THANKSGIVING

Flowers for a C&C Care Home Workshop in Windsor

Hello & welcome back to the Creative Writes blog, 

I am sorry it’s been a while – I guess it’s a good sign when the workshop leader is too busy running workshops, to update the Diary of a Workshop Leader!

I have been thinking a lot about this blog post however and what I wanted to say. I’ve been thinking about how grateful I am. I am grateful for the opportunity to work in such rewarding environments and to hear such wonderful stories. 

July has been the busiest month of this year for me. So far this month, I have been delivering two workshops each week in Care Homes for Bringing the Outside In at C&C (Central & Cecil Housing Trust), weekly Sharing Stories workshops for C&C at a sheltered housing scheme, two out of three Creative Writes Summer Tuesdays, two Kew workshops each week & facilitating their *Book Group, aswell as the workshops at Claremont community centre – which I have recently inherited. I have travelled as far as Windsor and lots of places in-between…often armed with fruit and flowers to use in the workshops (as above!). I have also been continuing with Masterclasses and Skype sessions with a sci-fi writer in the USA. *If you would like to join the monthly Kew Book Group, please email me. We meet again at the end of September.

My head has been spinning slightly, with the amount of people and places. It has felt a little like starting a new job each time I begin a workshop. With the Care Homes, as they are part of a series of taster sessions – there is a different group each time and I have known little about the residents before hand. Some are living with Dementia and others are very frail. I have been thinking about the effectiveness and simplicity of storytelling. There is such power in engaging people and triggering memory. The shift in energy by the end of each session is remarkable. 

We celebrated the end of my first academic year at the Avenue Club in Kew last week, by bringing together both groups for a reading of their work. It was wonderful to be reminded of the range of  writing and topics and to honour the focus & hard work of each writer.

There is one more Summer Tuesday to go on our three Creative Writes workshops at North Bank in Muswell Hill. Again, I have felt so privileged to work with the group. During the last workshop, after reading a published poem for inspiration – I set the group the task of writing their own. We were thinking about what is important to us, who we were and what we would take with us on a journey/to a new home – both in terms of memories, emotions and actual objects. I am going to be moving to a new home at the end of September, so this is something that is striking a personal cord after ten & a half years in the same flat. After the group had written their individual poems and we had listened to them – I asked them to select the words and lines that stood out the most and then we put these all-together to create a group poem. I have been given their permission to share this with you. This is the raw material: 

“Staggering in too high heals…”

My creations and things other people created for me.

Thank you. Thank you to everyone I have been working with and for those of you out there who support what I do. 

Until next time…

Nichola