A message from the Fun Palaces core team about our launch on Tuesday 17th March.
We have just taken the sad decision not to travel to join our friends at Eden Court in Inverness for our Fun Palaces 2020 launch. This hurts in so many ways – we love bringing all of our Ambassadors and Makers together four times a year from across the UK, we learn so much from and with each other. We love that the vast majority of our work is now and always has been out of London. We love that TNLCF funding has allowed us to appoint new ambassadors in North Wales, Northern Ireland and Inverness and the Highlands. We wanted to not only speak our commitment to all four UK nations but be it – physically, actually, bringing everyone to the Highlands, to reach out to the whole of the UK.
But that’s not to be, not at the moment. So now we prepare to launch differently.
Fun Palaces work has always been about connection.
Yes, the weekend itself is great, it’s a wonderful time to come together and shout about our communities and the people who live there, the skills we can share with each other and the tiny revolutions of connection we make when we reach out to each other.
But the real work of Fun Palaces happens in the weeks and months before the weekend. It’s the chat with a neighbour about creating something together. The sharing of possibility. The process of creating a community event is easily as important as the event itself.
And that’s why, while we’ve been delighted by the Fun Palaces that attract hundreds and even thousands of participants, we have also – always – equally welcomed those that have fifty participants, or fifteen, or five.
While many of us might shift our interaction to the internet, to social media, not everyone can do this. Not everyone has the internet at home. For many people their local library is their only internet access. While we must all take care of our physical health, we also need to take care of our mental health. We need to maintain connection with the most vulnerable, the lonely, those who need contact with others.
So, when we launch on Tuesday morning it will be digitally, from south London and Scotland and Cornwall and Sheffield and North Wales and Northern Ireland. We’ll be sharing our new website (also all in Welsh), our latest film and evaluation – but more than this, we’ll share the possibility that tiny connections might be enough.
Fun Palaces is, at heart, all about one person having the courage to reach out to another. It’s a phone call, a note through the letterbox, a chat at the bus stop – even 3 feet apart. Tiny revolutions of connection, between enough people, gently, quietly, one-to-one, can keep us going, can take care of our most isolated, can be a way forward.
We welcome you to join us in whatever way feels right to you. And if on October 3rd & 4th we have a thousand – or ten – tiny, 5-person Fun Palaces, solo Fun Palaces, Fun Palaces on social media, Fun Palaces on front doorsteps – then that’s fine with us.
Stay safe, stay well, stay connecting. And let us know how we can help – if we (the core team) don’t know, there are bound to be some local Makers who do.
Stella, Sarah-Jane, Kirsty, Ravina & Dan x