Work and Play Scrapstore: A Year in Review
2015 has been a fantastic year for the Scrapstore - in the words of our Chair of Trustees, Lucy Hadfield, 'we are bigger, brighter and better than ever and ... the Scrapstore ethos is alive and kicking." Did you see all the amazing things we've been up to? Check out our retrospective below, and make sure to keep us bookmarked to see what we'll be doing in the New Year!
On January 14, two of our Trustees attended Sadiq Khan's event in the State Rooms of the Speaker's House in Parliament. They had an opportunity to speak with representatives from other community groups, met the Mayor of Wandsworth, and John Bercow MP (current Speaker of the House of Commons) even popped down from his flat upstairs to speak to the attendees!
We were thrilled to find a new home for one of our member's bigger projects, the amazing castle made by Body Action Campaign and donated back to us after their event finished. As is often the case, the castle started a new life at one of our other members, Bridge Lane Nursery.
In March we had a great time at Southwark Early Years conference, meeting people from all parts of the Education Sector and encouraging them to Dress a Teddy! We also welcomed Jayson Singh to the Scrapstore as our new In-House artist!
On 11 April, our Chris and Teresa were really thrilled to join over 20 varied local groups in attending Transition Town’s Looking Out For Tooting, a workshop designed to 'celebrate the people and groups that care for Tooting and its future'. We had an amazing day, met a lot of great people and discovered all about the local area.
May saw our busiest month ever as we got involved with Wandsworth Fringe! We had a fantastic time at the Launch Party, taking our fabulous Wishing Tree to the Doodle Bar and doing a live Rangoli demonstration. We then spent a glorious day on Tooting Common as part of the South London Storytelling Festival's Pied Piper event, with more Rangoli and our special 'Dress-a-Rat'.
Our Wishing Tree got another outing in June when we took part in a special event commemorating the V2 bomb falling in Summerstown. Children from the local primary school made poppies to hang on the tree, and it was a very moving occasion for the community. Also in June, Lucy represented WAPS at Reuseful's 2015 National Conference in Stoke-On-Trent, giving a keynote speech about how our Scrapstore has managed to turn its fortunes around.
In July we had our first visit by a group of 'corporate' volunteers, when a team from Google came for a day to help out around the Scrapstore. It was wonderful hosting them, and they all had a fantastic time getting 'hands-on' and creative. We also made a visit to Sunnyhill Primary School, a long-time member who wanted to show us all the amazing things they have made out of our materials - it was an inspiration to see what they've done and gave us even more motivation!
We made another site visit in August, this time to Bridge Lane Nursery. Bridge Lane have long been one of our biggest supporters, so it was great to go and see their amazing nursery (including the castle they got from us in February!). We also had a visit from a local charity, Be Enriched, who came to take part in some workshops we put on just for them.
September was a very sad month for us here at the Scrapstore, as we lost our much-loved Elizabeth Bull, a stalwart of Work and Play since it opened. However, we also welcomed our newest, and youngest volunteer, Amy, who wrote a great blog post for us about volunteering as a student.
In October, we visited the Windmill Cluster to run a special workshop, led by our friend Ruth Moyler, encouraging their use of sustainable materials. And to prove we're all about all kinds of 'green', one of our long term volunteers, Shujaat, became a Master Gardener!
November was another very busy month for us, starting with us running our always popular 'Dress-A-Teddy' workshop at Tooting Library as part of The Streets Festival. We also welcomed a new trustee, Mariam Dee, and ended the month with a fantastic open day and AGM, which was a huge success! Finally, Colette ran a fun 'light-box' workshop at Colliers Wood library - check back in the new year to read her blog about it!
It's been an amazing year here at Work and Play, but we have high hopes that next year will be even better!
