I set a self-imposed task of writing a blog each week throughout lockdown, and last week I didn’t complete the task. My head was too full of all the news about lifting the lockdown, there was a lot to process. In all honesty I’m not sure I’ve processed the information yet; I think I’m still waiting to see what happens. I’ll admit I was distracted; I had forgotten what it was I had planned to do.
It is all too easy to get distracted by the immediate things at the moment, and to stop seeing the big picture that you originally committed to. New Brewery Arts have a written definition of what we are here for, why we exist, these are called our ‘charitable objects’. Our three objects are rather wordy and are written in legal-ese rather than day-to-day language. They are:
To advance the education and appreciation of the public in relation to the arts and artistic crafts;
To enrich the life of the community by providing facilities, open to the widest possible public access, for education and recreation in the arts and artistic crafts;
To provide cultural and recreational facilities and opportunities to everyone in the surrounding communities, for purposes of learning and social well-being.
Recently we distilled these formal objects into our purpose. We wanted to put these rather wordy objects into language we could actually use.
“New Brewery Arts connects people with the hand-made, promotes the joy and fulfilment of making and celebrates the role of craft and creativity in all our lives.”
So, as we ask ourselves is it even possible to do what we did before? How to we teach a manual, dexterous skill at two meters? How do we serve a coffee? How do we sell a scarf? It feels a like having to learn to walk again, things that were once automatic now require thought and attention.
Our purpose feels like our torch, it shines a light for us on the path we should take. Its an exciting path, full of connection with people, with joy and fulfilment all coming together through craft and creativity. I am sure that whatever happens as, and when we reopen, if we focus on our purpose, and we focus on the very reason why we exist as a charity we can’t go wrong.