Creative Histories

We went to Bristol Zoo Gardens on the 19th July 2017 for the Creative Histories Meeting in the Clifton Pavilion. The first talk was with Daphne Knott and Ghislaine Peart called Threads of Time which was about The Travelling Case of John Radcliffe I thought their tapestries were great. Then the Secord talk was run by Creative Wiltshire and it was about Collecting Cultures and we looked at arts and crafts plus performances. Then it was us Open storytellers we did a talk about Fanny Fust we got the audience involved in making fans and acting out the court case and they enjoyed it. We had a celebration and I show my artwork and looked at some artwork on display.

     

storytellers at the giant jam.

Openstorytellers went along to the Giant Jam at  Ammerdown centre at Rad stock.
We told two stories at the event which were Knight and Days in the Kitchen and King of the Goblins. The audience enjoyed our Saturday night fever dancing and being goblins.
I thought the day went really well and everybody performed brilliantly, plus I watched three live music bands and took part in a ukulele music workshop. Everyone enjoy the refreshments in the garden on a nice day and enjoy our storytelling. We thought the jammy dodgers were the best.

 
The people said we were the best storytellers they had ever seen.        
Robin

Bradley I enjoyed the Big Giant Jam being part of all the events and
telling stories with Open Story Tellers performing to the public.
I also enjoyed loops disco and and being part of the hearts beats Workshop
I recorded some of the music Hearts beats made .
I went home and remixed the hearts beats with other music
The event was funded by the National Lottery

Alice's Fanny Fust Research

Alice’s Fanny Fust Research

I became interested in the research of Fanny Fust because of my parents doing research about our family tree. Because of my parents doing the research, I had an idea of what to do and what to look for and how to go about doing the research. I was interested to learn more about how Fanny lived and what the conditions were like back then for people who were disabled.

Registry office

Me and dad drove to Bristol to meet up with Andy at the registry office. We looked on the microfiche to find the date of birth of Fanny Fust and we found it! While we were looking for it, it made us feel ill, this was because of the way that the screen moved and the writing was very small. You had to move something about to find the bit we were looking for. I went home early with dad, became unwell because I had a cold anyway. I was happy with how it was all starting off and excited to find out more about Fanny Fust.

Tour of Bristol

We went on a tour round Clifton in Bristol to see the houses that Fanny would have grown up in. They were terraced houses, I was expecting it be more grand. We went to where the Ostrich used to be – that’s where Fanny went to have strawberries and cream – it is now a care home. What went around in my head was if the trees could talk, I wonder what tale they would tell. There were still some big trees there – the bigger the tree trunk, the older the tree is. Andy had brought along some old maps of the site, which showed us the circle of trees. We also went in the church that Fanny’s parents got married in, this was up a steep hill in the centre of Bristol. I’m really enjoying the research and everything that we’ve done with Fanny Fust.

Georgian House Museum

We went round the Georgian House and we saw what it would have been like growing up at that time. We learnt that the men had their rooms that they went into and the ladies had their rooms to go into. Andy carried my manual wheelchair up and down the stairs. We also learnt that the son of the family who lived in the house (in the 18^th century) had a learning disability, and was carted off to live on a farm outside of Bristol. I wonder if the family sent him off because he was disabled and would have brought shame on the family, or the family may have thought he would have had a better life on the farm.

Research in Frome at Openstorytellers

I came to the Openstorytellers for the first time and we read the story of Fanny Fust and the kidnapping that Simon Jarrett had shared. 

Storytelling on world book day at Fosseway school.

On Thursday 2nd of March Bradley and Robin  from Openstorytellers went to fosseway School and
did a storytelling of Uwangalema.
Uwangalema is a story of African  animals  that include a zebra, a lion, a Rhino and a Tortoise.
The story starts off with all the animals in a valley in Africa. Over the last few days the animals started to forget the name of the magic tree in the valley of Africa.  On the hills of  the valley lived a god, the god knew the name of the magic tree. During the day animals took turns to go up the hill and find out the name of the tree.

We thought the 2 groups we performed to were very good listeners and they took part in all the discussion of the story. The first group was post 16 and the second was primary, the story was suitable for both and they all enjoyed it.
We would like to go back and work with Fosseway school in the future on new projects or a workshop.

.STORYTELLING IN A CARE HOME

Critchill Court Care Home in Frome, this is a home for the Elderly and some of them have Dementia. 

We did a storytelling performance and told the” Wassail story” which is a story about Somerset apples and people wassailing all over the town.

Everything went very well, we enjoyed telling the story and they enjoyed the joy and laughter of the story and singing.

CLEMMA FLEAT, KATIE BRANCH, AND NICOLA GROVE

We were invited to do a story for national story week, but sadly we couldn’t make it then. But we were able to go back today 2^nd of March on the national book day, to do a performance with a sing song too. The Audience liked the story and they joined in with the singing.

MONEY MONEY MONEY. It bought a sparkle and joy to them all, we enjoyed it too and hope hope to go back soon and perform again.

BY CLEMMA AND KATIE 2^ND MARCH 2017

Katie and Clemma telling stories at the children's festival

Open Storytellers Work Skills Group are commissioned to write an easy read leaflet for the town

 Our Work Skills group - Mike, Peter, Charlotte, Tracey and Katie have been working with Kate Hellard from Frome Town Council to create an easy read leaflet all about the town.  

We met up with the 5 town rangers and with Chris Stringer the Environment Manager. We asked them lots of questions about their work with open spaces, parks and rivers. We also met two Town councillors Sheila Gore and Peter Macfadyen. They told us that they are there to help people and listen.  We all went to see the offices on Palmer Street and saw there were lots of stairs and it was very small. It is so good that they are moving to the new Town Hall. We met lots of people who work there and they were really excited about the leaflet.

The last final few weeks have been really difficult as it has been a challenge to make all the information into easy read language.  We have achieved so much and its built our confidence. We have been doing lots of teamwork and the leaflet is now almost finished.  Soon people will be able to sample the leaflet and give us some feedback.

WATCH THIS SPACE! 

By the Mike Bulmer (BOND 009) Work Skills Group

Arts Hand Book By Katie Branch

I am working  on  arts  hand book  for the Mondays story telling group. which  got information who"s in the group and what we do with pictures, and everyone in the pds group    are  involved are working with me  to put information in it. For people who wants to join our group will know what we do and we will help them to get to our standard. I am in joining working on the arts hand book  and putting in the pictures in the arts hand book.