We thought it might help encourage some of you who want to make a Fun Palace but are a little unsure as to how or what or where (hey, at least we have the when sorted!), if we asked a few of those who signed up purely from the website (ie, not people we’d spoken to about it before) to tell us why they signed up and what they’re planning. It might get you thinking about what you’d like to do, and it might also help us begin making links from one Fun Palace to another so we can better work together.

We think their answers are brilliant, not least because they are as varied as all of the Fun Palaces are.
If you want to email us with your own version – hello@funpalaces.co.uk – we’ll add more as they come in.

Luton Fun Palace

We are the Luton Fun Palace Creative Consortium – a fun made-up name for a small group of local people who wanted to get involved in a project that would bring out the best in Luton. We want to create a fusion of art, science, technology and local history for the 4th & 5th October – and we’re beginning to get everybody in town excited and ready to participate in a unique celebration of local creative and inspiring talent and hopefully help people see Luton with fresh eyes!
We have a long list of exciting participants and volunteers and we are in talks with various venues and spaces to find a good fit to showcase some of the crazy ideas that have already been thrown around. So we still have quite a bit of planning to do but we’re very much looking forward to being part of this amazing event – whatever happens, it will be fun!

Dragon Drama

We at Dragon Drama feel that the Fun Palace Idea embraces all the freedom of creativity and community that we too embrace. We have booked a venue on October 4th 2014 at Strawberry Hill House because it is a FUN PALACE!
We’re taking up a small space, affordable and easy to work within. Now that the space is booked we’re cooking with gas!
We don’t know what we’re going to do yet but we love stepping onto an empty stage and letting spontaneity rule our heads and hearts.
We have started to flag our Fun Palace with local families so that we can all collaborate over the summer to create something amazing in time for the 4th. Everyone is excited by the fact that we have a blank canvas upon which anything can happen. A blank canvas that we make our own. This is proving to be a great equalizer between artists and families. It’s bringing down the Fear of Failure.
We’re getting involved on Oct 4th because we know that we will all have such memorable fun and that’s what it’s all about!
On Oct 4th 2014 we will all be Kings and Queens of Our Fun Palace.

The Pen Museum

We are quite happy to say our Fun Palace is open all year round.
The Pen Museum is fun and where else can you make your own nib?!

The Mill

The Mill is a small community centre in E17, we have been open for 3 years.

We grew out of a campaign group who tried to save The St James St Library. Ultimately we didn’t achieve that 🙁

BUT we went on to rent the building from the council and save the space for the community to use 🙂

We are a small charity , and have 2 paid staff, all the rest of us are volunteers.

Most of our activities were suggested by, and are run by, volunteers.

Our main objectives are to be a friendly welcoming space available to all, and to celebrate and encourage creativity. That seems to me to be two fairly good reasons to be a Fun Palace.

I intend to contact other groups in E17 who lead on creative activities and see if they would like to join us and get involved. I intend to hold some open meetings with the local community and see which sort of creative ideas they would find fun! Which ones they would like us to provide, or where they would like to take a lead!

It’s all up for grabs at the minute as I have an opening of a new project next week….so I will put my Fun Palace Hat on after that. Please check out our website to see the sort of stuff we do, have done and are about to do!

I am aware there is a mountain of work ahead. (Understatement)

We may make a successful weekend- or we may fail – but we are going to have a go!

If there are arty individuals who are nearby and have no venue – I can’t promise – but we’ll do our best to bring them in.