Pom Pom Workshop

A year ago I moved to Calstock, a small village on the Tamar Valley. It has good rail links to Plymouth and enabled me to still live in a village with a strong sense of community. Through my involvement in village events, I was recently asked to provide decorations for a music event to be held in the village hall; a place which was built and run by the community, for the community. My brief was to create something simple, eye catching and which could be used again for other events. This was an unpaid commission and material cost were to be kept as low as possible. They wanted to steer clear from decorations like bunting and have something a bit different.

Remembering a past conversation I had about a quick way to make pom poms and knowing of the material resource at the scrap store, I thought this would be a good way to produce a large run of simple and quick decorations which could also involve the community too. I adapted the technique of winding wool around a bottle to instead using huge rolls of cellophane, paper and bags of netting on buckets, bins and tubes to create larger versions which would have more impact in their function room and is very easy and could appeal to people of all ages. I acquired the materials needed through the scrap store which kept costs down and advertised it locally through one of Calstock’s community facebook pages, as a free community craft workshop. The children who attended got to keep a pom pom which they made and the rest were used to decorate the hall. They have since been used to decorate a local community school for another event off the back of this one.

THE MAKING…

Fellow scrap store workshop leader, Alex Laur came to give us a hand!

When Sophie tried to explain to us at the scrap store what she was going to do, we couldn’t get our heads around it. The rolls of paper and cellophane are things we can never find anything to do with in our workshops but now we have another quick and easy activity to pull out of our creative hats, utilising, essentially a waste product, which is fantastic!

Quote from Alex Laur, workshop leader, The Plymouth Play Association.

Here Project Co-ordinator, Samantha Barnes, of the Tamar Valley Trust and some of Calstock’s local children enjoying the workshop fun.

I thought it was a great community event and a great opportunity to get the kids involved.

Claire Billing, mother of Tilly and Eliot pictured below said,

The kids haven’t stopped talking about the workshop and when they can do it again! I thought the used of materials was really creative and keeping it simple enabled young and old to enjoy it together which I thought was great.

The event was a great success and similar craft events which involve the community in this way have been requested by the hall committee and as my first ever solo workshop, I am really proud of how it all went and feed back from the committee and general public. Although there was no monetary gain for me in this case, it was certainly a worth while event which was incredibly enjoyable for me and those who participated.

We even had some male attendees (although I have to say they came with the kids!lol) they were the dark horses of the evening and produced some really amazing pom poms! When asked about their experience they said,

It’s something I only do at home with the kids and was surprising how much fun we had once we let our inhibitions go. I am very proud of my pom poms if I do say so myself!

Dean Thorne (pictured right with Dean, holding one of his amazing pom poms)

The event was attended by over 100 people and the feed back was really positive. This can be a great way to get exposure for yourself as an artist and also a worth while thing to do for communities. There is potential to run workshops from the hall in the future where I could generate some income and this event has certainly paved a way for this as a future possibility. During the summer I will need to generate an income whilst away from Uni as I will not be able to rely on my student loan. Ideas can be conceived now and put forward to the committee to be included in their calendar and advertised to ensure a good take up. I could look at talking to a local artist who runs workshops to get a feel for how to approach this from a business perspective.

These kind of events can bring people together, inspire conversations and generate ideas, which can have a positive effect, not just on individuals but specific groups and communities as a whole.

Here are our pom poms, in situ before the event…

and Freshly Squeezed Funk night in full swing…

Sorry about the bad photography, they looked much better in reality!!!

Sometimes we strive for perfection and can maybe over complicate things. This workshop taught me that sometimes the simplest of things can be the most effective. Having a water tight idea from the beginning helped, although there was some teething problems with getting the right shape. We adjusted the technique by winding on around 80 times then removing and layering up in this way so all lengths were the same. The only equipment we needed were scissors and these were used by the adults while the children had to wind the material around the tubes. People were greatly full for something to be put on and for it to be about the community. Adults had to stay with the children as I am not yet fully CRB checked, but this is being done through the scrap store.