By Dee Hughes (The Story Works Founder), 2023
I celebrated my fifty second birthday by leaving the house at 5:30am to catch the very early flight to Edinburgh to attend the biennial Writing Our World conference. My wife’s advice to ‘try and enjoy yourself’, a challenge to my alleged curmudgeonly character, was a bit rude but probably fair comment. So I joined the thirty charity groups from three continents at the Scottish Storytelling Centre for three days of workshops, discussion and the sharing of ideas and best practice. This being my first visit to the conference I was met with one or two familiar faces as a result of my earlier work to establish contact with already established groups. Those that I had not met before were quick to introduce themselves and take an interest in the work The Story Works is doing.
Across the three days each group was tasked with carrying out a short presentation outlining an innovation they had introduced to their work. The innovation I was able to present centred not on a particular workshop but on the model The Story Works had created that allowed us to function with next to no money. On the conclusion of my presentation more than one person exclaimed I was a genius, no really, and they couldn’t believe nobody had ever thought of setting up a group based at a university before. My smug demeanour failed to last as I revealed it wasn’t genius but rather something we had stumbled across but being called a genius, if you never have, trust me, it feels good.
Over the next three days I made a lot of friends, discovered the most amazing book that one of the groups from Italy use on their workshops. Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini is a truly staggering work of genius and one that the children from Poole, Christchurch and Bournemouth will shortly be introduced to. This and many other great workshop ideas were demonstrated and shared as a way of demonstrating the strength of the feeling and belief among those at the conference about the value of the work we do. 826 National revealed they are now on target to deliver their workshops to over a million children next year.
The conference concluded with an agreement to meet in two years’ time to continue to build the bonds of friendship and support that was so evident throughout the three days. It is hoped that new groups will be in attendance and maybe groups can work together across borders to introduce children from different countries to each other’s culture. My over riding feeling on returning home was that I had received confirmation that the work The Story Works is doing is of huge value. Also, The Story Works is now a part of a world-wide community that will enable us to grow and develop the work we do. So, contrary to my wife’s prediction I did enjoy myself and I look forward to enjoying myself in two years’ time when we meet again.
