Merry Christmas

This is our last day before Christmas and we were feeling Christmassy. So we are sending you a happy Christmas picture. hope you have a lovely holiday.



And check out our Happy Christmas message on our Facebook page.

Dick Whittington By Clemma, Robin and Suzie

On Monday we all met up at the Frome office and we went to Salisbury playhouse, to watch the Dick Whittington panto which was very good. We all decided that going to the panto was a nice Christmas outing, for us all even the food was lovely the gammon and chips and pineapple was delicious and the pudding was lovely as well. I thought the king rat was horrible and smelly and Dick's mother was very funny, we all had a very good delightful day. and everyone's company was nice, I liked the the cat she was very feisty and great. Robin thought the pantomime was very good and had a lot of comic scenes, his favourite thing was where they sailed from London to Las Vegas. His favourite character was the cat because she always looked after Dick and fought out the horrible rats. Ruth says- the main things was the small cast, gave the impression of the being a lot of people in the play, Ruth's favourite thing was the pantomime Dame she thought she was good, Suzie liked the king rat he was intelligent. Lara says- I liked the slapstick scene in the tea shop when the cheese monger sat in the cream cheese. Clemma and Robin also liked the bit where Dick's mum came up in the lift from the basement because the music sounded like the Paul O'Grady show that was hilarious. 

Old Friends Meet Up exhibition by Robin

12th November 2013 saw the opening of an amazing exhibition at the Black Swan Arts Centre in Frome. You may remember that this was a collection of memories, pictures, films,exhibits from residents and staff from long stay institutions for people with learning disabilities. Members of Openstorytellers were very much involved in the research, preparation and setting up the exhibition.

I loved drawing the pictures of people's memories, and setting them up on the morning of the exhibition. I really enjoyed getting involved in setting up the exhibition and was excited to see my pictures up at at last and helping to put Howard's video on the screen. 












The Black Swan staff were very helpful and produced lovely food for the evening.

Great speeches were given by Brian, Blanche, Penny and Nicola at the official opening. 

There were lovely pictures on display of Brian and Christine, former residents, and of Jean, a former member of staff. They and Vince and Ronnie and a nurse called Paul had contributed lots of memories and stories for this exhibition.















Lots of people came to the exhibition; they were interested and often deeply moved. The Mayor of Frome came too. Due to popular demand, we are hoping that the exhibition will return in January and that there will be  special event around this time.

If you'd like to visit our web site, info@openstorytellers.org.uk, you can watch the film from this exhibition for yourselves.

Hate and Mate crime information event 24 10 13

We went to a hate and mate event at Flouirsh home in wells. we saw lots of stalls run by the police it was to make us more aware of their support and we saw a film about a man with learning disability.   It a was very interesting day.

Living memories - Old Friends Meet Up by Robin and Ruth.

Next Tuesday 12.11.13 will be the opening of a fascinating new exhibition in the Black Swan Art Centre in Frome and this will run for 2 weeks.
This exhibition will bring together people and their memories of their earlier lives in residential care for people with learning disabilities. I have been doing drawings and Brian's been giving me ideas.

THE DANIEL MORDEN PERFORMANCES BY CLEMMA AND KATIE 31-10-2013

       THE  DANIEL MORDEN PERFORMANCE AT WELLS FESTIVAL OF LITERATURE

•  HE WAS A VERY GOOD ACTOR,
• GOOD STORYTELLER
• REALLY ENJOYED THE MUSIC
• IT WAS A GOOD ATMOSPHERE
• HIS STORIES WERE ABOUT 3 GIRLS AND THERE FATHER THE KING
• ALSO DONE A STORY ON KING ARTHUR
• HE WAS VERY TALENTED AT THE WAY HE TOLD THE STORIES TO EVERYONE.
• WE ALL LOVED THE ENDING OF HIS ROMANIC STORY THAT HE TOLD US ALL.
  
  
  
  

Babyhead Gig at Cheese & Grain By Disco Suzie

It was fun night dancing away through the night, it was amazing to see them,
I would love to see them again, Babyhead gig was brilliant and there was a DJ called Greg who played the funkiest music, Wonderful  night and all went really well so many more people were dancing and I was the last one on the dance floor!

The Amazing Nick Hennessey by Suzie

We were at Wivelscombe church to see Nick Hennessey.  He is good at  playing the harp and telling a story at the same time, also he is very talented at his stories and makes everyone laugh.
I hear he is a famous storyteller and my favourite story was about the troll.
Nick is one of our patrons as well as Taffy Thomas. We are lucky to have him!

award winning openstorytellers By Clemma

Last Saturday i attended the British Awards for Storytelling Excellence. Openstorytellers Won an Award for Outstanding Community Project 2013. The Hotel at the Premier inn at Milton Keynes it was lovely. It was the most nicest opportunity to win such an Award.

Behind the scenes of the Old friends meet up exhibition. By Robin.

I have been visiting older people with L.D who have lived at Norah Fry in Shepton mallet and Selwood in Frome. We looked at photos from the good old days.  I've been working on the artist drawings recording people's thoughts and memories. There is going to be an exhibition at Black Swan Arts in mid November.

Frist Bus 161

Frist Bus are to reinstate 161 bus at 15:24 after myself and others Making Connections members wrote to first bus, our local MP's, Local paper and Town Councillors.

Hope Frist Group stick to there word!!

Tim, storyteller

On Saturday 21st September, we were lucky enough to be invited by Taffy Thomas to Halsway Manor, the National Centre for Folk Arts.  We performed a story we've been working on called Ceridwin. I found it moving to perform in front of so many storytelling and the feedback we got was such a boost for OpenStorytellers! 

special olympics

Yesterday I went to the Special Olympics in bath, it was  the opening ceremony.
It's fun, exiting to see different Olympic sports. We also watched Clare Teal and Susan Boyle on stage that was a bit boring but I enjoyed myself. I love the music but my dad "David" push me in to dancing. I like to watch the swimming, I'm going to support the UK. 

Bus Cuts Threaten Openstorytellers Services by Tim

I was shocked and upset to hear that First Buses were cutting down on the number of buses from Frome to Shepton Mallet as it is really important to our guys for getting home.  We didn't know it was happening until after it had started, there was no notification it just started.  Its not only affected us but lots of other people in Frome.  The buses help us get to where we want to go and where we need to go.  We can't drive, can't afford taxis, so cutting the buses can be devastating for us.  Some of our people need their bus, they would be lost without it.  

We are lucky at Openstorytellers that we can write letters and send emails to complain but lots of people can't and will now be stuck at home because of the cuts.  Please First Group, bring back our afternoon bus!

We're Very Excited About the Bardic Chair!

We are working hard on the preparations for our Bardic Chair Storytelling Competition. The storytelling group have been practicing our story ready for performance. Which story will it be? You have to come along and see!
There will be lots of different storytellers and magical tales. A fun day out for everybody!

Our AGM

Here is the Openstorytellers Management Committee presentation from our 2013 A.G.M. It will show you what we have been up to in the past year. We hope you like it.

Arts Roadshow 2014

Today we had a meeting about the Arts Roadshow 2014 that we're planning with FireBird Theatre, Jump-Cuts, Misfits Theatre Company, Artist First, and us Openstorytellers.
It will be a celebration of learning disabled artists in the South West. The event will be in July 2014 in Bristol.

Carousel in Brighton are supporting this project and we have sent them this message.    

Tim reading Easy News

I think Easy News Issue 1 is brilliant it should have been done ages ago - news like this. It's really interesting for someone with a disability like me to learn about all these things.
I'm looking forward to the next issue.
Tim - Storyteller and Disability Awareness Officer

Office assistants at work

 

This is Clemma and Katie getting ready for a performance of Silly Jack, Katie is printing flyers.
Clemma is putting our address on the envelope for feedback forms. We use feedback forms  to improve our work.

Taffy Thonas

This is a photograph of Taffy Thomas. we are happy for Taffy Thomas to be our patron and a brilliant storyteller .

The new wells museum storytelling group by tim, robin and suzie

After our christmas break, we went back to storytelling, this time om our new meeting place at wells museum. We met our leader Jem who is an inspiring storyteller, musician and leader. He really got us going, after giving us some thoughtful rules to keep. We had fun as well as being serious. He told us a story about a girl getting lost in a rain forest in Brazil. We had different feelings about this story, for some it brought up our fears of crustaceans and spiders+ it helped us to get over it a bit! (Robin) stories do that!



week2,
After nearly 3 weeks cruising over christmas and new year,  i Joined the group and really enjoyed it. We had an anancy story (spiders again). We did a story - picture board and practiced our silly jack story to tell.
We are looking forward to more in the future and new people joining us to watch and take part.

Happy new year 2013 - by suzie

Happy new year welcome back everyone!

1, Taffy Thomas
we were lucky and very pleased to meet Taffy Thomas in frome. We listened to his lovely christmas stories and had a brilliant day.

Taffy news story on our web site

2 christmas meal
We all enjoyed it a lot

3, we all had a relaxing christmas hoilday

4, Great news to 2013
Our local paper the Somerset Standard gave us some great news.

Openstorytellers were runners up charity of year award, well done to Harry's hydro + mendip YMCA too.
We were really pleased and what a great start 2013