Introducing SFW Hub: South Birmingham

First up in our Hub Introductions is SFW Hub: South Birmingham, delivered by The Old Print Works!

The Old Print Works is a diverse and welcoming community in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, that believes in the transformative power of making and creativity. A vibrant community charity, The Old Print Works provides competitively priced spaces for creative local makers and creatives to share, collaborate, innovate and in the process preserve, transfer and develop new and practical skills.

The Old Print Works was founded in Balsall Heath over 10 years ago in an old industrial heritage building that was vacated in 2009 and is now run by a charitable company, Make It Sustainable Ltd. Their vision is to create an open and engaging, culturally rich, economically resilient and environmentally sustainable local community centre that is connected around and through an inspiring shared heritage space.

Make It Sustainable Ltd are currently in the process of securing The Old Print Works in order to invest and demonstrate its environmental sustainability, conserve and celebrate its heritage and maximise the versatility, value and affordability of creative spaces for the community benefit. In striving towards a self-financing model, they are seeking to reinvest surpluses back into the local area, supporting the charity’s vision of serving the community which is classified in the top 1% in the UK on the Index of Multiple Deprivation. They believe that everyone is creative, that everyone has something to add and learn, seeking to make this possible and accessible for all that visit The Old Pint Works in generating an open, inclusive and empowering community space.

Every second Saturday of the month, The Old Print Works hosts the ‘Balsall Heath Second Saturday’, a mini-festival celebrating making, community, creativity, local culture and the arts that is open to the general public. Workshops are available from current residents and local makers, and a Repair Cafe is regularly run where anyone can drop in and bring their items in need of repair to the volunteer repairers.

Regular sessions from current residents include; sewing, dressmaking and textile art classes from Deb Day Sewing Room: bike maintenance and secondhand bicycles from The Bike Project: pottery classes for beginners and intermediates from Sundragon Pottery: practical craft and tool making classes by Craft Design and Technology for Kids plus loads more. Visit the website for more information on classes and residents taking place.