Well-being Through Creativity in Grantham

There's something cool happening in this town, I can feel it.

Today I visited a small community woodworking workshop here in Grantham.  The workshop project was founded in 2018 by Simon Kieffer, who also runs the project. I found out about it from a chance meeting at Union Street Gallery.

With ‘Well-being Through Creativity’ being his ethos, the workshop was created to offer socially disadvantaged and isolated people from the Grantham area the opportunity to engage with others while learning and sharing woodwork skills. Finding well-being in creativity is something I can definitely get on board with.

I mentioned to him that I had made guitars from salvaged wood, and he was interested in taking a look. I took a couple of them down to show him and to have a look at the workshop and a chat. Simon makes me think that he should have been an awesome surfer and probably owns more pairs of flip-flops than is healthy. I liked him the minute we started talking.

The workshop, although not huge, is full of tooling, wood in all species, shapes, and sizes, as well as lots of previous projects, all dusty from woodworking hanging all over the walls. There were 4 or 5 people all busy creating small pieces relating to Halloween, and it made me want to get my coat off and start something myself, so much so that at asked if I could come down tomorrow and get involved. “Of course, come down, have a go”

As Outwood is a Community Interest Company (CIC), all of the profits from sales go back into supporting the project, and its paying off, as they will be moving to a new premises in the next few weeks hich will take project away from the back street its currently reiding in and on the High Street.

As Simon says, and I have said previously, there's something cool happening in this town, I can feel it.

The project aims to improve people's confidence and self-esteem by helping them learn, share new skills, and be inventive and imaginative. The workshop also helps to reduce social isolation by building a sense of community.

Anyone interested in woodwork is welcome at the workshop. To find out more about Outwood CiC and what Simon and the attendees get up to, check out the website. 

https://www.outwoodcic.org/

Image © Andy Wallis 2025