Thank you Glossop -a note from Steven Dexter

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Hi everyone,

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As most of you are aware by now, I’m leaving Local and therefore, Glossop Creates in November. Before I go, I just wanted to say a huge thank you to my friends and colleagues in glorious Glossop. I gave it a go at our last network meeting, but I couldn’t find the words really, so I’ll try again now.

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I moved to Glossop just before the pandemic and didn’t know a soul here. I saw a role advertised for a Community Producer for something called Glossop Creates and thought I’d give it a go, which is how I met Claire. She introduced me to her place-making practice and we decided that it would be a good idea to work together and Local was born. It’s been a brilliant 3-4 years where I’ve learnt so much, I’ll be forever grateful for that. During that time, the biggest thing I’ve learnt is the power of a community.

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Right now there are 350 of you in the Glossop Creates Network, and that number gets bigger all the time, with more of you talented people appearing every week. Bringing you all together and supporting your (sometimes) wacky ideas has been one of the greatest privileges of my entire life. I see many of you on a regular basis, every time I pop into town, or pick the kids up from school, I inevitably bump into somebody I’ve met through the Glossop Creates Network. You are my kindred spirits in our community, the people who see the world in the same way as me and make sense of it through making things or making things happen.

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I cannot tell you how important it feels to have met you all. Your support and friendship has given me the deepest possible roots here in Glossop, these have grown so deep in such a short space of time and are roots that I could never pull up now, so you’re stuck with me!

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Here’s a few of the things that have grounded me in Glossop forever. The conversations I’ve had with Ghislaine and Michael Howard about our town and their practice made me fall in love with art all over again, and excited me into trying new things here on my doorstep. Making friends with Richard and Lauren at KIN.DER and watching them build something so special and unique on our High Street is another high in a long list of highlights. Helping some of you with job applications and references, then seeing you get them and forge creative careers has made me immensely proud. Working with Charlie, who’s about half my age and twice as talented, was just lovely. She’s a diamond. She came up with the Winter Story Trail, and now Glossop has 48 more strange tales to add to its cultural heritage.

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The projects some of you have created through PAIRINGS Residencies have been truly exceptional, particularly Clare Savory’s Longdendale Tales, Evie O’Connors project with Friends of Glossop Train Station and listening to the one and only Tim Campbell Green transport me through time on one of his Wanders to name a few, but there are so many. Reading Tim’s zines a few weeks ago made me so happy and optimistic, because it’s things like that which bring places to life, it starts in our imaginations and ends up as something real, that you can touch and feel and if we dare, share.

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But it’s all just been great.

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I hope some of you, with more time and energy, can pick up where I’ve left and work with the brilliant Eve (who basically runs the show in Glossop, promoting you and your projects), Claire, Caroline and the team at Local to continue to enhance the support of and advocacy for our precious community. In every town I work in, they say that they need a Glossop Creates (and they do), but they don’t have you lot…

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You are what is making Glossop an exciting and special place to be right now. And it's just the start of a new era for Glossop, there’s a new Market Hall opening soon-ish, Victoria Hall has all the potential in the world and groups like The Black Circle, Carlie’s Dance Local, Glossop Bookfest, The Partington, The Crystal Ballroom and loads of others that I’ve missed (sorry) are programming new things in this old town. All this brilliant work comes from the connections and communities we create together. Glossop Creates a community. Thank you all so much for letting me be a part of it.

See you soon,

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Steven

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