Fantastic launch of Gems Scrapstore & welcome to Wells!

The grand opening of Gems Scrapstore & Play Resource Centre in Wells was favoured by blue skies and bright sunshine on Saturday morning.

GEMS has recently relocated from Glastonbury to new premises at 9a Market Street, just behind the bus station and new Mayor Tony Robbins and wife Silvia, opened the building among a press scrum of Wells People, The Journal & Mendip Times.

There was somewhere in the region of 100 people through the door including the Masters family who are the new landlords who have been very supportive of the move. The launch also proved a big success with several new organisations taking up membership and lots of scrap sold.

Feedback on the day was that it's a great scheme, and a brilliant opportunity for local schools and groups to get their hands on some really unusual, affordable materials and also good for helping to inspire children to use their imaginations and free themselves from the grip of the television and pc!

The day featured an exhibition of sculptures by local artist Chris Pilmore, whose work is featured at Glastonbury Festival and includes giant sculptures made from recycled materials. There was also free art & craft activities, face painting, refreshments and special offers on scrap and memberships.

The charity has received funding from the Grassroots fund from Somerset Community Foundation to relocate to Wells, also had donations from the

Co-Operative Community Fund and Wells City Council. They are also being

funded by MDC for a three year period which has made it possible to strengthen and move the services forward.

Manager Laura Kavanagh summed-up her aspirations for the future of GEMS saying: “ I hope we can continue to grow and develop our services to meet the needs of our community, to provide a brilliant range of amazing resources for use in education and play and creative projects and to become firmly established in Mendip as offering a vibrant and affordable service to all.”

She has a clear vision of how to achieve this stating that: “I'd really like to push the remit for us to collect more business waste if possible. We are on the look-out for new businesses to donate their waste to us. This could be something which is produced through manufacturing processes or end of line materials. However  unusual or insignificant it may seem to them, it may be of huge interest to us! It may be small pieces of fabric, plastic or card which is produced from machining, or off-cuts which are collected from cutting etc. As long as it is clean (not contaminated with food products and toxins) and safe (not glass or sharp metal) then we are interested! We collect this for free, which helps them to save money on commercial waste removal services (i.e skip hiring etc).”

She also puts out this request for new volunteers, trustees, patrons and sponsors: “If anyone would like to donate a few hours of their time to helping us in our lovely Scrapstore, or would like to contribute financially, it would be wonderful!  Please contact me for more information. We are a registered charity, non-proft making organisation, charity no: 1056927

Tel: 01749 938112  email: info@gemsscrapstore.org.uk   www.gemsscrapstore.org.uk

9a Market Street, Wells BA5 2DS

For more photos from the morning, please see the gallery.