We’ve been having some proper back-endish weather now which is a great excuse for staying inside and crafting but perhaps not so good for the bees and the gardeners.  Despite all this, there’s been a lot of exciting stuff going on and lots more to come.  Here’s a summary:

  • 20 Personal effects bags and 8 syringe driver bags to St. Gemma’s Hospice
  • 14 twiddlemuffs and 46 baby hats to York Hospital
  • 6 Twiddlemuffs to the Living Room in Starbeck, Harrogate 
  • 6 worry monsters to Children’s services
  • 69 forget-me-nots to Sherburn Library Dementia awareness initiative
  • 18 big blankets and 2 large patchwork quilts to Martin House Children’s Hospice
  • 9 draught excluders, 5 shawls, 5 blankets, 6 hats, 3 scarves, 2 hot water bottle covers, two baby hats with bootees, 2 pairs of baby mitts and a child’s cardigan to local families at The Barn Community Day
  • Gardening at Ingleby Drive Pumping Station
  • Stall at Farsley Scrap Store
  • Stall at Hebden Bridge Rag Market
  • Tadcaster drop-in session, AGM and Tad-BAFTA awards
  • TadGrafters and Sherburn sessions
  • TAD’ah! photoshoot
  • Announced as “Highly Commended” in the North Yorkshire Community Awards        

 News

Thank you to everyone who managed to join us at the AGM.  We will publish a more detailed round up of our donations etc in January for 2023, but over our last financial year we have managed to keep our income in line with our outgoings without relying on any grant funding, and have managed to make and donate around £25,750 worth of items to worthy causes and save in excess ¾ of a tonne of fabric etc.  

Congratulations to both Dave and Anne for receiving their Tad-BAFTAs at the AGM last month; and thank you to the people who took the time to nominate them. Both of them have spent huge amounts of their time and have gone the extra mile to be super-helpful and reliable, appreciating the work of the directors and group leaders supporting them when needed. Thank you both, for being very worthy winners.  We still haven’t decided what BAFTA actually stands for yet so you can put your thinking-hats on ready for next year’s awards.

You know how important I think it is to take the time to nominate someone for an award, not only does it give a boost to the individual or organisation, but it makes us feel better about the community we live in.  If you can think of between 50 and 200 words to praise a local person or organisation (it doesn’t have to be us!) please follow this link to nominate someone for the Yorkshire Choice Awards https://www.yorkshirechoiceawards.co.uk/nominatehere There are a number of different categories.  The deadline is an unspecified date in November.

At the recent BBC Make a Difference Awards we chatted to one of the winners, Sarah from The Living Room in Starbeck, Harrogate.  She offered us some surplus crafting supplies, and mentioned that they could do with some twiddlemuffs so we organised a visit, because we’re nosey, and we did a swap!

Lynne and I had two very exhausting but fun and rewarding days at Sunnybank Mills in Farsley and Hebden Bridge helping to raise funds for Tadcrafters. If anyone would like to join us some time please let us know. We will also be taking the lead on the Tombola stall at the Tadcaster Christmas Market on Sunday 3rd December and would very much appreciate a few volunteers to join us throughout the day as usual.  The stall seems to get busier every year and even 5 of us struggled to keep up with customers at some points last year.

We managed to get another chance to be included in the artwork project that Christopher Tipping is working on,TAD-ah! Project Chris was particularly keen to get as many Tadcrafters as possible, with some things we have made, and we were able to do that.  Radio York presenter Naj Modak didn’t want to miss out, so thank you to everyone who chatted to him. If you want to listen to the live interview that Chris did on the Bek Homer show (around 45min.21secs in – it’s around 3 mins long) then this is a link:. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0ggt1l2

Tadcaster Methodist Church are inviting individuals, groups and businesses to make a Shoebox Nativity Scene. These will be displayed in the Church on Sunday, 3rd December, the day of Tadcaster Christmas Market. They will be open from 10.00 am to 3.00 pm as will their Open Door Cafe.Any type of artwork, knitting, stitching can be used, you can be as creative as you like but it must be presented in a Shoebox. They hope that you will use your creative skills and join in, helping them to provide a fantastic Christmas display. Please contact Hazel Smith if you have any queries.

Please have a look at the calendar at the end of the newsletter for a summary of our future events.    

 TadCrafters Tadcaster Group Update

We are getting in lots of hot water bottle covers, hat/scarf sets and we’ve also managed to make lots of draught excluders over the last few months.  These have been going out to various places, but we have managed to have enough for the tombola too. We are still working through a back log of baby hats so please keep having a break from making them for the time being until the birth rate in York catches up. If you have any unfinished Christmas stockings or items for the Christmas tombola please make sure we have them by the November drop-in session. 

Lynne has been working hard on making wreaths from your poppies to re-decorate the War Memorial in Tadcaster.  If you’d like to see the poppy banners and big wreaths we made a few years ago, they will be on display in the Riley Smith Hall during their remembrance event.

The next Tadcrafters drop-in session will be Tuesday 14th November when we’ll be hoping to finish off the Christmas stockings, and get the tombola stuff ready for the stall.  Fingers crossed that our tombola experts can be there.

We will be joined again by Dr Vicki Pugh, a researcher from York St. John University and a specialist in working with communities.  She really enjoyed her last visit and is looking forward to chatting some more as part of her work on the Sustainable Tadcaster initiative; I know many of you said how much you enjoyed speaking to her.  We will also be visited by Nathalie Austin-Clarke from Inspiring Healthy Lifestyles. She will be coming along to let you know about free exercise classes and activities that are available in Tadcaster.

For a full list of all our current projects and where to find instructions please see the list towards the end of this newsletter.

 TadGrafters Wood-working Group Update

The Grafters are currently making flat-pack bat boxes for Andy at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust to give to their volunteer groups to make and fix in place at different sites across Yorkshire.

The Grafters are next due to meet on Weds 15th November 1-3pm at The Barn.  If you would like to help, or just come and see what the woodworkers do, just pop along to a session.  You don’t need to bring anything with you.

 Gardening Group update

The gardening group are planning to meet at 2pm on Friday 3rd November at Tadcaster Primary Academy to have a pre-winter tidying up session. We will also be organising another session in the near future at the Quaker Burial Ground to plant some more daffodil bulbs, the date to be confirmed shortly.

We now have an apple scratter and press in our possession so if you have surplus apples you would like to convert into apple juice (or cider!) and would like to borrow it then let us know.

If you are not already a member of the gardening group and would like to get involved, please

contact Sue T at tadcraftersst@outlook.com and contact tadcrafters@outlook.com to be put on the mailing list.

 Beekeeping Group Update

Regular visits to the bees have finished for the season now as it is too cold to open up the hives and they are settling down for the winter.

If you are interested in beekeeping and would maybe like to join the team, we recommend you investigate the training on offer with Barkston Ash or Leeds beekeepers.  Check out their websites to see what training they offer which generally only happens in winter/spring. It’s not compulsory to do the training to join our group but those who have done it have found it really useful.  If you would like to join us, just for a look or to help with regular inspections please contact us on tadcrafters@outlook.com.

 Sherburn Crafters Update

Apologies for the short notice about the changes in time for the October session.  I hope you all managed to see the message. We had a busy session this month with a few new people and amongst lots of other items managed to donate lots of forget-me-nots to the library for their dementia initiative, and these 6 friendly worry monsters to Children’s services bases in Sherburn.

We meet on the fourth Thursday each month at the Old Girls School and generally follow the same projects as the Tadcaster drop-in.  You are welcome to attend both if you wish.  The dates are in the calendar below.

If you would like to join the group just turn up at the session and email tadcrafters@outlook.com to ask to be added to the Sherburn mailing list.

List of Current TadCrafters projects 

We welcome anyone new who would like to join us but ask you to please stick to our current projects as other items can be hard to find homes for. We need to focus on a few projects at a time so we can support everyone, maintain our standards and supply items that are wanted by worthy causes, in appropriate quantities.  We are able to supply materials locally for free at our drop-in sessions and instructions are provided by email or by links if provided below; if you need help, please ask!

Sewing– supplied in kit form at the drop-off sessions

  • Personal effects bags for hospice patients and bereaved families at St. Leonard’s and St. Gemma’s Hospices
  • Syringe driver bags for hospitals and hospices
  • Drawstring book bags for the Banana box toy project
  • Liners, shields and drawstring bags for YorKits feminine hygiene kits
  • Heart-shaped cushions and drain bags for breast surgery patients (in sessions)
  • Draught excluders (in sessions)
  • Tombola items- miscellaneous kits

Knitting/crochet– yarn and needles available at the drop-off sessions

Other projects

  • If you can’t knit or sew there are non-sewing tasks such as threading drawstrings and decorating twiddlemuffs that are really useful to the team, please ask.
  • Picking-up/dropping-off donation or supplies for people who are unable to make the sessions. You could maybe team up with someone who cannot drive or has other commitments on session days.
  • Join our woodwork, gardening, or bee-keeping groups.
  • If you are interested in doing something positive to help tackle climate change, however small, follow the Sustainable Tadcaster Facebook page. Please get in touch if we can support you to kick-start a new initiative such as running a repair café, library of things, recycling or other circular economy scheme etc.

Wish list and other ways to help

  • A huge thank you to the many people who have donated many, many things to us and have kept us going. If you have some surplus that you would like donate to us please be aware that we are short of storage space so please try to stick as close as possible to our wish list, or speak to us first. Smaller donations can be made at The Barn, ideally at one of the Tuesday drop-in sessions. NB We cannot use worn, dirty or smoky clothes, fabric or yarn.  Fabric that is only fit for rags can be put directly into the collecting point outside the Salvation Army and save us a job. They have their own facilities to shred and recycle fabrics.  We welcome:
  • New or clean, nearly new polyester/cotton or other lightweight woven fabric
  • New or nearly new knitting yarn. Any colour or weight but double knitting would be great.
  • Items, especially hand-crafted ones, suitable for our tombola stalls
  • New or clean, nearly new winceyette (brushed cotton) sheets/fabric for Yorkits
  • Spectacles for Specsort who take them to people in  developing countries
  • “Gently worn” bras and new pants for “Smalls for All” http://smallsforall.org/
  • Vintage fabric, equipment and haberdashery *

*Any items not suitable or surplus to our own use we give or sell to people who really appreciate them, whilst also raising funds for our projects.

  • If you would like to make a financial donation/direct debit to help us do what we do you can do so on the Local Giving website which can be found at: https://localgiving.org/tadcrafters
  • Please share our social media posts and encourage others to join in.
  • Sign up to Easyfundraising to raise money for us at no extra cost to you when you shop online, https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/tadcrafterscic/
  • Visit our Etsy store to purchase top-quality fabric remnants that are surplus to our requirements https://www.etsy.com/shop/tadcrafters/      If you live in Tadcaster, contact us direct for a discount. NB these items are not stored at The Barn or available for viewing at sessions.
  • Support our campaign to find a place of our own. If you know of a local business that could provide us with sponsorship or free space that we could use to store goods and run workshops from please put them in touch with us.

Keep in touch

If you need to get in touch with us, and need a response, please use email. This is to protect your personal details and because messages and conversations on social media become lost. Someone will get back to you, but it might not be straight away due to other commitments. The Tadcrafters Chat Group or Sherburn Tadcrafters Chat Group is a great way to keep in touch with other Tadcrafters and be inspired. You can also follow the Tadcrafters page, (and Tadcrafters Sales page) on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and Instagram (@Tadcrafters). 

To be put on the emailing list/s (wherever you live) please request it by emailing tadcrafters@outlook.com  and add us to your list of contacts so we don’t end up in your junk. There are usually only one or two emails a month.

If you would like to be kept up to date about any of the specific group activities please email us and ask to be put on the relevant group mailing list and your email will be forwarded to the group leader.

See you soon, Su.

Directors Tadcrafters CIC: Su Morgan, Lynne Howard Sandra Levitt and Sue Tennant

DateEventTimeLocation
Tues 14th NovDrop-in workshop10am- 3pmThe Barn, Tadcaster
Weds 15th NovTadGrafters1-3pmThe Barn, Tadcaster
Thurs 23rd NovSherburn Crafters11-1pmSherburn Old Girls School
Sat 25th NovYorkits workshop10-12pmArt Room at Hartrigg Oaks, New Earswick, York
Sun 3rd DecChristmas Market10am- 3pmKirkgate, Tadcaster
Weds 6th DecYorkits fundraising stall and display9.30am 12pmTesco Askham Bar
Tues 12th DecDrop-in workshop10am- 3pmThe Barn, Tadcaster
Weds 13th DecTadGrafters1-3pmThe Barn, Tadcaster
Thurs 28th Dec*Sherburn Crafters11-1pmSherburn Old Girls School TBC*
Tues 9th JanDrop-in workshop10am- 3pmThe Barn, Tadcaster
Weds 10th JanTadGrafters1-3pmThe Barn, Tadcaster
Thurs 25th JanSherburn Crafters11-1pmSherburn Old Girls School