Happy New Year to you from everyone at Halton Mill.

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We had a great year in 2024, lots of great events, many new people coming through our doors and many exciting collaborations happened.

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Some of our 2024 highlights:

January saw the return of our Operations manager Fay following hr maternity leave for Baby Zoe.

We hosted an exhibition of work by local artist Paul Mason.

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In February the Green Elephant Team was joined by Clare, our new site manager, which was shortly followed by the retirement of Chris, who was a founding director of the Mill and our site manager since Halton Mill opened in 2013.

In March our Art Lab saw a new needle felting workshop - one of our directors Mandy made a fox, who now proudly lives on her desk.

We had the honour of hosting Dunstan Bruce of Chumbawamba and showing his film -

Our Mezzanine was filled with the artwork of Julia Neely who holds a weekly class here in our Art Lab, supporting people with their painting and encouraging them to try new things. It was lovely to see all of her work and the mezzanine felt so very welcoming.

In April we took on the 50-50-500 challenge from St Johns Hospice, we had 50 days to raise £500 alongside 50 other local companies. As part of this fundraising we hosted The Craic Inn - an excellent night of dancing!, and donated all of the ticket sales to the cause.

We continued into May, thinking up more ideas to raise funds, hosting a cake sale and quiz, donating all f the door sales from our 2024 Wellbeing day, and possibly most impressively, 6 children who's parents all have connections with Halton Mill, cycled £6k attempting to raise £60. The kids themselves actually raised over £500, meaning our total raised was £1197.42.

We had our second super successful Wellbeing Day, when Halton Mill collaborated with The River Room to host local practitioners and enable to public to access free workshops, talks and shop at many stalls, all with a purpose of improving individuals wellbeing.

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We also received the news that Halton Mill was successful in receipt of the REPF grant from Lancaster City Council, which will help support some important improvements to Halton Mill for all of our tenants and users. Keep an eye out on social media for updates.

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In June Dommy B joined us to 'Make Some Noise' in The Atrium for another great kids event supported by Spot On Rural Touring.

Our now regular Folk Sing a long sessions started in June, and December just saw a really well attended session, and they will return monthly throughout 2025.

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July saw Annie, owner of The River Room leave for maternity leave, welcoming her beautiful daughter in early August. In true 'mill regular' style, they are both never away too long and regularly popped in into catch up.

There was more hire of our spaces by Howie and his water rescue courses, and our regular Tuesday morning art group who are often joined by Janet Robinson for some tutoring in their informal session and St Wilfrid's primary school for their year 6 leavers party!

August is always a slower month for the Mill as our team and many of our users enjoy holidays, breaks from work and time off with the kids. Although this August saw an exciting event in The Mill calendar - The wedding of Helen and Dave. It was a lovely day, the Mill was transformed and the ground floor spaces and the mezzanine were the perfect space for what they needed!

In September we welcomed Lucy Collins and her team from Lucy Collins Academy of Dancing 2, who now host dance classes for all ages at Halton Mill, and we are looking forward to 2025 being an exciting year for the dance school and Halton Mill's partnership.

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MIllfest returned for 2024! and what a day it was. The community came down to enjoy a day of music, activities, stalls and wonderful weather (phew!).

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In October a long awaited improvement happened at The Mill and The Atrium got its new floor! No more flaky paint, trip hazards and dust. We have now had our first few events in The Atrium and it is amazing to not be distracted by the untidy floor.

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Throughout the year we continued to host Halton Gardening Group, the biweekly Luneside Camera Club meetings, Julia Neely's weekly art classes, Qigong with the lovely Debra of Meditating Spaniel and many more regular classes in our other spaces and The River Room had a fantastic full timetable with classes for all.

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If you are interested in any of our future events, want to find out more about our hireable spaces or want to join us here to work please get in touch with Fay or Nick as below.

Fay: greenelephant@haltonmill.org.uk

Nick: venue@haltonmill.org.uk

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See you in 2025!!

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