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.