Photo Credit: Alastair Brookes

The momentum to restore Jacobs Wells Baths, Hotwells, Bristol, has seen a significant boost with the unveiling of a newly installed artwork on the front of the building as part of a Fundraiser to raise funds to repair and restore the Grade II listed former dance centre.

The artwork, a bespoke pen and ink drawing by Bristol-based artist Amy Hutchings and supported by Anna Haydock-Wilson, features words shared by members of the Hotwells community, gathered from a community consultation led by Trinity Community Arts as part of our mission to restore and reopen the building.  suppor

The artwork features as a reward for the Jacobs Wells Fundraiser that we have launched on the Bristol based Fund Surfer platform.

We are calling for Bristol residents to give what they can to help us reach a £5,000 fundraising target. These funds will help towards crucial costs as part of the current investigations and identified works.  People can donate via the Bristol based Fund Surfer platform.

“It’s great to see this exciting progress after the disappointment and uncertainty surrounding the restoration of Jacobs Wells Baths. The new artwork demonstrates how much this Grade II listed building means to the local community,...any contributions will be vital for achieving the vision of bringing the site back into use as a community arts hub, building on the 35-year Community Asset Transfer lease which we awarded back in July.”

Councillor Craig Cheney, Deputy Mayor for Finance, Governance, Performance, and Culture

Amy is not the first renowned artist to put their name to the appeal to save the building -  earlier this year esteemed actress Miriam Margolyes shared a heartfelt video outing the importance of community spaces such as Jacobs Wells Baths, and encouraging people to get involved and support the drive to safeguard the building and re-open the space once more.

Trinity, alongside local councillors, residents and Hotwells and Clifton Community Association, have been leading the project to restore the building since the news in Jan 2023 that the former dance hub was at risk of disposal by Bristol City Council.

Since then, the Council's CAT Group announced its decision to offer Trinity Community Arts, a registered charity, a 35-year CAT lease, subject to receipt of a satisfactory business plan. We also received a six-month occupational license during the transfer phase, to enable Trinity to undertake a detailed series of specialist surveys, funded by the Bristol-based Nisbet Trust and to undertake emergency works to halt any further damage to the roof due to water ingress.

We have secured further funding from the Architectural Heritage Fund, Sylvia Waddilove Foundation UK and others - aimed at matching the committed funding from the Nisbet Trust to support the development phase and investigations to understand the scope of work needed to restore and reopen Jacobs Wells Baths.

Emma Harvey, CEO Trinity leading on the Jacobs Wells Baths recovery project said; “We often stroll past boarded up buildings like this, imagining how they could be put to good use. The community have long campaigned to save this space and want to see it brought back into use for public benefit. That’s why we’re working hard to secure funds to restore this amazing space. Anyone wanting to support this transformative journey can donate via our Fundsurfer appeal to help us reach our target."

Support the Fundsurfer and grab your own Jacobs Wells artwork

The Lila tradition is recognised to be a manifestation of the expressive culture of the historical Gnawa. It is a rich ceremony of song, music, dance, costume and incense that takes place over the course of an entire night ending around dawn. The ritual enables participants to enter the trance state of jadba, in which they perform startling and sometimes spectacular dances.

The Gnawa begin the Lila by remembering through song and dance the Gnawa of times past, their lands of origin, the experiences of their slave ancestors, and their tales of abduction, sale, separation and loneliness, and ultimately redemption.

A feature that distinguishes Gnawa from other brotherhoods is their system of colour categories that mark the progression over the course of the night. Gnawa play the corresponding music, dress the trancers in the appropriate colours, and burn the corresponding incense. The colours must be sung in a certain order, the Lila follows a path through the night whose road is marked in the sensory realms of sound (music, song) sight (colours) smell (incense) and movement (dance).

We have a few walk up spaces available, first come first serve.

This project is funded by Arts Council England and is in partnership with Trinity Community Arts.

Don't worry if you can't skate or even don't own any skates, we have plenty of skates to hire and our lovely Roller Girls & Boys will give you a helping hand if needed.

Doors open at 2pm till 5pm and expect a mixture of good tunes and vibes from our roller-disco team.

Children must be supervised by a responsible adult at all times.

Sessions will take place in the Trinity Community Garden as well as inside the building and will focus on nature-based and craft activities that will explore gentle practices to improve wellbeing and to build connections with the natural world, yourself and each other.

How to get involved

Registration is via Changes Bristol,  please contact Jen from the team on growing@changesbristol.org.uk to find out more

About Changes Bristol

Changes Bristol has been providing support to those in mental distress in Greater Bristol, since 2003. People access our services in the city of Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire (BNSSG), and Bath & North East Somerset.

Changes provide support in the form of weekly support meetings across Bristol and providing learning materials for participants to take away and learn new techniques such as mindfulness and CBT. Changes also provide brefriending services, volunteering opportunities to help people gain confidence and learn new skills, as well as training opportunities.

Drop in and chat to the following partners any time between 11am and 2pm.

Locality

WECIL (The Centre of West England for Inclusive Living)

Voscur (Supporting Voluntary Action)

Citizens Advice Bristol

Groundwork

North Somerset Training

Please book your place so that they know you are coming.

If you are another organisation also interested in having a free space to talk to local people at this event, please contact hello@goodthingsfoundation.org.

There will be at least 1,000 different job vacancies at the event.

At the event you will find:

• A 'jobs wall' with hundreds of Bristol jobs
• Job stalls, offering a range of full and part time roles
• Experts available for anyone who needs a bit of extra help, advice, training or support to get back into work.

If you have a CV then bring it with you. First impressions do count, so come dressed ready to impress the employers!

Don't miss the chance to have your say as we progress our plans to transform Jacobs Wells into a dynamic space for youth, arts, community and learning.

Come along and find out more.

Get ready to laugh and learn as you venture on a comedic journey through the fiery furnace of hot flushes and the foggy forest of brain fog with Zeph Churchill a Registered Nurse, Licensed Menopause Champion and member of the British Menopause Society.

Described as "The perfect blend of humour and education in the fine British tradition of sauciness and cheekiness," Zeph’s ‘EDUcation-COMedy’ is not your average menopause show. Learn about the science behind the symptoms, laugh at the absurdities of hormones and leave feeling empowered, enlightened, and just a bit more like the  ‘Marvellous menopausal Queen’ that you are!

So, pucker up your pelvic floor, grab your friends, your sisters, your mothers, and your sense of humour (and maybe an extra pair of knickers). Join Zeph at Trinity for a night of menopausal fun that you didn’t know you needed. Oh and who doesn’t love a naughty story from A&E!

Tickets are selling faster than a menopausal woman searching for a fan, so don't miss out!

Event schedule

Doors 7pm

Show start: 7:30pm

Break: 8:20pm

Show resumes: 8:40pm

Finish: 9:30pm

Community stakeholders take part in Understory a digital mapping session by Onion Collective and Free Ice Cream. Photo credit: Trinity Community Arts/Alastair Brookes

A £3.1million investment package has been secured by Mayoral Combined Authority from Arts Council England and match funders to deliver a two-year programme that will open up the creative sector to more diverse talent, to create opportunities for more communities take part and create arts experiences and build a resilient sector that will drive economic growth in the West of England.

'Culture West' will include the creation of a citizen-led cultural delivery plan for the West of England region in 2024 through our Citizens' Assembly project that we developed in collaboration with St Paul's Carnival and David Jubb (Citizens in Power).

The Citizens' Assembly pilot took place in 2023 and was funded by the Celeste Gulbenkian UK Branch. As part of the partnership project, we delivered a series of exploratory workshops that included inviting South West residents to take part in sessions. The pilot project has helped shape the delivery for the 2024 project region-wide Citizens' Assembly.

Alongside the Citizens' Assembly. 'Culture West' will also offer support for creative professionals, mentoring and business advice, commissioning new festivals and offering industry-led skills training. The project will also see the region's schools have increased access to inclusive cultural experiences, with support for museum and theatre visits, artist residencies, and skills sharing.

Powerful and provocative, Mandala's new play exposes the lies societies have been fed by organised religion and politics, exploring who controls the narrative and what truth got buried along the way.

Through their unique brand of theatricality, humour, innovative staging, compelling characters and powerful epic storytelling, Mandala tell the story of Eve....Accused, suppressed, abused, silenced, but now rising, waking up to her full power as creator, nurturer, wisdom-keeper - restoring the balance between Masculine and Feminine energy, to ultimately suggest new vision and hope.

About Mandala Theatre Company
Mandala Theatre Company is an ethnically diverse-led company based in East Oxford. They are committed to using theatre as a force for social change and to working with young people and artists from the global majority and disadvantaged backgrounds. This play has been developed with young people, student groups and women's groups in Oxford, Luton, Salford and Bristol, in line with Mandala's trademark dedication to co-creation with those with lived experience, and telling the stories that so often go untold.

Length: 1 hour 15 show + 30 min Q&A panel

Simi was a hugely dedicated and influential figure in Bristol’s voluntary sector, devoting her life to the betterment of services for the city’s South Asian community, developing a wealth of activities that included a multi-faith youth service for young people, the first Asian youth festival, an Asian radio show on BBC Bristol and a day care centre for elderly Asian people.

She is most known for her work with Awaz Utaoh, meaning 'raise your voice'. The charity was established in 1997 and has supported women primarily from across Bristol's South Asian community for decades.

Through her work with Awaz, Simi was able to develop and deliver a regular programme of activities embracing and connecting women of all religions. She was a strong and inspiring figurehead for a core group of women who met every Wednesday at Trinity, until her retirement prior to the pandemic. She crafted a safe space for well-being and empowerment that helped to unite and give voice to women of all ages.

For anyone who was blessed with the good fortune to attend Awaz, you were welcomed by a space full of music, dancing, food and fun. Thanks to Simi’s generosity and spirit, everyone was made to feel like part of one big family, of which she was very much the mother figure.

Over the years, Simi’s dedication and work in the voluntary sector has been recognised through several awards including the Lord Mayor’s Medal.

Towards the end, sustaining this valuable work became an increasingly uphill struggle, with the challenges of cuts to funding compounded by Simi’s own declining health. Still, she persisted, never giving up, to ensure that the women who relied on this service continued to have somewhere to go. As one of the women using this service was quoted; "What the statutory agencies of the city could not do for them over the last 15 years, Awaz Utaoh did it.”

We give thanks to this hugely important woman and hope that her work and vision will serve as inspiration to others that - in spite of all our differences and the challenges we face - if we raise our voice, one woman can have the power to bring change, hope and light to the world around her.

Simi's family have created a memorial page where those who knew her can leave their words, photos and memories.

In life, we chase rainbows. In death, we want something much simpler. Our own salvation or damnation dependent on the compatibility of our relative goodness to those who mourn our passing. Making saints of those held close and casting aside the sinners, though the space between is the one most of us occupy. Society depends on us all trying to be the best versions of ourselves. Our crimes are committed in the moments where we forget to try. It’s those who touch the extremities of expected behaviour -both good and bad - who create the most ripples.

Phil served 13 years in prison for a devastating crime. He came to Trinity in 2004 on a back-to-work ex-offender placement.

Sometimes there can be no forgiveness. But, in that space between life and death is where we find community. A space for the misfits and the troubled. Beyond the warmth of our family and our friends, a sense of belonging that is unconditional.

Emma Harvey, CEO

It was just a shabby shell back then, after a period of closure that many thought would mark its end. A re-imagining, but without any of the resources needed to realise that vision.

Phil offered us a lifeline. Without him, the building could never have reopened. Nor could it have remained open during those early years, when so much manual work needed doing in order to make it a safe space.

On Phil’s release, he continued to work at Trinity for no financial or personal gain. He did so much and grafted in a way that was unimaginable. It was his dedication and determination that inspired everyone who met him in those times. Others would try to emulate it, but we’d all be in bed crashed out at a time when he was up and about, working on setting things right so we could open our doors the next day.

His atonement laid the foundation stone of Trinity today. So many times, he managed to help us pull something unrealistic out of the bag and make the magic happen. His work ethic at times seemed superhuman and pushed him to breaking on several occasions. He was so stubborn in his dissent from that ladder, when it came to his retirement in 2016.

With his cynicism, it was like he hated all that busyness and insanity that gave the place life. When the lock-down started, the team joked that this was the Trinity Phil had always wanted. A quiet space with no people and the building all to himself. But, that was his trick on us - he loved the building’s life, he just never felt that he deserved to be a part of it.

During the Phil years, to walk in and see a weathered old man followed by his faithful hound, you just knew you had found somewhere where you could just be in spite of, not because of, your past self or any future expectations.

Trinity made him feel something in a space someone more poetic might call his heart. He felt enough of a sense of being part of the wonderment though just by being in the background as He who was both church care taker and care giver, whilst never permitting himself to fully become immersed.

For those who Phil hurt most - as for any victim of crime and their families - the worst thing to have is that sense of the perpetrator’s life being allowed to continue. The fear and anger that they are somehow able to enjoy that which they have taken from their victim. That they get to feel the warmth of the sun on their face.

The reality is much more complex. Even in our most joyous of times, Phil never basked in that sunshine. There was no absolution, just resolution and resignedness to a life in the shade. To paraphrase Indigo Girls (a band he loved) even if his sweat smelt clean, the glare off the sun would hurt his eyes.

Father. Husband. Functioning alcoholic. A mask that began to slip more and more with the passing of time. But, what never changed was a deep warmth and an unwavering loyalty beyond reason. Humour in the face of adversity. Cigarettes with Steve when there was nothing else. Amongst the glimpses of joy - guitars and fish and chips and T-shirts and Poppy - there were subsequent losses and drinking alone and fear and loneliness. Life meant life.

Love. There was so much love and hurt over past wrongs so damaging that they can never be set right, no matter how virtuous any subsequent action. Nevertheless, he was deeply loved by his Trinity family. We reflect on the life of a person who touched and changed lives dramatically and catastrophically. We respectfully mourn and pay tribute to a one of a kind man who inspired us to work hard and do better, knowing he could never be forgiven.

Sometimes there can be no forgiveness. But, in that space between life and death is where we find community. A space for the misfits and the troubled. Beyond the warmth of our family and our friends, a sense of belonging that is unconditional.

That he has passed during such particularly challenging times gives us greater cause for reflection. If a criminal can become such an outstanding citizen then we can hold onto hope that good grows out of even the most darkest of moments. That one might work toward a better future they might not be part of, but which still very much exists because of the part they played.

Restoration if not of a soul, at least of a building that is still very much here. A space for love, life, death and reincarnation. A place of radical inclusiveness, helping us to see that grace extended - even if it is felt to be undeserved - can take us all to somewhere better.

Phil. A reminder that who we are at any one moment does not define us. After all, we can always choose to change ourselves.

Big love always

Emma x

Blokey was part of what gave Trinity that family feel - not least because he also managed to rope in his family to help out run the place in those early days!

From running the bar and rigging the lights to writing policies and business planning, Blokey's commitment helped to shape the Trinity that we have today.

Blokey was the glue that held us together. A cheeky chap. A man who seemed to promise the world and, amazingly, somehow deliver. When the place steadied, he moved on to new adventures, yet always reappeared in any moment of crisis.

How he knew we needed him I just don't know. He was just always there. Perhaps that's why as long as I'm at Trinity, there'll always be a part of me that expects him to walk in just to see how we're all doing.

I will forever be grateful for his support and calm presence, during a time when it felt like the whole thing could fall apart in a moment's breath.

Thank you Pete for always being there and for creating the feeling you still are. Always in our hearts, Emma xx

Nick Fyfe epitomised the indomitable spirit that led to Trinity's reopening.

Nick Fyfe joined the campaign whilst managing a full time business building skate parks across the South West.

He had for many years combined his successful business career with active involvement in local voluntary sector.

Nick brought a vast reservoir of experience and skill to the 'Save Trinity' campaign.

Former business partner, friend and Trinity colleague Matthew Hewitt describes Nick's key contribution to the campaign:

“Nick was so good at writing documents. In half an hour he could write a two page A4 document of several thousand words and it would all make sense. Nick prepared the meticulous cash flows, business plans, and letters underpinning the campaign that were edited and reworked by the core campaign group. Armed with these documents the eclectic group presented 'a professional image' to the Council. Having secured the lease the team subsequently learnt from an informal Council source that Trinity's bid was by far the most professional and the most well thought out.”

Nick's commitment to Trinity persisted after the lease was secured. Despite 'hard graft' on the skate park he committed his time and energy to supporting the organisation. Combining long demanding hours on site with managing Trinity may have damaged his health. Matt reflects:

“I didn't see that he was passing away because he was getting weaker and weaker. He'd had pneumonia not got over it and..he was just such a stunning character none even thought that he was near checking out..He worked on site, a building site right up to the day he died. I had a phone call from him an hour before he died saying “Matthew I'm gonna drive to Trinity can you take me somewhere when I get there. A day later his son phoned me and said he died about the same time he phoned me. He was just not going to give up...”

Our upstairs 'Fyfe Hall', was named such in memory of Nick Fyfe, one of the founding directors of Trinity Community Arts. A plaque on the downstairs north wall, has also been installed in memory.

Fun Palaces in a UK wide organisation that supports volunteers, grassroots communities an organisations to programme events or create projects that celebrate the culture, skills and heritage of communities.

"I would love what I do to make a big difference in the world, I would love to do all kind of things like create wonderful things for people like homes for homeless people, or create wonderful animal sanctuaries. I just want to be happy with myself and make a huge difference." Ruth

We are partnering with Fun Palaces as part of thee-year project that aims to give power to communities so they can re-think, re-claim or re-purpose civic and community spaces.

As part of the project, local Newtown resident, Ruth, has been working with Trinity’s Communities Activities Coordinator to develop the ‘Recycle City Project’. The project aims to use creativity and technology to imagine a sustainable future City and hopes to include workshops across Bristol and an exhibition - most of all, Ruth wants to make a difference in the world around her.

Through the Fun Palaces partnership, we are offering free 1-2-1 support to Ruth, helping flash out ideas, apply for funding and support Ruth by attending meetings alongside her.

Ruth first started taking part in activity in the Community Garden at Trinity and remembers the sessions fondly, particularly baking using the outdoor oven and the other people who took part in the sessions. Recently, Ruth took part in The Wish List – a community arts project co-created by Newton Residents and artist Michelle Roache. She reflects that the lantern parade was ‘magic’ saying “we can all make that magic, I’m sure we can make that magic. I think that’s what I’m trying to create in my life, not just for myself, for the world”.

Fun Palaces aims to elevate everyday creativity, especially for those who may not consider themselves to be artists. Ruth feels this is beneficial and expresses this eloquently in saying "like with Grayson Perry, it’s celebrating everyone's unique, artistic, creative talent”.

The Fun Places project will continue until 2025 - click here to find out more about the project and how Trinity could support you to ignite your ideas.