Fun Palace

Fun Palaces is a national initiative designed to put community at the heart of culture, and the reason why it has captured our imagination is that it provides a fantastic opportunity to open our doors to our neighbours and to share in the creative energy and ideas that come from our Cobden Works home.

On Saturday 2 October we opened the doors at Cobden Works for East Salford's 2021 Fun Palace and put on a range of fun activities that encouraged everyone, of all ages, to have a go at something.

Activities for children and families – a chance to meet new neighbours – a place to learn about what you can do to reduce, reuse or recycle more.

Walk the Plank’s HQ is located in an area dominated by rubbish, with the recycling centre, waste management, skip lorries and fly-tipping. This year’s Fun Palace focused on recycling and rubbish. We invited our neighbours to come over and make things from recycled materials, take part in a rubbish procession, and help minimise food waste (by eating all the food!)

"What a load of rubbish!" encouraged everyone to...

- REDUCE your carbon footprint and walk or come on the bus

- REUSE ideas from the day with friends and family

- RECYCLE your shiny metal objects or valuable piece of treasure by giving them as a gift for the Collector: please bring something along.

We also showed off some lovely things created from our summer programme in Salford
• Tin Can suits from the Thank You weekender
• Magpie puppet, The Collector, from Irwell Walks
• Climate Change Myth Buster

Coalesce Dance performed and Afrocats and Herstory women's group provided a delicious lunch! We had a brilliant day of art workshops, creativity and fun with our neighbours in East Salford.