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Creative
Courtyards
Community
Action Days

15 July 2024

Can you spare an hour or two this summer? We are a small team of volunteers looking for help to spruce up some of the public garden spaces at Milton Keynes University Hospital. Over the two sessions we’ll be planting, weeding, pruning and painting and restoring benches. A little goes a long way to ensure the Creative Courtyards remain welcome and accessible for all who visit them. Session 1: Saturday 10th August; 10AM – 2PM Session 2: Tuesday 20th August; 4PM - 6PM (A hot or cold drink will be provided at breaktime)  To register your interest please contact: info@artsforhealthmk.org.uk or call 01908 996125. *Please note spaces are limited to 10 per session due to the available tools. Adults 18+ only, all tools will be provided. In partnership with:    Find out more about joining our pool of courtyard volunteers here:  We are particularly interested in hearing from adults 35-65 identifying as male who are looking to make new friends or for opportunities to get out and about., as this group have been identified as less likely to access social support networks or volunteer within their local community.

Artists’ Health and Wellbeing Booklet

14 June 2024

Arts for Health MK launches a new guide “Supporting Artist’s Health and Wellbeing” Anybody participating in our programmes will know that getting creative can help us live well and feel great. Being part of something - be it art, music, drama or dance - can really help improve both our mental health and physical health. Our wonderful artists sit at the very heart of this work, often delivering outstanding workshops and courses with very limited resources. With this in mind, Arts for Health MK want to take a leading role in supporting the health and wellbeing of artists across Milton Keynes. We are here to help and support you as creatives just as much as we are here to support our service users. I’d like to introduce our new e-book entitled “Supporting Artists’ Health and Wellbeing”. Inside, you will find information on a range of topics designed to help you manage your resilience, security, and financial wellbeing, and address a myriad of professional concerns whilst also promoting a culture of effective safeguarding and best practice. For many of you, this may be a useful reminder to check in with us and take a moment to reflect on your recent experiences as a facilitator. For others, particularly if you are new to the sector, this might be the first time you have considered many of these topics. This e-book leans into some of the conversations, queries, concerns, and suggestions from across the Charity that you have drawn to my attention over the last eighteen months. We’d encourage you to take ten minutes out of your day to have a quick read of the guide, and we’d love to hear from you if you have any questions, comments, thoughts about anything we may have missed, or other ideas. You can contact us at info@artsforhealthmk.org.uk Next year, we hope to launch a follow-up booklet entitled a “Beginners Guide to Mental Health”. Watch this space! Artists are also reminded that our next “Supportive Conversation” in partnership with MK Arts Centre will be happening on Wednesday 18th September 2024 at 10am until 11.30am at the Arts Centre, and the topic will be “Best Practice”. Please email fiona@miltonkeynesartscentre.org to book a place and please note that there are only 15 places, allocated on a first come, first served basis, and the event is likely to book up quickly. Ben Heyworth Director ︎ Launch Booklet in new window

Scan the QR code:

20th Anniversary Event

25 May 2024


Cutting of the Anniversary Cake. Left - right: Peter Brown (founding member of AfHMK), Andrew White and Matthew Stemp, (long-term volunteers), Susan Brown (artist and founding member of AfHMK), and Katharine Sorensen, Chair of AfHMK.

Well what a successful 20th anniversary lunch we had on Saturday 25th May!
Almost fifty of us gathered in a marquee at MK University Hospital, where we enjoyed food and drink, live music, singing happy birthday, anniversary cake, and speeches. 

Alina Orchestra’s ‘Band in a Van’.




Food supplied by the Bountiful Table


This was a milestone opportunity to thank so many people who have helped to get our charity to where it is today, including past and present staff, trustees, volunteers, project partners, commissioned artists, supporters and funders. The weather was kind, and we enjoyed renewing old friendships and making new ones. We heard about past activity and successes and looked forward to the future.  Here’s to the next twenty years!



Speeches by Director, Ben Heyworth (left) and Chair of AfHMK, Katharine Sorensen (right).

 

Left - right: Volunteer, Jacqueline Li and Administrator, Naomi Lutman


Left - right: Courtards Supervisor, Robin Clements; Volunteers Andrew White and Matthew Stemp.Group photograph of our guests.  

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New artwork for Hospital Collection

25 May 2024

Birch Tree by the Lake (2024) by Susan Brown FRPS A limited-edition photographic print. Multiple exposure in camera. Taken February 2024 at Sculpture by the Lakes, Dorchester. Edition 3/10. Finished on Aluminium Di.bond. At our 20th anniversary celebration on 25 May we were delighted to announce that a new artwork has been gifted to the Milton Keynes University Hospital Art Collection. Birch Tree by the Lake (2024), has kindly been donated by the artist, to mark Arts for Health MK's 20th anniversary. Susan and her husband Peter Brown were founding members of the Hospital's voluntary Arts Committee when the hospital first opened in the early 1980s.  Together they were instrumental in evolving the committee into the organisation Arts for Health MK in 2004. The artwork is currently being mounted onto aluminium board which will serve as a lightweight, durable support. Once we receive it we will arrange for it's display and share its location via our social media.

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Spring Newsletter 2024

16 May 2024

Our Spring newsletter has just been published! It includes charity news, project updates, evaluation project, volunteering opportunities and new artworks in the hospital. To view the newsletter online click here︎ ︎ Sign up for our future newsletters here.

 

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