Following our fantastic music and poetry launch event on Friday 7th April, at Union Corner, we will be offering art workshops, and our partners will be offering mental health support, mental health talks, radio editing workshops, a vinyl evening and more. Collaborating with other organisations allows us to offer a free programme of creative events to the Plymouth community. The Storytelling Collective is a collaboration between Mindful Art Club, Marbles Lost and Found, WonderZoo and Omnium Radio.
The Storytelling Collective is funded by Plymouth Octopus Project
Did you miss The Storytelling Collective launch gig on Good Friday? We’ll be doing another one in three months time, and in between we will be offering workshops and creative activities to boost mental health and reduce social isolation. Watch our Facebook page for more news, or sign up to our mailing list.
Mindful Art Club, WonderZoo, Omnium Radio and Marbles Lost and Found are working together to create an opening gig, creative workshops and a closing exhibition over three months in 2023. The collaboration is funded by Plymouth Octopus Project. These events will feature a research element, where participants will be asked to talk about what they need to help improve their lives within the changing social and political climate. An independent evaluator will collate the findings in a report, and this will be presented at the exhibition. This will be a pilot research project, hopefully leading to a longer collaboration.
Improving Wellbeing
This is a collaborative pilot project between four groups that aims to tackle social isolation and improve wellbeing. At the heart of the project is fun, laughter and putting a smile on people’s faces, within group settings that foster empathy, trust and acceptance. The project will take place over three months (April-June 2023) with research conducted with the participants that will feed into a report written by an independent evaluator. The ideas gathered from the research will inform a plan to create a two year collaboration between the four groups, with further funding sought from National Lottery or other larger funding bodies. This pilot project will be a testing ground for different ideas using existing expertise and community connections.
The four groups all currently work with diverse individuals, providing opportunities for creativity, skill and knowledge sharing, social interaction and mental health support. The organisations will offer their tried and tested workshop formats, but with the additional offer of letting the participants have a voice that will feed into the research aspect. Participants of the project will be able to express their views and offer ideas for how their current difficulties can be supported better within the community. This will hopefully lead on to create a longer program that is evidence-based and tailored to people’s present experiences, rather than using past models, which may not be suited to current issues.
Good Friday was a collaborative performance event – an opportunity for one representative of The Storytelling Collective to give a short talk about the project, its philosophy, aims and activities. This was followed by several artists who performed comedy, music and spoken word.
There will be three workshops run by each group during April to June 2023, with feedback forms for research. During the sessions, casual conversations will be had with participants that aim to bring out honest perspectives and potential ideas, with notes taken for keywords and phrases. There will be 12 workshops in total, at different locations in Plymouth including Omnium Radio HQ, Union Corner, Oasis Project and The Plot.
The three month project will culminate in an evening showcasing the work that was done during the workshops and the results of the research and evaluation report. It will be an opportunity for participants to get together and hear how their ideas and perspectives have been heard and will feed into a larger project. If this pilot project is successful, with the groups able to work alongside and support one another, there is the possibility of creating a new network within Plymouth that is geared towards tackling social isolation using creative practices.
Working Together
Our four different groups have known of each other as friends for several years, with some of us working together already on various projects. We felt that working together as a collective would allow each of us to gain further knowledge, experience and skills, which will make us more resilient as organisations, leading to greater long term sustainability and positive impact on our community.
Our groups have similar values and aims, as we all work towards tackling social isolation, supporting mental health, giving people a sense of fun and purpose, and providing opportunities to develop friendships. We felt that we’d be able to work together successfully as we all offer unique creative approaches and perspectives, such as performance, radio, visual art, and talks, which can enable mutual support and growth. We hope that this pilot project can lead to longer term collaborations.
There is no Mindful Art Club from Friday 7th April to Friday 14th April inclusive. So our last art group will be Thursday 6th at The London Inn, Plympton. We will return with the Sunflower Women’s Centre session on Monday 17th April.
We were honoured to be invited to a tea party at Lady Nancy Astors house on Plymouth Hoe, where the mayor presented several different community organisations with certificates to recognise their work. Thanks to Plymouth Astor Trust for a grant to continue our weekly support group at The London Inn, Plympton on Thursdays.
We enjoyed meeting all the other community organisations at this event, chatting, and learning about the history of Lady Astor and the house. Lady Astor’s granddaughter Alice was also at the event to tell us a little about the Astor Trust.
A collaboration brought to you by Pillars of Wellness and Wellbeing and the Mindful Art Club, this wellness day will provide sessions to assist you on your journey to wellness. A retreat-style day for anyone wanting to try new practices to help them on their healing path.
Pillars of Wellness and Wellbeing are a local organisation offering practical advice on ways to improve wellbeing.
Lauren from PWW says, “There are many things we can do to improve our mental and physical health that sit outside of the main stream and we understand that these things can often be out of reach for many. Mental health issues can affect anyone, but there are so many things we can do to bring a sense of relief at difficult times. The activities throughout the day have been carefully selected to provide a nourishing and restful experience, with practitioners who are highly experienced in their fields. This event will include sessions in yoga, qigong, sound healing, breathwork, meditation and a talk about the importance of good nutrition. Come along, meet new people, try something new and enjoy a day of wellbeing-focused activities.”
This event by Pillars of Wellness & Wellbeing CIC and Mindful Art Club CIC is at Devonport Guildhall, Ker St, Devonport, Plymouth PL1 4EL
To book your place follow this link, scroll down to ‘Free Ticket +Contribution’ (write a price) and input your contribution as zero (unless you want to donate). Although the top line says free tickets are sold out, please be reassured this is not the case.
We are pleased to be offering a new weekly mindful art group that offers peer support for mental health and teaches participants how to use mindfulness and art as coping strategies.
The format of this group will be a check-in at the beginning where people can talk about how the cost of living is affecting them, 10 minutes of guided mindfulness and a simple art project that anyone can do. We will offer practical solutions to the problems that people are going through such as sign-posting to other mental health organisations, help with form filling, advice about financial help, stress management, healthy eating on a budget and sign-posting to food banks. It is the peer support that makes all the difference at Mindful Art Club.
Want to learn to practice relaxation exercises, and art for self-care?
We are looking forward to working with Devon Recovery Learning Community again in May to deliver another six week course, on Zoom.
This recovery college is provided by Devon Partnership NHS Trust to support mental health and wellbeing. Their students are people with experience of mental health difficulties, their family and friends, and the professionals who support them.
Each session of our new course includes five minutes of guided mindfulness, five minutes of mindful drawing, a simple art project, and the opportunity to chat and relax.
‘Create Your Recovery’ gives people the opportunity to share their feelings, practice mindfulness, create art, relax and chat. This course:
Improves mental health
Improves social connection
Teaches new skills (relaxation exercises and art for self- care)
We start with a ‘check in’ to see how everyone is feeling. There is no obligation to speak if you don’t want to. This is followed by some guided mindfulness, then a simple art project e.g. drawing a mandala or making a collage. This course is very similar to our ‘Doodle Your Recovery’ course, but consists of different art projects.
We end the group with a ‘check out’ to share how everyone is feeling after practicing mindfulness and making art.
This six week, online course starts at 10am on Monday 15th May 2023
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New funding from Devon Mental Health Alliance will support Peggy and Emma to continue delivering a popular weekly Mindful Art Club group at Moments Cafe in Plymouth city centre, every Friday from 1pm to 3pm, for the next six months. This group is open to anyone who is looking for support for their mental health and/or suffering from social isolation. Read more:
Did you know you can boost mental health and wellbeing in your organisation by booking a one off mindful art session or a six week course for your employees or service users?
We recently hosted a lively art session for Plymouth Argyle Football Club Community Trust, where everyone enjoyed a lot of talking and laughter, while creating art inspired by The Jack Leslie Campaign. The campaign recently raised funds for a statue to honour the Argyle footballer denied an England cap in 1925, just because he was black. Pictures in a souvenir match day programme brought Jack’s story to life (programme available here), and then we drew zen doodles inside a football, and coloured in an image of Jack Leslie.
We used a visual mood scale to evaluate our impact, and 98% of the participants said they felt happier after the session.
David said, “I have enjoyed the meeting with the Mindful Art Club and they have shown a great deal of empathy in their conversations.”
Rose said, “I found this session enjoyable and relaxing . The colouring in reminded me of my years as a teaching assistant. It was well lead.”
We have previously delivered a mindful art session to some premiership match officials. Dr Liam Slack, Chartered Sport Psychologist at PGMOL said,
“Peggy and Emma at Mindful Art were really pleasant and made everyone on the mindfulness session feel comfortable. They delivered a session that was really easy to take part and was enjoyable for all. I believe mindfulness art has a positive impact in promoting good mental health.“
Contact us now to book a wellbeing session for your organisation.
