Welcome to Children’s Quarter’s Annual Members’ Meeting on July 7 AM and Lunch at All Saints Centre, Kings Heath, Birmingham. The event is coupled with workshops; a community choir; and a magic show: the Get-Ahead Space aims to give participants shared space for creative thinking. At Get-Ahead on Friday 7 July, CQ members and guests will look at the benefits of risk-taking; communicating without words; and making spaces that engage the senses. Magicians will challenge participants perceptions. The Wellbeing Community Choir will bring harmony – before lunch at All Saints, which is on the corner of Alcester Road and Vicarage Road in Kings Heath centre.
If you want to get a heart Get-Ahead, goes the strapline on the event’s publicity. It’s all about participants challenging our own, and widely accepted, ways of thinking; and making the case for a more inclusive approach to childhood, young people and society:
- Sue Smith – play activist and trainer – is keen to engage participants in reconsidering our attitude to taking risk. Growing up is full of risks – or so it should be. Have we gone too far in protecting young people from potential harm? And can play help you to a better balance?
- Richard Hayhow and colleagues from Open Theatre are asking whether we need words to ask the most important questions? They use nonverbal physical theatre to collaborate with young people with learning disabilities. Could such playful communication help your exchanges?
- Simbi Folarin and colleagues from The Glue Collective want us to use our senses when we think about designing places for play. They’ll be presenting sensory spaces and sharing insights and ideas for making them. How many of your senses do you use when you want to learn something new?
- AG Magicians practice ‘psychological art’ – a fusion of psychology and magic – to suprise and delight participants. Alex and George will be playing with participants’ perceptions to show how things are often not as they seem.
- Choir leader Martin Trotman and his colleagues at The Wellbeing Choir take an holistic approach to promoting and maintaining good mental and physical health through singing. It is a choir open to the whole community.
The timetable for Friday 7 July is: 9.15-10am CQ AGM (all welcome but particularly for CQ members); 10-1pm Get Ahead event (all welcome); 1pm Lunch. The AGM and event are free for CQ member organisations and their guests; and to any group that is delivering Bring It On Brum! (CQ Members deliver Fit for All, which is a significant BIOB project in Birmingham). Tickets otherwise are £50 each (but your group can join CQ for £25 a year… and then you can come for free 🙂
Book places by email giving your name, email and mobile number and saying whether you represent a group or organisation.