Spring Goings On 2025
Time for another seasonal round-up. Seems no time at all since our last one in mid-March.
Towards the end of March, we Neurodiversity Celebration Week (17-22 March) (all are welcome here!) and marked World Puppetry Day (21 March). The theme this year, rather fortuitously for us, was ‘robots’!! We posted a photo of our High Peak Youth Robotic group’s robot, as it prepared for its regional competition on 25 March.
Members of the group who could get the day off school headed to Sheffield for the day. Find out how they did on our blog post here. Spoiler – they qualified for the national finals, so the project continues! We set-up a GoFundMe account to help raise some extra funds to get them to London in June!
In April, we reflected on our time at The Green Man Gallery, see our post here, and our Changing Faces workshops restarted, the spring term supported by The Bingham Trust and Foundation Derbyshire. During the term, we finished making our marionettes – see a video here – and then provided a range of other creative activities.
Promotion for the Buxton Flowerpot Trail 2025 continued with leafleting around the local shops and businesses. The Billerette theme seemed to go down well with lots saying they intended to get involved.
We ran a pick-up-pots stall at the Buxton Spring Fair on Monday 5 May. A cooler day, only one brave fellow stayed to make, with the rest taking their pots home. In May, we also ran workshops at The Gables Nursing Home and Thomas Fields Extra Care Housing, to help them make their creations.
Also in May, we marked Mental Health Awareness Week (12-18 May) and attended the Culture & Heritage Volunteering Fair at The Pump Room (17 May). We’re always looking for more volunteers – please get in touch if you would like to join in the creativity!
The last day of May saw us at the Buxton Rotary Summer Fair (31 May). We had two stalls this year! One for the Buxton Flowerpot Trail, as usual, and one for our High Peak Youth Robotics project, to raise some funds to get the group to nationals. See more photos on the project page here. We ran 4 ‘guess’ competitions and sold “Billerobot” keyrings!, 3D-printed by one of the group.
Guess the weight of the robot = 5.9kg. Closest guess 6.1kg 
Guess the name of the robot = The Blobfish. No correct guess 
Guess the number of nuts and bolts in the jar = 510. Closest guess 505 
Guess the number of bolts on the robot = 233. Closest guess 239.
Members of the group attended to demonstrate the robot (and practice driving it for nationals). Further fundraising activities by the group included a 4-hour chess marathon! You can donate to the group on our GoFundMe page here.
At the beginning of June, we marked Volunteers Week (2-8 Jun) taking the time to thank our team for their many contributions to the running of Funny Wonders. We were delighted to see at the Rotary Fair, one of our previous Directors, Carol. We’re always looking for people to help in the background, as well as at our activities – please get in touch if you’d like to support our activities in any way.
Finally, some of our team attended a performance of ‘The Vanishing Elephant’ at the Buxton Opera House. Absolutely stunning puppetry by Cahoots NI! Always nice to support puppetry on the opera house stage.
