The Big Draw Festival is really important to organisations such as ourselves as it gives us an opportunity to showcase the fascinating documents in our holdings in a new way. We were thrilled to be awarded the Community, Participatory and Libraries Big Draw Award at the ceremony held at the beautiful Hoxton Hall in May 2016.

The day was filled with inspirational and magnificent groups of people from all over the country (and The Netherlands!), and all shared in celebrating everyone’s achievements. We particularly enjoyed drawing the wonderful Drawing Circus; it was a joy to see everyone having a go and getting involved. The miniature Yorkshire Puddings were also amazing!

Drawing is fundamental to education, understanding, and of course, history. Historically, everything has been written and drawn by hand; from maps and portraits of family to plans of buildings and engines, it all started with a drawing. Using The Big Draw Festival as a platform we are able to take these invaluable sources of information and use them to create art.

What was also evident from our own Big Draw event in October 2015 was that conversations between participants were stimulated as they learned from each other, not only about their connection with Northallerton, but also the history of the town through the maps.

As we left for our train back up to North Yorkshire, we were filled with ideas and concepts, spurred on by the fabulous people we had met at the awards. Both fellow winners and guests at the awards were a pleasure to meet and talk with.

I would recommend anyone, whether an individual or an organisation, to get involved with The Big Draw Festival. There are so many possibilities and fantastic outcomes and as we proved, you don’t need a huge budget. This year’s theme ‘STEAM Powered Big Draw’ has the potential for many interesting and exciting events.  We are busy planning our second event and look forward to being involved again this year!

Emily Ward

Records Assistant