Booking for the autumn term opened on the first of September, and as usual it has not stayed quiet. Two courses are already full and taking names. Here is where everything stands as of this morning.
What runs this term
- Woodwork: the first joint. Six evenings, £320, hand tools only. You leave with a stool you made and did not glue in a panic. Full, with a waiting list of five.
- Wheel-thrown ceramics. Eight evenings, £420. Throwing, trimming and glazing, and everything you make gets fired. Two places left.
- Letterpress. Two days, £210. Setting metal type, mixing ink and printing a run of fifty cards to take home. Full, with a waiting list of three.
- Bookbinding. One day, £140. Two sewn bindings in a day, in the good cloth rather than the practice stuff. Places on both dates.
Everything is capped at eight, because there are eight benches, and that is the one thing we will not move on.
If the course you want is full
Ask to go on the list, by email or on the phone. Lists are short and they move more than you would think: people’s jobs change, and we would rather fill a place two days beforehand than teach seven.
We run all four courses again in the spring, and the woodwork course runs twice. If you are on a waiting list and do not get a place this term, you go to the top of the list for the next one automatically. You do not need to ask again.
Gift vouchers
Vouchers are for an amount rather than a course, and they do not expire. This matters in a small school: if we buy in a voucher for a specific evening and the recipient cannot make that evening, everyone is disappointed and the place is wasted.
They are also the most common way people end up here. A good third of the room in any term was given the course by somebody else.
A word on the evenings
Evening courses run from six until nine, Tuesdays and Thursdays. The tram stops outside the door and the last one back is late enough that nobody has to leave early.
Tools, timber, clay, ink, paper and aprons are all included. Bring clothes you do not mind ruining, and eat something first; three hours of throwing on an empty stomach is a mistake people only make once.
If you have never done any of it
Most people have not. Every course starts from nothing, and the first evening is deliberately slow. If you have done some before, say so when you book and we will give you harder work rather than leave you sanding a practice joint with everybody else.
If you are not sure which course suits you, ring or email and ask before you book. One of the tutors answers, usually the same day, and if we think the letterpress would bore you we will say so.
The mailing list
The only advantage the list has is a day’s head start when booking opens, which this term was worth roughly one place on the woodwork. It is one email a term and nothing else, and we do not sell it to anyone, because who would we sell it to.
Booking is through the courses page, or by ringing the school on 0114 555 0128 between ten and four, Tuesday to Saturday.
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