Winchester Creatives Gathering

When the announcement was made that come May 17th thirty people would be allowed to gather together, outdoors, and enjoy the classic English weather, Winchester Creatives hopped on to the opportunity straight away.

It coincided perfectly with the graduation of our first cohort of mentees, meaning that we had a cause for celebration and restrictions to allow it. This meant that we put an open invite out to our community of mentees, mentors, volunteers, and donors to join us for an afternoon of eating, drinking, and meaningful conversation. 

With plenty of outdoor space, lateral flow tests, and social distancing at the ready, we welcomed everyone to our first physical gathering since our Mind The Gap and Mend The Gap campaigns. 

It’s safe to say that after the initial marvel that our friendly faces had legs to go with them, the ever-important meaningful conversations ensued. Armed with lovely wines supplied by our good friends at Yellow Tail, guests broke off into smaller groups to catch up on the last 12 months and dive into the true impact of the changes we all have faced. 

Many of us have come from many different walks of life, and therefore have many different stories to share. As the food was dished out and drinks were refilled, we were able to share these stories of the highs and lows as a group. There was laughter, unity, and support from all around as we shared our experiences of the challenges faced. 

As the afternoon wrapped up, there was a mutual feeling of relief and solace as hope was reinstated to the Winchester Creatives community. Through this event, we were able to build on the genuine, authentic connections we each had made over the last 12 months of our mentorship program and have an afternoon of uplifting, inspiring, and encouraging conversation. It gave us all the hope we needed to welcome us back to normality. 

If you have a community of your own, we encourage you to bring people together. Make the effort, create the space and inspire the conversations we all need this year. If anything, the photo at the top of this post should show you why.

Thank you to all those that attended and joined us on this sunny afternoon. Not everyone from our community could join due to Covid-restrictions but that just gives us an excuse to have another one!

Thank you to Kevin Chinn, Marketing Director of Casella Family Brands, who kindly provided bottles of Yellow Tail wines for this occasion. The Casella Family Brands team have been incredible supporters of ours over the last year and we remain extremely grateful for their support

At the end of the event, we shared our thanks for their support and the personal learnings they helped us all achieve. It was a similar experience to this video below, which is from our final Pepperbox pitch in February 2021. The day left us with gratitude and hope in our hearts.

Winchester Creatives mentees share their thanks to Casella Family Brands, which we shared in our final pitch presentation to them in Feb 2021.