Study Task 8

Reflective Summary
We worked well as a team throughout this whole project, we researched lots and visited Inkwell to find out more information about the community. We managed to communicate well with each other and meet regularly. I think we covered everything that we needed to in starting up a business. It was really interesting to think about a business proposal and everything that's needs to be included, before this task I would have had no idea on how to start. Perhaps we can continue this after uni, but if not the research has helped a lot. I now know how to get funding, how to figure out starting costs etc. Community art is something am definitely interested in and I am planning to volunteer at Inkwell in September to gain experience.

Script

Katie

1.   We are ‘Creative Movement’ - Myself, Alex, Jenny and Heather. For our PP Project we’ve decided to create a community outreach mobile therapy service providing the Greater Leeds area.

2.   Our Ethos is ‘Mobile Therapy, Creativity can help, Expression through Art’. We’re a non profit organisation and hope to supply creative outreach to the wider Leeds area through mobile events.

3.   We decided that we would try and get to the wider areas of Leeds on the outside of the city centre. These are areas that would maybe benefit the most because they are lacking the opportunities that are in the city centre

4.   Our aims are based in the belief that we can give back to our local community through mobile art therapy, specifically in areas that would benefit the most from our free service and drop in pop up sessions.

5.   To find out more about what’s going on in our local community we visited Inkwell, a non profit organisation based in Chapel Allerton which provides both drop in and referral services for mental health. They provide a variety of art and creative classes and it’s a really vibrant place which felt like a big part of the community

In the planning stages of our project we want to get involved in the community as much as possible to get ideas and a feel for what works and what doesn’t. We’d like to be involved with Inkwell as volunteers going into next year and get experience with them.

6.   Our USP is that we’ll offer a similar service to Inkwell, except we will be completely free and every session is drop in. Inkwell is run with mostly referrals (which has a long waiting list) and drop-ins are infrequent and usually cost a small amount. We’d provided a rolling service 5 days a week every week bringing our classes to local communities as we found that it was quite difficult to get to Chapel Allerton without being able to drive. Anyone can come along and benefit from our classes, free of charge.

Heather

7.   Our ideal clients would be: chronic illnesses, mental health problems, addiction and recovery, relationship problems, eating disorders and learning disabilities… but we imagine it would also extend to families and young people in the area

8.   Art therapy helps peoples process trauma, work through mental health issues and generally improve wellbeing. We aren’t qualified counsellors but we’re there to provide a place to go to and a support network. Throughout this project we’d look to expand our skills and gain qualifications to provide an even better service.

9.   To fund our organisation there’s a few different options. We’ve looked at MIND, who fund Inkwell and others. All require thorough applications and approval. Inkwell have been through this process and will be able to help us with it.

10.       Our initial research has shown our start up costs to be around £10,000 without wages. Depending on our funding there’s room to adjust this. Some of the things we’d need to cover would be buying a van, insuring it and buying art equipment, tables and chairs.

11.       There were quite a few things that we hadn’t thought about that kept popping up. We wanted to create a thorough plan of everything.

Alex

12.      There are lots of different possibilities for cheap transit vans around the initial price of £1000 off ebay. This is something we need so we can transport equiptment  like a marquee and furniture around. We realise that there is only 3 seats but we think that rotating 3 different people should be enough. We would alternate who was doing admin and if someone is ill it wouldn’t cause a huge problem.

13.      This is a proposed image of what our van could look like! You’d see us coming and I feel like it would make people smile!

14.      We had to do some maths to figure out rough measurements to insure the van and figure out other travel costs. This equation helps us figure out how many miles we would cover visiting the 5 different places per week and per month and how this is affected by diesel for our costs.

15.      This 5 1/2 grand is a rough insurance cost for 2 of us to have shared insurance driving the van. This is a lump sum we would pay at the beginning of each year and we need to factor into the initial start-up costs we have to pay.

16.      We plan to fit this in the van to transport and then the 3 of us will put it up as a team effort. The capacity can be for 50- 60 people for this marquee - and therefore events. As 3 people will be working at one time it will be 15-20 people to one person and with also potentially volunteers helping.

17.      There are extra things we need to factor into start-up costs… like tables and chairs that are fold up and would fit into the van to transport They also need to be good enough for people to sit on and work at but also to be transportable.

Jenny

18.       These are the different places we plan to visit that are the areas of wider Leeds. We decided that it would be good to have a regular day per week that we would turn up so that there is some structure to build a community with. We also have decided that we would have a month where we focus on one activity, offering on rotation 4 different sessions on the different medias. Each media will vary in cost and we will need to budget all of the costs for materials.

19.       We need to fill in an event application form to find out from the council where we can and can’t hold an event. Because we will be holding lots of different events we will need to apply frequently for events permits and be very organised and forward thinking.

20.       We technically don’t need to have training but it could be beneficial to us and the people who are coming for us to have a range of different qualifications. This could include counselling training, art therapy diplomas, volunteering experience, PGCE training. We already have experience making art ourselves and all of the techniques through our degree, and we all have CVs which evidence us working with people… We think that the most important quality is our passion and commitment to this project.

21.       We want to get up and running early 2019 and hopefully run from Easter through to the end of the summer. Depending on how the community receives us, we hope to expand and have a base and many volunteers.

We also mocked up a leaflet: