The Music Conversation Club is a new group launched by Poison Apple Arts CIC, a female led company that aims to provide social conversation and music activities to adults who are feeling isolated during the pandemic.

The Conversation Club creates a platform for people of Salford to meet on Zoom and chat about their favourite musical memories, then take part in short music activities with Poison Apple Arts’ in-house musician Liam.  

Poison Apple Arts have a combination of  a social space to chat alongside creative workshops which is successful via zoom delivery.

The new music group is a spin-off of Poison Apples Arts’ successful  “Dry Open Mic” which is aimed at adults in drugs or alcohol recovery and is based on previous popular Creative Conversation Clubs.

Poison Apple Arts CIC was founded by Quina Chapman and Kaylea Mitchell-Simon as Poison Apple Theatre when they were students in 2008 at Salford University and established as a Community Interest Company in May 2017 and the work is now  funded by Salford CVS.

Quina Chapman said: “We each have an interest in community arts and wellbeing, and in facilitating opportunities for people to learn new skills, gain new experiences and share their stories in the arts.”

We do a lot of creative writing work (allowing people to freely express themselves and a form of escapism), a lot of relaxation work and we frequently publish our participants’ work in booklets.”

Copyright- Poison Apple Arts, Quina Chapman

Poison Apple Arts utilize the 5 Ways to Wellbeing: Give Connect, Take Notice, Keep Learning and Be Active in all workshops and arts activity, particularly music and drama, and have been proven to increase people’s confidence, wellbeing and skills such as communication and team work.

The workshops are open to adults from Salford aged 18+ who have an interest in arts and wellbeing. Poison Apple Arts have adapted all the sessions to cater for a range of different needs.

Quina Chapman Said that: “Our workshops are a safe space, inclusive and supportive and we work with people with a range of needs and from a range of backgrounds.”

What are your plans for when Covid-19 restrictions are lifted?

  • “Poison Apple Arts work with older and vulnerable people and safety of our staff and participants is very important to us. We won’t be returning to face-to-face sessions until we are 100% sure it is safe to do so, and all of our staff are vaccinated.” 
  • “I hope this will be before the summer but we do not know. Once we believe it is safe to do so we will continue to run our workshops face-to-face in Salford, as we did before the pandemic, most likely from The Broughton Hub. We are holding a consultation for our participants on Tuesday 23rd March at 6pm on Zoom so that we can find out how we can continue to support participants in the future, and what people would like to see from us once restrictions are lifted.”

For further information about Salford’s Poison Apple Arts CIC or on how to take part in their workshops you can visit their social media pages on Twitter as well as as on Tumblr.

 

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