What we did in October!

Well, October has simply flown by!  We’ve been very busy, here at Grimm, so we thought we’d share a bit of what we’ve been up to.

  A corner of a room, decorated with barrels, candles, scales, bunting and a mini skeleton. A rickety signpost in front of a green, living wall. A corner of a room, decorated with barrels, candles, scales, bunting and a mini skeleton.. Bright candles and ivy are in the foreground.

The creative team for schools have been based at Gulliver’s Valley this month, transforming a space there into a temporary, pop-up Writer’s Pad.  Gemma and the team have:

  • Hosted 2 Chapter & Verse launch events with teachers and principals from Astrea Academy Trust
  • Attended 1 webinar with the Paul Hamlyn Foundation about Inequities in Education
  • Presented to Sheffield South-East Learning Partnership headteachers
  • Held 2 in-person Storymaking sessions with year four pupils from Hatfield Primary Academy, Sheffield.  Their brilliant stories will be posted on the website very soon, for you to read and enjoy, and maybe create your own Excellent Ending.
  • Visited Edenthorpe Primary Academy to prepare for their Chapter & Verse residency next term
A group of Grimm staff and volunteers smiling, in front of a black wall with bunting.

Grimm staff and volunteers enjoying delivering in-person workshops again.

The out of schools team has also been very busy.  Although we sadly said goodbye to our Creative Learning Manager, Katie, the team has still:

  • Held 19 workshops with children and young people, including 3 poetry Workshops with Helen Mort and CounterPoints Arts.
  • Attended an Off the Shelf event at Tudor Square in Sheffield, engaging with over 60 people over 4 hours of delivery.
  • Provided a fabulous author event with Sharna “not a hoax” Jackson, author of Mic Drop and High Rise Mysteries.
A poem written on orange paper, next to a monkey hand puppet.

A poem written by a young person at the poetry workshops with Helen Mort, with the help of Mickey the Monkey.

A group of Grimm staff and young people, sat around a table in a tent.

A group of young people enjoying the Off The Shelf event.

We have held two Inductions for new volunteers, who will be undertaking a variety of roles, from fundraising and admin, to shop work, story making, and events set-up.  If  you’re interested in coming to the next one, visit the volunteering page for more details.

Staff have undertaken Philosophy for Children training with Rosie Carnall, as well as an online Accessibility course provided by the National Deaf Children’s Society.

We have joined in with the BBC Radio Sheffield Where We Belong project, starting our morning with a boogie and a lipsync to Out of the Darkness!  (All mornings should start with singing and dancing, in our opinion!).  Watch the video here!

The shop elves have been preparing for Christmas, and have:

  • Launched 97 (yes, 97!!) new lines in the shop – 43 of these were books, 23 were greetings cards. We launched the Scents of the Season range and the Games and Puzzles collection, as well as fudge to expand our edibles range.  Visit the shop here.
  • Learnt how to do some Furoshiki-style wrapping to reduce paper waste.
  • Released 6 Grimm Gift Guides for those looking for a bit of inspiration for their seasonal gifting.  You can find those here.
  • Decorated one Christmas Tree, with lights, garlands, and presents underneath.  Yes, it’s early, but we needed to take some photographs to show you!
  • Consumed several boxes of Greggs mince pies and mugs of festive hot chocolate with elf staff stirrers.  Well, ’tis the season!  (almost!)

A decorated christmas tree next to a fireplace. The fireplace is hung with garlands and there are gifts under the tree.