In the summer of 2023, CAST-Off returned to the walled garden at National Trust Penrose for four sessions of outdoor creative activities. In addition to this, three sessions were held at Coronation Gardens in Helston and the final session of the summer was held on Gunwalloe Beach.
Following on from the previous three years of CAST-Off, this year’s programme offered a variety of artist-led activities and opportunities for free creative play. In the walled garden, artists helped families make tiny intaglio prints, assemble matchbox museums, draw with shells, make beads from local clays, create charm ribbons, carve stone, polish serpentine, make their own artist brushes and weave a giant nest.
Coronation Gardens was a new location for this year’s CAST-Off. The gardens offer a location closer to home for many families living in Helston. The weather was bad, but access to the Scout Hut enabled activities to continue. There was a focus on ‘make and play’ at these sessions, with children making folk masks from cardboard and repurposing plastic bottles to create a wonderful variety of vehicles to play with at home. At Gunwalloe families made fish kites, paper boats, and flags for sandcastles, as well as painting pebbles with clay slips.
This year CAST’s learning team also delivered two weeks of outdoor activity for local schools before the CAST-Off programme began. Groups from six local primary schools joined the CAST team in the walled garden at Penrose to collect natural treasures, tell stories, and draw together. Activity maps, designed by learning specialist Lucy Grant, were handed out at the sessions, encouraging children to return and explore the trail from the Fairground car park to the walled garden in their own time, collecting stamps along the way.
CAST-Off 2023 was part-funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. The programme was also supported by Helston Town Council and Little Parc Owles Trust.
We should also like to thank the Garcia Family Foundation, whose support enabled us to initiate the CAST-Off programme during the pandemic.
