CREATIVITY : WHO CARES?

Take a look at this short summary of the first ever RSA Fellows Festival on Sat 14th May and watch Nick Corston’s 4 minute talk below.

THE RSA? WHO’D BE A FELLOW? WHY?

That’s the question we asked the then CEO Matthew Taylor FRSA, who has now moved on to be CEO of the NHS Confederation (talk about caring, and frying pan to fire!).

See what he said in the video over there and listen to a podcast we recorded with Matthew here

Find out more about the work of The RSA by watching the live stream of the first RSA Fellows Festival on Sat 14th May 2022, live streamed here from The Great Room, John Adam Street, London.

On the eve of the RSA Fellows Festival Nick Corston FRSA writes:

When she was two, my mum fell down a well behind the family home in a Suffolk village and wasn’t expected to survive her teens.

She was home educated by her mother who had six other children to raise. Her father was a local butcher and once a week they gathered sticks and twigs in the local wood to fire the oven in the kitchen to make bread.

She had a bad chest most of her life and was particularly vulnerable through the pandemic but stayed safe.

that was then

Aged 83 she was taken to hospital two months ago with breathing difficulties. On a visit she reminded me how she and my father had started and run a holiday arts, crafts and sports play scheme for local kids for about 20 years after I left home and how similar it was to my work with STEAM Co. - to bring the community together to inspire children to be creative

She told me how she and dad had run roller discos thorugh the autumn and winter to raise funds for the play scheme.

I told her how, inspired by how Elon Musk has said he wants to take a million people to Mars in 30 years, I’d launched an appeal to ‘Raise a Million Quids to Inspire a Million Kids’ to Aim Higher Than High, Powered by Creativity and Community.

Too soon

We were devastated when mum’s consultant gave her a three month prognosis with advanced cancer and were grateful to the NHS who moved a moutain to put a care package in place and got her home with a hospital bed in her living room so she could watch the birds feeding.

On the Saturday she came home from hospital - one of her carers said how mum had taught her to sew at the play scheme and on Sunday the district nurse said she's had a clipping from the local paper on her kitchen wall of mum with her two daughters all that time too!

On the Monday I launched the #OurMillion22 appeal in Shropshire on BBC local radio and visited a nearby school to run one of my #MissionToMars22 sessions.

Dreams shared

I showed mum the photos and video of the day and we listened back to the BBC radio spot and I told her how I wanted to use her work as inspiration for my fundraising

My beloved mother died the next day, holding the hands of my dad, brother and myself.

A LIFE OF Purpose

In the celebration of her life a few weeks later I cited Prince Ea from one of his YouTube talks:

"It's not death most people fear, but coming to the end of life realising that you haven't truly lived"

In a survey, a hundred terminally ill people were asked what they most regretted in their lives.

Most said they regretted what they hadn’t done more than what they had”

The above film shows a clip from the service we held to celebrate mum’s life - a life lived with kindness, generosity, gratitude and a love for everything and all.

Legacy

My mum and dad have never seen themselves as artists or particularly creative yet, given the feedback and messages we’ve received, through their work in the community, church and varous council committees for decades and the highly valued arts, crafts and sports play scheme they ran for many years that, it is clear they touched many lives.

I am keen, and it feels right, to continue to celebrate my mum's life and keep her spirit alive through STEAM Co. - showing how ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they connect children and communities with art and creativity.

To continue to advocate for, inspire and action creativity in school communities via STEAM Co.

But beyond just me buzzing about.

A CREATIVITY REVOLUTION

Four years ago, the then culture minister Rt Hon Jeremy Wright MP, briefed us on the government’s plans for a £120m National Festival of Creativity and Innovation in 2022 and said they wanted to hear from projects like STEAM Co. who are using art to connect communities.

Here’s what we got up to in the next four years in the lead up to our own #Ignite22 Festival year

The government’s #Unboxed2022 Festival consisted of ten fantastic £10m projects

We want to raise a million pounds to put up to 22 of our Art Trucks - Pop Up Community Creativity Day Drop Trucks on the road, buy and equip a camper van with mobile internet live streaming studio to travel round the country connecting communities and run a few community art festivals.

There's method in our apparent madness aiming so high in that Elon Musk has said he wants to take a million people to Mars in 30 years - his is one of several inspiring and ambitious stories I tell our kids in our sessions.

One of his SpaceX rocket commanders helped sponsor two of our UK tours last year as you can see in this appearance on BBC 6 O'Clock news.

Match fund pledge

After the Shropshire launch of the #OurMillion22 appeal we were offered a match fund pledge towards the million quids and are working towards that to get the camper van on the road after half term.

CAN YOu HELP?

If you’d just like to chip in a quid to the #OurMillion22 appeal, sponsor one of our creativity days in a school or an Art Truck then click here

HOW ART CONNECTS

Ruckus Maker and fellow RSA Fellow Seth Godin says:

“Art is what we call it when what we do might conenct us to someone else - it’s all about connections”

Over ten years ago I co-founded STEAM Co. with other parents, teachers, locals businesses and other creative carers in the community of my sons’ primary school in Paddington to run creativity days in the school. Those days are run there to this day, even though my family has moved on in school terms, if not in spirit.

Five years later I gave up a perfectly good career in markeitng communications to roll it out as a non-profit community enterprise to school communities across the country.

Here’s a short film about the journey:

When lock down struck we were grateful for sponsorship and support from LGfL, Arts Council England and DCMS and as you can see above we completely reinvented our community engagement model around live streaming.

The plan

The plan for the first funds we aim to raise in the next few weeks is to get a camper van on the road, equip it with our green screen internet TV studio and hit the road running creativity sessions with school communities across the country and live streaming shows:

• #RocketKidsClub - a place where kids and creative carers can be inspired, create and share

• #ArtConnectsShow - showcasing people in our shcools, work and lives whose art connects

If you can, please do support the #OurMillion22 campaign here

STEAM Co. and THE RSA

EIght years ago I was invited to become a Fellow of The RSA and gave a short 3 minute pitch about my work with STEAM Co. that you can see below.

Trigger warning: This film contains a rocket launch in a listed building!

Since then I have been grateful for the support of various RSA Fellows at events and festivals we have run who have also spoken alongside staff members from the RSA at our conferences across the UK.

Brazil Launch

Below are a few snippets of a live streamed launch talk I gave at a conference in Brazil, live from steps of The RSA’s Coffee House Rawthmells. See the full 45 minute talk here