Our Queen of Craft Chrissie became the Queen of the Airways this weekend after she was interviewed on BBC Suffolk, talking about our craft and upcycling workshops. You can listen again here, from 1hr 5mins.
Chrissie has been with the Emmaus Suffolk team since last summer and looks after the Emmaus Workshop, based at our shop in Sailmakers Ipswich. As COVID-19 restrictions lift, we have been able to increase the number of workshops we can run, both for volunteers registered with Emmaus Suffolk and for members of the public looking to learn some upcycling skills and take part in fun, sociable and hands-on workshops.
Full details of these workshops and classes can be found here
Last week, the BBC Suffolk team came along to the workshop to meet Chrissie and to find out more about what we do at Emmaus Suffolk. They interviewed Chrissie about our workshop space at Sailmakers, including our amazing haberdashery space and sewing machines, eco-friendly recycled paint and all the activities that go on in the workshop.
Chrissie was able to talk about our collaboration with Suffolk Refugee Group who brought some of their clients along to our workshop for a hands-on creative session, and how we plan to open the workshop to more local groups and organisations:
“We are open to people, groups & organisations. You don’t have to be arty or creative, you don’t have to be fantastic. You will be surprised by what you can produce, you can be a beginner, that’s OK. Step by step, we’ll do it together.”
BBC Suffolk also spoke to one of our volunteers, Maria, who said:
“It’s very welcoming, everyone is friendly and nice. The Emmaus Suffolk workshops tick all the boxes; we are supporting people, it is ecologically sound and satisfying your own creativity.
“I like the collaboration side of things. Last week I saw two people with two different styles mesh together. Between them, from two different viewpoints, they created something lovely. Having this environment which allows this to happen is great. Those two people may not have met under different circumstances but they were able to here and created something really nice.”
‘Thank you to Cad Taylor, Angelle Joesph and the whole team for inviting us onto their excellent show ‘Belongings’ on every Friday night 8-10pm on BBC Radio Suffolk ’