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Flash Company Arts: Community Allotment, Music Club, and More

Flash Company Arts has been diligently working with volunteers and community members to prepare our community allotment for planting. With the rainy weather giving way to sunshine, we’ve seized the opportunity to ready the ground for seasonal vegetables. We aim to distribute these fresh, homegrown vegetables through the community fridge, ensuring everyone has access to healthy produce. If you’re interested in getting involved or volunteering for the community fridge, visit us at Flowergate Hall. We would love to have you!

A generous donation from Ingrid Flute Cottages has allowed us to continue our Wednesday music club. These sessions are completely free, offering young people the chance to receive music lessons, learn new art skills, and share a meal with new friends. This initiative provides a supportive and creative environment for the youth in our community.

Looking ahead, our award-winning FEAST sessions are set to return with another fun-packed four weeks. While spaces are limited, a few free spots are still available. If you need assistance with booking or are unsure about eligibility, please reach out. We are committed to making these sessions accessible to all.

This September, we are excited to launch a new community voice group, “Whitby Community Voices.” This group will focus on discussing what we love about our community and exploring new opportunities and experiences for our town and villages. In addition to this, we hold a monthly Whitby Community Alliance meeting on the third Tuesday morning of each month. These meetings bring together organisations to share information, ideas, and plans. We hope the new community voice group will foster even more collaborative thinking and action, allowing us to raise our voices together for positive change. For those interested in joining the first meeting, keep an eye on our social media or email rebecca.flashcompanyarts@gmail.comto be added to our list.

Throughout the summer, our projects will contribute to a fabulous immersive installation at Flowergate Old Chapel as part of the ongoing “Edge of the World” project. This year’s theme is “Flowers of the Forest,” and we aim to decorate the chapel with flowers made by the community. You can participate in one of our Crafternoon sessions or create something at home that fits the theme. The project will culminate in a celebration event at the end of September, with more details to follow soon.

Flash Company Arts continues to thrive thanks to the enthusiasm and support of our community. Whether through gardening, music, or artistic endeavours, there are numerous ways to get involved and make a difference. Join us in these exciting initiatives as we work together to enrich our community and create lasting memories.

Despite the last few April showers, It really feels as though spring has arrived here at Flowergate Hall Community Arts Centre. We have had a really wonderful few weeks, and we’ve worked with lots of different partners to make brilliant things happen.  At Easter our FEAST sessions were just fantastic, in total 42 young people came along and took part in music making, painting, pottery, sports and lots of other brilliant activities. 

The sessions were so successful that we’ve had confirmation that we will definitely be a FEAST partner for the summer holidays, so if you would like more information on how to reserve places for your children email flashcompanyarts@gmail.com or keep an eye on our Facebook page for more information.

The Community Fridge continues to be very busy, and we’ve received some additional support in the form of a donation point at the front of the store in Sainsburys – so if you have tins at the back of your cupboard that you really won’t use, please come along and pop them in the box – every single item really does help save waste and fill plates. We also had a great time at the Coronation picnic at Pannet Park – it was lovely to see so many people out and about!

In the next couple of weeks we have lots going on, including two musical events at Flowergate Hall – both offering an array of contemporary musicians – Wavelengths is on Thursday 18th, and Docking Station is on Friday 19th – full information can be found on our website – but we can guarantee that it’s going to be a great couple of nights of electronic music.

We are hosting weekly music and art sessions – with guitar groups, a folk band, the community choir and ‘crafternoons’ still going strong.  We are working in partnership with Caring Together and Carers Plus to create a range of accessible, fun activities that will be free for local people, so if there’s something special that you want to try get in touch and we will do our best to make it happen.

Finally – we need your help!  We need some extra volunteers to run our pay as you feel cafe so that it can be open more frequently. Training will be available, including health and hygiene training, so if you think you would like the opportunity to get involved contact me, Rebecca on 07588692449, or email rebecca.flashcompanyarts@gmail.com.  We also need volunteers to help us to run the venue, and the Unitarian Chapel venue for Whitby Folk Week – and that will be a brilliant chance to be part of something really lovely, and also to see some great acts!

Lastly – next week, at 9am on May 17th, we will be down at the harbourside to witness the amazing spectacle of the Penny Hedge – see you there!

EXCITING NEWS – booking for our Winter Holiday Scheme is open NOW.

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Join us for this lovely event – and don’t forget to bring along a contribution to our harvest collection.

Every month we have a column in the Whitby Gazette – here is what we had to say in our most recent contribution.

It has been a glorious summer at Flowergate Hall Community Arts Centre, and all of the Flash Company Arts team are deeply grateful to all of the families who made our activities so successful, and all of the volunteers who have kept The People’s Fridge running, and distributing food to so many local households. But as the days grow shorter and cooler, we have noticed that the queue for the community fridge is growing longer, and we expect this to continue to be the case as the cost-of-living crisis continues to hit us all.  Over the autumn months and into winter we are planning a host of creative activities to keep us busy – including crafting for Christmas, dressmaking, retro-crafts, collage and more!, and we are re-launching The People’s Kitchen after our mini refurbishment, generously funded by Lidl Foundation. 

We are also launching our campaign to collect as much produce as we can during this season of plenty, so that we can make jam, pickles, chutney, soup for the community freezer, and other delicious foods that we can distribute through the The People’s Fridge.  So if you know of any surplus produce that would otherwise go to waste, let us know – we will even come and pick it or dig it up if it means that it will be feeding our local communities.  You can contact the fridge team at flashcompanyarts@gmail.comfor more information.

Other exciting activities coming up include Hazelsong Theatre and their epic story about Sigurd and Fafnea – taking place at the hall on Sunday 25th September. The day before there is a free children’s sock puppet workshop where you can make your very own dragon – not to be missed.  Free refreshments will also be provided in the community cafe.

If you want to get involved with Whitby Community Choir, sessions are running on Wednesday evenings from 7:15-9:00.  Flowergate Folk band has started it’s autumn season too. Led by Julie Matthewson it is a friendly and informal instrumental group, focussing on simple folk tunes and playing together.  Sessions are at 10:30 on Wednesday mornings.  Our youth club, Flowergate Mix is on a Wednesday evening from 5:30-7:00 – it’s free and it is for young people of 8 and over.   We are working on our micro garden and Arts Awards at the moment, but the young people choose what they want to do so if you know someone who would enjoy it bring them along! Music Tots sessions also start again on Monday 26th at 9:30!  Finally, the mighty Chris Wood kicks off our autumn entertainment on October 8th – an evening not to be missed!

Rebecca Denniff