Winter 2026 Wonderings & Wanderings
What an extraordinarily grey winter, which, as I write, continues! Blurgh! Whilst the blanket cloud, rain, wind and cold temperatures aren’t fun, they do provide a good incentive for staying inside and getting some work done. Over the winter, we have been fundraising, evaluating, planning, designing, archiving, policising, producing, training plus managing situations with our bank, insurance company, company filing, and confirming the identities of our directors. It never ends!
We can share that our portfolio is up-to-date, complete with labels, and two old youth group shadow shows from 2010 are now available to watch – view them here.
Our two current youth projects restarted in mid-January. At Changing Faces, our after-school art club, we delivered some new activities, including paper buraku-inspired puppetry, embroidery, using a sewing machine, painting music (try to guess the songs on our Facebook page here) and exploring musical instruments from around the world. We’re currently working on secret miniature sculptures.
To support the project during the spring term, we have gratefully secured funding from the Asda Foundation, Mansfield Building Society, Tesco Stronger Starts and High Peak Borough Council’s Councillor Initiative Fund. There are still a few spaces available if any young people (11-18) would like to join the group. Workshops run after-school on Tuesdays. Contact us to book a place.
At our High Peak Youth Robotics sessions, the junior team finished building their robot and successfully got it moving. They moved on to learning about the coding to get it to do what they want it to, and practising driving and scoring points. The senior team progressed with their coding and portfolio, started to talk tactics and practised driving. Two local engineers joined workshops to provide some feedback and advice. Read our blog post about what their challenge is this year here. Their FIRST Tech Challenge regional competition is on 25 March – wish them luck!
Also over the winter, our Season’s Greetings marionette puppets performed in Malvern and Worcester with the Swan Theatre Amateur Company. Below is a photo of the puppets in use from their rehearsals.
In March, one of our team spent a few days with B.ARTS in Stoke learning how to make large parade puppets to help inform our carnival-making.
Also in March, we launched our Buxton Flowerpot Trail 2026 project. The theme this year is ‘children’s stories’, inspired by the 100th anniversary of Winnie-the-Pooh. Find out how you can get involved on the project page here.
Looking forward, spring 2026 holds workshops, workshops, workshops – for Changing Faces, High Peak Youth Robotics, Buxton Flowerpot Trail and Buxton Carnival.
We are, as ever, looking for more volunteers to help support our activities – either at our workshops or behind-the-scenes. If you would like to get involved with an active community arts group, please consider joining us – watch our recruitment video here (2m).
We’ll be at the Buxton Spring Fair on Monday 4 May if you’d like to come say hello and find out more.