It’s so nice for a team to occasionally get out together and just do something fun and interesting! The Closing Loops team recently got out, and not just out of the office, but out of the district, to our neighbours in Kendal. On a rather rainy day in November, we gathered at our first stop in a village northeast of Kendal and were received in the grateful warmth of the Ragtag Arts warehouse and cafe.
Our tour was incredibly inspiring. Ragtag Arts is a very different kind of community centre. It’s all about bringing people together for creative activities, and among various groups, activities and spaces it is home to an arts & crafts scrapstore. Here, “waste” materials are rescued and turned into treasures for creative play and crafts activities. But you can think of it more as a very well organised crafts shop, full of surprises and charged at a very moderate amount per half or full basket.
We also looked into the big parts play area, the woodworking and pottery workshops, various other crafts spaces and then got carried away filling our baskets in the scrapstore with some excellent finds. All saved from becoming rubbish! We then enjoyed a welcome hot drink before heading on to the next stop.
After a small adventure getting stuck on a flooded country lane, we made it safely to the centre of Kendal, where we met with our colleague Jo. She is an active member at the Eddington, part of an old church that has been turned into a community venue with a lot of character. The Eddington is a “one-stop shop for climate action”. Jo introduced us to the Cyclery, a community run bike workshop, and then took us on to lunch at the Waste into Wellbeing cafe.
This cafe is run on surplus food cooked up by volunteers, and we were impressed not just with the delicious lunch and pudding, but with the diverse programme of events and workshops advertised by the cafe team.
Despite the unfriendly weather, we came back from the day feeling well fed, energised and inspired. A huge thanks to the teams at the Eddington and Ragtag Arts for welcoming us.
