LIVE FROM LITTLE ORCHARD FESTIVAL

It’s not over, no the summer goes on and on in god’s county of Kernow, so as if Boardmasters wasn’t enough for us we headed west again for one last Festival.

We’ll be live streaming and running creative activities Saturday and Sunday, watch this space. and be part of it here or there.

Meanwhile check out our appearance on BBC Sptlight above back in March when we launched the #OurMIllion22 appeal with a school community in Land’s End and another session at St Issey Primary below.

SOME MAY SAY I’M A DREAMER

STEAM Co. Dad and Co-founder Nick Corston’s mother sadly passed away the day after he launched the #OurMillion22 appeal in her name in his, her home county in #Shropshire22.

She’d reminded him how she and his father had run a summer arts and crafts play scheme for local chidlren for twenty years after he left home for university.

How maybe they’d inspired his work with STEAM Co.

Given that Cornwall sadly failed to make the final short list in the UK City/County of Culture for 2025 we headed straight for Kernow.

Our #MissionToMars22 UK Tour was at St Issey School Tues 22nd March and we’re off to St Just Primary near Land’s End on Friday 25th March.

St Issey School

We took our #MissionToMars22 Tour session to this wonderful community school that one of our #BraveSchoolLeaders has turned around in the last four years with his belief in the power of creativity and community.

We were delighted that BBC Radio Cornwall popped along to see what was going on and couldn’t believe their ears.

ST JUST PRIMARY

We had a fantastic day with the communinty at St Just Primary, on Cape Cornwall, just down the road from Lands End.

Check out this piece we had on the BBC 6 O’Clock news

WHAT’S IN A MILLION?

Back in January we launched this appeal in John O’Groats on a UK tour there and back.

We want to ‘Raise a Million Quids to Inspire a Million Kids to Aim Higher than High’ powered by their Creativity and Our Communities.

We want to put up to 22 of our Pop-Up Creativity Day Drop Trucks on the road to help run creativity sessions in schools for free, with the first in Shropshire, the home country of STEAM Co. Co-founder Nick Corston who is from the nearby town of Ludlow, where his father was a town, district and county councillor and who started and ran a summer arts and crafts summer play scheme for twent years ago in the 1980’swith his mother who sadly passed away the day after Nick visited St Lawrence Primary.

This will all be part of the Year long #Ignite22🔥 Festival of Creativity in School Communities and STEAM Co. also want to run a weekend community arts festival in the autumn in Shropshire at an amazing site we’ve been offered use of.

Inspired by how Elon Musk wants to take a million kids to Mars in 30 years, we want to bring Mars to Shropshire this year in the form of a millionth scale model artwork of the red planet by artist Luke Jerram’s imaginative ability to combine art, science and play, showing us that (in his own words) “anything is possible”.

WILL YOU CHIP IN?

We hope you will support this appeal in one of the following ways:

• Chip in a quid or more here

• Pledge a pound (and get a free cardboard modelling kit) here

• Sponsor one of our trucks through your company here

• Gift creativity with one of our cardboard modelling kits - here

There’s more info about the #OurMillion22 appeal and how we want to spend the money here

THE POP-UP CREATIVITY DAY DROP TRUCK

We’re on a mission to raise a million to start to get up to 22 of our Pop-Up Creativity Day Drop Trucks with STEAMsters on the road in 2022.

Each truck contains everything needed to run one of our creativity days in a school:

IGNITE22🔥 FESTIVALS

We also want to run a few community art festivals around the UK around Luke Jerram’s ‘Mars’ artwork and have already found beautiful, brilliant sites in Shropshire and Cornwall.

We just need to raise that million.

Check the film here of the day Nick popped along to see Luke’s ‘Musuem of the Moon’ at the Tunbridge Wells Puppetry Festival.

THE MISSION TO MARS 22 TOUR

These whole or half days sessions consist of:

• All school assembly - live/live streamed streamed (depending on covid protocol in place) to classes in hall or bubbles and family homes from a green studio as if on a cardboard Mars base we'll appear to build in the school playing field

• Creative Activities - rocket making, cardboard modelling, #ILoveArt logo design

• Real dynamite rocket launch - at home time to send the whole community home buzzing

For more info and a downloadable flyer click here

Check out the film below of one of our Mission To Mars 22 Tour sessions, at Hornden on the Hill Primary in Essex in collaboration with the Arts Council England funded Royal Opera House Bridge Trailblazer project in Thurrock.

Our previous in Cornwall

We’ve worked with several school communities across Cornwall - from Bude to Bugle.

Nick was also invited to be part of a Community Activist Camp at Eden Project where he launched our Three Greatest Gifts Christmas UK Tour in 2019 and ran two pop up community events on the Seacroft Estate in Leeds and at a community centre in Brent, North London

See the film below of a pop up we did in Cornwall with a man and his tractor in our #ArtConnects19 year that celebrates the warmth and creativity of this wonderful county.

A place many call god’s county.

We don’t belive in favourites but believe one thing, we’re so glad to be back in Kernow.