New #MentalHealth Collaboration in #Plymouth

We are pleased to have been awarded funding from Plymouth Octopus Project to host a series of workshops at Moments Café, focusing on mental health and social isolation.

This project is a collaboration between Marbles Lost and Found CIC, Moments Café and Memory Matters Hub, and Mindful Art Club CIC. We aim to provide reliable, sensitive, and non-judgemental support to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health and social isolation, and help people develop coping strategies for life’s challenges. Our project will give our participants the confidence, skills and support to improve their lives and be more connected to their community.

Moments Café, in New George Street, Plymouth, acts as a subconscious support network for a lot of people. The café attracts many people who are vulnerable, and they are supported through open conversations and a non-judgemental atmosphere.

Grass roots organisations like ours are essential for bringing our community together with no waiting lists and without finances being a barrier. We will all continue with our workshops, but will share information, best practice, and sign-post beneficiaries to each other’s groups. All three organisations share the same goals, and by coming together we will learn new skills and share knowledge to be able to improve our services and reach more people.

Read more: Mindful Marbles at Moments

Join our mailing list to be first to hear about the launch of this exciting new project.

Art Club Receives Funding Through the Health Lottery

A new mental health support group to help people struggling with, or recovering from, addiction is launching at Leadworks, in Stonehouse, near Plymouth city centre.

People’s Health Trust has invested in Mindful Art Club, using money raised by Health Lottery South West.

This money will be used to run a weekly art group that uses mindfulness, art, peer support and conversation to improve mental health and reduce social isolation. It follows on from a previous successful pilot project.

Emma Sprawson, director of Mindful Art Club, said: “We are very grateful for this funding which will help us to create a space which encourages connection and creativity.”

Starts: Friday October 6th 2023

Time: 10.00am – 11.30am

Location: Leadworks, 170 Rendle Street Stonehouse PL1 1TP

Even if you can’t decide whether you have a problem or not, you are welcome to come along. There is no art experience required! Friendly and informal. Just grab a coffee and join in.

Connect with others and discover new ways of practising self-care through easy art and mindfulness exercises. Practice being here in the present moment, and accept where you are right now, without self-judgement. We will also be inviting some inspiring guest speakers to the groups to talk about their experience of recovery.

To book a free place in this new mindful art group click here: Recovery Art Group.

Mindful Art Club Reaches Crowdfunding Target

We’re so happy to announce that we have reached our target on our Crowdfunder; in fact we went over our target. We have raised £10,575 to keep running our mindful art mental health support group at Moments Café in Plymouth city centre.

We had an anonymous donor pledge £5000, and also Plymouth City Council pledged £3,500. This means we can keep offering free mental health support without a waiting list every Friday. Here’s what some of our art group members said about this news on Facebook:

“I really like this group. It means a lot to me. It feels like a safe space. The other people are very welcoming. I love the different art that we do. Emma and Peggy are always coming up with new ideas that can be done in the session.

I also like the format of the group where we have a weekly check in, then do some mindfulness grounding and then maybe some closed eye, mindful drawing, one of my faves. We also have a check out at the end too. I’ve made some good connections from coming to the group and for me it’s a lovely way to end my week. I’ve really missed it when it hasn’t been running.” – Art club member

“It’s given us as a family much needed social interaction, no longer so isolated feeling alone. To know there are others who can empathise, because I thought I must be truly alone in my experiences is very reassuring. Everyone has been so kind. Love the checking in and out, making time for everyone, enjoy the art projects and taking them home to reflect upon or expand, closed eye drawing is very interesting. We had a lovely time at the mindful retreat day too, it’s all been such a positive experience I’m very grateful to have been signposted to such a wonderful resource.” – Art club member

“Mindful Art Club is my anchor in the storms of life. I love everything about it and never regret going, even when I’m feeling rubbish. I always leave feeling better than when I arrived. It feeds my soul. Can’t wait till we start again in September!” – Art club member

Thank You

We just want to give a big shout-out to thank everyone who donated over the last five weeks, it’s been an absolutely amazing response. And with more donations we could continue to run our weekly group for even longer, providing an ongoing safe space for people to access support.

Donate to our Crowdfunder here.

Book your place at the Friday afternoon art group here.

Jack Leslie Campaign Donates to Art Club

The Jack Leslie Campaign have recently auctioned a piece of artwork and raised £300 to split between their campaign, and Mindful Art Club.

The Jack Leslie Campaign raised funds for a statue to honour the Plymouth Argyle footballer denied an England cap in 1925, just because he was black. The statue was unveiled on Friday 7th October 2022. Campaign founders, Matt Tiller and Greg Foxsmith, continue to promote and share Jack’s story by taking it into schools and organisations. Matt Tiller (pictured with Peggy and Emma) gave an informal talk at Mindful Art Club in December 2022 while the art group created some Jack Leslie themed artwork.

Read more about The Jack Leslie Campaign.

At a recent auction, Guardian cartoonist, David Squires, cartoon raised £300 and the proceeds were split between The Jack Leslie Campaign, and Mindful Art Club.

See the cartoon here: Plymouth Argyle’s Jack Leslie – a true football pioneer

This generous donation from The Jack Leslie Campaign will help to boost our Crowdfunder, which is raising funds to provide weekly mental health support groups at Moments Cafe in Plymouth City Centre, starting in September this year.

Mindful Art Club was set up to support adults towards emotional, social, physical and mental health and wellbeing. We are immensely grateful for any donation, no matter how big or small that lets us continue our valuable service.

Plymouth Support Group Launches Crowdfunder (BBC Radio interview)

Peggy Melmoth and Kerry Evans were up super-early to appear on the breakfast show at BBC Radio Devon, on Sunday 30th July 2023. Watch and listen now to see pictures of them in the studio.

We need your help to help to raise funds to carry on a weekly support group at Moments Café in Plymouth’s city centre. After three years of experience, we know there are tools to increase emotional resilience, make friends, cope with difficult feelings and live happier lives. We want to share this knowledge with as many people as possible and be a positive force for good in a world that can seem overwhelming. With your support, our service can help anyone who is struggling to recover and thrive. One in four of us experience a mental health problem in any given year, so creating stigma-free spaces which offer community connection, reflection and creativity has never felt so important. – Peggy, Emma and Kerry.

Click here now to see our Crowdfunder rewards.

Kerry’s Head Shave Raises Vital Funds for Mental Health Art Group

Plymouth mum, Kerry Evans, has had her long hair shaved off to raise £470 towards Mindful Art Club’s Crowdfunding project. We are aiming to raise £7,000 to continue the Friday support group at Moments Cafe in Plymouth. There’s a cool little video too, to explain where the money goes!

Visit: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/mindfulartclub

Plymouth Mum Braves the Shave

A Plymouth mum has ‘braved the shave’ to support her local community art group.

On Friday July 14^th July Kerry Evans, had her hair shaved off in front of a live audience at a comedy and music event in Stonehouse. The Storytelling Collective gig was funded by Plymouth Octopus Project.

Mindful Art Club offers free mental health support groups using mindfulness, art and conversation in various venues around Plymouth. Kerry first discovered Mindful Art Club at The Sunflower Women’s Centre, where she found it helped her with her anxiety, depression and social isolation.

Kerry said, “An absolutely fantastic entertaining night. I love my new hair-cut and I am so proud to be able to raise money for Mindful Art Club. I was nervous, but with friends and family around me I had the courage, and felt at ease with the hairdresser, Linda Smith-Wightman. Thank you Linda, you’re amazing. I had an amazing night; thank you for all your support and donations. I’ve raised £470 which is absolutely amazing.”

Visit https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/mindfulartclub

We Got a Magic Little Grant!

We are pleased to have been awarded £500 towards a Mindful Art Club for older people. The funding for this Magic Little Grant has been provided by Localgiving in partnership with the Postcode Local Trust, a grant giving organisation funded by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.

This will help us with the cost of running our Thursday group at The London Inn, Church Road, Plympton. This group meets weekly at midday for coffee, creativity and company. Our aim is to improve mental health and reduce social isolation.

Big Event: Monday 3rd July

We are so excited to announce that we are launching a Crowdfunding campaign for Mindful Art Club on Monday 3^rd July 2023. Do you know what that means?

It means that in just four days time we are hosting an exciting online event that will be live-streamed to Facebook, and will include guided mindfulness with Emma, performance poetry by Peggy, and other surprise guests.

When: 7.00pm Monday 3^rd July.

Where: https://www.facebook.com/MindfulArtClub

So set a reminder in your phone, stick it in your diary and watch us live!

Update

Watch the recording, featuring a celebrity appearance by The Cookie Monster.

MAC Crowdfunder launch party

Get Involved

We would love you to be a part of this.

Want to perform on Monday?

Could your business offer a raffle prize?

Or could you do a fundraising challenge?

Could you ask for sponsorship for a running event, cycling challenge, daily swim or walking challenge? (Remember Captain Tom Moore, who made the headlines in 2020 when he raised money for charity in the run-up to his 100th birthday?)

Want to shave your head to raise funds? Art Club volunteer Kerry Evans is doing that on 14^th July!

Top Tip – Tag Mindful Art Club in all your Facebook posts and make the posts public, so that people who do not know you have the opportunity to sponsor you too.

Quit Smoking – Even non-smokers are aware of how challenging it can be to kick a smoking habit, so this challenge will often inspire generous donations. Ask your friends and family to sponsor you in order to motivate you to quit for a month.

Dry July – The perfect way to get healthy and all for a good cause. As well as getting sponsorship for going dry, you can save up the money you would have spent down the pub and donate this at the end of the month too.

Top Tip – Get your friends and family involved in the challenge. This will help to raise even more money and reduce the likelihood of you cheating!

Are you in? Contact us now and we will set you up a fundraising page that links to our Crowdfunder. We can also send you a printable paper sponsorship form.

More Ideas

Charity Dinner Party – Host your own Come Dine with Me event, or themed tea party, charging your guests to taste your culinary delights.

Shave your beard or grow a moustache (Think Movember!)

We would also appreciate it if you would share our crowdfunding campaign page on Facebook and Twitter when it is live, to help us reach more people.

We couldn’t do our vital work in Plymouth without the help of generous charitable donations. So please join us to help us offer more mental health support groups at Moments Café in Plymouth city centre.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Love,

Peggy and Emma

PS. Can’t wait to donate? Sponsor Kerry’s head shave today!

New: Recovery Art Club

Has your drinking started to worry you?

Is using drugs causing problems in your life?

Are you already in recovery but want to connect with others?

Recovery Art Club is a free, weekly group at Moments Cafe in Plymouth city centre. The group is upstairs in the Arthur Read room and will be running for two months.

Starts: Wednesday 31st May 1.00pm – 2.30pm

Moments Café, 69a New George Street, Plymouth, PL1 1RJ

Even if you can’t decide whether you have a problem or not, you are welcome to come along. There is no art experience required! Friendly and informal. Just grab a coffee and join in.

The group is hosted by Emma Sprawson and Peggy Melmoth. They are the founders of Mindful Art Club, and have a background of working for many years in addiction treatment centres in Plymouth.

Places are free thanks to a grant from Devon Community Foundation, but booking is essential as we expect this group to be popular.

Mindful Art Session

We start with a brief chat about how everyone is feeling, then a short guided mindfulness session, followed by a simple art activity that anyone can do. Our mission is to make mindfulness more fun! We’re not teaching art techniques, we’re just here to play.

Places are limited, so if you cannot attend please let us know and we can offer your place to someone else. Book now.

Not ready for this group yet? Join our mailing list to hear about other free events.

Free Creative Events Improve Lives in Plymouth

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.

Tag: Funding