Burgh Blethers in Inverkeithing

Starting on 31st July 2016, Fife storytellers Burgh Blethers are moving their monthly storytelling club to The Friary in Inverkeithing. We are delighted to welcome them to the town, and in particular the beloved Friary, a fitting venue for safeguarding and promoting the oral traditions in Scottish culture.

The club is free and open to adults and young people of secondary school age who are interested in storytelling in all its guises. Usually there is a theme and if folk want to tell a story or give a poem or sing a song related, however loosely, to the theme, they can let Kate and Rowan know at the start of the session. People might simply just want to listen or join in the chat, and that’s fine too – it’s all fairly informal.

Here is the club’s current newsletter:

New Venue and Dates for Club
From this month our storytelling club will be moving to the old Friary beside the Civic Centre in Inverkeithing. Rowan has booked the venue for the next 6 months as a trial and the date will revert back to the last Sunday of every month from 2-4pm, starting this month on Sunday the 31st of July. This means there is NO session at the Bruery on July 24th.
I hope the short notice of this change  will not inconvenience anyone too much but the idea of the venue was introduced to us only very recently . It seems a really good location for us and an opportunity we thought we should not miss. The Friary is the oldest building in Inverkeithing, has lovely gardens to the rear and inside has a great space for storytelling. The building currently belongs to the Common Good and as long as we are not charging and the local community can access our sessions, the venue is free to us. There is also free car parking close by or, if you are coming to the club by bus or train, the Friary is a 5 minute walk from either Inverkeithing Railway Station or Ferrytoll  Bus Park and Ride. This may be of particular interest to tellers and members who are coming from further away.
The actual building is much more accessible than The Bruery or Abbot House and has a nice kitchen which we can  have use of too. As some of you may know, Inverkeithing is also one of Fife’s many Royal Burghs, so our club name is still very relevant for a local Fife Storytelling club.

Birthday Bash
It’s hard to believe, but our next session in July will see Burgh Blethers reach its first birthday ! To celebrate this we’re having a bit of a birthday bash. Our theme for the session will be’ Presents’ and we will be indulging in a bit of cake eating too……
Our guest for the afternoon will be writer Mary Easson, who will share with us the inspiration behind her well received first novel ‘Black Rigg’, a story set in a Scottish Mining Village in West Lothian in 1910. Mary also recently was a joint winner of the Scottish Storytelling Centre’s ‘Create a Legend’ competition with her short story ‘The Legend of the Witches Crag’ and you will be able to hear about the ‘roots’ of this story too.
So-Please join us in The Friary on the 31st of July from 2-4pm.  Let us know if you are intending to come and bringing any friends ( to help with the size of the cake slices….) !

Looking forward to seeing you all there.
Best wishes,
Kate

Kate Walker

Storyteller
Chatterbox Stories, Fife

Ph:  01383 724876
07745 957134

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Festive Makers Market 2015 – The Photographs

Some photographs taken at the fabulous Festive Makers Market we hosted in December 2015 at the Civic Centre in Inverkeithing. The very talented Iwan Thomas kindly volunteered to take these great shots of the day for us. Iwan and his partner Sue Walker are the creators of Matty and Vee Vintage,  a gorgeous 1970s Arial Sprite vintage caravan which they have lovingly restored and now has a new lease of life as a travelling photo booth! Matty and Vee Vintage are available for a wide variety of events and celebrations.

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A sample of some of the beautiful, wild and wonderful items on show and for sale at the Festive Makers Market.

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Children’s Storytellers Kate and Rowan in full flow to their appreciative audience in the Inverkeithing Civic Centre Cafe.

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Festive Makers Market 12th December – Thank You!

A great big thank you to everyone who visited our Festive Makers Market in Inverkeithing Civic Centre on Saturday 12th December. We hope you had lots of fun and enjoyed looking around at all of the beautiful art and crafts which filled the hall. Lots of unique hand made gifts will certainly be opened with much enjoyment this Christmas! We heard lots of compliments on the amazingly high standard of the work on show, and we totally agree. There was also a lot of conversations going on, between visitors and makers, and between the makers themselves, with some fascinating collaborations being discussed for the future!

IMG_1394Thank you to all the lovely artists and makers: Tom Bishop-de-Main, Lainy Allison, My Cherry Pie, Maria Hickman, Craig and Caren Gilbert, The Barbary Wood, Pots by Val Burns, Glass Act, Seacycle, Bigbyrd Design, Joyce’s Jewellery, Boxofrix, Black Rock Textiles, Norman Bews Landscape Photography, Elaine Bews, Tubular, Karen Trotter, aisydaisy, Filo di Lana, Cook’s Craft and Martine Greig. And thank you all for your beautiful raffle prizes – the winners will all be thrilled to win an original work of art!

IMG_1397Thanks also to Kate Walker the storyteller, and her apprentice Rowan Morrison, who engaged the children with so much wonder, laughter and magic, and worked so hard all afternoon. We can’t believe how much you put into your stories, rhymes and sangs, and your presence was very much appreciated. We do hope to collaborate with you both again in offering children and adults alike access to the magic of storytelling.

Thanks also to The Scottish Book Trust for generously supplying us with lots of wonderful childrens’ books to give away to wee visitors, and to the Inverkeithing Library Service for having a stall filled with free book-related goodies and information about library services.

Thanks to the Inverkeithing Food Group for collaborating with us once again with your festive foodie activities and helping to provide a day of fun activities in Inverkeithing – helping to show off our town to visitors and residents alike. Also, because you open up the beautiful medieval Friary to be used and enjoyed, it reminds everyone of its value for our community as a meeting space and as a heritage building to be treasured.

And a very big thank you to our volunteers: Andrew, Adam, Sandy, Megan, Ollie, Isaac and Rosie for helping out with refreshments, the IAI information stall, the IAI art stall, and the children’s crafting activities. Thanks to Iwan of Matty and Vee Vintage for volunteering to take photographs of the day, and to Karen for selling Art Raffle tickets all week at The Millbrae Cafe – we couldn’t do it without you all!

We’ll be posting the photographs taken by Iwan Thomas soon so watch this space!

Children’s Storytelling – Stories, Sangs and Rhymes

CHATTERBOX STORIES will be at the INVERKEITHING FESTIVE MAKERS MARKET on Saturday 12th December 1PM-4PM.  Children of all ages are invited to drop in, absolutely FREE (thanks to Fife Council), and experience the magic of the season with ‘Winter Tales’ by joining in and listening to stories, sangs and rhymes. You’ll find them in the Cafe of Inverkeithing Civic Centre, where there will also be children’s crafting activities related to the stories.

xkatewalker.jpg,qitok=7W15svY4.pagespeed.ic.M7fKE6E1ICLocal storyteller Kate Walker of Chatterbox Stories and Burgh Blethers will be joined by storytelling apprentice Rowan Morrison for the afternoon of ‘stories, sangs and rhymes’. We’ll be hearing about Santa and Rudolf, Jack Frost and The Happy Prince, The Three Bears and Auld Ted, and many many more. It’s sure to be a fun and magical afternoon!

Storytelling is a wonderful way for a community to come together, and we invite all of the children of Inverkeithing and surrounding towns, as well as all our young visitors to the Makers Market from far and wide, to come along, listen, and join in with Kate and Rowan.

We are collaborating with Spittalfield Residents and Tenants Association to make sure the word gets out about it, and The Scottish Book Trust are generously giving us lots of lovely children’s books to give away to wee visitors! Parents and carers can also find out about children joining the library and all of the events and activities which go on in public libraries across Fife and Scotland.