Pottery event in Lightburn Park a huge success

People arrived at 1.30 Saturday 25th September for an hour and left three hours later.

In all about 70 people took part.

It was great for me to meet all the children, teenagers, women and men, making pottery items for the railings.







Thanks to the hard work of several people, I don't yet know them by name, doing a variety of jobs, we had a great time . Especially John McCarthur who helped set the equipment up, helped everyone with making their pots and again with taking it all down and packing it away in my car.

I was bowled over by the response and had a wonderful time.

100 items were made and are now laid out on the drying racks of my pottery studio. Holes have been added to each item so that they can be fastened, to the railings in the park, easily.

Great creativity and enjoyment was displayed in making a wide range of items. Just think these items were just a heap of mud on Saturday morning!

23 people left their details and a one pound membership as interested in forming a Lightburn Park Group to promote the use of the Park.

£45 was contributed to membership and the cost of the clay and its firing - this will go a long way to covering the cost of the two firings that will be necessary

We used Terra Cotta Clay with added iron oxide (rust) for decoration as has been done in Gill Banks. This will be fired when completely dry at the high temperature of 1180 deg. C which will mean that the pots are weatherproof.

Here Geoff works with just some of the pots, adding holes to enable them to be screwed in place. Click on the image to get an enlaged version.

In order to avoid cracking of the clay, the drying needs to be slow. This will mean that the pots will be fired and ready for putting up in Lightburn Park on October 19th.

This will be a great time to decide how the pots are arranged and displayed and won't be difficult now that we have sussed out how to attach pots to the railings easily.

More details about this in a fortnight here.

In the future, Tony Taylor who was unable to be present will no doubt be in touch to you all to discuss the next steps for our Lightburn Park Group both regarding events but equally important the improvements to the park. Here it is very important to have an official group that can attract grants for improvements to the park.

It was good to be visited by the SLDC Councillor for the Park area , Norman Bishop-Rowe and the community police officers. The big improvements to the Children's Play area by the Council engineer Peter Clark over the past ten days and the need for further on the park around the Skateboarding ramps were pointed out.

Comments received:

From Libby Norton:

Thank you for a fantastic afternoon in the park, you and John did a great job organising the event.

My daughter Edie and I had a lovely time making our fish and sunflowers. We can't wait for the next workshop and have lots of ideas for new creations. I had lots of fun helping others after Edie got bored and went off to play on the swings, she is only 3 after all. I have attached some photographs of Edie and myself getting messy.

We look forward to seeing you and our creations again soon,













Hi Geoff,
Thanks for your hard work on saturday, I know the girls and I enjoyed ourselves. I love the fact that these things go on in our locale. It all helps to make the community and create some fun. We are looking forward to the finished products.

See you soon.

Zoe

Thanks for this - it was a great afternoon for all of us!

Geoff (and John)