It's been a while!

It certainly has been a while since we've updated our readers here! We haven't abandoned you or these pages, so what have we been up to?

We can't give you updates without mentioning the "C-Word" - COVID! So let's tackle that one first with the 'obvious':

• The UK, and the rest of the world, has been living with restrictions due to the virus
• The UK has completed one lockdown
• Our County Borough just came through a local lockdown only to be thrust into ...
• A full Wales lockdown
• It's prevented us from running any workshops.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's give you some positive updates:

• Just as we were preparing for lockdown number one, we successfully gained funding from the National Lottery Community Fund, but couldn't use it (positive bit coming, honestly)
• Received funding from Invest Local Ynysowen so we could provide 100 Rock Painting Craft Bags for our members stuck at home in the Aberfan and Merthyr Vale areas - for free!
• Ran competitions on social media and in our newsletter (not all our members are social media users)
• Added more tutorials to this website
• Started YouTube tutorials for rock painting and it's still going!
• Arranged and ran virtual coffee mornings
• Started a monthly newsletter for updates

We felt it essential to concentrate on the area of the internet where most of our 'people' are:

• Social Media
• Instagram
• Facebook Page
• Facebook Member's Group
• Twitter (not so much)
• The monthly newsletters and, of course
• YouTube

By doing this, we could cater for as many of our members as possible, but then we realised we've neglected this, our little corner of the internet that many members wouldn't regularly use but our public would!

Our vision for our 'new future' includes:

• A place to call 'home'
• More freestyle workshops - like the ones our members are used to.
• Outdoor workshops (when we can)
• We currently have two 3m x 6m marquees to use thanks to funding from Invest Local Ynysowen and The National Lottery Community Fund
• We're stocking these with (from the funding listed above):
• New tables and chairs
• Pens and equipment - per table - no sharing 
• PPE and essential signage
• New tutor-lead workshops with specific aims and objectives
• Wellbeing and mindfulness art sessions - with qualified coaches and facilitators
• Craft Fayres 
• More virtual coffee mornings - Interested? Click here and let us know
• Virtual social evenings  - Interested? Click here and let us know

We have not been sitting idly by watching the world move without us! We have been working hard, we have vision, we have strength and we will make this work for you and for us!

Please feel free to contact us with any questions, queries and comments, we will do our best to answer everyone!

We prefer WhatsApp contact if possible.