Newsletter Summer 2010

It was very special for us to be

invited back to the newly re-

furbished Peoples History

Museum with our ‘Open

Book’ exhibition. The Mu-

seum has just finished a

£12.5 million makeover and,

as can be seen from the pho-

tos, our artists were delighted

to share in the glory. Laura

Nathan, Wayne Tarry and

Robert Dixon led an explana-

tion of some of the work and

how it was produced.

“Well done , fantastic dis-

play of wonderful art, con-

gratulations to all the art-

ists.” Karen– Coop Group Community challenge

website: www.venturearts.org

Issue 7

43 Old Birley Street,

Hulme,

Manchester M15 5RF

Phone: 0161 232 1223

E-mail:

[email protected]

People’s History Museum Exhibition Opening 28th April

Issue 7

Summer 2010

Issue 7

Ve nture A r ts Ne w s l e tte r

Tracy Clarke Shows her work at the exhibition launch.

The exhibition ran from the 28th of April until the 8th June and was seen by visitors to the Peoples History Aerial view of the exhibition

Wayne Tarry, Laura Nathan and Robert

Dixon presenting the exhibition.

Steven Wilson collecting exhibition

feedback on the day Horace Lindezey and Amanda Sutton.

‘Fantastic Exhibition-well done

to all the artists—we are

delighted to host it’ People’s

History Museum

Farewell to Stephen Greenwood

Venture Arts is a specialist in the provision of arts and crafts workshops for people with learning disabilities. Our mission is to provide a high quality arts experience in a friendly, stimulating and inclusive environment; focusing on bringing out the best in every individual, nurturing talent and enhancing overall wellbeing and quality of life. The Team Amanda Sutton, Manager, John Adshead, Development Manager, Jack Hale, Finance Officer, Admin

Assistant Rachel Jones and our Creative Arts Workers; Katherine Long, Kate Freeborough, Alena

Asenbryl, and Martin Livesey, James Pollitt. and Laura Nathan,

Why not come and try out your artistic skills?

If you would like to be part of Venture Arts and get involved in all sorts of creative projects...then get in touch! Either ring us on: 0161 232 1223 or email: [email protected]

Or find out more about us o n o u r w e b s i t e : www.venturearts.org

Would you like to join Venture

Arts?

Phone: 0161 232 1223

E-mail:

[email protected]


Matthew Bell has taken part in a wide range of varied arts projects over the past year. He is a talented artist who has shown work at both the Lowry and Manchester City Art Gallery this year alone. Currently he is learning observational drawing techniques with James and is show-ing great artistic promise.These will go into a book that Matthew is producing. Matthew comes

from a remarkable family; his mother, Alex Bell is a pioneer for the rights of young peo-ple who have a learning disability (subject of ‘A Mother Like Alex’, by Bernard Clark, published by HarperCollins) and Matthew has 7 brothers and sisters. Matthew is also a Manchester United guide and regularly takes visitors around the ground answering their questions. Matthew has made his own lovely book with his own drawings of Manchester United football club. Well done to Matthew for all his successes!

Steve with Susan Parr at the Lowry exhibition opening 2010


Hulme,

Manchester M15 5RF

Issue 7

Spotlight this issue on: Matthew Bell

Young Peoples workshops to restart

At Old Trafford Climbing at Big Lottery Event

Stephen has been with Venture Arts for

the past 8 years as our account officer and because of other work commit-

ments is now leaving Venture Arts.

Steve has been a very important and

dedicated member of staff and is going

to be very dearly missed. We wish him

the very best in all his plans for the future

Matthew with his family At Manchester Art Gallery

Matthew and his |Brother Tom showing their work at the Lowry

Face painting

‘Hulme is Where The Art Is’ Festival -20th March 2010

Katrina Nowotonski shows her work and work of other

ceramicists from Manchester Metropilitan University at our

first ‘Hulme is Where The Art is’ event

Terry and Darren selling cards on the day

Open Voice Choir provide choral

entertainment in the evening Pottery workshops were very popular

On the 20th March 2010, Old Birley Street was transformed into a place of creative revelry as the location for a community arts festival in Hulme. Throughout the day, artists from Manchester exhibited their arts and crafts and Venture Arts’ artists held craft workshops for everyone to join in. The day also saw live poetry, street theatre and music performances running into the evening. It was a great day with over 100 people com-ing along and we hope to do another next year.

Darren meets an extraordinary fairy

at Hulme Community Garden Centre

‘Fair Trade Detectives’ Logo Competition

In June Venture Arts was asked to design a logo for this new initiative set up by United Response. We held a competition for someone to design a logo that would exemplify the Fairtrade message. The winning logo was designed by John Groake who will be congratulated for his fantastic design at the Fiartrade Detec-tives Launch on the 20th of July –A huge well done to John!

What's a Fairtrade Detective I hear you all say?

The Manchester Fairtrade Detective is a program to help the city council to lo-cate who in Manchester sells Fairtrade products. Fairtrade products are sold in schools, shops, supermarkets, restaurants, sports centres and in places of wor-ship like churches and other faith centres.

If you would like to get involved as a fair-trade detective contact United Re-

sponse on:

0161 873 7479 or email [email protected]

Phone: 0161 232 1223

E-mail:

[email protected]

www.venturearts.org


Hulme,

Manchester M15 5RF

Issue 7

Meet Jack Hale our new Finance Officer

Young Peoples workshops to restart

…… and back in the pub afterwards enjoying well deserved refreshment

and definitely more relaxed post race!

We would like to introduce to you our new Finance Officer ; Jack Hale.

Jack studied painting and art history and has worked in arts management for around 18 years. Jack has worked for a number of arts organisations in the north and north west of England for variety of arts based companies including Preston Community Arts Project, Pavilion (Photography) project in Leeds, Manches-ter Craft & Design Centre and the CUBE Gallery. We wish him a very warm wel-come!

James Pollitt, Martin Livesey, Rachel Jones, Amanda Sutton, Ciaran Laydon,

Helen Rowe and Stephen Evans limbering up before the race begins….

Team Venture complete the BUPA Great Manchester Run—16th May !

On Sunday 16th May 2010, as can be seen from the above photos Venture Arts staff and many generous spirited volunteers donated their time and energy in running in the BUPA Great Manchester 10K Run and raising up to this present moment over £2000. Supporting us this year, DLA Alsop Solicitors also ran in aid of Venture Arts and have raised a further £4000! We are so grateful for this wonderful effort! The money raised will support our future workshops and exhibitions in 2010/11

Jack Hale on the left with Horace Lindesey

After a very successful series of work-shops for young disabled people and their families which ran from January to April, we are delighted to an-nounce that we will be continuing with these until April 2011. We will be running a whole variety of arts pro-jects for young people on Wednesday afternoons from 4.00-6.30 and Satur-day mornings from 10-12.30. These will start at the end of July


Learning Disability Training Manchester University 13th &14th April 2010

On the 12/13th April Learning Disability Studies pro-vided training for the staff of Venture Arts. Some of the topics discussed were:- ‘Stolen Lives’ a DVD presenta-tion of lives experiences of the learning disabled in the past, Policy and Practice, Challenging Behaviour, Person Centred Approaches, Relations and Sexuality and Direct Payments.

Following are some of the comments from our staff members on the information presented:

“I thought the training was well prepared very informa-tive, well delivered. I enjoyed the introductory film. Though, I was aware of a lot of the information, it was good to hear and see people that were directly af-fected. The information on direct payments was excel-lent and very relevant to us..”

“Many thanks to all tutors for their professionalism and help – It was a privilege to be taught by people who are evidently at the forefront of their fields, both from an academic perspective and also from their practical backgrounds too.”

Rohss Chapman, Craig Blythe, Louise Townson and Ian Carson: our trainers from University of Manchester - Learning Disability department

Lymme Festival June 2010

Terry Williams enjoying life on the

open water Robert Dixon showing his recycled bird ‘It was a great day out’

Once again we were all delighted to be part of Lymm ‘art in the Garden’ Festival and included a textile piece,

little birds made from a variety of recycled materials and Alf and Rennie Roberts ; our friendly scarecrows

made from old plastic bags. Alf and Rennie have since moved on to Hulme Community Garden Centre to fulfil

their ‘scaring crows’ role. On the 29th July we all went over to Lymm and had a trip from Stockton Heath to

Warrington in a narrow boat which was huge fun. Many thanks once again go to Su Williams for making all this

possible.

Venture Arts would like to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you for all the

hard work, time and devotion that Mike has displayed as a very valuable member of our

management committee. Mike began to offer his services in 2000 and has been our chair-

man for the past two years. Mike has helped us to weather many changes over the years.

He has been a very consistent and reliable source of wisdom throughout that time. He has

helped us to secure three lots of funding from the Big Lottery and he has provided just the

right level of insight and guidance into the governance of our organisation throughout his

time with us. Mike is a volunteer walking tour leader and travels the world. We wish

Mike our very best wishes in all his future endeavours and thank him for all that he has

done for Venture Arts

Mike Harding Leaves Venture Arts’ Management Committee after many years of fantastic service.

Mellissa Gill Visits from Phoenix Arizona

Venture Ar ts

Our New Learning Mentors do a Wonderful job in Schools

We were honoured to receive Mellissa for an afternoon on the 26th May. Melissa came to visit through the Rotary Club from Pheonix, Arizona and was looking at disability services in the UK compared to those in the US. She has 7 children, ranging in age from 4 to 16, four of whom are adopted and who have a learning disability.

‘I was given the liberty to visit a phenomenal program provided by Venture Arts Center. Amanda and the staff and volunteers maintain a program in which adults can participate in arts project “to develop skills and aptitudes that can make a real difference to people’s lives” I spent the afternoon assisting in a session and wish to thank Barry for allowing me to work on his latest project! All of the people were wonderful to speak and interact with and I was truly blessed to witness and participate in such a unique program’ Many thanks Melissa! Melissa Gill

Since February four of our arts participants have been in training to pass on some of the creative and people skills they have learnt in

our Open Book project to school children from around the area in three ten week projects. Horace Lindezey and Robert Dixon have

completed a ‘Book in a Box’ project with pupils from John Vianney High School. Darren Gallagher and Max Bentley worked with young

people from Rolls Crescent Primary School and helped them to make some beautiful printed self-portraits. Robert also worked with St Wilfrid’s RC Primary school on the ‘Dear Diary’ project. All the work was displayed at Zion Arts from July 13th—20th and looked fan-

tastic. It was great to see so many people of different ages working so well together! Our Learning Mentors did a fine job and we hope

that we will be able to do more projects with schools in the future!

Darren’s comments on his project: ‘ I really enjoyed working with the children. I rolled the ink, took photos and went out to the Gallery.

They were a bit noisy at first but I got used to it and really liked talking to them and doing the art. With the money I earned working ,I have been able to buy myself a new mobile phone too.’


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Newsletter Summer 2010