- Stitch and Bitch: Sewing Club 🧶🧵🪡The Exchange, Newcastle upon Tyne
Are you a Queen of the Knits or a ‘happy hooker’ who loves crochet? Do you enjoy cross-stitch and embroidery or like to make and mend your own clothes? If so, we have a new club for you! Don’t worry, though: no experience is required if you’re curious to try out a new skill or just want to come along for the chat 🗣️💬.
Host Chris can crochet a little; there are others amongst our ranks who are knowledgeable in knitting and sewing, so they can show you the ropes if needs be. Host Alex hasn’t crafted since her school days and is certainly more skilled at bitching than stitching, so will be facilitating chatter whilst attempting to learn cross stitch herself 🧐🧵🪡 …
The Exchange is a quiet and spacious, centrally located, underground speakeasy lounge. It’s just off Northumberland Street and slightly hidden away from the hordes; think comfort, velvet and a slightly luxe vintage vibe. Look out for the magic telephone box entry door ☎️ 😉!
Click here for a quick walkthrough guide to finding the venue.
The bar sometimes offers food until 8pm if you’re feeling peckish (it’s a little unpredictable 🤔😆 …), but you may wish to eat beforehand or bring some snacks with you. They have a range of cocktails and mocktails on the menu, as well as the usual soft drinks 🍹🍸.
Please bring along your own supplies and be sure to tidy up nicely and take them home with you when you leave! And don’t worry if you’re running a little late - just drop in when you’re able and join the conversation. All are welcome! 🧶✂️
Let’s get crafty, chatty and creative together! ☺️
- Discovery Nights: Party at the Museum! 👗🍄🍕Discovery Museum, Newcastle Upon Tyne
Join us for the first ever Discovery Nights event! Let’s enjoy the Discovery Museum together after hours, and embrace the vibe of sustainable living in their theme for the evening: The Good Life 💚🌎!
Activities we’ll explore include:
-
Taking an expert-led, behind the scenes tour of the museum’s costume stores, and learning about repairing and repurposing clothing 👗
-
Learning about foraging 🍄🟫
-
Hearing storytelling about the rich history of cotton via the museum’s dress collection; try a clothes swap if you dare! 👕
-
Creating our own skincare with the help of Goodness Gracious Green 🧴
-
Shopping the local makers’ fair for handmade sustainable jewellery and candles 💍🕯️
-
Experimenting with mindful crafting using clay and quilled paper 🤲
-
Watching demos of solar energy involving interactive experiments with fruit-based solar cells - ‘Berry Cells’ 🍓☀️
Experienced engineer Kevin Urquhart will also be on hand to answer any questions about the museum’s new Steam to Green exhibition, which focuses on the history of energy in the North East, travelling all the way back to the Industrial Revolution and then shifting back to the future with green technologies and renewable sources ♻️
There’ll be pizza to eat, beer from local microbrewery StuBrew to drink (plus other drinks besides), and a DJ on the decks throughout the adventure 🍕🍻🎵
Meet us at The Tipsy Cow opposite the museum between 6pm and 6.30pm to gather together as a group before heading in. We can head back out for drinks and a chat once the museum closes at 9pm, to discuss what we’ve seen and get to know one another better!
Tickets are £8 🎟️ and available to buy here
-
- Film Club 🎬: The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg (1964) ☔🎵🎄🇫🇷Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne
One of the most visually resplendent romances ever committed to film, Jacques Demy’s beautifully sad musical tells the story of Guy (Nino Catelnuovo), a young car mechanic who is about to be shipped off to the Algerian War, and Genevieve (Catherine Deneuve), who works as an assistant in Guy’s mother’s umbrella shop.
A truly original recitative musical where every line of dialogue is sung-through, The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg was winner of the Palme d'Or, and nominated for 4 Oscars! Its influence can be seen in modern classics such as La La Land and Barbie!
Check out the trailer here
We will meet at the Tyneside Cinema Bar Café from 12:30pm onwards, with the film starting at 13:00.
Afterwards we can pop to a nearby bar for chilled out discussion and general chatter, and a glass of wine or a nice warm drink 🍷☕
Tickets 🎟 are £13.75, and can be purchased here on the cinema website
- Parsing the Past: History Club 👑📜Blackfriars, Newcastle upon Tyne
Welcome to Parsing the Past, North East Culture & Conversation’s new History Club!
👑📜
We’ll meet each month to discuss an exciting era and some intriguing figures from ye old days of yore, hopefully learning a thing or two from one another, in the wonderfully historic Blackfriars parlour bar.
Blackfriars is a beautiful former mediaeval monastery; located right in the heart of Newcastle city centre, it should make for an atmospheric setting as we dive deeply into the past!
If you get hungry whilst we’re chatting, the bar serves mediaeval trencher charcuterie boards, and bar bait such as cheesy truffle fries. They also offer wine and cheese pairings, and delightful dessert wines expertly matched with sweet treats if you fancy! 🧀🍷🍮
This time, we’ll be exploring The Wars of the Roses 🌹🤍⚔️: a tumultuous time of civil war in Britain, which pitted brother against brother and cousin against cousin - the House of Lancaster vs the House of York. Eventually, it culminated in the descent of the Plantagenets and the rise of the Tudor dynasty. It served as inspiration for George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series and Game of Thrones 📺👑!
Some notable figures to look into prior to our meeting would be:
-
‘Mad king’ Henry VI and his indomitable wife Margaret of Anjou
-
Charming warrior-womaniser Edward IV and his scandalously unroyal ‘roadside queen’ Elizabeth Woodville
-
Car park king Richard III and his sickly wife Anne Neville
-
George, Duke of Clarence, who died by drowning in a barrel of wine
-
‘The Kingmaker’: Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick
-
The mysterious disappearing Princes in the Tower
-
Sanctimonious zealot Margaret Beaufort and her son Henry VII, Battle of Bosworth winner and the first Tudor king, who married Elizabeth of York and thusly brought peace to England!
Feel free to research as much or as little as you like - just come prepared for a chat!
We suggest browsing the web for articles and exploring YouTube for videos (there are so many on this era!). Amazon Prime has a couple of documentaries you can take a look at: The White Queen and Her Rivals and Richard III: The King in the Car Park.
In terms of books, Dan Jones’s The Hollow Crown, Sarah Gristwood’s Blood Sisters, and Alison Weir’s Lancaster and York and Richard III & The Princes in the Tower could prove useful, but there is certainly no obligation to read through all of them! The books are suggested for your own curiosity, as a jumping off point. Pick and choose what suits you 🤓!
If you come across any other interesting source materials, feel free to examine those instead and share your findings with us! And if all else fails and you’re short on time but still want to come along for the chat and the chips, there’s always Wikipedia 😉!
-
- Winter Warmer Fête @ the Baltic 🎄🍪Baltic Cafe Bar, Newcastle Upon Tyne
Join us for gingerbread making, some coffee and conversation, talks about trees(!), a guided tour of the exhibitions and a creative crafts market as the season of winter wonder begins at the Baltic! 🎅🏻
We’ll convene in the café from 11.45am onwards to gather together and chat with one another before heading up to our first adventure: Tree Stories, which begins at 12.15pm ☕️
Discover more about the secret world of trees with a local tree expert, and explore 'Heartwood', an exhibition of five tree prints created from a disc of the felled Sycamore Gap tree’s trunk. We’ll follow the storyteller for an engaging woodland tale with the prints as a backdrop 🌳
At 1.30pm, there’s a guided tour to enjoy, offering a little extra insight on the current exhibitions and the history of the building and the gallery 🖼️
After that, we can browse the Endless Love Creative Makers Market and the Happy Mart Pop-Up Shop, with over 60 art, design and craft stalls to explore. It’ll be a great opportunity for some unique gift buying, if you want to get going with your Christmas shopping! 🎁
There’s all sorts on offer, including ceramics, jewellery, textiles, print, illustration, botanicals and homeware. We’ve gone along to these before and been super impressed by what we find. We always come away with something! 🛍️
There’s also a winter raffle to parttake in, with prizes to win! Entry to the makers’ market costs £2. You can pre-book here; we would suggest the 2pm-3pm arrival slot.
Finally, we’ll head to the Front Room to chat and chill and create some Christmas cookies! There’ll be gingerbread to decorate and to eat as we discuss what we’ve viewed and what we’ve bought, and enjoy getting to know one another better 🍪
Feel free to join whenever during the day; we’ll stay in touch via the comment section to keep you posted about where we are. If we get hungry at any point, we can retreat to the café for snacks.
Let the festive fun begin, folks! 🤩🎄
- Discussion Panel on Inequality and Gendered Violence 🗣️🧠Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead
Join us for an evening of enlightenment with One Play at a Time: Panel Discussion on Gendered Violence and Bold Theatre, presented by Catrina McHugh, the Baltic and Northumbria
University.As the Baltic declares:
‘We are in the midst of unprecedented public and political attention to forms of gendered violence such as intimate partner violence, coercive control, sexual abuse, and digital gendered violations.
Violence against women - particularly intimate partner violence and sexual violence - "is a major public and clinical health problem and a violation of women's human rights" (World Health Organization).
It calls for revolution. One play at a time.
Please join us.’
The ongoing Franki Raffles exhibition - which some of us have already explored in an event together! - addresses the topics of inequality, gendered violence and disability. It emphasises the value of activism and sisterhood.
In this upcoming event, trailblazer Catrina McHugh will be joined by curators and academics to discuss issues emerging from the exhibition.
An inspirational and award-winning playwright, Catrina McHugh is the founder of Open Clasp, whose aim is to create bold theatre alongside marginalised women, trans and non-binary people, to bring about personal, social and political change.
McHugh has worked in partnership with criminologists to train police officers and agencies involved in working with domestic violence and abuse, using theatre and creativity. Her plays have been influential in debates on multiple government White Papers and independent reviews.
The discussion panel begins at 6pm, with doors opening at 5.45pm. Meet us in the foyer before it starts, and we’ll head in together. Alternatively, duck in at the last minute on your own, if you’re pushed for time, post-work 😉. Once the panel concludes at 8.30pm, we can reconvene in the foyer, to continue the discussion amongst ourselves alongside drinks and a bite to eat at a nearby bar.
Entry is free, but you must reserve a ticket here.
