Fun Palace Offers Free Activities Throughout Town

The nationwide Fun Palaces campaign sets out to share skills and celebrate culture amongst communities. Newark’s event has been organised as part of Newark Creates, a three year cultural programme within the town’s High Streets Heritage Action Zone, led by Newark Cultural Consortium.

Carol Newman, Director of Culture at Inspire: Culture, Learning and Libraries, the lead partner in the Consortium, said: “We have so many amazingly talented local people and it’s fantastic that some of them have come forward to share their skills across these two fun-filled days. From things that will help in daily life like wiring a plug to once in a lifetime experiences like making cocktails on the Palace Theatre stage, all for free, this is a truly unique celebration and one which I’m sure will be appreciated by many. It also offers the chance to experience our new Inspire offer at the Buttermarket, set to become a lively hub for learning, creativity and exploration in the town centre.”

The National Civil War Centre and Palace Theatre are returning as Fun Palace venues with hands on events including the chance to make seed bombs, decorate cakes and have fun with microscopes on the Friday as well as tips on how to explore your genealogy. On Saturday, there’s a party atmosphere with Scottish Country Dancing, Newark Circus Club and carnival drumming during the day, with cocktail making on the Theatre stage, a DJ and belly dancing workshops in the evening. Other events at the venue over the two days include Crafty Betty’s return to Newark with textile workshops, games and puzzles in Café Nineteen20, Ninjutsu and the unveiling of the Knit A Battlefield display created by volunteers in a long-term project since 2020.

Newark Library will be offering crafts with the chance to make a hand sewn flower brooch or a paper aeroplane as well as music sessions where you can learn to play the ukulele and a djembe drum. There’ll be fun with origami, macrame and puzzles too which will also be taking place at the new Inspire venue  at the Buttermarket. This location will also see balloon modelling workshops added to the roster on Saturday with ace magician Steve Nixon.

Newark College will be offering their expertise to lead a variety of fantastic introductory sessions for participants aged 16 and over. These range from creative writing to digital media, pottery throwing and life drawing and they’ll even be sharing the skills needed to fly a plane, wire a plug and write a CV as well as taking on the challenge of making maths fun.

Newark Art Gallery is also getting involved with a drop-in project over the two days to paint a continuous paper piece of work depicting the Civil War sieges of Newark. Children will be welcome with parents and anyone joining in can spend as little or as much time adding to the piece with acrylic paints as they wish.

Most of the events across the two days are drop-in but some do require pre-booking. To reserve your free place for these and for more information on Newark’s Fun Palace, visit http://www.newarkcreates.co.uk/funpalace2022/.