Wednesday 21 May 2014

OPEN DAY



 Last Saturday the 17th May was our first stand alone open day since we moved from North street to this new address. Our other open days here, were held in conjunction with the art society open days, so we really had no idea if people were coming to see us, or we got the overflow from the art society.

We placed adds in some of the local papers in the week leading up to the event, and even had a interview with a reporter from the Press who came to the workshop, and took some photos, one of which was in the paper.

The first visitors arrived at approximately 9:50am, and there was a steady stream until we closed the doors after the last had left just after 4pm. At some stages the rooms were packed with people looking at the exhibits in the main room and the bricks in the brick room. All in all, we think about 130/140 people attended.

The most pleasing thing was that we has a wide range of ages, from teenagers to seniors, all interested in what we do and what we had on show. We had people whose parents or Grandparents had lived on Castlereagh Road and were able to give us some information about the area we did not have.

We did not keep a record of how many people there were, but we did ask most of them where they had heard about the open day,  most said that it was from the ads in the papers, mostly the Press and the Gazette.  There were several that were walking past, saw our signs and just decided to come in.

There was some confusion about the address saying the (old council chamber) so we will have to be more specific with our ads next time.

None of us had time for lunch or any breaks, but we all enjoyed sharing our passion with the local community, all in all it was a very successful day.