Art Sessions that run every Tuesday at The Helm

We run our Art Sessions every Tuesday with a break for lunch between the times of 11am till 1pm and 2pm till 4pm.

The sessions cover a large range of different topics and genres These include Painting, Textiles, Mixed Media, Small Woodwork Projects, Jewellery making, Photography and bringing back the lost art of Rag Rugging!

Different combinations of these sessions also work well together. An example of this is putting together a little booklet of people’s work during our poetry sessions and illustrating the poems with photographs that explain them to build up a lovely atmospheric feel.






Recycled jeans were then  turned  into beautiful wallets with felt decorations

 

We have also been making lots of different items to raise funds for materials and equipment for the centre and towards subsidising the cost of trips and mini bus hire.

Everybody enjoys the Art sessions a great deal it’s a wonderful opportunity to unleash creative talent, develop coping strategies through the relaxing sessions in a creative environment.

Our recent Easter Craft Fair was a fantastic event where we opened the doors to the general public providing a choice of homemade soups, beverages and cakes, entertainment for children for the day in the form of a puppet theatre and other activities. We also sold beautiful craft items made by people made by people who access The Helm.

People that regularily access The Helm played a large part in the planning and setting up of the event and worked on the stalls selling items we had made and it built up a wonderful sense of pride and achievement for a lot of people.

As well as making money for the service we also wanted to use the event as a vehicle to promote a further awareness of what we can offer, as we are the only Mental Health lifeline to so many people that can be easily accessed by the local community.

We held our Easter Craft Fair on the 16^th April 2011

We are still raising money totalling to date around £950 which is being used to fund further projects and a nice trip or two.

Our next step in Social Enterprise is to have a market stall in the centre of Lancaster selling Craft Items, Art work and Homemade food (most likely cakes as many service users have now done their food hygiene training)