Lily Horseman, Di Larfynn and Gemma Webb (left to right in picture) are the directors of Stomping Ground CIC and have over 50 years collective experience of creative arts workshops and commissions, Forest School and outdoor play, event organising and community consultation.
Stomping Ground was born in 2009 out of a desire to work meaningfully in a community setting and Gem and Di developed Stomping Ground to be flexible, mobile and playful. We started work on the west coast of Cumbria immediately for organisations and groups like Kirkgate Arts, Allerdale CC, Copeland CC, Rosehill Theatre and the Moss Bay carnival committee. We built on our previous experience and honed our skills for ‘drop-in style workshops in community settings’.
In the beginning Stomping Ground focused on community art as our main tool believing that when someone opens their mind creatively it means they can be creative about their life choices too and when an individual is thriving they become a constructive and positive member of their community. In short – our work has always been process over product. Put another way – the lived experience of a person has a far greater impact on their wellbeing than their achievements – and this the thread which runs through all our work.
Stomping Ground CIC was incorporated in 2011 as a Community Interest Company with a co-operative structure and the values of Participation, Collaboration and Community at its core. We want the values we deliver work with to run through our business as well and we use consensus decision-making by default.
Over the years our style developed as we worked more and more outdoors and in a pincer movement of Di working with Lily Horseman on a sustainability event called Future Makers and Gem doing her Level 3 Forest School qualification with Lily’s business, Kindling Play and Training, we managed to convince her to join the crew in 2015!
Now you are much more likely to find us outside than in but our core and motivation is still community focused. And we do a lot more PLAY as our entrance into creativity. Play is how we learned how to be part of a community as children so now we create spaces where we all, young or old, have permission to play!
To get a better picture of our work please visit our past projects page and look at our facebook posts. In brief – currently we run a parent and toddler session called Kendal Mini Stompers, since 2016, where families can get stuck into some outdoor play with their kids as the play experts and we are the Forest School leader(s) for a home-ed group in Lancaster’s Scotch Quarry. We run the lantern making sessions for Cockermouth’s annual lantern parade working with Kirkgate Arts and Riversmeet. We have been delivering the outdoor elements of Kirkby Stephen Community Arts’ work up in Kirkby Stephen – working with families and doing open engagement at events – and there is some exciting developments there coming soon. We run regular family days for Arnside and Silverdale AONB and are going to be doing some targeted outreach for them in 2021. We have started working with Penrith Town Council more and are currently supporting their Penrith in Bloom bid and enjoying collaborating with Penrith Community Gardeners. So all in all there are plenty of ways you can come and hang out with us!
If you’ve made the effort to read this and you like the sound of it please like our facebook page and join our mailing list so you can hear the odd post about our shinanegans and cerebral musings.
All 3 of us do our own freelance work as well and you can find contact details and links to those on our contact page.
We hope to meet you for a play soon! 🙂