Society for Storytelling

National Storytelling Week Announcement

TO BE INVOLVED CALL :  Del Reid 020 8866 4232 (National Storytelling Week Organiser) or
Tina Bilbe 0118 9351381 (SFS Office Director) Alan Woollard 01840 211268 (Cornwall)
Richard Berry(Wales) 029 2022 9009 Carl Merry(Essex) 01268 767770

SUMMER 2008
9th Annual National Storytelling Week
31st January – 7th February 2009

Storytelling is not just for the young but for all ages who share the creations of thought and the creativity of imagination. So join us! For the word is out and there is a store of stories to be told!

National Storytelling Week 2008 (our 8th) reached 12,000 plus people with nationwide storytelling events and performances in Schools, Arts Centres, Libraries, Theatres, Museums, Pubs, Book Shops, Storytelling Clubs, Retirement Homes and Prisons.

BBC Local Radio stations around the country joined in with storytelling broadcasts by SFS members as well as other storytellers who took part. We don’t have listener figures, but this we know expands the 12,000 figure!

2008 saw for the first time National Storytelling Week being used to tell stories in schools in other languages apart from English.  La Jolie Ronde told folk stories in French in schools in Essex.
An educational authority in the Lake District did video link-ups using the storyteller Taffy Thomas broadcasting to schools in the area.
West London’s Floating Classroom held 4 sessions on trips along the Grand Union Canal

Events were held in Luton Museums, Tyne and Wear Museum, North Somerset Museum, Lakeside Shopping Centre Waterstones in Plymouth and Plymouth City Museums, The RAF Museum Hendon, and The National Railway Museum in York.  Museum in Docklands held family storytelling events, The Admiral’s House Greenwich presented an evening of Sea stories with The Greenwich Storytellers, Croxteth Hall and Country Park Liverpool staged a series of 7 storytelling events, Daisy Chain Nurseries invited in parents and grandparents to tell stories to their children, The Young Storyteller of Wales Festival was held as part of NSW.

300-plus new copies of The Society for Storytelling Guide to National Storytelling Week were requested by email or post.

We know that storytelling stretches from its simplest application in the nursery right through to personal stories and bereavement aids in hospitals, strengthening communication in the business sphere, and as an aid to learning in education. In its sharing between teller and listener it gives and receives time, it empowers, it creates and feeds the imagination from one generation to the next.