The Arts Society Malvern Hills provides people and organisations with opportunities for involvement in the creative arts. Our vision is one of equality of opportunity for all.
Community Arts Grant 2025/2026
A TASMH Community Art grant was awarded to the Oasis Academy, Warndon during the academic year 2025 – 26, to support the Academy’s strong commitment to cultural capital, pupil voice and inclusive creative experiences. Oasis Academy is seen by OFSTED as an Outstanding primary school. The Academy is situated on the periphery of Worcester City, and serves the community of Warndon and the surrounding areas as an inclusive Academy for children aged 2 – 11.
All pupils took part in a series of artist-led workshops, exploring street art techniques, personal identity and character education. The younger pupils designed expressive avatars on card, while older pupils worked on wood and contributed to the mural’s final design. The result is a bold, joyful and layered composition filled with characters, symbols and messages that reflect the voices and creativity of the 380 pupils engaged in the project. The large outdoor wall mural was a collaboration between year 6 pupils and Yasmin Agilah, a professional street artist who led the art project at the Academy.
The artwork draws inspiration from the Academy’s 9 Habits which underpin character development across the school; the pupils were encouraged to represent themselves as superheroes, future selves or symbolic characters, using colour and imagery to show what makes them feel proud.
Oasis Academy has been left with dynamic lasting pieces of art, celebrating the pupils’ enthusiasm for the project, their creativity and their uniqueness. For many pupils, working alongside a professional artist was a rare and exciting opportunity. The street art project offered the pupils insight into creative careers and helped build confidence, collaboration and self-expression, particularly for pupils with additional needs. The street art murals (pictured) will remain a permanent legacy, woven into the Academy’s curriculum and wider learning experiences, and are prominently situated to continue to welcome family and visitors to the Academy reinforcing the Academy’s message that creativity and character are central to education. More details of this project and the TASMH involvement are given here.
Community Arts Grant 2024/2025.
In 2024/2025 the Community Arts Grant supported poetry writing and illustrative artwork workshops facilitated by the JOY Project held in several venues throughout Worcestershire. These workshops were available to women to enable and promote support and friendship groups. The theme of the poetry writing was “A Poem to my Future Self”. Following an edit day, the poetry and artwork were collated and finally published in an illustrated poetry booklet which was circulated within the wider JOY Project community. Copies of the booklet were presented to TASMH at the November 2025 Lecture. More details of this project and the TASMH involvement are given here.
TAS (Community Arts) Grant 2024: Worcestershire Open Studios (WOS)
The WOS 2025 event was held from 16 – 25 August; TAS (Malvern Hills) jointly sponsored the event in partnership with TAS (Worcester) and TAS (Evesham & Pershore). WOS organisers concluded the event was a “resounding success” for the county’s creative and cultural community.
Mary Brittain (WOS Organiser) thanked the sponsors of the event noting our joint sponsorship enabled WOS to provide the resources needed to promote the event widely, support artists, and deliver a professional welcoming experience for visitors. In summary, 167 artists across 105 venues took part with circa 3,500 visitors with visitor feedback recording 99.7% would recommend the event to others.
The event provided a vital source of income for local artists and makers, beyond direct sales, the event also helped raise the profile of those who took part and encouraged collaboration, networking and professional growth.
Many of those taking part collected money for charity and collectively raised more than £5000, charities supported included Malvern Welcomes, Macmillan, MIND, Parkinson’s UK, Blood Cancer UK local food banks, animal charities and more.
In 2023 we funded the Eastnor Primary School’s history timeline project. Pictures from the project can be found here. On completion of the project, Lucy Rambridge, project and history lead at the school, sent the following to TASMH:
“We are delighted to have now completed our recent timeline project funded by The Arts Society Malvern Hills. This has been a really exciting project from start to finish and we are so grateful to have been approached by Libby Allen, who spear-heads the Community Arts Grant on behalf of the Arts Society.
With the help of a design company called Creativo, children at Eastnor Primary School designed their timeline and produced artwork to accompany significant events from world history that are part of their school curriculum. As well as being, at its centre, an art project, the desired outcome of the project was to create a whole school timeline that could be used by children of all ages to support their learning in History and their chronological understanding. This truly is a unique project and the designers at Creativo, who have supplied many timelines to schools, said that it was the first one that they have produced which features children’s work. This means that pupils at Eastnor have ownership over this timeline, which represents their work, as well as significant historical events in their own locality.
This fantastic timeline is already supporting children’s learning in school and can be transported easily to wherever it is needed. It will continue to support children at Eastnor for many years to come and, for this reason, QR codes will be applied to the timeline in order to ensure that it can continue to be adapted. Plans are also in motion for handles and a carry case to be custom made to improve how the timeline can be held and stored.
All of the staff and children at Eastnor Primary School offer their sincerest thanks to all members of The Arts Society Malvern Hills and, in particular, Libby Allen and Hilary Winter, without whom we could not have funded such a project”.
A national Arts Society (Community Arts) Grant was awarded to TASMH to fund a pottery-based workshop for twenty two Ukrainian refugee family members who are currently based in the Malvern area. In early August 2023, a number of The Arts Society (Malvern Hills) members and other volunteers drove the workshop participants to Eastnor Pottery where the group experienced using the potters wheel and making 'ring pots', which they then decorated. Once fired, the pots will be returned to the individual potters as a reminder of a very successful and enjoyable day. Fifty Ukrainian family members initially applied to join the pottery-making workshop, however the number of participants who joined the group had to be limited due to space constraints. Feedback from a Ukrainian family member read - “Thank you again for such an extraordinary organization and help. It was incredible. And I was extremely pleased to meet you all. You are all amazing. Thank you so much, and I hope to meet you again." Pictures from the event can be found here.
To mark National Refugee Week (June 2022) paper (origami) shoes crafted by Iraqi, Syrian and Iranian refugee families living in Herefordshire went on prominent display at the Central Library in Hereford. Shoes are symbolic of travel, and the “Paths we travel” workshop held on 6 May 2022 and funded by a TASMH Community Arts Grant, enabled adults and children seeking sanctuary in Herefordshire to come together to create origami shoes to symbolise the different terrains travelled in their journeys to safety. A short report on the workshop may be found here.
Another project has been to work with Herefordshire Young Adults/Carers (HYAC) and Eastnor Potteries. These young people (aged 8 - 25) have caring responsibilities for a family member with long-term physical or mental health needs and which are met at home. Such responsibilities would normally be expected of an adult and can have a huge impact on a young carer's childhood, development and achievements. Workshops for up to 20 young people have enabled them to travel to Eastnor and work with an expert and each other, thereby offering teaching and enrichment in their otherwise constrained lives. In 2021-22 these four pottery-making workshops provided respite and new experiences beyond their everyday work and its demands. Their pottery was on display in the summer 2022 at the Herefordshire Voluntary Organisations Support (HVOS) offices in central Hereford. Click here for some pictures and participants' comments
2018 - Pendock Primary School received TASMH’s 2018 Young Arts Grant. During the Project all 43 pupils at the school enjoyed the rich experience of exploring different ways of recording the beauty of flowers, including sketching, collage, clay, water colour painting, paper sculpture work and poetry writing. The Head Teacher commented the Project had inspired work in other art forms such as dance and music.
The pupils’ ideas were captured by a commissioned Metal Worker and a Potter who incorporated wild flowers into a permanent metal installation and a ceramic mural which now stand at the entrance to the school and were unveiled on the 9th November 2018.
The installation and mural include five red poppies to represent each man named on the First World War memorial plaque in the school foyer. On future Armistice Days, the installation will be the focal point for remembering those affected by war in the past and in the present.
If any members wish to participate in future activities then please contact us.
Previous activities sponsored by The Arts Society Malvern Hills