It has been one hell of a year for all of us here at Laneway Learning: the team has changed, new collaborations have started and of course – we had plenty of fun times learning about anything and everything. If the year seems to have gone by without you clocking exactly what has happened along the way, like it has for us, then not to fear – we have you covered. If you are not one to delve into the past and prefer to peak through to what the future holds in 2014 then stay tuned for more.
Collaboration and Community
This past year has allowed us to really build our community through collaborations with different venues and festivals. We started the year running classes outside in the sunshine at the wonderful Peoples’ Market in Collingwood, as well as continuing to run classes at our favourite laneway cafe – The Little Mule. Once the sun stopped shining so brightly we moved inside to the warm comfort of Ferdydurke and since then have continued to run classes at The Mule and are also now at our latest venue Shebeen, the first permanent not-for-profit bar in Melbourne!
We mentioned festivals too as we have been involved quite a few of them this year: the Sustainable Living Festival, National Science Week, Craft Cubed, Melbourne Knowledge Week and finally Good Food Month. We were having so much fun that we even ran our very own festival, well sort of a festival, when we held our Sunday Spectacular. In the process we managed to raise $2,500 for the FYA’s Change It Up campaign, which donates money to small community organisations to inspire social change in rural areas.
Hellos and Goodbyes
Unfortunately for us, the Sunday Spectacular was also a time to say goodbye. Two of Laneway Learning’s co-founders, Tom and Kim, had decided to move to the sunnier climes of London (!) to pursue new ventures. They have worked tirelessly to make Laneway Learning what it is and it was extremely sad to see them go. However, we sent them away in style with a huge party with our teachers and regular attendees, down at The Little Mule after the Sunday Spectacular. Let’s just say that the wine was flowing nicely… Thanks for everything guys!
Luckily for us we had two regular teachers and eager beavers, Michael Patterson and Maria Yebra, ready and waiting to step up and become part of the Laneway Learning team. They have been amazing additions to the gang and have helped us to push further forward through the rest of the 2013 and are currently busy helping us scheme up new ideas for 2014! So watch this space…
So Long 2013
We finished 2013 with just one more party: with our teachers we celebrates what had been an amazing year. It was great to get all our teachers together again, share stories and of course learn a thing or too. Theresa just cannot help but teach people how to braid!
And we leave you with some stats for the year that set the bar pretty high for 2014, but we look forward to the challenge.
In Melbourne during 2013, Laneway Learning has:
- Run 288 classes
- By 150 different teachers
- And hosted over 4,000 unique students (9,000 total tickets)
2013 you have been amazing, 2014 can you be even bigger and better?
The featured image is borrowed and edited, with thanks, from Jo Marshall under a Creative Commons licence.