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.