Category: Blog

RicNic Community Day 2026

On Saturday 8 August, we hosted our 2026 community day in Walsall Arboretum as part of the Walsall Hippo Project. Over 250 people joined us to take part in a range of activities, including games, crafts, storytelling, healthy giveaways, and spending time outdoors in the sunshine 🌞

The event was part of a series of creative sessions that will help to shape the Walsall Hippo Trail; an interactive art and creative health trail coming to the borough next summer! Find out more about our other events here.

Breaking In: Your Introduction to Creative Careers

Breaking In is an accessible, interactive video platform designed to open doors to the creative industries and help you explore the many career pathways within them. Whether you’re a student, educator, or simply curious about creative work, the platform offers a structured yet flexible journey through nine distinct sectors; each one packed with insight, inspiration, and practical guidance.

What Breaking In Offers

Across nine sectors, you’ll meet artists, creatives, curators, and other professionals who either work for leading organisations across the Midlands or thrive as established freelancers. Each video introduces you to a real person in the field, sharing:

You can explore the sectors in any order, and if one really grabs your attention, you can dive deeper with extended videos offering even more behind‑the‑scenes insight. After completing the platform, you’ll be guided to a curated set of follow‑up resources to help you take your next steps.

Flexible, Accessible, and Classroom‑Ready

Breaking In is designed to work in group settings, like classrooms or workshops, or individually at your own pace. All videos include captions, and the platform aligns with Gatsby Benchmarks 2&5, with additional signposting supporting Benchmarks 3&8.

If you’re using the worksheets, the full experience takes around 90 minutes, though 2 hours is recommended to give students time to explore the follow‑up resources. Educators can run the platform in a teacher‑led format, or students can navigate independently in whichever order matches their interests.

Try out Breaking In here

RicNic Associates launch new activity book in partnership with RAF Museum Midlands

From May to July 2026, Molly, Evie, Fizzah and Owen joined us in a new RicNic Associates programme, working to a live brief to create an activity book for RAF Museum Midlands, inspired by the museum and the mascot Twinkletoes.

The group worked to a brief to create an activity book to inspire local children to attend the museum, exploring content, branding, target audiences, how to work together as a team, and the museum’s history. They then visited the Museum with cameras and sketch pads to tour its collections, discover the tales behind them, and curate inspiring stories and objects to feature in the book.

“I was granted this amazing opportunity to work with RicNic and produce a colouring and activity book for the wonderful RAF museum in Cosford. Me and a team of wonderful young artists, created unique illustrations and activities to tell the unique historical stories. We worked together to fulfil the brief and ultimately created something we were all proud of.” – Owen Davies

The books have now been distirbuted to schools around Walsall, with a limited number available to pickup from the museum.


Introducing RicNic’s Summer of Creativity

As we count down to the end of term, we’re delighted to be launching RicNic’s summer programme for 2026, with an exciting range of workshops led by local creatives. Behind the scenes our team have been putting together a fabulous summer activity programme. Whether you’re looking to become a pop star, discover graffiti art, learn to sew, work with leather, or much more, there’ll be something for you. From early years provision to workshops for ages 16+, we’d love you to get involved.

Find out more and book your place here

Please note we have additional HAF spaces available for our Creative Summer Camp (24th-27th August) for anyone eligible for Free School Meals. If you have a HAF code already, please book through the HAF portal.  If you think you are eligible but do not have a code there is more information here: https://haf.walsall.gov.uk/ProviderPortal

RicNic lead youth delivery for the Walsall Hippo Project

RicNic are running a series of creative sessions across the borough of Walsall to help shape a new hippo-themed art trail which will be on display next year. 

Walsall Council, in partnership with Urban Hax CIC and RicNic, will be delivering a series of sessions throughout the summer holidays aimed at children and young people across the borough. 

The Hippo Project is a borough wide creative health initiative that will engage children, young people and families through arts, storytelling and community activity. The project aims to improve health, wellbeing and family engagement, while creating a lasting community asset through a series of Hippo Trails across the four Best Start Family Hub areas.

The art trail is inspired by the hippo statue, which was once a popular meeting point in Walsall Town Centre. The statue now resides in front of the Lichfield Street Library and has inspired the upcoming art trail, bringing another piece of Walsall’s heritage into the present day for a new generation to enjoy. 

A series of workshops for children and young people will be taking place across the borough, from art sessions to storytelling workshops. The resulting work will be used to shape the stories and designs for the 2027 Hippo Trail. All of the session are free to attend. Parents can find out more and book onto a session here.

This project has been funded by the UK Government through the Community Regeneration Partnership. 

Walsall – RicNic Associates with The Royal Air Force Museum

We’re delighted to be working with RAF Museum Midlands through their community grants programme to run our next Ricnic Associates programme.

The Royal Air Force Museum Midlands, located at RAF Cosford, is a free museum dedicated to the history of aviation and the Royal Air Force in particular.

Our RicNic Associates programme supports creative young adults aged 16+ to develop and deliver their own community projects while exploring pathways into creative careers. This year we’ll be running a programme called Flying Colours. You’ll receive mentoring from the RicNic team and will work to a creative brief to produce a children’s colouring and storybook inspired by RAF stories, beginning with the mascot “Twinkletoes” the cat. 

You’ll spend a day initially meeting and exploring what the project could look like, along with some interactive training to support your personal development, including employability skills. Then you’ll spend a day in the museum to uncover more information from the exhibits and take photographs and sketches that you can develop into your final piece.

You’ll then develop these into a collaborative colouring book to be distributed to children across Walsall and visitors to the musem. You’ll manage artistic creation, digital production, and research into printing and distribution. 

Key Dates & Things To Know

You’ll need to be available for these dates:

We’ll provide transport for the trip to the museum, and will cover any travel costs to make sure that you can get to and from the sessions, which will take place in Walsall Town Centre. This might be by covering the cost of bus tickets or paying for a taxi for you, or it might include providing lunch during sessions. We’ll discuss this with you when confirming your place.

Eligibility

This project is open to anybody who fits the following criteria:

This project is made possble thanks to the RAF Museum Midlands Community Grants Programme

Register for your place here

The first term of Foundry makes…

At the start of the year, our team made a few significant changes to our previous Foundry creative sessions with the aim of presenting a more exciting challenge for our young people who attend.  Since April 2024, RicNic had delivered free after-school provision under our Foundry banner, with different classes for different age groups and a flexible programme covering a range of art forms.  After reviewing how quickly participation had grown and consulting with our regular attendees, we identified that we needed to build more structure AND more exciting challenges into our plans. 

This term, we launched our first ‘Foundry Makes’ projects across our sessions in Rushall and Bloxwich.  Foundry Makes offer 10-week creative projects each term, each with a project brief, end goal target and RicNic’s unique youth-led approach.  Participants can sign up for per term to take on each project.  This term our Friday project was focused on the design and publication of a food-themed activity book.  Funded by a grant from ‘Feeding Our Future’ project funding (via Walsall Council), the project saw 20 of our young people researching recipes, creating puzzles and games, designing characters and learning how to publish items using Canva. 

They have created a 24 page activity and recipe book which is now being distributed to local families through Walsall’s Family Hubs.  

Our Foundry Makes Makers have all loved the idea of seeing their own work in print, becoming authors, editors, artists and designers.  

We have definitely sparked an early interest in graphic design in some of our youngest participants!

The next Foundry Makes theme is ‘Carnival’ and this will stretch across our two groups, with participants exploring performance, costume making, set design and more!

Registration is now open to anyone aged 5-16 years.

Walsall – How to Launch Your Own Creative Career

We’re delighted to be running another creative producing programme this summer from the 17-19th June, after the success of our past ‘Breaking In‘ sessions.

This three‑day programme will introduce you to the wide range of careers within the creative sector. We’ll explore what a creative job could look like for you, identify your ideas and ambitions, and learn how to bring those ambitions to life. You will also discover how the creative skills you already use can transfer into many other areas of life and work.

Open to anyone aged 14 – 25, the course will be tailored to your abilities, prior knowledge, and interests. Whether you’re drawn to design, media, writing, performance, or production, we’ll support you to kickstart your dream career or uncover what it could be.

During the placement, you will work alongside other young people and have the chance to meet and quiz industry professionals. RicNic will guide you through a series of sessions designed to develop your career aspirations and give you insight into the skills needed in the creative industries, exploring topics such as creative pathways, budgeting, event planning, marketing, and fundraising.

By the end of the week, you will create your own project and pitch it to a panel.

Sessions take place 10am-2pm (with lunch break) at The Table, Lower Hall Lane, Walsall, WS1 1RR

Book your place now

Burton – Creative Careers Work Experience 2026

For anyone in the West Midlands in years 10-12

Dreaming of a Creative Career? Whether you’re curious about design, media, writing, performance, or production, we’re here to help you kickstart your dream career or discover what it could be. After the success of our 2025 programme, we’ll be delivering a week-long work experience programme this summer from Monday 6th July – Friday 10th July in partnership with the Brewhouse Arts Centre.

During this placement, young people will work alongside each other, meet and quiz industry professionals and shadow members of the Brewhouse team. We’ll lead those on placement through a series of sessions that aim to develop career ambitions, whilst providing an insight into skills needed for the creative industries. Sessions will cover topics such as creative pathways, budget management, planning an event, marketing, and fundraising. At the end of the week, participants will create their own project and pitch this to a panel.

Interested in getting involved? Apply for your place here

Introducing RicNic’s New Programmes

Established by school students in 2004 as a summer project, RicNic has grown into a charity where young people are at the heart of everything; from shaping creative projects to taking leadership roles across the organisation.

Our core programmes provide regular opportunities for children, teenagers and young adults to be creative and produce their own events, products and small businesses. We promote youth leadership with tangible results, helping young people to develop their financial literacy, communication and understanding of the world.

Our vision is clear:

A world where every young person has the confidence, tools, and platforms to shape their communities through creativity and leadership.

Our New Programme Strands

Our new strands create a clear pathway for children, teenagers, and young adults to explore creativity, build confidence, and step into leadership.

Foundry

Aimed at under 16s, Foundry provides spaces for children and their families to explore creative skills with an end goal of creating events or products for their local community. This includes after-school young-enterprise style projects, free holiday clubs, and one-off workshops with visiting artists such as West-End performers.

Recent Foundry projects have included:

FORGE – Skills, Mentoring & Creative Careers (16+)

Forge supports young adults as they explore creative industries and develop transferable skills for work and life. It includes:

FLOURISH – Workshops for Schools, Businesses & Communities

Our Flourish programme offers a creative arts approach for young people to engage in independent thinking, social enterprise, youth leadership, socialisation and life-long learning, and to develop their sense of self, wellbeing, and sense of hope.

This flexible programme caters for targeted groups including but not exclusive to

Why This Matters

RicNic’s impact goes far beyond creative output. Young people tell us that RicNic is:

We also offer paid roles, work experience, and trustee opportunities—because young people deserve real responsibility and real investment.

As one participant put it:

“Coming to RicNic just makes me feel happy!”

Find out more about what we do or Get In Touch