Katie's Festive Pantomine

As well performing with OST on Mondays, I  do other performing in  my spare time . I do  pantomimes nearer Xmas.  This  year, the  Little Theatre is doing George and the Dragon in Wells.
Tickets are still on sale to come and visit us - hurry up buy your ticket or you will miss a good pantomime! My role in George and the Dragon is the chorus, dressed as a man, if you want to see more, please visit us at http://www.littletheatrewells.org/

Katie Branch

The Share Festival by Robin

In November, we ran a two days' open office as part of the Share Shop Festival in Frome, to show the pubilc what we do in the office.

Here I am chatting with Mary about my artwork

 We looked at computer work on the i-Pads and project work like posters, drawings and written information to give the public a taste of what skills we practice. Then we told them about what work we do for Openstorytellers and the events we've been involved in.
We showed people the videos we've made about some of our storytelling performances.
It was a brilliant day and I really enjoyed sharing with the public in Frome!

Here's Katie showing Corrie the Accessible Team Handbook

Living Stories Production Returns To The Independent Market

The Work Skills Group at Openstorytellers are feeling really confident about our next market challenge. Selling a fantastic new range of products at The Christmas Market. As well as eye catching adults T-shirts we have colourful, amazing kids T-shirts, bags and Christmas cards. Adults T-shirts will be at the cheaper price of £16.00, Childrens T-shirts will be at the price of £14.00, the Christmas Cards will be at thye price of £1.50 and the bags will be at the price of £10.00. Sticks To You is going to the Christmas market this year next to Openstorytellers stall. The Christmas Market is going to be in town and Opentorytellers and Sticks To You will be  outside Alan & Harris Astate Agents.    

Frome Sharing Festival

Openstorytellers are happy to be involved in The Frome Sharing Festival, which is taking place throughout November.

On Wednesday the 11th and 18th of November, the work skills group will be having an information share at the Openstorytellers studio in the Blackswan.

On Thursday the 19th and Thursday the 26th of November the office skills group will also be having an information share.

On Monday the 23rd of November the storytelling group will be having a story swap at the Frome share shop.

Please read more here https://sharefrome.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/finalprogramme005.pdf 

Bardic Chair Competition by Robin and Clemma

The Bardic Chair competition happened on the 24th of September, at Rook Lane Chapel, Frome.

Who was there? Openstorytellers group, Taffy Thomas, Nick Hennessey and his wife, Dr Nicola Grove, Jem Dick, a Cornish lady and a Romanian woman, there were loads of people there.

Nick Hennessey tells his story about Robin Hood

There were lots of storytellers doing individual stories.
Nick Hennessey told a story about Robin Hood and the Old Woman: that was a funny story, everyone was laughing.
And his wife told a story about the Coyote. Nicola told a Japanese story about the old woman. The Cornish woman told a story about a train and ice-cream. The Londoner woman told a story about a farmer. 

The Openstorytellers storytelling group

Our telling of the Stone Soup story was good, even the song went well!

Taffy Thomas

Taffy Thomas won the Bardic Chair Competition he told a good story about the Monkey that was on his storytelling coat. We thought it was very funny. 

Taffy Thomas in the Bardic Chair

Last Tree Dreaming

Last Tree Dreaming Project

On Wednesday 16th September at 10:00am the Work Skills Group attended a Work Shop day at Frome College for The Last Tree Dreaming Project

Our Workshop day started with a story from Helen about St Aldheim. The story was about how the town has changed, because it was once a forest called Selwood, and how St Aldheim founded a church and revolutionised the Community. After break we acted out the Story as a play. Mark played St Aldheim, Peter played a builder, Azeema and Charlotte 2 played foresters, Mike played the king, Charlotte played a villager and Tracy played the Queen. 

 We then went to look at the tree and it was huge! It already had some carvings inside so we got lots of ideas for our own designs. We went back inside and drew our motifs, with the help of Anthony who is a wood carver. Some of us drew our designs in clay to see what it would look like. We are going to go back and carve them in the tree another time.

We have learned:

• the history of Frome and St Aldheim

• how to design a motif on paper for carving in wood

• to work with clay

• about the Last Tree Dreaming project and the people involved in it

We worked with:

• A Youth & Community Worker

• A Storyteller

• A Carpenter

• An Artist

Helen, Azeema, Barry & Anthony

   

By Mark & Peter & Kit

Living stories production at the Independent Market in Frome

We are the Wednesday office group at Openstorytellers and we want to tell you about our latest venture. 

How did it start?  Simon, our director, set us a task like on "The Apprentice". He wanted us to design a t-shirt and decide on a business name (Living Stories Production) and then to sell the t-

shirts at our own market stall. 


Key words for our task were 'life' 'stories' 'fun' 'colourful' 'profit'. 


This was our first attempt at such a venture, to see how it went. It was a great success. We ran our stall on the 6th September 2015, at the Independent market in Frome. We sold organic cotton t-shirts with our own design. (see picture above) They were a bargain at £17 pounds and sold well. 

We are thinking of doing another market in December. Watch this space! T-shirts are also available at the OpenStorytellers office. Any future success will go to OST  funds.

What have we learned? to work as team, how to run a business, that work can be fun. 

It was hard work, but fun and a good team can make work seem easy.  

The Bardic Chair Storytelling Competition by Tim

On Thursday 24 September we are holding our annual Bardic Chair competition at Rook Lane Chapel.

If you come along, you will meet Taffy Thomas MBE,  he is going to MC for us. Taffy Thomas was the first storytelling laureate and is a patron for Openstorytellers and a renowned and respected storyteller.
Come and tell a story and you might be the next winner of the Chair.

It runs from 7.30pm till 10.30 pm.
Tickets cost £6/4 in advance, £7/5 on the door.
For tickets, visit www.rooklane.org. uk

THE MENSHED BARDIC CHAIR PROJECT

The group met Patrick the Project Manager of Menshed in Frome, which meets at Edventure every Thursday. He told us the sad news that our old Bardic Chair has got Woodworm, so they are helping us rebuild a new Bardic Chair for our event at Rook Lane Chapel. He got the Ash and Hazel Wood from the forestry at Longleat and Longleat donated it to us, He showed us some carpenters that were using a shaving horse to remove the bark with a drawer knife. 

They're going to nail it first with copper nails and leather straps and they already designed an Openstorytellers Logo on a nice cushion which has already been made. We all donated some money for a cup of tea for the workers to make other things as well. Patrick also said the Bardic Chair will be done by the day we need it which will be great.   

Our trip to Edventure

On Thursday 20th of August we had a morning at Edventure to have a look at the Bardic chair, which is being made by the Menshed.  
The Menshed uses a room at Edventure as a Work shop .They make things out of wood.
We sat at the meeting table to meet Patrick  from the Menshed.

  We had a look in their 'Cave' which they use for meetings.  Lots of different people use Edventure for different projects. Some were using it as an office, some people were making furniture. There were plants growing everywhere, even a tree!

On the way back we had lunch in the round house which was made by Edventure.

T Shirt project

We have started working on a new project in our work skills group.
We have been working hard to come up with a design for a t shirt .

We are working with a designer to print our own designs onto the t shirts.

When they are finished we will sell them at the Frome  independent market on the 6th September.
Please come along and see us on the stall and show us some support!
By Charlotte

             

The Bardic Chair

Openstorytellers Bardic Chair 2013

We are getting excited about the Bardic Chair competition happening at Rook lane in Frome on 24th September 2015 at 7.30pm - 10.30pm .

The Somerset Wicker Man

Did you know it first started at the peat moors centre Shapwick. It started in the Ironage when the chief held a Wicker ceremony. He made a chair that everyone could sit on and tell their story. At the end they would take out straws and who ever pulled the shortest straw would win the chair for a year. I remember telling the story of  'Gareth Knights and Days of the Kitchen'. I felt really comfortable in the willow Bardic Chair, it was a bit like being in Goldilocks chair. They are building a new chair at The Menshed in Frome and we are going to visit there next week.

If you want to come to this event to watch or tell a story, everyone is welcome. You can get tickets at Rook Lane www.rooklane.org.uk or at Openstorytellers on 01373 471171 or www.openstorytellers.org.uk

By Robin

Our patron Taffy Thomas

OPEN DAY

My name is Charlotte. 

My job in the Open Day was to show people how to play the Health & Safety in the Kitchen game and to prepare the food.

The Deputy Mayor came to our Open Day. I showed her my game. My mum came and enjoyed the raffle.

I am with Cate

Our Open Day       

 Hi my name is Mike & my job was teaching people how to make their own word searches on the computer. I led the quizzes & bingo, it was great. The best thing I enjoyed doing was the bingo & helping out with other people making their word searches. I  really enjoyed the raffle & I made 2 Diabetic cakes & Diabetic biscuits. We made £48 on the raffle & I was so happy & cheerful about that much money being raised. 

     

This is me  doing the bingo calling of the picture of the office equipment 

Our Open Day


My name is Tracey 
My job was to teach people to make loom bands. Loom bands was a popular activity so Mary was helping out. It would have been good to have a couple more people to help with the loom bands, because so many visitors wanted to make one. I really enjoyed the day and l felt very confident and was organised. I liked collecting my sister and Azeemas prize in the raffle. We raised £48 in the Raffle which is very good.

Loom bands

Bus cuts

From August cuts are being made on the 161/184/267 bus routes.
As a group of 4 people with Learning difficulties we rely on using the 161 bus route to get to our work at the OST office at the Black swan Arts centre.
This is going to become impossible after the cuts and will have an impact on the charity as we wont be able to work from the office and continue doing the work we do educating people with our story.

A meeting is being held on August 3rd at 7.30 pm to discuss the bus- all users are welcome to attend.
Martin Abraham From  'Campaigning for better Transport' will be attending. Please come to this meeting and have your say.

Openstorytellers have attended a protest in Frome against the cuts. We made a banner and Simon represented the organisation. 400 people blocked the high street in a successful protest.
Another protest is taking place in Shepton Mallet very soon.
 Please check out http://favbug.blogspot.co.uk/p/campaigns.html for further info.

Bus cuts on the 161 bus by Katie

Today we've been protesting about the cuts to the 161 bus from Shepton to Frome.
We wrote a letter to First Buses to complain about how the bus cuts will affect us getting to work in Frome.

We made a placard for our director Simon to campaign on our behalf at the bus cuts protest on Saturday 11th July at 10.45am outside the George pub in Frome.

We signed a petition in Frome Library to help the bus cuts group FAVBUG to get more support.

Social History of Learning Disability Conference by Robin

On Thursday we set off in the car from Frome to Milton Keynes on the motorway till we got to the Open University at Milton Keynes.

We had a nice dinner and went to our workshop about using story to help people communicate – one about story boxes and another about using computer games to tell stories. I thought the group did well, it was very interesting. After a coffee break we listened to a talk about people with learning disabilities from Thailand and Ethiopia and how they share their personal stories and also how it felt for people with L.D to be listened to!

In the evening we went to a spicy restaurant and the organisers and people who had run workshops and presentations talked about how the conference went.

On the second day, Robin and Nicola ran a workshop about storytelling and communication skills, and we told a story about Knights and Days in the Kitchen.

We also listened to some presentations, one about a man who talked about the history of people with L.D in Britain, one about long stay institutions in Cardiff and another one about a man with L.D who moved from Bath to Ireland to work on drawing pictures.

I really enjoyed being a part of this conference and it helped it me to understand how to work with advocates and researchers on personal disability stories.