The above churches are working together and with other local churches, to provide community ministry to estates in the Meanwood area of North Leeds. Funding has been secured for three years to pay a Development Worker to facilitate this through courses and events with a focus on creative activities. An overview of the work and current opportunities can be found on the web site: www.threechurches.org.uk.
Three Churches Project
End of Year Report 2006
Well, there’s no doubt things have been gathering speed over the last year, and especially since the beginning of this term. There’s lots to report but I’ll try and make it as succinct as possible! Here goes…
Craft Club
We meet on Thursdays from 2-4, although this never seems long enough, and enjoy sharing and learning from each other. It’s a very friendly, informal affair with a good mix of people from the local community and churches. We’ve made jewellery, Christmas trees, cards, découpage, baubles and more, and took part in Holy Trinity’s coffee morning on Remembrance Day. Come and join us – it’s always fun, there’s always tea, coffee and biscuits and there’s always something new to try. Please don’t feel you need to be good at crafts either – I hadn’t done anything when we started – it’s just a chance to play!
Silk painting course
There’s just a few more weeks to go and it’s been great having Lydia Turner with us again. None of the group had tried silk painting before but there’s been endless creativity and experimentation. My Aunt will get a silk scarf for Christmas – hand-crafted by moi, I’m so proud! One of the best things about the group, in my opinion, is how much everyone encourages one another. Lots of fun, and still more demand for Lydia to come back again next term.
XL
This is a group from Carr Manor High, who are working towards alternative certification at GCSE level. We’ve had a great term travelling across the city taking photographs with digital cameras, and to see the young people start to speak positively about their own work has been enough to keep me going! We are planning to make a book about Leeds from the point of view of the young people and others that we meet along the way, as part of Celebrate Leeds 2007. If you would like to help us put this book together, or are interested in finding out more, please let me know, I’d love to share it with you.
Meanwood Festival, as part of Celebrate Leeds 2007
Next year we celebrate 800 years of Leeds being a city. For our part, we will be running a week-long series of events in Meanwood, with a vision to celebrate its local people, places and history within the bigger picture of the city.
Events will start towards the end of the week beginning June 4th next year and may roll over to the following week. I am hoping the churches will take on the creative workshops aspect of the festival – informal sessions such as we have run before. The festival will also include Art installations, schools work, an exhibition and an entertainment event. Please get in touch now if you are interested in being part of a vision group for the festival, or would like to know more at this stage (but don’t worry, you WILL be hearing more about it!).
Our Stories
The work with XL and some other work I will be doing with Miles Hill school has been feeding into this theme. One of our members is now talking to the lunchtime club at Stainbeck to gather stories from regulars there. It would be wonderful to collect stories of the city and our part within it, to retell in different ways at the festival. If you’re interested in people’s stories, or in telling yours, please let me know.
If you find it difficult to get in touch with me, you can always contact our management team - Adrian Booth, Ann Coates, Angela Hughes or Supo Ogunyinka. Vanessa (Ness)