completed project

We are delighted to present a programme of FREE creative workshops taking place at the Span Arts building and online across the next month! See below for the full schedule: CREATIVE WRITING with DEB WINTER  24 February 11:30am – 1:30pm (Online)  All welcome to this lively Creative Writing workshop run by Deb Winter, a prize-winning writer & storyteller. All you need to bring is your imagination (& something to write with). You’ll surprise yourself as the words leap out of you onto the page!  CLOG DANCING and SPOONS SESSION with JESS WARD & HOLLY ROBINSON  1 March 11:00am – 1:00pm (Span Arts building)  Come along and celebrate St David’s day with some Welsh toe-tapping and spoon rattling rhythms! A relaxed and informal Welsh Clog Dance workshop led by experienced dance caller Jess Ward and accompanied by folk fiddler Holly Robinson playing traditional Welsh tunes. Clogs provided!  WELSH TASTER with LEARN WELSH PEMBROKESHIRE  5 March 10:00am – 12:00pm (Online)  Come and see what learning Cymraeg is all about! Suitable for complete beginners who have not studied Welsh before, this fun and informal session will be led by one of Learn Welsh Pembrokeshire’s friendly tutors.  CREATIVE WRITING with KERRY STEED  9 March 11:30am – 1:30pm (Online)  […]

Span Arts welcomed BBC Radio 4 Gardeners’ Question Time to Narberth for the very first time on Tuesday the 28th of June 2022. Gardener’s Question Time has become a Radio 4 institution since its inception in 1947, and attracts 2 million listeners every week. Audience members had the chance to submit their questions to a celebrated panel of gardening experts during the recording of two episodes. Gardeners’ Question Time chair Kathy Clugston was joined by queen of pests and diseases Pippa Greenwood, house plant specialist and greenhouse grower Anne Swithinbank, and garden designer and long-time GQT expert Chris Beardshaw, fresh from another Chelsea gold medal. “The panel NEVER see the questions before the recording. Their encyclopaedic, seemingly effortless answers are completely spontaneous and reveal their huge experience and depth of gardening knowledge. Being on the GQT panel is not for the faint hearted!” BBC Radio 4. Previous panel members have been guests of a diverse range of gardening clubs and other organisations, broadcasting from within both Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street, and even atop Mount Snowdon! “After the pandemic cancelled our first attempt back in 2020, SPAN Arts is truly delighted to be able to bring BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners

An online artistic programme to reduce isolation and loneliness, alleviate fear, stress and boredom, and build community networks in Pembrokeshire.
This programme had its roots in Span Digidol, enabling us to respond quickly to the COVID crisis.

Over the Summer of 2021 Span Arts worked with PLANED and artist Rowan O’Neill to produce a Radio Ballad in response to the Preseli Heartlands from Crymych to Cwm Gwaun. The Ballad titled The Song of the Golden Road was launched at a listening party at Tafarn Sinc on the 6th November 2021. A radio ballad is an extended sound piece weaving together oral speech, ambient sound, traditional songs and newly created music and lyrics. The work was created between May and October 2021 through a series of talks, walks, interviews and music workshops with sound material recorded at each event. The events took place at different locations throughout the Preselis encircling the Golden Road, a name given to the ancient trackway that runs across the Preseli ridge. The final bilingual programme is an hour in length and draws from the rich and deep material recorded, skilfully weaving together the lived lives and languages of the Preseli area. Artist and Community Producer Rowan O’Neill said, “It’s been incredible to be able to realise this wide-ranging project with the support of Span Arts and PLANED. It has engaged so many different people all connected by their love of the Preselis, the landscape and

Between 2015 – 2019, SPAN co-presented an annual River of Lights Lantern Parade in Haverfordwest. Initially, founded by spacetocreate, and presented in partnership with SPAN as part of The Lab; an arts and regeneration project for Haverfordwest, The River of Lights lantern parade grew into a spectacular and much loved event presented by SPAN in partnership with others. Haverfordwest has enjoyed 4 spectacular lantern parades since 2015 which have brought thousands of people together to share in a memorable, uplifting, much loved, family friendly event. This extraordinary participatory arts event quickly became a popular annual event on the Pembrokeshire calendar where artists and the community were brought together to create a memorable parade shaped by a new theme or story each year . River of Lights Lantern Parade was conceived to inspire a sense of community pride and belonging in Haverfordwest, through a large scale event that celebrated the river, the county town, the creativity of its people and its connections with the coastal communities that it serves. As part of each Lantern parade, drop in Lantern making workshops were held in a variety of settings in Haverfordwest and across the county, where hundreds of people together with artists and

A 3 year Big Lottery Funded Project to reduce isolation and loneliness through the arts and creative social activities. SPAN received £218k from Big Lottery Cheerful to reduce social, rural and economic isolation through engaging people in the arts. It was a huge success reaching over 7,000 people (including 2,102 named individuals), with 12,282 separate engagements over the last 3 years. We put on 373 activities (including workshops, outreach sessions, community events and workshop sessions in people’s homes) totalling 42,987 participant hours, generated 572 volunteer opportunities totalling 2002 volunteer hours and created a body or work and partnerships that have left a lasting legacy on SPAN and helped us to shape a new vision for Arts as Social Change in Pembrokeshire. “The program put together by SPAN has helped me by giving me a reason to keep my life as normal as possible, a reason to get out of bed get dressed and have a shave!” “I felt shut away but the project has given me a whole new lease of life”  

Caring Choirs is a programme of singing workshops in care settings in Pembrokeshire targeted at older people and people living with dementia that have been running when funding allows since 2015. The project capitalises on the restorative power of singing to deliver positive physical and mental health benefits. This singing workshop programme has proven to be hugely successful and a powerful tool in improving wellbeing. “Having the singing in the lounge has been like a ray of sunshine on a grey day.”  

An online artistic programme to reduce isolation and loneliness, alleviate fear, stress and boredom, and build community networks in Pembrokeshire.
This programme had its roots in Span Digidol, enabling us to respond quickly to the COVID crisis.

SPAN’s creative technology club for children aged 8-16. SPAN trialled a monthly creative technology youth club from February 2019 to April 2020 encouraging young people to “get stuck in” to creative technology guided by artists and experts. Sessions included stop-frame animation, app-making for beginners, an introduction to robotics, Raspberry Pi computers and simple programming,  Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Digital Mapping, electronic music making and vocal looping—and more! All were well attended with excellent feedback showing a desire for more. ‘I liked everything…the right amount of challenge.’ ‘Very entertaining and easy to follow’