Category: Benalla Rugged Up

'Benalla Rugged Up' - Why Yarnbomb? Answering peoples' questions

5/8/2019

'Benalla Rugged Up' 2019 was installed by the Benalla Yarn Bombers on Friday 2nd August. There has been an overwhelmingly warm response on NEA's Facebook Page to posts we have shared, however we are aware that some people are perplexed, asking questions about the event and that the reception has been mixed on some social media sites.

The 'Benalla Rugged Up' planning portal on this website received a question through the contact us page ' '

"People have been asking why we are wrapping trees etc.
Can you email me the purpose of Yarn Bombing and what it is supporting please.
(Name Supplied)"

We asked Joy Shirley from Benalla Yarn Bombers to reply to our reader - here is Joy's reply:

'Benalla Rugged Up', an annual yarn bombing event, came about in 2018 when thinking about something that could involve the community at a quiet time of the year - winter. As the ideas developed, we realised that the end of winter meant that the streetscape had little colour and that yarn bombing could bring colour to the street.

There are a number of people in town who knit and crochet and this would give them an outlet for their creativity. As the ideas developed further, we found that homelessness week occured in August as well, so the thought of encouraging the community to be aware of homelessness in the north east while warming up our town also developed.

So the thoughts behind the event became warmlng/rugging up Benalla while encouraging awareness of the need to help to rug up people who are homeless."

The reasons underpinning yarnbombing events and the chosen sites vary. Bendigo yarn bombers yarn bomb a tram; while on the weekend of the Chiltern Jam Session festival in late July the pillars in the streets of Chiltern are yarn bombed with colourful squares containing music 'notes'.. In Benalla, trees and elements of the streetscape in the retail precinct are the focus of the yarnbombers' attention.

Would you like to read more:about yarn bombing?

'Knit one, Purl One - the mysteries of yarn bombing unravelled' Alyce McGovern, The Conversation

Bendigo Tramway = 'Yarn Bomb Tram'

'Yarn Bombing Lifts Spirits of Drought Hit Warwick '

0 Comments

Benalla is now 'Rugged Up'!

4/8/2019

0 Comments

Friday was a busy but successful day, “rugging up” Benalla. The majority of the installation was complete by around 3:30 on Friday. This included installations on trees and bollards along Mair, Nun and Carrier streets. Saturday a small group checked the installation and made adjustments and additions as available. This included some extra bollards covered in Carrier Street and a few repairs.

Thanks to everyone who contributed, and particularly to those who helped with installation activities. A special thank you to the ANZ bank volunteers who did so much of the installation work.

"Wandering around with her camera on Saturday I spoke with a few locals and visitors. In general everyone was positive. One gentleman even commented that it felt it warmed up the town. So good work to everyone." said Joy Shirley, Coordinator.

There are also some decorations outside Cooinda, the Uniting Churchand out in Swanpool. So get out and have a look around.

Over the next few weeks, we need to keep an eye on the installation and make repairs if necessary. We do not want things to start looking untidy – not a good look for our town. If you see a problem, and you cannot fix it yourself, send me a message and I will see what can be done to make sure all still looks good.

The removal of the work will take place on 31 August., coordinated by Chris Dunster will be co-ordinating . If you can helplet Joy know = Joy pass on your details to Chris.

Well done to all!

Joy Shirley

0 Comments

Benalla Yarn Bombing Event in final stage of preparation

29/7/2019

0 Comments

Hello All

We are now in the final stage of preparation for the “Benalla Rugged Up” yarn bombing event. The last week has seen good progress, but there is always more that can be done.

Here is a summary of where we are at (updates from last week’s status information in green; effort still required in red):

We have submitted our Event application; Waminda Community House is again covering us for insurance. As a gesture of appreciation, it would be great if people could join Waminda as a member. This is not mandatory, but they are helping us, and this is one way that we can help them increase their membership numbers (this in turn helps them with grant applications). Let me know if you would like a membership application. It only costs $5. A number of us have already submitted our membership applications.
We have submitted a Community Sponsorship Grant application. We needed a not-for-profit incorporated organisation to sponsor this. This was not easy to find as many of the possibilities are already applying for a grant, and they can only apply for one per financial year – this was a reason for not asking Waminda to sponsor the grant application. The Gliding Club of Victoria have undertaken this role. Our application has been successful and this money will assist us in meeting some of the costs of the event.
We have received a large quantity of material (yarn, strips and squares) donations from the community, including Cooinda and Estia Health.
Bollard covers and beanies have been allocated, although we have received a couple of new donations, and will have a look at how these could be used.
With the strips and squares we have received, we have almost completed the sewing together of as much as we can in the timeframe. Further donations have arrived this week and have assisted in finishing allocation to trees in Bridge Street. There is now a considerable amount of material to start work on trees in Mair, Nunn and Carrier Streets.
Identified bunting for six pergolas; decorations for the One Wild Apple laneway vines.
We have started sewing flowers (we have around 300) to ribbon for decorating the bridge – we will only have sufficient to do part of the bridge, and will concentrate on the town end. We still have a number of flowers that need to be sewn on to the ribbon
We have a number of volunteers from ANZ bank to assist with the installation on Friday. BUT we need more community volunteers for Saturday to finalise the work.
Some community organisations are also planning to decorate trees/poles in their own property, for example Cooinda and the Uniting Church.
Cleared bins at Library, Millers, West End Post Office, NEA

The outstanding tasks are:

Finish sewing flowers to ribbons for the bridge
Review wraps for seats/bicycle racks
Assess remaining material as to where it can be used
Allocate volunteers to the various areas for installation
Finalise plans for the installation
Final organisation of the material so that it is easy to provide the installers with the correct items
Move to and set up the Visitor Information Centre as our Installation headquarters on Thursday after 4:00pm

As you can see there is still some work to do. The fun part of actually producing the material has been great. To date the hard work of organisation has been done by a small group of people. Further assistance from people who are available on Saturday, 3 August to help with the installation would be of great help.

We will be meeting on Wednesday, 31 July at 10:00 to review and finalise the plans for the installation on 2/3 August (that is the coming Friday and Saturday!). Everyone is welcome to come to this meeting. We will be meeting in our “work room” at the Gliding Club. Call me if you have trouble finding the work room (0417 065 351).

If you can help with the finishing work on the material (mainly sorting and sewing) or with the installation on either Friday or Saturday, please come along on Wednesday or call me on 0417 065 351. I have cancelled all my other commitments this week apart from Monday morning and Tuesday afternoon, so I should be available to talk with you if you have any questions. And you can always send me an email.

I hope you have enjoyed any part you have played in the journey to get us to this point, and even if you cannot help with the installation, come along and say hello to those who are working on this essential part of the event. After all, this was the goal for the work we have all undertaken.

Thank you all

Joy
0417 065 351

0 Comments

'Benalla Rugged Up' Update

20/7/2019

0 Comments

Hello all

Here is the latest update around the progress towards our yarn bombing event – Benalla Rugged Up.

We have submitted our Event application; Waminda Community House is again covering us for insurance. As a gesture of appreciation, it would be great if people could join Waminda as a member. This is not mandatory, but they are helping us, and this is one way that we can help them increase their membership numbers (this in turn helps them with grant applications). Let me know if you would like a membership application. It only costs $5.
We have submitted a Community Sponsorship Grant application. We needed a not-for-profit incorporated organisation to sponsor this. This was not easy to find as many of the possibilities are already applying for a grant, and they can only apply for one per financial year – this was a reason for not asking Waminda to sponsor the grant application. The Gliding Club of Victoria have undertaken this role.
We have received a large quantity of donations from the community, including Cooinda and Estia Health.
Bollard covers and beanies have been allocated, although we have received a couple of new donations, and may have a look at how these could be used.
With the strips and squares we have received, we have almost completed the sewing together of as much as we can in the timeframe – perhaps the remainder can be put aside for next year
We have started sewing flowers (we have over 250) to ribbon for decorating the bridge – we will only have sufficient to do part of the bridge, and will concentrate on the town end.
We have a number of volunteers from ANZ bank to assist with the installation.
Some community organisations are also planning to decorate trees/poles in their own property, for example Cooinda and the Uniting Church.

The outstanding tasks are:

Finish sewing flowers to ribbons for the bridge
Allocate the material we have to the trees
Allocate volunteers to the various areas for installation

If you can help with any of these tasks, let me know. We are still working out of the Gliding Club building, but have moved to a ground floor room – actually we have three rooms. I plan to be there Tuesday and Wednesday mornings and Friday afternoon this week. The building is open form around 9:00 to 3:00 Monday-Wednesday and Friday. I can also arrange to be there on Monday afternoon and part of Thursday, or even later afternoon, early evenings on any day if anyone can help at those times. Just give me a call on 0417 065 351.

Our major priority now though is to identify extra volunteers to assist with the installation process. Without volunteers to help with the installation, all the effort to get us to this stage will not be successful.

Please contact me as a matter of urgency if you can assist with the installation on either Friday 2 August or Saturday 3 August. An hour or two on either day is all that we ask, or more if you are available. Just let me know what time/s you can help so I can set up a roster.

We are near the end, and with the material that we have received, we are quite excited about being able to achieve more than last year. Our town will be brightly coloured for August.

Joy
0417 065 351

0 Comments

'Yarn Bombing' update

12/7/2019

0 Comments

Hello All

We have just under three weeks before the installation days on 2/3 August. This is just a brief update around the progress to date for our Benalla Rugged Up yarn bombing event.

We are hoping to get a small grant form the council to assist with the costs. If we are unsuccessful, nice to have items like coffee vouchers for volunteers may need to be dropped while we concentrate on covering the necessary costs around cable ties etc.
The Event application should be submitted during the coming week, once we confirm that we have public liability insurance covered by a local organisation. We have spoken with the Council and it looks like everything else is covered.
There is still some work to do preparing the material, but there is also a lot that has been done. The biggest jobs outstanding are to finalise the allocation of the prepared material to trees, seats, bollards etc, and to sew flowers onto ribbon for placing along the bridge.

For those who are able to help with some of this, the Gliding Club room will generally be available from 9:00 to 3:00 Monday to Wednesday and on Friday while the office is open. Please let Rhonda in the office know if you are there. I will be there:

From 1:00 until around 4:00 Monday
From 10:00 until around 12:00 on Tuesday and Wednesday
From 1:00 until around 4:00 on Friday

If anyone is only able to help on Thursday, please call me so we can work out if there is a time that I can be there – at the moment I am not planning to be there as I have another commitment, but may be able to work around this.

Joy Shirley
0417 065 351

0 Comments

Benalla Rugged Up... 'we're back to nude trees'... until 2019!

2/9/2018

0 Comments

'Benalla Rugged Up' - Why Yarnbomb? Answering peoples' questions

Benalla is now 'Rugged Up'!

Benalla Yarn Bombing Event in final stage of preparation

'Benalla Rugged Up' Update

'Yarn Bombing' update

Benalla Rugged Up... 'we're back to nude trees'... until 2019!

NEA News Blog

Join our Mailing List

Categories

Links

Archives

'Benalla Rugged Up' - Why Yarnbomb? Answering peoples' questions

Benalla is now 'Rugged Up'!

Benalla Yarn Bombing Event in final stage of preparation

'Benalla Rugged Up' Update

'Yarn Bombing' update

Benalla Rugged Up... 'we're back to nude trees'... until 2019!

NEA News Blog ​

Join our Mailing List

Categories

Links

Archives

NEA News Blog