Thursday was spent in Leeds at the FSI Fundraising Conference at the excellent St Georges Church and Conference center Leeds. The speakers were great, interesting and lively – all perfectly tuned to The North, and to small charities such as ourselves. www.thefsi.org/services/conferences/northern-fundraising-conference-october-2018/ It was really worth the time and the very very reasonable fee! Now to get to work on the new ideas!

Great help offered by the fabulous staff at Lloyd’s Bank Eastborough Scarborough. They are holding a tombola to help raise both our profile and funds in Scarborough. Today and Saturday! Thanks to Moira and trustees for their work.

Art Therapists Sue Peter and Anne from ATY met with Laura and Jim from the North Yorkshire Music Therapy Centre www.music-therapy.org.uk/ yesterday to experience working together through both disciplines. We chatted and shared our personal ways of working before using a range of percussion instruments and art making materials in a free form approach. Our Therapist Holly has formed a new word we like Explorential which we love… This was an explorential event as we explored and experienced our own ways of working. It was a profoundly moving experiencing which reinforced our desire to work collaboratively in the future.  I apologise for not being able to share the soundscape produced but this is the collaborative artwork made which we are happy to share.

Wow. Starting with a speaking event on radio York with Sophie Hall our very energetic Scarborough Whitby & Rydale  MIND CEO, we both moved on to the Scarborough Town Hall to take part in the World Mental Health Awareness Day event organised by the Scarborough Rydale Mental Health Forum .

Congratulations to members of our Santander funded Art of Gold Mondays group.

Edward won first prize at Burniston Fair and wishes to share his additional award with you. This is the Alexandria Ewart trophy, which will take pride of place I’m sure for one year.

Members are also supporting Advocacy Alliance’s silent Art Auction by donating art works.

I am very proud of you all. 

Headland Festival near Burniston Scarborough – 25/26 August. What great fun! We erected our little gazebo – held together with gaffer tape and cable ties, decorated it with our now indispensible ATY bunting and encouraged all ages to join us for free art making. Saturday was windy, and as the name implies it is on a headland BUT it was perfect for kite making…We estimate at least 50 beautifully coloured and decorated kites were made and flown that weekend. We used glascene paper and willow to avoid plastic litter, and the effects were really lovely against the sky… lets hope someone has some great pictures. Sparkly willow wands were also popular and beautiful no-sew fairy wings.. All I can do at this stage is share our kite instructions. More to come !

What a delight to be able to offer  sessions on Art Therapy to each of their 3 mixed year classes on Art Therapy. Information , discussions, experiential art making, and Q&A with the children.Top marks Scotton Lingerfield  Primary School .

Sue was invited to contribute to the Springtide Conference Prayer for Scarborough recently. We provided a resource table for reflective art making within St Marys and were delighted by the responses of those attending the conference. We would also like to thank those organising the event for their contribution towards our costs.

Another big shout out of thanks.

The Crossgates Coffee morning  made a collection for us and presented us with £75. This was even more delightful as it was completely out of the blue. Thank you so much.

A huge shout of thanks to our Local Santander branch for putting us forward for an award.

The £4000 we have received has secured the future of our Monday group. This has now been renamed by the members as Art of Gold Monday what a great name!