Welcome to our new Trustee!

We are delighted to welcome a new Trustee to Bridging Arts - Leonora Rae. Leonora's existing work with charities, in a responsible and sustainable investment firm, will bring valuable governance and investment knowledge to the board.

"As an art history graduate, I am delighted to join the board of Bridging Arts," she says. "I have seen art and art related activities bring communities and people together in the most wonderful ways. Susan and the Board have done a fabulous job to organise a whole host of diverse and interesting projects and I look forward to contributing to the development and success of future ones."

Keeping up links with French WW1 town

Camborne MP George Eustice with Bruno Ficheux, Mayor of Estaires

A very good visit to London last week (16 October 2019) from our friends from Estaires, northern France, including the Mayor, Bruno Ficheux.

We have been jointly keeping up links between Estaires and Cornwall ever since we discovered that the 25th Field Ambulance (in which many Cornish miners from Camborne and Redruth were serving) was based in the town for the first part of World War One. We visited with Camborne Youth Band in 2018 and played in the graveyard where one of the Cornishmen is buried. One of the Band is the great great grandson of another of the miners and played his 100-year-old bugle brought back from WW1. We returned to Estaires on Armistice Day 2018 with other descendants of the miners and the local school put on an exhibition and play.

On their London visit, Mayor Ficheux, members of the town's historical association and teachers from the College du Sacre Coeur met Camborne MP George Eustice at Westminster.

A great day.

An exhibition about Camborne Youth Band's trip to France in August 2018 is currently on display at Camborne Library.

Camborne war memorial and a World War One exhibition

Lovely to see the War Memorial in Camborne, Cornwall, looking so well-cared for - it's the opposite of neglected!
The graveyard is neatly mown too. We find the grave of Dr William Blackwood who was such a prominent figure in the town from the turn of the century until his death in 1960.

Dr Blackwood was a key figure in setting up a St John Ambulance Division in the town and when World War One broke out in 1914, he led a group of miners to the Western Front. We've been working on this story for the past four years - more on the Bridging Arts website .
To mark Remembrance Day this year, our exhibition PLAYING FOR CAMBORNE: MUSIC AND RUGBY IN WORLD WAR ONE AND NOW will be on display in Camborne Library from early October.
Entry free and open to all.

First exercise session at John Betts House, Hammersmith

Great to start a series of dance and exercise sessions with a pretty large group of residents at John Betts House, Hammersmith, with Italian dancer Simone Sistarelli..... This was the first session. There'll be more in the autumn. John Betts House, run by Hammersmith United Charities, has wonderful gardens (pictured). There are more than 40 flats where residents can live independently.
A huge thank you to LocalGiving for a grant towards this work.
Simone Sistarelli specialises in work with older people. One of his most important projects is one specializing in people suffering from Parkinson's Disease. Click here for his website.

We've worked with him previously at the Masbro Centre, Hammersmith.

Feedback from our dance sessions for older people

Thanks to a grant from Localgiving’s Magic Little Grants programme, we were able to stage dance/exercise sessions for up to 30 older people at the Masbro Centre, Hammersith, London. The Centre runs a befriending service for isolated and disadvantaged older people.

These sessions were led by Italian dancer Simone Sistarelli who started with simple warm up movements for everyone – including people whose mobility was impaired – then ended with a full dance session. The idea was for people to learn simple exercises and positions that they could practise at home. 
The elders who participated in the classes said that they thoroughly enjoyed them and wanted more. They enjoyed Simone’s approach which made exercise ‘fun’.

He wanted the classes to brighten up the day if everything seemed miserable – and this is what happened. “I don’t want to be cheese-y but movement can make you happy. We’re going to go crazy and TAKE the happiness!” he said. People particularly enjoyed the dance sequences at the end, and practised between sessions.
““I liked the bit of routine with a funky rhythm. I felt like Michael Jackson. I want to do the Moon Walk next time.”
“I found that every part of the body had been exercised.”
Elders participating in the dance sessions at the Masbro Centre

New work from artist Max Whetter

Great to see Max Whetter's second year show in his degree course at Cornwall College, Pool. This is work of real quality: very interesting takes on the famous self portrait by John Opie at the Royal Cornwall Museum.  Max won our competition for a new skateboard design in 2016. At the time he was working as a burger chef in Newquay.
This show now moves on in fact to the Museum in Truro, so there'll be a chance (hopefully) to see the original work that inspired Max.
Well worth a visit!

Camborne Youth Band star takes centre stage as soloist

Great to see Camborne Youth Band star soloist Aaron Thomas topping the bill at this concert in Camborne next month.

Aaron played at the Menin Gate during our trip to the World War One battlefields last year and came second in the regional finals of the Rotary Club Young Musician of the Year in March. 

Wonderful that he is now branching out. A big career ahead. 

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Susan Roberts
Director
Bridging Arts
www.bridging-arts.com
Tel: 07772 128 014