Mini Millbrook in Thornhill Christmas Carnival

Well, the ladies from Mini Millbrook finally got to show off all their hard work at the Thornhill Christmas Carnival on Friday 12th December. And they looked stunning in their Alphonso Mucha French themed costumes!

Their picture frames manged to withstand high winds and rain, and the ladies danced there way around Thornhill estate for over an hour. Everyone enjoyed themselves and it a great finale to the NCFE Carnival Training course they've been studying with TWICS since September.

Well done and Congratulations Mini Millbrook!

New Forest Young Parents groups - Christmas Party

Last Thursday, CB Participated in a combined Christmas Party for both the New Milton and Fordingbridge Young parents groups. CB have been working alongside the youth service, in supporting these new projects.

Over the last 6 months we have funded community artist, Kate Aughey, to run workshops with both groups, passing on practical sewing and home craft skills. These skills are now becoming very useful during the credit crunch, with members making custom cloth bags with block printed designs as christmas gifts.
For the Christmas party, we borrowed a full size Reindeer from St Albans Church in Swaythling, (many thanks), and the New Milton group painted a suitable backdrop, so that the children could have special Christmas photos taken with 'Rudolph'. The whole event was very successful and we were rushed off our feet, taking and printing out photos.

Mini Millbrook Project carnival dance class

The Mini Millbrook Project 'shook its booty' at a choreography class with Dance teachers from Nottinghill Carnival. Laid on by TWICS Training and Thornhill Plus You as part of the NFCE Certificate in Carnival Craft, the dance class was an all day event in preperation for the Thornhill Christmas Carnival on Friday 12th December.

CB working with the Army Welfare Service in 2009

The CB project will be breaking new ground in the new year as part of it's rural push in the Test Valley and Winchester Areas.
After making contact with the Army Welfare Service, we have been meeting with the community development worker at Worthy Down Camp, in South Wonston.
With a large number of service families living in an isolated location, we are keen to work together on a community event project that will bring people out of their army quarters, to meet up and get involved, and also to learn new skills for future events.

EUArtists - Message from the Group

Hello,
In the beginning, I would like to thank you all on behalf of EU Welcome and Southampton Scrapstore for showing your interest in the photographic exhibition „sEUthampton”.
As some of you may already know we have got permission from the management of The Mall shopping centre to organise the exhibition within their premises. We will use ground floor stage area situated next to the lifts as well as one of the shop windows on the first floor. The exhibition will be held from 19th February to 1st March 2009.
We are going to prepare short notes about artists taking part in the event and on this occasion we want to ask you to send us some details about yourselves i.e. full name, date of birth, telephone number, your photograph and few lines telling us about a type of art you create, your previous achievements, art exhibitions you may have taken part in before, your goals and anything else you feel that may describe you best (none of your personal details will be passed onto third party bodies without your consent)..
Also, please find an attached copy of a leaflet inviting artists to join our exhibition. (posted up here) If you know anyone else who would like to take part, please forward this attachment to them as well. Although this exhibition is advertised as a photographic one, other forms of art will be considered too, but the main theme must remain Southampton.
You can email your photographs on art_euwelcome@yahoo.co.uk until 15th January. The files should be in either jpg or tiff format and the size of pictures should be of a minimum A4.

Should you have any more questions regarding the exhibition, please do not hesitate to contact us. Best regards, Anna (EU Artists)

Mini Millbrook Project train for NCFE Level 2 in Carnival Craft

This autumn five of the ladies at the Mini Millbrook Project have been rolling up their sleeves and getting 'hands-on' to study for an NCFE Level 2 in Carnival craft.

Over the summer they ran their own week-long workshop and entered a section in the Eastleigh. Gail had found a library book on fancy dress costumes and the main skills and equipment they used were gummy tape, glue guns, seletape, staples and basic sewing on the sewing machine.

However, being ambitious, the ladies said they wanted to develop their costumes from 'fancy dress' into 'carnival'. The CB Project has therefore funded the ladies to attend carnival training run by the Crazy Thornhill Carnival Trainers & TWICS.

The Millbrook mums and their children were set the challenge of building a section with a French theme of Art Nouveau costumes based on the prints of Alphonso Mucha. They've had to carry out research, learn lots of new techniques and tools to use and then design and build their costumes from scratch - exhausting! They've learnt how to make patterns, how to design back-packs, used new glues and both Gail and Estelle, were running up dresses on the sewing machine like there was no tomorrow.

They've done a great job and the costumes are stunning. They'll be showing them off in the Thornhill Carnival next week on Friday 12th December at 6.30.

Peter Pan takes CB to neverland!

Last night saw the gateway members receiving their certificates from Kathyrn Hay, Principal of Curious Arts, a drama school based in Bournemouth. Kathyrn has been working with the group on their production of Peter Pan at the request of the CB project, who have been funding new activities and skills at the club, which caters for the social and learning needs of learning disabled adults from all over the New Forest. Scenery was made from materials from the Southampton Scrapstore and Costumes were kindly lent by the Brockenhurst players, with member Molly Mold, helping to dress the cast. A video of the show is currently being edited - so watch this space!

CB visits gypsy traveller project

This week we visited one of our commisioned projects being undertaken by Forest Bus.
Members of the local gypsy traveller communities are able to attend an after school session for parents and children.
The CB project is funding a trained worker to initiate parenting skills advice and the Scrapstore is providing recycled arts materials.
Forest Bus have an established history of working with gypsy traveller communities in the New Forest and we are pleased to be able to access their considerable expertise.
Most recently they have been also attracting members of the local settled community and the two groups have been able to mix in a relaxed, friendly atmosphere, breaking down the barriers of prejudice. Some very positive and innovative work is being done. Well done to Jane and her team.

Peter Pan - Dress Rehearsal at Gateway

We are now gearing up for the main event, next tuesday, when members of the Gateway Group will be gracing the stage for their production of Peter Pan. Pictured in full flow are Tony (Crocodile), Dawn (Tinkerbell) and Steve as Peter. We were able assisted by drama coach, Kathyrn Hay from Curious Arts and Costumes kindly lent by the Brockenhurst players.
The set, (including a pirate ship and palm trees), has been built and painted by the group using recycled materials from the Southampton Scrapstore.

CB Community Cocktails at the Scrapstore AGM

At the Scrapstore AGM on Tuesday 4th November, the CB Project served up something a little different - The Community Builders Speakeasy.

Against a background of 1920's music and portraits of President Roosevelt, Flappers and Al Capone, Stuart ran a silent movie showcasing the work of CB groups, complete with crackles and black & white film.

Later cocktails were served - but not just any old cocktails. The CB Project challenged the audience to come up with the key ingredients needed to make a community group sustainable. Split into 3 groups, the audience drew up recipe cards for 3 Community Cocktails with a list of the magic sustainable ingredients; people, venue, funding, publicity, etc. They were then able to make their cocktails up at the Speakeasy Cocktail Bar, with specially labelled ingredients.

The trick was to try and outwit the CB Project by guessing all the correct ingredients - and fair play to everyone at the AGM, you nearly got them all.

Love in a Box at Pilands

at Pilands Community Centre in Burlesdon, where we have worked with the local residents on a number of projects, we helped some of the

newer volunteers put together and decorate gift boxes to be collected by the 'love in a box' charity that sends christmas gift parcels to children in

war torn countries.

Sadly, We also said goodbye to centre co-ordinator, Phil Tyler, whose role has come to an end, and whose many and varied tasks will now have to be covered by local volunteers.

Hopefully the centre will continue to have strong links with Southampton Scrapstore and keep up all the recycling that they do.

EU Artists photography show going ahead!

The EU Artists group met last night to discuss the upcoming photo exhibition. They plan for it to take place at the Marlands Mall in Southampton, (exhibition spaces pictured), from the 23rd of January to the 2nd of February with a special preview evening on 22 January. The theme of the show is 'Southampton'. Although it will primarily be advertised as a photo exhibition, They will welcome other artistic expressions on a Southampton theme. It will be open to anyone who lives and works here from a foreign country, although it's expected that most of the contributions will be from EU residents. They also plan to run a children's drawing/painting competition as well, with prizes. The next planning meeting will take place at Stacja PL restaurant in Onslow Road at 6.30pm on 12 November, and interested parties are welcome to attend. The show is being supported by the Southampton Scrapstore CB project and EU Welcome, working together to assist the group.

Gateway preparing for Peter Pan

Last night at Gateway we started designing and making sets for the upcoming production of Peter Pan. Peter painted background scenery, while Carly and Rupert worked on the Pirate Ship!

Heather Road Carnival at Blackfield

During the course of our work with the Blackfield Community Centre, Carnival has come up as something local people would be interested in. Having enjoyed African drumming workshops and various Scrapstore Art sessions, it seemed the next logical step. So CB arranged for the centre volunteers to meet with Crazy Thornhill Carnival, to hatch a plan to start a brand new carnival in Blackfield. After a local tradegy, in which two lives were lost in a road accident, the Carnival was turned into a fitting tribute and gave a focus for the local community to pull together in mutual support.

Gateway group revitalised with CB support.

It was a pleasant saturday, when Stuart from CB went down to Brockenhurst College to help the Gateway club taking part in the New Forest disabled games. The group decided to call themselves the 'Tigers' which definately helped as we won the table tennis and basketball and eventually got overall first prize! This was an opportunity for the members who had missed out on the Eastleigh Paralympics to take part in a sports event. CB is now supporting the Gateway group with their Christmas production of Peter Pan. Stuart will be helping them make a pirate ship and crocodile, whilst bringing the drama group, Curious Arts, to help with the acting side. It's all looking very exciting, so watch this space.

Volunteer Training - Day 2

Roll up, Roll up for Day 2 of our Training course for Volunteers!

A week later, on Wednesday 15th October, everyone was back for more. 'Be amazed - Spectacul Groups' kicked off the morning's training, with guest speaker Gail from the Mini Millbrook Project giving a lively talk about setting up a carnival group.

Louise Evans from Southampton Voluntary Services then took to the stage to tell everyone about support that SVS can give to groups, in particular, help with fundraising applications!

Then it was off to lunch at the Aspire Training Restaurant at City College. The puddings were really good and everyone enjoyed the treat; so much so that the St Denys group are going to go back for there for their Christmas meal.

After lunch it was time for everyone to presented with their certificates and a 'bag of tricks' which included a fabulous Survival Pack full of yet more top tips on how to keep your group going. Adam from DICE then presented DICE's video, to show groups how they could advertise themselves. And Stuart followed this up with an introduction to Blogs and Facebook.

After this, everyone stumbled home, laden down with goodies and a headful of ideas. Well done to Gail and Adam, and many thanks to Louise from SVS, the students at City College and the glamorous TWICS showgirls.

Volunteer Training - Roll up, Roll up!

Community Builders ran the first of its 2-day Training Courses for Volunteers, to help people involved with or running community groups.

15 people from 6 different groups came along; St Denys Junior Youth Club, Sedbergh Area Tenants & Residents Association, EU Welcome, DICE (Eastleigh), Mini Millbrook Project and Southampton Scrapstore. The groups came from Southampton and Eastleigh, and some were independent groups not known to the CB Project.

To make it fun, the training had a Victorian Music Hall theme. Everyone invited received a formal invitation and trick dice through the post. James Street Church hall was decked out with green tables, feathers and playing cards; the Trainers, Jennie and Pat from TWICS dressed up as a glamorous assistant and a fairy God Mother to host the show; and Stuart provided the organ and snare roll accompaniment.

Show stoppers included 'You don't have to saw yourself in two' - how to delegate, 'Houdini's escape from the rut' - moving your project forward and 'Magic'ing up support' - where to find help & advice.

The day was finished off with 'Multiplying Membership not Rabbits', - a hands on craft activity making personal invitations to advertise a group. Out came the scrap, sleeves were rolled up and everyone got stuck in.

Many cups of tea and lollipops later, the music hall cleared and everyone went away happy and looking forward to day 2 the next week. The feedback was good and what people really seemed to like was meeting others 'in the same boat';

'Brilliant, got lots of ideas and information, enjoyed meeting new people and the loved the costumes – you made it fun.'