7 minute read
Kickstart Creative
Keeping you in the loop about the creative o p p o r t u n i t i e s a v a i l a b l e t o y o u i n H a l t o n .
Halton MakeFest is a free festival that hosts different creative
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workshops providing a number of experiences and opportunities for people to learn a new skill or take part in creative activities. Some of the workshops from the 2021 MakeFest included, creative writing, a Songwriting Masterclass, Bubble and Fabric Painting and Origami – there is literally something for everyone! During the COVID-19 Lockdown this year, the festival was moved online but this didn’t stop the creative juices from flowing.
I spoke to Sean O’Hare, the host of Halton MakeFest, to hear all about the background of the festival, the difficulties that were faced by moving online and the opportunities that will be available for the people of Halton in the future of the festival.
What do you personally think that the best thing about MakeFest is?
That’s a hard question. Personally I think the best thing about Halton MakeFest is it celebrates creativity in Halton and gives people of all ages and ability the opportunity to try creative activities for free.
What was the inspiration for the line up that you chose?
Each year we send out a request for Makers and anyone can apply who would like to be part of the festival. We had originally asked for Makers who could deliver their sessions in person (like last year) but unfortunately due to COVID we had to make the decision to move the festival online in January. Moving the festival online meant that we could only have 8 makers, so when it came to choosing the Makers we wanted to make sure that we had a wide range of creative activities that are suitable for people to join in at home.
https://www.haltonmakefest.co.uk
Were there any difficulties/problems that you faced hosting the entire festival online and, if so, how were you able to overcome these?
It was definitely a challenge hosting the Festival online. We had some experience of live streaming from our Mako Create actives but we really wanted to step it up a gear for Halton MakeFest and for it to be more like a TV show. The first thing that we needed to do was to find a suitable venue that was large enough with a good internet connection. Luckily the studio in Widnes agreed to let us set up our streaming studio there for the week which was a perfect setting. We also needed to purchase a lot of new equipment and do a lot of testing pre-event. We are over the moon with how the live streams turned out and the number of people who have viewed and taken part in the festival.
ARTWORK CREATED BY VIEWERS
Are you looking at hosting another Make Fest event in the future?
Yes, we hope so. We love running Halton MakeFest. At the moment we are all just recovering from this year's event. We will soon be thinking about new things we could do next year. Hopefully weLisaBazley is a trained might be able to combine the last two festivals and have both online and Face-To-Face Sessions. 2021’S MakeFest ran between the 16th and 19th of February. You can catch up and watch all of the workshops, or sign up to the mailing list to be the first to hear about the next MakeFest here:f r om H a l t o n. F orm o r
https://www.haltonmakefest.co.uk
Makefest this year was funded as part of the Borough of Culture.her via: lisabazleyy@gmail.com
@lisabazley_
COMMUNITY TALKS
I had the pleasure of interviewing Ashlee Brown, Co-founder of GND Halton about what the hub aims to achieve for the community and how people can get involved.
What are GND Halton’s key principles and aims and how will these aims, if achieved, benefit the Halton community specifically?
GND UK has 5 main principles they are working towards. They are to Decarbonise the UK, Build Secure Jobs, Transform the Economy, Protect and Restore Habitat and to Promote Social Justice.
Our aims as a hub focus on 2/5, which we feel are needed most in
Halton. They are 'building secure jobs' which we are working towards with the Green Jobs campaign and 'protecting and restoring habitats' by working with local schools to promote sustainable, green living through fun games. Green Jobs in Halton are extremely important because even before the pandemic we had an overwhelming unemployment rate. Using figures from the NEF, TUC and RSA, the GNDUK team believe 3000 Green Jobs can be created in Halton and Weaver Vale. Kids are the
future and by starting to cut down on meat, encouraging them to walk to school and providing equipment to plant their own gardens/ compost, they will have these ideas throughout their lives which will have great impact for local areas.
What are your plans for expanding community outreach in Halton?
The support from the Halton community is vital in ensuring the different aspects of the GND are achieved. We rely on People Power just as much as Political Power. We want to be a hub that works towards making Halton Greener and Cleaner but also works with the people on them for Halton by being a bridge between MP’s and constituents. There are many people in Halton who want to make a change, who feel strongly about the environment and social issues but don't know where to start when it comes to fixing it/approaching someone about it. We recently called for volunteers, and now have a team of 6, who are reaching out to MPs and spreading the word about our hub so if people are interested in joining us, they can send us a message on our social media!
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS: Twitter: HaltonHubGND Facebook: Halton Hub: Green New Deal UK. Information: https://linktr.ee/HaltonHubGND Email: haltonhub-gnd@outlook.com
What are your ideas regarding ‘Green Jobs’ and what steps are you taking as a hub to achieve this?
Our team at GNDUK released figures about how many Green Jobs can be created in Halton,
Merseyside and Warrington (this figures can be found for yourself on the link herehttps://www.greennewdealuk.org/campaigns/green-jobs-take-action/?step=) We believe for Halton and Weaver Vale, Green Jobs can be created in fields
such as care work, green infrastructure (building and transport), and research and development. As a hub we have used the facts and figures from our main team as well as other groups such as friends of the earth to draft together a document containing all the potential Green Jobs we could have in Halton and ideas on how we can achieve it. One of the ideas being through apprenticeships. We will be meeting with MP Mike Amesbury to discuss this soon. We are fortunate to have support from Weaver Vale MP Mike Amesbury, who with his team is very eager to work with us on introducing Green Jobs in Halton. However, for us to be able to complete this in the long run, we need the Government to see Green Jobs as a priority and put our ideas into practice as well as providing funding for retraining and apprenticeships.
Do you think 2030 is too optimistic to achieve net-zero carbon emissions? Do you think we can afford not to achieve this by 2030?
In 2019, the Government stated that ‘The Environment Agency has set itself the aim of becoming a net zero organisation by 2030’. To me this isn't too optimistic at all if the Government acts now! When this was released, we had over 10
years to start tackling this challenge, yet two years later, not much seems to have changed. Yet if the government worked with movements such as the GNDUK we could provide them with solutions and ways this could be achieved. It is like they have just said what people wanted/needed to hear but have forgotten to put in the work. They plan to be net zero by 2030, which would mean cutting out the use of dirty energy, but people will need work put in place before this, so they aren't left without a job. We are seeing changes slowly, between the bigger market for electric cars and more charging points and cities introducing clean air zones but there is still so much we can do. There is only so much we can do individually, but until the Government starts taking it seriously, we won't see a massive change. But with GNDUK and all the local hubs now popping up all over the country as well as groups such as XR, they won't have a choice but to listen to us and act!
