Our highlights from 2024
Each spring, we reflect on our year just gone. Here we share a look at our 2024 highlights.
What a wonderful year we had in 2024! In this post we’ll share a small selection of our highlights, and you can download our full 2024 PDF below.
In 2024, we continued to deliver our unique core weekly creative sessions, Zest, in Whitstable, Deal and Hythe, as well as launching our new Medway Zest group at Gillingham’s Sunlight Centre in April.
“No one else is doing what Bright Shadow do… it’s what’s missing! I go to other groups but they’re not like this. I can’t explain it but this is so different. I’m doing things I never knew existed and we’re having such good times and that carries on after the group. You cannot know the difference you’re making…“
Zest Medway participant
In the spring our Picture This writing and photography short course returned, this time at Turner Contemporary in Margate. Led by photographers Jen Holland and Miriam Simmons, and author Liz Jennings, the sessions produced extraordinary photographs and blossoming relationships between participants, artists and volunteers. Picture This returned later in 2024 in partnership with Age UK Hythe Lyminge and Ashford.
As summer swung round, we ran our third year of Zest Goes Green: six weekly sessions in community gardens across Kent and Medway. Through our theme, Gardens of the World, we danced, sang and made our way across the globe with the help of exceptional artists and fantastical flora.
We welcomed new trustees to our board, including two trustees living with dementia, extending and strengthening the ways in which people with dementia are involved at the heart of our organisation. With this mission in mind, we also piloted our first Open Forum events, creative days in which all our participants and the wider community have the opportunity to come together, sharing what everybody wants to see, taking part in music and improvisation to spark new ideas, and a communal lunch to foster conversations.
Autumn saw the return of our Zest at Home sessions, in which we offer a series of bespoke creative sessions in participants’ own homes, for people living with dementia in Kent and Medway who are unable to access our group sessions, are isolated, experiencing a crisis or a sudden loss of communication skills. Sessions are fully funded, and offer a vital and unique lifeline for people with dementia and loved ones. We are proud to have delivered Zest at Home in the homes of eleven participants before the year was out, with more sessions ongoing.
In the autumn we also launched two new choirs. Dementia Chorus runs weekly in Hythe, in partnership with Age UK Hythe Lyminge and Ashford, with Bright Shadow artist Emily Watts. Emily also leads our new Medway Choir, alongside renowned vocal coach Mark de Lisser, thanks to funding from Power of Music, managed by the National Academy for Social Prescribing.
Also in the autumn, staff, volunteers and trustees from Bright Shadow had the privilege of attending two awards ceremonies, recognising our contribution to the effective delivery of health and wellbeing services across Kent and Medway. At the Kent Mental Wellbeing Awards, organised by Mind Bexley and East Kent, we won the Disability Service Award for our work in the Folkestone and Hythe District Council area, and were delighted to receive the overall Kent Disability Champion Award 2024 as well. At the Kent Charity Awards, we were finalists in the Best Use of Volunteers Charity of the Year category. As the only arts organisation represented at both ceremonies, we are honoured that our collaborative, values-led cultural practice with and for people living with dementia and supporters is recognised as contributing to positive mental health outcomes for all involved.
We can’t wait to see what 2025 brings!