A fabulous autumn afternoon of community building of art, literary, and musical activities. The ages that participated ranged from 14-82. Hands-on, there was poetry writing, pumpkin painting, listening to music and discussion of music genres, and a book reading by a local author followed by questions and discussion. About 25 people participated, and most stayed the whole afternoon.
The overall feedback was very positive. Here are some of the main comments:
– Wonderful to meet neighbours I’ve never met before and I enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere for art making.
– Was lovely to have younger people here and share stories.
– It was a great community-building event; how do we put on our own neighbourhood event?
Several people came early and stayed late to help with set up and take down. We put up posters and hand-delivered them to neighbours for advertising. We stayed in the immediate neighbourhood. Several people called to say they would love to come but had family visiting, sports events, or were going to be away.
Originally, I had planned a purely art and poetry writing workshop. Still, neighbours suggested several other ideas in order to get more participants, so I morphed the plan a bit by adding music, book reading, and painting. I may still try out the writing workshop on a smaller scale in the winter.
