Workshops
Our Workshops
All of our workshops here at The Creative Skills Hub are fun and inspiring and provide an integrated learning experience that encourages each individual to be engaged in every part of the process from designing in their sketchbooks through to the finished piece.
We also offer life and work ASDAN qualifications to individuals on request. Our groups are small as we believe in providing our customers with a high-quality learning experience.
Visits to galleries to see exhibitions and to places of relevant educational interest are an important part of our creative learning process here at TCSH.
We focus on giving everyone the permission to grow and understand each other in a creative, inclusive, and sustainable environment; collaboration is just as important to us as is individual progress.
The Creative Skills Hub is a social enterprise business that highlights our customer’s skills and the positive contribution that they can offer our society.
Arts and Crafts
The study of artists in a contemporary and historical context helps us to develop our critical thinking and our ability to interpret the world around us.
Therapeutically art can help us to improve our health, well-being, and happiness. Art provides us with a medium to explore our self–expression and creative flow.
It can encourage a sense of individual identity as well as helping to build self-confidence.
Arts and crafts at TCSH are fun, bright, and colourful. We experiment with lots of different materials and techniques that enable us to create beautiful artworks in a positive and meaningful environment.
Crafting also includes the creation of cards, bookmarks, and flower pressing!
It is so important for us at TCSH to have a good foundation and understanding of art as we are a social enterprise business that focuses on inspiring individuals to expand and develop their social and artistic skills.
To enrich our customers’ understanding of art further we invite established artists in to demonstrate their skills and practices through interactive workshops and activities. We also take time out to visits galleries and places of artistic educational interest...and there's always a bit of time left over for a coffee and a cake...to feed the creative fire of course!
Pottery
Our workshops are fun and engaging and are designed to improve memory and concentration flow whilst promoting positive healthy attitudes and behaviour.
Each pottery workshop has a specifically identified outcome in the form of a finished product. Individual support and guidance are given at every stage of the process to achieve this.
Potters are encouraged to develop their dexterity skills by engaging with different pottery techniques such as hand building, coiling, slab building, and press moulding.
The clay itself is a transformative material that can be explored through touch. Working with clay helps to develop haptic perceptions, it improves sensory awareness and accelerates hand, eye-brain coordination. Its therapeutic qualities bring you into the present moment and help to build self-confidence.
Potters at TCSH are inspired to encounter an integrated holistic learning experience that includes the development of practical, artistic, and intellectual skills in a positive and friendly environment.
Music Therapy
Our Music Therapist is a community musician, artist, and clown who has delivered workshops and classes for over thirty years.
Trained at the Cork School of Music, she works with all ages and abilities in many diverse and marginalized settings.
She has been coming to The Creative Skills Hub since 2021 and runs fun and lively sessions using drums, singing, movement, rhythm, and percussion.
Weaving
Weaving is a valuable and creative skill that has been around for centuries. Here at The Creative Skills Hub, we carry out our weaving on traditional handlooms, and the fabric is created right in front of your eyes.
Each weaver is fully involved in every step of the journey, choosing colours, yarns and the designs to create their own individual cloth. This is then made up into a range of products including bags, cushions, rugs, and scarves. Weaving is a very therapeutic activity that encourages and promotes dexterity, patience, control, hand-eye coordination, and confidence.
An emphasis is placed on individuality, and expression is key to creating our unique and one-off items.
Independant Living Skills
We make learning independent living skills here at TCSH fun by using the ''following by example'' technique so we don't just talk about it, we do it to gain practical hands-on experience.
We find that working in this way helps to promote memory and concentration flow.
Through practical learning, we support you to become confident about using public transport so you can get around more easily and most importantly feel safe as you travel.
In the kitchen, we learn a step-by-step approach to achieving simple healthy meals that you can independently make by yourself in your own home.
We will include the importance of food hygiene and handling food in the correct way whilst being safe in the kitchen.
You will learn how to shop and handle money responsibly and safely through planning and doing.
Together we will understand and promote good personal hygiene practices to keep us happy and healthy.
We will learn the benefits of keeping fit and healthy by taking fun regular exercise activities in a way that's right for you.
It is our aim to support you to feel more comfortable by enabling you to cope with change in this ever-changing world that we live in.
''The Only Constant in Life is Change''
Heraclitus
Healthy Eating
Our healthy eating workshops are designed to inspire our customers about the importance of eating a healthy diet.
As a group, we learn how to safely prepare and cook delicious healthy food.
During the process, we concentrate on developing food hygiene and kitchen safety awareness skills.
Our aim is to enable people to feel good about themselves and confident that they are making the right choices when it comes to food.
Over the years we have noticed how our customers look to us as role models and that it is our responsibility to have positive authentic attitudes in everything that we do to promote healthy living, well-being, and growth.
This workshop is very much an extension of that approach through the creation of a healthy balanced meal that we share together and of course, it includes a cheeky dessert!
Woodwork
In the woodwork workshop, we mainly upcycle pallets and offcuts donated by local tradesmen.
Using these offcuts we make a range of products for the garden including bug boxes, bird boxes, bird feeders, hedgehog homes, bat boxes, patio tables, and flower planters.
Garden Project
Our garden project is an allotment on the edge of the village where we are based. When we took it over, it had no infrastructure and was very neglected – it was in fact the dumping ground for the other allotments.
Our primary aim is to create a wonderful space for not only growing vegetables and flowers and to accommodate some of our other workshops including art/drawing, and yoga, and to provide a place to relax.
We also aim to interact with the local community; this may be by supplying a local fresh food bank or perhaps working alongside Age UK and delivering fresh produce to the elderly.
It’s a project that we feel will change and evolve over time.
Drama Therapy
Dramatherapist MA (HCPC registered).
Since qualifying at the University of Roehampton our Dramatherapist has dedicated his time to working with people struggling with complex needs, developmental trauma, and issues with mental health. He has experience working with anxiety and grief and has worked with those with dementia needs and learning differences.
He uses the creative arts such as story making, creative writing, art, games, and ritual theatre, with the connection of clown and play being at the heart of his work.
As a hobby, he enjoys writing and performing standup comedy, nonsense, and foolery.
Great Creative Bake Off
Baking is a fun and creative pursuit that helps us to express ourselves, and it can give us a real sense of accomplishment – especially when a delicious treat is created that can be shared with others.
Baking is a nostalgic activity that engages the mind and memory and can help to strengthen our analytical minds as we learn to measure and weigh ingredients correctly.
It’s also a great way to relax and unwind and the rewards can be great!
Yoga
Our yoga classes are fun and inclusive and cater to all abilities.
Each session starts with fun activations to music to warm the body up, followed by soft flowing postures and sequences that are set firmly within ancient yogic traditions and are designed to release stress and tension from the body and strengthen core stability.
Everyone is encouraged to work within their own capabilities; you are invited to work gracefully or dynamically, it is up to you and how you are feeling. Breathing and visualization techniques are included and help to enhance a feeling of positivity and empowerment.
Every session finishes with a beautiful relaxation that relaxes and revitalizes the whole of the mind, body, and soul.
Swimming
Our inclusive swimming activity sessions are held at Blandford Leisure Centre.
Swimming is great for your well-being as it helps to release stress and tension which promotes better sleep and well-being…. and it’s lots of fun as well as a gentle exercise.
Chair Aerobics
Our Chair Aerobics class is a full body workout done whilst seated and is tailored to adults with disabilities using gentle stretching suited to your personal capabilities.
The classes are set to music and use 1kg weights, softballs, Pio & more. The classes help with balance and rhythm, as well as the coordination of hands, eyes, and feet.
They are lots of fun and sometimes include a little bit of singing and end with a relaxation session.
RDA
RDA (riding for the disabled association). Riding is a challenging and stimulating experience that builds confidence and works wonders on muscle strength, balance, coordination, and general fitness – it is a fantastic therapy for a huge range of disabilities. It is also great fun, gives a tremendous sense of achievement, and builds self-esteem.
A lesson lasts from 15 to 40 minutes and can include time in the indoor and outdoor school or even a hack out into the glorious woodland adjoining the center.
The instructors are fully qualified, and each rider has up to three volunteers with them; one leading the horse, and side walker(s) for additional help and assurance.
The horses and ponies are all very carefully selected for their temperament, and the riding days are very sociable and fun.
Pioneering
The dictionary defines pioneering as ‘involving new ideas or methods’.
The ideas and methods behind our Pioneering workshops are to create badges, keyrings, fridge magnets, and other promotional items. These can then be supplied to businesses & organisations around the UK.
This pioneering craft workshop contributes to the overall business enterprise module whilst involving our customers with hands-on experience of making, promoting, selling & packaging the products for despatch.
Celebration Seekers
This unique workshop incorporates a number of activities and is introduced festively throughout the year or indeed whenever we feel like it’s a good time to have a celebration!
Together we will explore world art and culture in a contemporary and historical context as we focus on different countries around the world.
We uncover ways to connect and understand more about each country by researching their culture through their celebrations, customs, and delicacies. Although when we visit France we don't eat snails....well...not real ones anyway!
As you can probably guess food and art play a big role in this workshop...as for the rest of it, I'm going to keep you guessing. You will have to come along and experience it for yourself.
All I can say is that you won't be disappointed!
