A rainy day in Blackburn

The new woman from last week did not turn up for the session today, which was a real shame, as she had made a point of telling me how much she had enjoyed it all. She also came over to me in Blackburn centre this morning and said she was planning to come later on. So something else came up, maybe? Hopefully nothing too serious. Possibly the horrible weather.... Where did the Summer go????

This is just one of the aspects of Community Arts that can be so frustrating - you don't always get consistent groups. Also, when you are working with vulnerable groups, in whichever situation that might be, there are often a lot of factors completely outside your control. People's accommodation, appointments with solicitors / social workers / finance / family issues, etc, etc, etc, often mean (understandably) that your arts session is not the most important thing in people's lives. Although, they may well get alot from it when they are able to attend. So maybe she will come another week - I hope so.

The good news was that, despite her absence, I still had a good number (seven) which included two men who had never been before. We did a mix of activities today - some physical, competitive games as well. One which, I am pleased to say, we had done the previous week and was requested by one of the less confident women. She appears happy to do more active exercises and gets very shy and giggly when asked to speak. However, she has the ability, so it is just a confidence issue. We did some physical work then storytelling exercises today and later combined the two. With the storytelling, some of them were excellent at this (particularly the two men who were new today; so expressive and descriptive - it was really beautiful to listen at times) but the two women struggled initially. They became more able to contribute in a later exercise which used the same skill, so I think it is just a case of gently persisting and encouraging.

Anyway, despite one or two struggling, there was a lot of laughter today. We created some surreal stories - with elements of fairy tales and Alice in Wonderland at times (I ended up being a rabbit who ate a man's carrot cake!) so it was very entertaining, as well as encouraging their speaking and listening skills.

Tomorrow, I'll be working with children and young people from refugee / asylum seeker families, so we'll see how they respond.