Just craftin' around......pastoral support

We place a great deal of emphasis on pastoral support at our library, especially during Easter (exam) term.  This is because we're considered to be part of the support team watching for students struggling with the extra pressure during this time.  We therefore try to encourage the students to take breaks and relax.

Over the years, I've therefore implemented lots of things, such as tea and coffee, the nail bar, colouring books and this year a craft hour, "Just Craftin' Around".

Cross stitch with Kirstie

Agnieszka our library assistant had originally wondered about doing crochet during our usual tea and coffee break during Easter Term, but I thought it might be interesting to see how a whole series of craft activities went down.  

Discussions took place between the library staff and we each thought we could take a different activity between us: Agnieszka - crochet, Sam - blind contour drawing and cross stitch for myself. I thought that we would also include our gardening team as they enjoy offering things to the students, so they came on board with flower arranging.  I also knew that our tutorial office manager did sugar craft after the recent college "Bake Off", and asked if she'd be involved as well.  Finally during a conversation over lunch in the Dome with the development office staff, I managed to convince them to join in with crafts they were good at which meant we could cover the whole eight week term.

The craft hour activities were put together on a shoe string.  I put in 

Pom pom making

a small budget for Easter term activities every year, so the cost of the required items came out of the library budget.  However, this was supplemented by some of our own stuff, for example, Agnieszka bought in some beads from home and the cross stitch stuff for my hour was mine.  Sam and I also collected jam jars over a few weeks for the flower arranging but I did buy some small ones. 

Crochet with Agnieszka

We’ve had between 2 and 6 students each time, which I think is pretty good for the first year, especially as we weren't sure whether the students would be interested.  I first booked a room next to the library, but found that the students had a mental barrier about leaving the library for a break.  So after two weeks I moved it to the library office where they have tea and coffee.   I also found that even once it was located in the library office with the tea and coffee students still had to be encouraged to take the first step and join in. I found it helped if we started doing the crafts which in turn made the students curious to ask about them.  Some felt they couldn't spend any more time away from study, where as others thought they could as it was only once a week.  However these tended to be second years who hadn't given themselves breaks last year and had come to realise their importance.

MCR craft hour

One of the postgraduate students who came along mentioned they were thinking of putting something on for the MCR (Postgraduate students union). So I offered to take some stuff over and show them the blind contour drawing, crochet and cross stitch.  13 students turned up and along with scones and tea we had a lovely afternoon. It also gave me a chance to get to know more of the postgraduates. As our library's book stock is mainly for undergraduates, we don't see a lot of the postgraduates the as they prefer to use their departmental libraries. I  loved the fact that we were able to offer them a library service. 


It’s been enjoyable to do, for us as well as the students.   We’ve had positive comments about it from those who have joined in, one student was overheard saying "I’m not revising for my exams anymore … I have to finish this.” Throughout the term we've created a gallery of all the crafts using some boards and drawing pins to put up the pictures and photos in the library. 

Sugar Craft with Beverley

Next year, I need to promote it wider than the library and put posters up around the college.  I also want to liaise more with the undergraduate and postgraduate reps and get them tweeting and facebooking the event.  Whilst I had initially liaised with them and told them our plans, I don't think I asked them to assist in promotion and making students aware of its existence.

However, from small beginnings come great things.  As with tea & coffee and the nail bar, I'm sure it'll become part of the library fabric and be spoken about during open day tours by our students.