Grant funding story #6: Bolton Contemporary

27/11/2020

Walking Grant funding: Covid 19 success stories
#6 Bolton Contemporary CIC

This is the sixth in a series of blogs looking at how voluntary and community organisations helped with funding from GM Walking Grants, have adapted to help their community during Covid 19.

Accessible Adventures

Bolton Contemporary CIC have created a series of booklets which include maps and walking activities, for use in parks in an around Bolton.

These Accessible Adventures leaflets are aimed at people with limited mobility.

Downloads of these booklets are available on the links below, and for the following parks:

Here’s GM Walks Q&A with Bolton Contemporary

This interview took place in 2020, and gives an insight into about their plans to use the GM Walking Grant funding for producing walking guides aimed at disabled people or people with limited mobility. These guides are now available to download as booklets on the right hand side of this page.

Context / overview of what you do:

Bolton Contemporary CIC is a socially engaged art group that works with local people and organisations to make visual art. We believe making and interacting with visual art is something that should be accessible to everyone. We are particularly interested in working with people representative of Greater Manchester’s diverse population.

We offer a wide range of workshops and events run by our staff who are Enhanced DBS checked qualified teachers. We use our Riso MZ770 to produce art prints, zines, greetings cards and other publications. We work with all age groups, abilities and backgrounds to produce, exhibit and engage with Contemporary Art.

Why did you apply for the grant and what are you wanting to achieve with this approach?

Lockdown has been a challenging time for the entire population. As parents shielding our high risk children we have found it particularly difficult to take exercise, maintain social distancing and find walks suitable for our daughter’s wheelchair. Through some deep internet research and our own rambling experiments we’ve found some suitable areas for our family to have a walk in Greater Manchester. We are interested in producing walking guidebooks that provide routes, actionable information and activities for families and people with additional accessibility needs to walk in Manchester.

Who did you hope to engage with?

Our aim is to be as accessible as possible. We will produce our initial walking guides and distribute them online on www.boltoncontemporary.com and by mail. We will leverage our contact network of schools and local organisations to get these publications to the right people. We will then seek contributions from the public and support them in the publication of their ideas in future walking guides.

How the approach has been adapted?

The Walking Guides will be available both online and as free physical booklets. We will work with people in a similar position and curate a selection of guides. The guides will mirror the style of classic rambling guides but adapted for our audience. We want to cater for families that include disabled members, disabled people and anyone with limited mobility. The guides will include accurate, clear maps and the walks will be thoroughly documented with distances and elevation. We will provide engaging activities tailored to each walk to react to the world around them. Based on our initial format, we want participants to contribute their own routes and activities to future guides.

Any examples of how it’s working so far?

We’re working on the first booklet mock up now, we should have imagery and content to share in the next week. (-Autumn 2020)

These booklets are now available to download on the right hand side of this page.

Where can we find more information, and your contact details?

https://www.boltoncontemporary.com

email: boltoncontemporary@gmail.com

Facebook: BoltonContemporary

Instagram: boltoncontemporary

Twitter:boltoncontemp