Features
and Review
The Edge 'Hands on
Brixham'
YES (Youth Enquiry
Service) and Transition Brixham have finally reached the stage
with their Edge Project whereby they were able to launch ‘Hands
On Brixham' weekend of Sat 19th and Sun 20th March with over
20 designer/makers workshops and some art displays and exhibitions,
as well as a cafe providing refreshments at the old United Reformed
Church on Bolton Street. |
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The whole process
of The Edge project has been a major achievement, with thanks
to Councillor Chris Lomas and his wife Isobel for providing
the United Reformed Church building and for more on the history
of the Edge Project: www.brixhamedge.blogspot.com/
At the workshops
on Saturday Councillor Chris Lomas said, “Wonderful turn out,
not even 2 o'clock and nearly 400 people have come! It's good
to see the Church building used again. It's thriving once
again with people of all ages working together.”
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Angela George from
IMS Ltd said, “The Edge is the flexible name given to the project
which is all things to all people”.
Angela had been involved
in the marketing of the launch, making posters, banners, and
also the website www.brixhamedge.org,
(for more about IMS Ltd visit www.imsmarketing.co.uk.)
Angela said, “There has been over a 100 volunteers that have
been working on renovating and repairing the building inside
and out”. |
| During the weekend inside the building
there were stalls with crafts that people of all ages could get
involved with. Many of the crafts that people were demonstrating
were skills that the craftspeople wanted to share or pass on to
the younger Brixham people, and the whole project hoped to encourage
the creation of new businesses. |
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Frances, sat doing Needle Felting, explained and showed people
how to do it. Using a needle that has barbs on it, she pushed
the wool into the base wool so that they knitted together. She
went on to create pieces of artwork for framing and Frances had
some of her Needle Felt Art Work in the cafe that was open at
the centre for the weekend. |
| Frances art is currently featured in
the April edition of Country Living and also does commissioned
work. She is based in Brixham and can be contacted on oohart@hotmail.com
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Media and performance
workshops included drumming, computer games and also a workshop
with Imperfect Cinema, a film production company from Plymouth
that gave out 10 cameras to potential film makers that ranged
in ages from 4 to 64 years of age. The different cameras were
then used to film extracts from the day's activities, to be
edited in a short 15-20 minutes film. This will be put on the
Edge website. |
The idea of the camera
workshop was to make films and to not be afraid, as there are
no mistakes, and the camera group were encouraged to do high
and low shots, including panning by Imperfect Cinema. For more
on the company go to: www.imperfectcinema.com
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Mary, from the ‘Poetry for Pleasure', the Brixham Poetry Group
that meet in the Brixham Library, was excited by the amount of
poems that the public had written that day. The would be poets
had to choose 2 topics from the ‘Dragon Box' and then write about
them. Mary said there had been 100 poems written and many of these
were from people that had said they had no talent to write poems
and so had surprised themselves with their own achievements. |
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Ginny from Torquay was running a Rag Rugging workshop, with
Ginny explaining that she uses old rags like dresses, coats, t-shirts,
in fact any clothing will do, which are cut into strips and then
threaded into hessian with a large needle. |
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They are very low cost to produce and make great rugs! Also
there were workshops with Brixham Does Care including card making,
whilst The Brixham Model Engineering & Craft Society had some
of their models on site and the popular Harmonograph which uses
coloured pens to make pretty patterns. This was a big hit with
the children! Members of the Brixham Heritage Museum were also
on hand making badges and talking to people about their family
trees which the Museum currently offers help with on alternate
Thursdays. |
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For those that were
interested in starting a new business then Outset Torbay were
there to help answer questions and give advice. Irene Wilson
and Liz Edwards the local Brixham Advisors were very helpful
and they can be contacted through www.outsettorbay.co.uk
or on 0800 032 2905.
The Centre Manager
Chris Guy said “I'm overwhelmed with the talent in Brixham,
the variety, the enthusiasm of all ages it's been really, really
good.” |
The Edge
will be holding more events and projects that will be of great
interest to the people of Brixham and there will be more details
to be found on their website, with the next event being the
Gala Evening and Auction. For more details : www.brixhamedge.org/gala_ball.php
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Features
and Reviews 
