New courses galore at Frome Community Education next term…

Frome Community Education’s Spring Programme of Adult Learning Courses is now available to view online and the brochure highlighting their new classes is being distributed around town in local shops and cafes.

If you are stuck for ideas for what to buy (or ask for!) for Christmas, look no further, with some one-day workshops starting from as little as £18. This is Frome Community Education’s biggest ever programme, with 18 entirely new courses starting from January.

New arts and crafts courses include ‘Creative Sketchbooking’, a five-week course taught by artist and sculptor Fiona Campbell, exploring a range of art techniques and sketchbook practice in an engaging and inventive way. The course will cover drawing, line, tone, form, colour-mixing, composition, pattern, scale, and basic printmaking with all techniques being documented in your own sketchbook. It is suitable for mixed abilities including beginners.

If you like the idea of sketchbooking but don’t have time to commit to a five-week course, Julia Blaker is running a new one-day ‘Make a Concertina Sketchbook’ course on Saturday 1st March.

Fiona Campbell is also running ‘Eco Sculpture’, a five-week sculpture course to create nature-inspired sculptural work, using found and recycled materials. The aim is to have fun exploring and experimenting, and to develop new skills including wirework, making and using botanical dyes and papier mâché techniques. Again, this course is suitable for mixed abilities.

‘Upholstery Design and Make’ is a five or 10-week upholstery course aimed at all skill levels. New tutor Angela Lamb will teach you how to apply your creative ideas to make a unique piece for your home, tailored to suit your level of ability.

Tutor Catherine Beale returns with two new one-day watercolour offerings, ‘Dreamy Landscapes’ and ‘Patterned Fieldscapes’. Jeanette Magson is offering a new one-day workshop, ‘Creating Art Through the Senses’ and Jessica Wilker has a new collage course ‘Curles and Curves’ to help you create your own unique collage artwork.

There are also a wide range of new culture courses on offer. Dr Alan Butcher is offering a whole new perspective on our local environment with ‘The World Beneath Your Feet – Geology Around Frome’. If you have ever wondered why there is a leat running down Cheap Street, why Frome is built from limestone rather than red brick, or what exactly those railway wagons are carrying every day along the trainline, then this is most definitely the course for you.

David Lassman is offering ‘A Secret History of Britain’ (described as “not for the faint-hearted!”) as well as ‘Myths to Live By’. He is also running three one-day workshops ‘Literary Frome’, ‘Radical Frome’, and ‘Frome At War’.

Roz Sunley returns with a five-week current affairs course ‘Curious Issues in a Confusing World’ and has also introduced a new five-week course ‘Artificial Intelligence – An Introduction for Beginners’ to help us all get up to speed on the future applications, limitations, regulation and ethics of AI.

Frome Comm Ed is also continuing to build its Health & Wellbeing course offering. Samuel Grove, an experienced fitness instructor, who specialises in physical rehabilitation and recovery is introducing ‘Body Balanced’. This class is aimed at all levels of ability, and would benefit anyone with a poor level of fitness, muscle or back pain, poor posture or flexibility. It is comprised of strength work, stretching and core training and aims to help alleviate both pain and stress from your body!   

Programme manager, Pia McGee, comments “This is our busiest and best programme yet. We have tried to introduce a range of one-Day workshops, and to offer both five and 10-week courses to suit people’s busy lives and budgets. We have also increased our range of evening and Saturday courses. We really hope that there is something for everyone!”

For more information and to book, visit www.fromecommed.org.uk or drop in to the Box Office at the Cheese & Grain.

Pictured: Liz Ferris, new German tutor, Fiona Campbell and a sample Eco Sculpture, Sam Grove, and Dr Alan Butcher with some 150-million-year-old fossils!