Suffolk Artlink were recently really impressed by intern Olivia Penny’s films for Aldeburgh Music

If you are a young unemployed person interested in working in the arts please visit www.suffolkartlink.org.uk/cep for the latest exciting opportunities and more information.

If you are an employer interested in offering apprenticeship or internship opportunities please contact Alistair by email [email protected] or phone 01986 873955. Grants of up to £2500 are available for employers.

Current Opportunities:
Out Loud Music: Marketing, Promotions and Bookings Manager
Pop Hit Factory: Sales and Marketing Manager
Ipswich Community Media: Radio Station Assistant
ADEC: Project Assistant
Pacitti Company: Admin and Marketing Assistant
Eastern Angles: Production Intern

Bridge Project

This project, in collaboration with Norfolk and Norwich Festival Bridge, brings two professional artists into primary schools in Lowestoft and Reydon. The theme for the project is illustration and character design and it aims is to develop the teachers and children’s creative skills and to establish new ways of displaying and exhibiting work in the schools.

After a busy planning day with the some of the Active Learning Trust Primary Schools earlier in February, our artists Kasia Posen and Joel Millerchip were set to begin the project this month.

Kasia has been working with Grove and Westwood Primary and Joel has worked with Pakefield and Red Oak Primary, with Reydon starting later in the spring. All the schools have been getting to grips with the concept of character design and are now set to develop their ideas further into their own individual projects.

We are very excited to see how everyone’s ideas progress over the coming weeks, with Viking model making, mural preparation and curation committees galore, this is set to be an exciting few months!

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Suffolk Music Education Hub Survey

We have been asked to share a short questionnaire
www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/suffolkmusiceducationhub

Your responses will help them to map activity across the county to support children and young people in Suffolk to make a reality of the National Plan for Music Education’s vision to enable children from all backgrounds and every part of England to have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument; to make music with others; to learn to sing; and to have the opportunity to progress to the next level of excellence.

They will be pleased to receive any information you are able to share.

Following the Survey’s closing date of 31 March they will be using our website to share outcomes of this work more widely.

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Disability Matters

Launched in February 2015, Disability Matters www.disabilitymatters.org.uk is an innovative suite of free resources to support those who work, volunteer or engage with disabled children and young people (from 0 to 25 years) and their families. It seeks to address the barriers that make society disabling. These challenges are faced by those with either physical and/or intellectual disabilities.

Developed by disabled young people, parent carers and other experts, Disability Matters arranges individual modules into helpful bite-sized learning packages so that the training offered matches the needs of specific individuals, groups, organisations and sectors. It offers practical advice about supporting disabled children, young people and their families to achieve the outcomes that matter to them.

Our Aims:

  To raise the profile of disability within the UK and internationally.

    To increase awareness of the issues that affect the everyday lives of disabled children, young people and their families.

    To help people who work, volunteer or engage with disabled young people identify creative and practical ways to overcome the social barriers that challenge them in their everyday lives.

    To equip those who work, volunteer or engage with disabled young people to support them as effectively as they can to achieve what matters most to them.

    To help employers to improve the ways in which they work with and respond to disabled young people and their families by supporting their workforce – both paid and voluntary – to implement creative solutions to identifiable barriers.

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