Tag: remakery

Remakery Frome, one year on.

The Remakery Frome is now in with the chance of winning £38K! Please vote to help the workshop provide community led craft events for another year.

This time last year I had just moved to Frome, a small town in Eastern Somerset with a big heart and an independent mind. It was the perfect setting to start a course that promised to teach me how to create a social enterprise hands-on.

At the beginning of April I met the diverse individuals whom I would work with for the next 10 weeks. We came from different backgrounds with a rich variety of life experience and expertise. Our brief was to create an enterprise that tackled throwaway culture and encouraged repair and a Do It Yourself attitude in Frome.

 

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Getting stuck into the theme

In our first week we met with Cara the Resilience Officer from Frome Town council and began mapping our first ideas. The weeks that followed involved many hours of brainstorming, interviews, physical labour and trips to the woods for downtime and inspiration. I learnt about ideation, business planning, teamwork and so much more.

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The Remakery team during a day of reflection in Vallis

Ten weeks later, we launched Remakery Frome: a space for doers, fixers, makers and breakers. The purpose of the Remakery was to create a place where all members of the community would feel comfortable. As a result we equipped the space with the materials and tools necessary for all kinds of fixing and making from textiles to woodwork.

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A sketch of the Remakery launch party by Sarah Godsill

A year later and the Remakery has become the home for many interesting projects including: spoon carving, leather craft, basket weaving, ceramics, gardening and Edventure: MAKE courses. Amongst other things the Remakery also hosts the Mens Shed where people over 55 can socialise, make things and work on projects for the benefit of the community and Open Story Tellers Frome events where people with learning difficulties can create together.

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Deciding on a logo

Recently the Remakery was selected as one of ITV and the Big Lottery’s Peoples Project, an initiative which promises to fund 5 community enterprises. The Remakery is in with a chance of wining £38K which would enable them to offer another 113 community activity days in the workshop. But we need your help to make this a reality.

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Working on the Remakery with Edventure built my capabilities and confidence in entrepreneurship in a live setting with a tangible social and environmental goal. Winning the People’s Project would allow Edventure to offer more great opportunities like this to young people looking to make a difference to their own and others lives.

If you live in the UK please VOTE for Remakery Frome!

The Remakery Team celebrating after the launch in Monkton Wyld 2017

 

 

Welcome to the Remakery Frome

After ten weeks of hard work, perseverance and a lot of love, Remakery Frome is now up and running!

What it is

The Remakery is a shared workshop equipped with tools to enable making, fixing and up-cycling in Frome. People can use it for their hobbies, projects or to incubate a making business. Our vision is bring people together to inspire each other, repair more and enjoy making.

How it works

Members can drop in anytime between 3-8pm Monday to Friday, and in the morning whenever there is no workshop or class running. The cost is £15 a year plus £3 each time you drop in (concessions available).

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Remakery Repair Festival

We celebrated the launch with a week long festival of repair and up-cycling. Events included table making with Stu from the Chisel and Grain, textiles up-cycling with Louis Montero and Stina Falle and finally PC TLC with Allen McClaren.

The finale of the week was our official launch party where we presented the Remakery to the community at its current stage (there is still a lot of work to do!).

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We put on an exhibition of upcycling featuring the work of local designers and craftspeople including a dress by Haley Trezise of Raggedy and jewellery by Christina. Local artist Sarah Godsill captured the proceedings through beautiful sketches (see more of her event illustration here) with photography by Finley John and myself. ScaneScreen Shot 2017-06-11 at 12.34.33 pm

Edgy Veggie laid on a delicious vegetarian feast with lentil burgers, roast potatoes and mixed veg and we had the pleasure of hosting young musicians Evey hunter and Kane Pollastrone to play for us.

We hosted an open workshop in the Remakery where we invited members of the community to help us with the final touches to the space while Sophie from Yssabeauchet ran a crochet workshop.

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In the afternoon we ran a World Cafe around the subject of our relationship to ‘stuff’. Participants sat together in an informal Cafe setting to discuss the value of the stuff we own individually and as a collective. The conversation looked forward to how our perspective might change in the future. It was a great opportunity for reflection and exchanging insights about the value of sharing, repair and education. At the end of the session we came together to summarise our opinions and make some resolutions for the future.

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All in all the day was a great success. It was incredibly rewarding to see the community respond so positively to our work and to see people engaging about the subject of a repair economy in Frome.

Interested to find out more? visit our website or emailwelshmill@edventurefrome.org for a free trail session.