In The Loop – 30 July 2021

Autumn Term courses available to book from 9.30am on Monday 2 August.

I am delighted to say the new selection of around 250 courses and workshops for the Autumn term will be available to book from next week.

All the courses are now listed and can be viewed on www.bristolcourses.com but the booking links and web enrol pages won’t be open and working until Monday morning.

You can book courses online, over the phone or in person at Stoke Lodge.
Please bear with us over the first few days, if you don’t get through on the phone, do try us again in a few minutes or please leave a message and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

If you have an account with us, you can book online at Web.Enrol (webenrol.com).
If you haven’t used your account for a while it may be worth logging in before you book to check you can get in ok and have remembered your password correctly!

For all online bookings you should get two email confirmations from our system.
One to confirm your payment has been processed and one to confirm your place on the course has been booked.  Please look out for both and do give us a call if you only get one confirmation or have any problems.

Staff will be in bright and early on Monday fuelled up and ready with plenty of tea and coffee to start taking calls from 9.30am.

Our terrific team

I am extremely grateful to our fantastic development workers Marlis and Veronique and to all our amazing tutors for pulling together such a fantastic and varied programme.  Coordinating all those courses, sorting rooms, and wrangling with diaries is quite a task.  Never mind all the checking and proofreading required.

I am also very grateful to the Administrative team of Sam, Maria and Abi who have had the task of updating our databases and systems with all the new courses and course details and getting them all correct and ready for booking next week.

I feel very blessed to be working as part of such a committed and skilled team.

Continuing to be cautious

We will be continuing to watch the local and national restrictions and guidance over the summer and all courses are starting with lower than usual maximum numbers, to allow more space in the classrooms as we cautiously return to in person learning.

A few courses are remaining online so do check the details for each course on the website before you book.  We will update all our learners with any specific restrictions before the start of term.

Amazing artwork

Yesterday evening I was lucky enough to get to visit the fantastic art exhibition of work by 11 artists who have all been learning with tutor Laurel Smart over the last year.

The exhibition held at the Create Centre included work by Jane Boot, Kate Howard, Lyn Harradine, Stella Berkeley, Susie Harvey, Mina Malpass, Liza Donoghue, Jo Hearn, Di Ward, Jan Denton, Maggie Pearson, and Tutor Laurel Smart.

There were some truly beautiful pieces from all the artists, and I want to congratulate them all on a wonderful display of work.

Once again, we are one of the host venues for the BS9 Arts Trail on the weekend of the 4/5 September and along with displays from the BS9 artists we plan to have work from Stoke Lodge learners on display in the main foyer and in the corridors.

Our learners always have something amazing to show and I do hope many of you will be able to come along, view all their hard work and maybe even be inspired to sign up to one of the wonderful creative courses on offer.

Stoke Lodge has a very talented team of creative tutors offering courses in lots of disciplines for beginners and the more experienced learner, so really something for everyone who fancies getting their creative juices flowing.

As always stay safe, have a peaceful summer break and we look forward to seeing many of you in the Autumn term.

Kindest regards
Jenny