Kids at the Folk Hall 2017

Well what a fabulous start to the year it has been. Our season of kids films was funded by the City of York Council so it allowed us to provide an amazing Disney Pixar movie, crafting, prizes and refreshments all for only £1 per ticket. Altogether we have had 266 people join us for our events where we enjoyed ‘The Jungle Book’ in December, a series of ‘Pixar Short films’ in February, ‘Inside Out’ in March and then ‘Finding Dory’ in April.

One of our volunteers did a bit of filming at our recent event so we made it into a little video to show you how much fun we all had!

As well as lots of great fun being had there was also lots of beautiful artwork created too. We had music before the films and during the interval and left the lights up throughout so that people could move around and carry on crafting during the films. Running the events like this gave everyone a proper chance to talk and make friends and allowed for any restless little ones to stretch their legs.

These events definitely helped us address some of the things our organisation hopes to achieve such as giving local people an opportunity to meet like minded folk in their community and to offer them a much cheaper and more interactive alternative to the big cinemas in York. Our aims as a community cinema compliment the priorities of the Huntington and New Earswick Ward too, helping to reduce social isolation and to give opportunities to young people in the area. This is one reason why your local councillors agreed to fund this project and, we hope they agree it has been a great success. We thank them for their support! More information about your ward and it’s councillors can be found on the council website.

During one of the events our resident film maker, Steve and his equally talented son, Finlay joined us to run a stop-motion animation workshop. It went down a storm and lots of kids got involved and learned the basics of making an animated film. Here’s a short clip from one of the workshops:

The crafting at all the events was organised by the Friends of New Earswick School and all the box office money went to their fundraising efforts for school play equipment. They were also instrumental in making sure New Earswick Primary School kids and parents were informed about our events and even got the kids to help choose our final two films so we thank all their volunteers for helping us with this project! We are very proud to say we have made some great friends there and will certainly look to work with FONES again in the future, including attending their summer fair later this year. Check out their Facebook page to find out what they are getting up to.

Finally, a big thanks to our own volunteers who give their free time on a Sunday to come along and help set up, get involved and make these things fun and enjoyable for everyone!

Watch this space for more kids events early next year!

Sam