Meeting people - what a brilliant way to spend the day!

On Tuesday 26th March I visited my first contacts.
I started the day with a cold and snowy drive to the Old Mining College in Chasetown where I had a lovely chat with Samantha from the Changes organisation.

Old Mining College, Chasetown

Changes is a Staffordshire based registered charity, run mainly by service users and volunteers, providing a service that promotes mental wellbeing and recovery in a safe and friendly environment. Read more about it here http://www.changes.org.uk/
They are providing a fabulous service and are keen to have a go at an arts activity. The service users are going to discuss what they would like to do. We also talked about the possibility of linking the work with other Changes groups in Lichfield, Tamworth and Burton. I think this could become a really exciting project and it has lots of possibilities for extending the work beyond the initial project.

Later on I went to visit the Tamworth Arts Development Team, a very hard working trio of ladies who gave me some very useful suggestions and contacts.

Tamworth Assembly Rooms

There is a lot of good arts work going on in Tamworth - it is to my shame and embarrassment that I am not more aware of it - although I don't think that I am alone in this! It is amazing how parochial we can be; if Lichfield cannot supply what we want we tend to look to Birmingham, when there is lots of interesting stuff right on our doorstep. I think some county-wide coordination in the promotion of the arts would be helpful in all sorts of ways. More joined up thinking across Districts is required on this - we are really not making the most of what we already have. See here to find out how to keep up to date with the arts in Tamworth http://www.tamworthassemblyrooms.co.uk/arts-activities/artswitch

Many thanks to Elanor, Laura and Hannah in Tamworth and Samantha in Chasetown for giving up their precious time and making me feel so welcome.