Crafty project: Welsh pubs use craft boxes to support local people to get creative

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Publicans in Wales have been helping local people to get creative through a community craft boxes initiative, supported by funding from The Royal Countryside Fund

In another example of its great partnership working with other organisations to help support pubs to diversify their services and activities to help people living in rural areas, Pub is The Hub teamed up with Creative Lives on this creative initiative.  Creative Lives, www.creative-lives.org, is a charity that champions community and volunteer-led creative activity.

Four pubs have received community craft boxes which has been made possible through a grant from The Royal Countryside Fund. 

The creative community boxes are simple for publicans to use in their pubs as they are based around self-led craft activities, with each box containing a range of craft materials and ideas for how customers’ can use them.

Materials in the craft boxes, devised by Creative Lives, feature basic drawing tools including paper, pens, charcoal and pastels, watercolour and acrylic paints, as well as origami materials, air drying clay (which has proven helpful for some people with arthritis) and weaving materials.

Pubs as creative hubs: how publicans are using their creative community boxes

The Halfway at Tal-Y-Coed – engaging more families in creative activities

At family run pub The Halfway at Tal-Y-Coed publican Rhiannon Metters has been using the craft box to help engage more families with the pub and support younger visitors to get creative.

The 17th century pub is located in a remote village between Abergavenny and Monmouth which has a predominantly elderly population, and so Rhiannon says whilst it will be used ongoing for activities to help support senior members of the community, it has been good to have a creative activity for younger guests to the pub available.

Rhiannon has found that it is working well for her to bring the creative box out to customers and get the activities started and then leaving parents/carers to supervise the creative activities once started.

Rhiannon said: “We are really keen to encourage creativity and community at our pub.

The craft box offers a great way to encourage conversation over a shared activity. It’s also a fun way to engage families. The young people have been really engaged with using the craft materials and families are so surprised that we have these materials here.”

“It’s helped me to further create a place where the community can come together and using creativity to do this works so well. It is a great addition to our quiz nights, live music and pop-up kitchens etc,” she added.

Customer Adam who brings his two young daughters to The Halfway regularly commented: “The craft box is great. My young girls really enjoy doing some activities when they visit and are now keener to come to the pub too. They love it here as much as me now!”

Gallery of work in pub

The pub is also creating a gallery where works created through the box can be proudly displayed. The work will be displayed in frames and on string with pegs in a space behind the bar. The currently empty space has high footfall as it is located near the toilets and to be able to access the pubs’ outdoor patio so will have lots of visibility.

She said having the creative community box has inspired her to introduce more creative activities at the pub with some professionally led crafting workshops for both adults and young people in the planning.

“As a former youth and community worker with a degree in contemporary craft I’m pretty creative but don’t get to utilise those skills much as a publican so having the box has been a treat!,” Rhiannon added.

 

Pentre Comrades Club – Getting creative at community hub sessions

At The Pentre Comrades Club in Pentre, Rhondda, publicans Denise Roberts and Helen Roderick are using the creative community box as an activity at one of the club’s weekly community hub sessions.

Publicans Denise and Helen have run Pentre Comrades Club for 30 years, which is located in a former coal-mining village where many services have closed down in the last 20 years including schools, shops, day centres and libraries.

The venue has evolved from its club roots, with a full pub licence and open to the general public. It it has been developed into a community space that is used for far more than social drinking.

The club runs two ‘Community Together Hub’ sessions a week. They run from 10am to 2pm and attract around 50 to 60 people to each session. Tea and coffee, cake and toasted sandwiches are available at the sessions which cost just £2, with the elderly attendees enjoying coming together for a chat, socialising and a warm space during the winter months.

The sessions also include a book and DVD swap and regular visits from outside services such as blood pressure testing and performances from choirs.

Creative hub

Denise said they have the box available for attendees to take part in craft activities at its Tuesday sessions of the ‘Community Together Hub’.

“The box is a great addition to our community hub sessions with elderly locals. It gives them another thing to help them engage with each other around.”

The craft box activities builds on a knitting project the hub attendees took part in, knitting squares to create a community blanket.

Weekly Monday craft sessions for for older children using materials from the craft box have also been introduced.

The club already has a good focus on crafts with arts and crafts one of the activities offered during its weekly ‘Family Hub’ sessions during the school summer holidays.

“The creative community box has also helped inspire me to offer more creative activities here such as candle, soap making and glass painting workshops”, added Helen.

 

Tafarn Yr Heliwr, Nefyn – Creativity for secondary school children

At community-owned pub The Tafryn Yr Heliwr, located in the small rural town of Nefyn, Gwynedd, after school art sessions are being hosted with the creative community box.

The pub provides a range of support and developmental opportunities for local people – from activities helping to improve health and wellbeing, to tackling loneliness and teaching new skills, so activities using the craft box fit in ideally with the pubs’ focus.

Monthly after school art sessions for secondary school children have been hosted based around activities which utilise materials from the craft box. A group of around six young people, a mix of boys and girls, have been attending the sessions which have included clay and tile mosaics and a session on painting watercolours with a young, upcoming local artist.

Bethan Evans, the pub’s company secretary, said: “The box has a great variety of equipment which is useful for different activities. The activities give the young people something to do in the evenings, where in rural areas there’s often nothing much on for them.”

 

The Fic, Bethesda, Wales – family nights and elderly lunch club focus

At The Fic which is a pub which serves as a community hub for Bethesda, a Welsh village nestled in the Carneddau mountains, the community craft box is planned to be used at family evenings.

The materials in the box are planned to be used as an activity along with board games at these family nights.

Manon Williams, who volunteers at The Fic said: “We are also looking to use the craft box to help get elderly people in the community together to socialise during weekly lunch clubs.”

A recent consultation, that had over 400 respondents from local people, found that they felt there was a gap in support for elderly people living in the area. The craft box at the weekly lunch clubs is among many initiatives the pub is planning to help support this and other age groups in the local area.

In recent years the village and surrounding areas, which has a population of around 6,000 people, have seen the permanent closure of three of its pubs and even more in the wider area.