A special note from our founder…
Makers United was one year old on 21st May and I have to say that it has been a mix of blessings and challenges...
Our community of makers is growing and we always remind our talented artisans that it is ok to follow their passion and carry on creating wares with their own hands.
In a world of technology, it is not easy to persuade others that handmade should be appreciated and valued. It is a battle of which we are all aware of here at Makers United. We strongly believe that as a community our voice is louder and we are stronger.
As a team and as a community, we believe we should have handmade items produced locally in the majority of the shops on the high street, we believe that crafts should be taught from an early age as they are good for our children's fine motor skills and mental wellbeing, we also think that learning to sew, make and repair are important skills to learn if we want to save our planet.
Makers United was born during the pandemic and like any other baby born during these challenging times, it had to navigate through a tough reality of isolation, lack of real connection with people and the freedom to choose how to spend our time and follow through with our plans.
As a team, we initially adapted quickly to Zoom meetings, but after a while, we really wanted to meet our makers and be able to support them more by offering them the chance to take part in events and fairs. We’ve become quite determined to meet in pubs if necessary and get things going!
Although we couldn’t meet physically too much, we have kept in contact with our community and we have seen real progress in some of our makers’ businesses of which we are very proud.
We have been featured in Ham and Petersham magazine, been offered an art room in a Youth Centre and were even offered a small donation.
Our plans for the future include crafts fairs with our makers in the spotlight, we would also like to train more craft tutors to go into primary schools and GP practices, we would like to see more handmade products being sold locally and our talented artisans being known by the community.
We are very keen to get to know all of the local makers and very happy to teach more people from the community how to make crafts.
Do get in touch if you want to be part of a creative community.
Cornelia