“What a load of rubbish!” — Fun Palace in East Salford

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.

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.