It's Autumn/Winter art workshop planning in The Art Retreat and every square inch of wall space, desk space, floor space is filled up with planning notes, it's not a pretty sight! We have some wonderful offerings from hugely talented artists - making our selection for children, adults, kidults and community is tough - lovely by tough! Thanks to the enormous success of our Summer Programme (pretty much all of our workshops are booked up now) I feel confident enough for our next programme to be a six monthly offering which will take us up to March 2018. We have workshops for adults, children, teens and some outreach too. Our NEW programme of workshops will be divided into sections, the names of which are yet to be fully decided. We do know however that our high end events are going to be called 'Boutique' and these sessions will include things such as homemade cakes, lunch and some art materials relating to the workshop to take home. Our Boutique art workshops are going to be our most expensive offerings. In return for a fully booked 'Boutique Art Workshop' we are pledging to run a FREE ART WORKSHOP in a setting that will be of most use in our wider community. ONE FOR ONE One For One is just that, ONE WORKSHOP FOR ONE WORKSHOP. By signing up to join us on a Boutique Session, you will be contributing to our running another creative art session - nice eh? Our free art sessions will be in a researched setting that we feel will be of most benefit to those participating. You can read about our first One for One Workshops here. We are running our first workshops on The Lavenham Ward, at Ipswich NHS Hospital. We begin in September. We have signed up to deliver SIX FREE BI-WEEKLY ART SESSIONS on the ward. These WORKSHOPS ON THE WARD will: encourage patients to get up out of bed to come and join in introduce a new hobby help participants to engage with others whilst doing something creative help to reduce boredom on the ward. For those not able to get out of bed, we are hoping to make some 'Creative Packs' which we can leave the patient to work on during the week. These packs will include: A clipboard to work on Pencils/Paper/Art Materials An activity sheet with idea's to stimulate creative thoughts Further reading and clubs to join when home from hospital. Can You Help Us? This is where you, dear reader, might be able to help us... We are looking to raise £210 to help us purchase the much needed art materials to run our first Workshops on the Ward. Could you help us to raise the funds? We have set up a JUSTGIVING crowdfunding page to reach our target. This £210 will allow us to purchase all the art materials needed AND make our creative packs to leave with the patients that couldn't leave their beds to join us. Our JUSTGIVING page is here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/theartretreatinhospital Thank you so much for your help. If you have any queries or comments, we would so appreciate your thoughts. Much love, Samantha & The Team in The Art Retreat