November Newsletter
Hello Little Green Pig friends and followers,
Welcome to our November newsletter. Find a cosy spot and have a read of what we’ve been up to this term. Learn all about what the children in our after-school clubs have been doing, as well as a very exciting online fundraising campaign that you can join to help support our work.
Since our last newsletter, we've been busy with lots of creative projects including visiting Brighton Toy Museum, the Turner Prize at Towner gallery and creating The Intergeneration Game which brought children and older people together to play and share their stories. Students from Longhill High School performed spoken word and we welcomed some inspiring new guest professionals to deliver workshops.
There will be more Little Green Pig updates coming soon. In the meantime, stay warm and dry and enjoy this perfect time of year for staying home and exploring new ways to get creative.
From Nicky, Nikki, Jo, Samreen and all the Little Green Pig team
A NEW WAY TO SUPPORT OUR WORK
The Big Give Christmas Challenge - mark the date in your diary!
We are excited to announce that this year we will be taking part for the first time in the Big Give Christmas Challenge! We’ve already secured £1,000 in pledges from some of our amazing Little Green Pig supporters and a further £1,000 from our Big Give Champion - The Reed Educational Trust.
These funds will act as our match funding for the campaign which will take place next week
from midday on Tuesday 28th November to Tuesday 5th December - for one week only! During this time if you donate to Little Green Pig through our campaign page on the Big Give Christmas Challenge website - your donation will be doubled!
So if you give £10, it will give us £20! £50 will give us £100! Magical, eh? If you aren’t able to give right now, then do please share our campaign with your friends and family, as every penny we raise will go towards keeping our after school clubs and projects free for all.
We're proud to present our third podcast episode hosted by Tuesday Club, based in Moulsecoomb, Brighton, with club members Nellie, Brooklyn and Darena as your hosts. With additional audio by Monday, Tuesday and Thursday Club members and special older guests. Created by children aged seven to eleven, to be enjoyed by children and adults of all ages! Listen here.
Discover toy stories and so many different ways to play. Listen to people aged 7 to 77 sharing tales of favourite games. Children from Little Green Pig's writing clubs in Brighton designed their own unique board game, called 'The Intergeneration Game', and invited older people to play it. Hear the answers to the question cards and playful challenges that the children created. Plus listen to stories and poems by young writers, inspired by the old toys they encountered.
This episode produced by Chris Callard and Sally Woodcock for Little Green Pig. Part of Ageing Well Festival and supported by funding thanks to East Brighton Trust, the Serco Foundation and Brighton Soup.
LEARNING PROGRAMME NEWS
Young writers across Little Green Pig After School Clubs have enjoyed visits from guest writers and artists this month! Here’s who they’ve worked with across several special workshops, welcoming amazing talent and new faces to their weekly sessions.
Autofiction Tips with Tanaka at Monday Club
Children from our Whitehawk Library based club loved the opportunity to hear from writer Tanaka Mhishi (pictured here). Getting top tips on how to write fiction based on your own life experiences, Tanaka really enjoyed meeting the young writers too as they shared ideas and writing exercises together. He said: “It was a joy to be part of such a supportive, exciting and carefully put together session. Little Green Pig does an amazing job at bringing out the best in these young writers, and in supporting us older writers to do the same.” You can view a digital masterclass on the topic of writing autobiography with Tanaka that he created for us previously too - watch here.
Screenprinting Characters with Hello Dodo at Wednesday Club
Children from Laurels Primary in Worthing played with ink and learnt how to create their own unique screenprint designs last week! Artist Jam, from local indie design business Hello Dodo, supported the group to bring to life their ‘quirky characters’ writing in bold printed illustrations. You can see what fun they had learning to print with the squeegees, screens and stencils! Jam says “this group did a brilliant job of grasping the process of screenprinting and making their stencils. I really enjoyed seeing their creations and especially loved the collaborative monster we all made together at the end!” These amazing designs plus their writing will be part of a mini book and exhibition at school soon.
Exploring Contemporary Art with Eva Louisa Jonas and Towner
What is art? This is the big question that our club members at Langney Primary Academy in Eastbourne are tackling this month, including a visit to the Turner Prize at Towner gallery. Children plunged into a hands-on creative workshop to tackle what art can be and how we can explore contemporary art in words. Visual artist and facilitator Eva Louisa Jonas led playful exercises that included making experimental sculptures, interacting with different materials, and matching words to shortlisted Turner artworks. The group will be creating their own zine later this term- watch this space!
Word Power! An evening of spoken word with Longhill Young Writers Collective
A sold out audience was treated to an evening of powerful spoken word and poetry in October at the wonderful Kemptown Books. Young writers from our Longhill lunchtime poetry club performed a fantastic selection of their work in front of family, friends and funders. Hosted by Roy McFarlane, the poets also did an amazing job of taking part in a question and answer panel as part of the event. We hope to share a film from the event online soon.
New Ambassador for Little Green Pig
We are delighted to welcome local writer Tanya Byrne to our amazing team of Ambassadors. Tanya Byrne was born in London where she spent forty years before moving to Brighton with her dog Frida. After eight years at BBC Radio, she left to write her debut novel ‘Heart-shaped Bruise’, which was published by Headline in May 2012 and earned her a nomination for New Writer of the Year at the National Book Awards. Since then, she has written four novels and has contributed to several short story anthologies including ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ which was named Sunday Times Children's Book of the Week. Her next novel, ‘In the Shallows’, is out in February. We’re excited to have her join our team!
Fancy a new adventure? We're looking for new Story Mentors and Illustrators across Brighton, Eastbourne and Worthing. There's no better time to sign up to find out more about Volunteering with us than now. Find out more about how you can train to become one of our amazing team of Story Mentors on the website here, or get in touch with Sally, our Volunteer Manager. Full support and training, travel expenses, and DBS checks are provided.
Mentors often feedback on how much they learn and gain from the experience of supporting young writers too - it's a two way learning process!