What a wonderful season of activities we've had at Kingshill House and we still have the Christmas Market to come!

30/11/2022

We have been full on this autumn with so many fun, creative and exciting events happening at Kingshill House, it has been fantastic to see the House so alive with activity from the community.
The courses have been packed with students learning watercolours, oil painting (which is new!), stained glass, flower arranging, loom weaving (also new!) and of course we’ve had our wonderful Mindful Scrap Crafting with Anna of Peace and Craft, which has been lovely to see flourish.

Images above from this years courses, including Mindful Scrapcraft and Oil Painting

Our programme of weekly classes has grown and grown with Beginners Yoga with Claire on a Monday morning, three sessions of yoga with Vicky Bird, aka The Yoga Bird, on a Wednesday, including parent and baby yoga. Then we have a beautifully gentle relaxation yoga for mothers on a Wednesday evening with Mischa from Let Go Yoga, and of course two nourishing flowing yoga classes from Sarah of Elm Tree Yoga on a Thursday evening. We are absolutely loving all the yoga that happens here! Plus our resident Taijiqun and Qigong instructor Joe teaches on Tuesdays and Wednesday evenings, plus a Qigong & Meditation on a Thursday morning. These classes are for anyone to try, and there is no experience necessary, so they really are a marvellous way to refocus the mind and maintain healthy well-being. Plus you can meet new friends and enjoy activity with like-minded people.

Images above from Wednesday evening mothers yoga class at Kingshill House with Mischa from Let Go Yoga

The real success of this season has been our wonderful Diwali event where guests danced the night away with DanceGuru who be played their signature electro-live bhangra dance fusion! Everyone loved Mamas Meals who cooked up a storm of delicious Indian street food and then we were entertained by award winning Bollywood Belles for a beautiful performance and bhangra dancing workshop. Kids, adults, young, old, everyone got stuck into the Diwali-inspired craft activities making their own clay or jam jar lanterns, printing with Indian woodblocks and paper plate rangoli to bring good luck and prosperity! We danced into the night, welcoming both familiar and new faces, it was a wonderfully uplifting event and we are delighted with some of the feedback from the community;

"We enjoyed the food and especially Bhangra/ DJ night as we danced a lot at the time of closure. We would love to join next year as well."

"What an absolutely wonderful evening. My 5 year son stated it was, 'The best night ever!' Thank you so much for hosting such a beautiful event."

"Lovely atmosphere. Great food and good art activities for the family"

"The friendliness of the people hosting and the visitors. It was a great experience and such a wonderful evening thank you"

Images above from the fabulous Kingshill House Diwali event, a first in Dursley

We have just finished Festive Fortnight which saw lots of Christmassy workshops in the House including natural soap making, tote bag screen printing, scrap crafting, the famous willow weave a reindeer with Sarah Edwards, copper foiling with resident stained-glass artist Caroline Lambert and Christmas table centrepieces with Eve Squire of Daisy Belle Floral Design.

Images above from Festive Fortnight 2022

We are now hurtling into December, it’s snow joke, Christmas is coming.... how that has happened I am not sure! But we are all looking forward to our Christmas Market on Sunday 4th December, and this year it is set to be the best ever! We have a whole host of fabulous sellers, including Kelly Eldridge, Lyn Ang and Anna Jones, Katy Kebbell, Geg Fayle Ceramics, Elaine Hunt, Claire Failes, Cherie Rimmel-Faulds, Eve Squire.
We have food, hot chocolates, sausage rolls, mince pies, soups. There will be music playing from ukulele legend Ed Brooking, our resident glass blower, Ben Gough, will be here so you can have a go at blowing your own hot glass bauble (booking essentially), and we have demonstrations from tutors including calligraphy by Adele Dark, screen-printing by Andy Kinnear and loom weaving by Alyson Matthews. We also have family activities including making a tree-topper, printing wrapping paper, and writing a letter to Santa. Sunday is set to be our most wonderful day of the year!! (sorry I couldn’t help it!)
So hold on for deer life and come along to Kingshill House for our final event of the year, 11am-4pm.