COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
As a community interest company our mission is to provide access to organisations who support people with mental, physical, and economic barriers to the arts and education
A free to attend (term time) weekly club for teens 11-17 to attend on a drop in basis.
Creative youth is organised and run by CUP Ceramics to create an inclusive space providing food and transport to activities; and an opportunity for our local children from underserved communities to engage in social and creative connections across communities.
This also combats the accentuated long term social isolation impacts created post COVID.
Brookfield School has students with social, emotional, or mental health needs in Herefordshire, and we have welcomed their entire cohort through on a yearly basis since 2020.
This has allowed us to build a relationship with the children through their personal growth with supportive school team. These sessions have led to improved confidence, gross and fine motor skills, and social development.
Art 4 Veterans visit the studio to make use of our kit and supplies when they have a specific ceramic based project in mind!
We help them to bring these ideas to fruition, with teachers lending their specialist skills and material knowledge.
Working with clay facilitates therapeutic sessions for armed forces and emergency services service users .
Close House aim to break the cycle of negative experience and behaviour that some young people face, helping them find hope and aspiration and enabling them to control the direction their own lives take.
We work with the team to provide drop in sessions for teens throughout the year.
Each year over summer, our studio Monday sessions get turned over to the Herefordshire Activities and Food program.
The HAF project focuses on those with pupil premium, pupils from low income background who may otherwise not have access to arts education.
We host 12 children once a week, who get the full day to work on a pottery project, and they also get fed and watered by our brilliant Rose too!
Orchard End Residential Care were long term partners with CUP Ceramics, having attended the studio weekly over several years.
These sessions provided sensory stimulation for the attendees who have complex needs.
They also worked on the development of the attendees long term goal oriented project work, building decision making opportunities into the projects, creating long term structure and goals into their weekly routines.
We have worked with Hereford STEPS to host 6-12 children once per month, where they have access to all of our kit to work on long term handbuilding projects.
This has allowed them to work on a project as actual potters do, engaging in a slow and meditative practice.
STEPS provide a virtual classroom for young people with barriers to education, our work with them provides local youth with shared experiences and ensuring opportunities for social inclusion.
We work regularly with RNC to accommodate various pottery projects that their students can all participate in.
We ensure successful participation by providing differentiated activities to support each individual students complex needs.
One of many projects that Avenbury Care farm have going on for their guests, is growing flowers and plants from seed and one of our wonderful members organised that we would be gifted a lovely flower basket for outside the cafe, and some lovely veg plants too!
OUR
COMMUNITY INTEREST COMPANY
MANIFESTO
CUP is a community interest company limited by guarantee. This means that we have an asset lock and any profits are reinvested into serving the community rather than going to shareholders.
The company has 3 overall aims:
1. People in Herefordshire do not have the access to the expensive equipment, space and training necessary to create ceramics at beginners, intermediate and advanced level, at an affordable price, all in one place. CUP has begun to successfully provide
this.
2. There are very few opportunities for ceramics graduates to develop artistically post
degree due to low incomes and lack of capital and equipment. Therefore productivity and artistic development decimates and sadly, many do not return to the art.
Undergraduates also have limited resources available to them for ceramics at the local art college. By providing time exchange mentoring placements for ceramics graduates/undergraduates, we help to bridge the gap between education and employment.
3. Underserved individuals in the community from low-income/deprived backgrounds, those with mental health barriers to education/life and vulnerable young people and adults do not have the opportunity to benefit from the therapeutic and creative impacts of making ceramics in an inclusive artistic community.
As a social enterprise our profits and grant support is used to benefit the most vulnerable in our community by providing access memberships and contextual group and one to one sessions, giving such people the opportunity to access the creative and therapeutic benefits of working with clay, leading to potential for further training, employment and improved quality of life.
