24hrs of Possibility

My dream of the House came to fruition on 20th June this year as House-About made it's first appearance in the Civic square as part of the activities for the Festival of Transition.

snakes and ladders with Wendy Stayte

Dr Bike

Pledge tree in the back ground

wild food picked on skillshare in the morning

House-About black board

This time House-About was half black board, half fabric. We invited folk to write down what are their snakes and ladders to link with the giant game I made with the help of the Saturday Creative Club. Big thank yous and many cheers to Wendy Stayte, Wendy Howarth and Bethan Matthews for the pictures on it.
The event was called Tea And Exchange in the Square . Folk were invited to bring homemade or locally bought food to share over pots of tea while making new friends. We had a swop table for unwanted goods, Dr Bike, Several skillshare incl. upcycling and Mosaic with Jan O'Highway. Steph told Tales of Transition, Sally gave information about the Credit Union and Ruth Ben Tovin of Encounters set up a story sharing space with Inez Aponte. The tea table groaned under the weight of delicious dishes as Mary Rebeh and Erica kept the tea pots full of sweet hot brews in their flowery finery.
Despite the threat rain, the sun shone strongly from within as people opened their hearts to one another in this rare pubic opportunity of giving and sharing.

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Dartington Primary School Summer Fête

Next event was Dartington Primary School Summer Fête to support the consultation process for the proposed Transition Housing development in Dartington. Parents could discuss there hopes and concerns for the new development while their children played in the house and drew pictures of their dream home and/or garden. This activity was offered to adults as well with some lovely results. One man said that it had been a long time since anyone had asked him what his dream anything was. Adults rarely get offered the space to dream in creatively as there is so much emphasis on product and doing. This demonstrated to me how important it is to have this type of creative space available to all ages of people, so that they can take time out of the doing and creatively look at their goals and dreams in a safe playful space.

Eco Homes 2011

House-About still had more to offer and I was asked to provide the kids space at the Eco Homes Fair in October 2011. From the the comment of one little girl when asked at the Transition streets event what she thought House-About needed she said, “ a cooker, a washing machine ..” So I decided to offer the opportunity to make all these appliances and more out of cardboard boxes and other scrap. We also made bees on sticks to mark plants bees love in our gardens and their basic formula using a cork and a wooden screwer progressed to butterflies and flowers then roof top gardens with the inspired assistance of my co workers. Some children made dolls houses from the cardboard boxes and there was a lot of child led creativity enabled and encouraged by the three of us. We gave out stickers to 30 children by way of awarding and keeping track of numbers (as we remembered) and many of them stayed with us for 2-3hours, some for the whole event. By the end of the day House-About had a light shad...

The Big Draw

The next event was The Big Draw on 28 th October up in the Rotherfold, a beautiful under used square at the top of Totnes high Street. The day was bright and crisp. We had amassed stacks of cardboard and the Theme was “ taking a line for a walk into the future”. We had black and white paint and chalk. Participants were asked to draw there visions of themselves and community in the future and we had some very beautiful and thought provoking images created. House about had a complete cardboard makeover. This event was co-ordinated by Janey Hunt and myself with our TTTAG hats on and we were ably assisted by Sarah Bainbridge and Ruth Rae, House-About's team as well as local illustrators, Wendy Howarth and Bethan Welby

House-About

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