The Story Parks initiative is set to launch next week bringing with it activities and stories across five different parks.
July and August will see a five-week interactive outdoor pop-up reading and numeracy camp of stories, activities and games taking place in Nottingham City’s Green Flag parks.
The City Council is partnering with Nottingham Building Society - known as The Nottingham - for this innovative new project aimed to get more young families developing their reading and mathematical skills in the beautiful settings of the city’s parks. The Nottingham is supporting StoryParks with a donation of £17,500 and some of its team will be volunteering during the course of the project too.
StoryParks carries the slogan ‘A summer of imagination’, and as well as reading activities people will have the chance to take part in arts and crafts, music, park ranger sessions, nature trails and more.
Part of the inspiration for the project is the story of the building society’s founder, Samuel Fox. Born in the city in the 1700s, Fox was an abolition Quaker, keen philanthropist and supporter of education for all. He started the first Adult School in 1798 to enable factory girls to practice reading and writing. Professional storyteller Nicky Rafferty, who hails from Nottingham, visited The Nottingham’s head office recently to engage the team in the art of storytelling with a series of workshops. Rafferty is also passionate about the legacy of Samuel Fox.
His story has been developed by the project into a story for children – The Tales of Sammy Fox. It is one of the major inspirations for StoryParks, an idea which originally came from Nottingham City Council’s Libraries Service.
Work has begun on transforming each venue, with interesting features and sculptures in place in each park that are well worth seeing and taking a selfie next to when StoryParks gets underway for all on 29 July.
Forest Recreation Ground will have a hedgehog, there will be an owl at Wollaton Park, Highfields Park will house a boat, a chair will be placed at Vernon and a stack of books will be installed at Woodthorpe. They will serve as aides in sessions themed around nature and the environment and people will have the option to drop in and use the project resources, but also to get involved with programmed activities including storytelling, park ranger sessions and much more.
Support of £20,000 has also come from the Nottingham City Council’s Nottingham Together project which supports activities specially designed to connect communities, bring people together and make the city a great place for everyone to live.
For more information please contact Jane Barton on jane.barton@nottinghamcity.gov.uk or 0115 8761222
To get everyone in the mood for StoryParks, The Nottingham is keen to find out which books the public most enjoys. David Marlow’s number one choice is Made in America, the autobiography of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. His favourite book as a child was Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Find 'The Nottingham' on Facebook or Twitter to say which book you most like reading and why.
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