Tim is a registered mental health nurse and also has extensive experience of teaching, workshop leading and performing in the fields of music, poetry, comedy, magic and circus.

He has a specific interest in promoting positive images of mental health through the arts.

In addition to the Arty Social featured here, he has also been involved in a number of other U.matter projects, including:

• Online Visual Arts – a set of online visual art workshops – open to all and designed to boost attendees health, wellbeing and creative skills.
• Online Creative Writing – similar to the above, but focusing on channeling attendees creative writing skills. 
• Online Comedy Asylum – a fun and relaxing weekly session where attendees made up stories, tell jokes and laughed a lot! 

Before lockdown, Tim was involved in a number of U.matter physical events…

Open Mic at The Donkey – 29th May 2019

Audience: Circa 60 people from diverse backgrounds with good mix of mental health service users and ‘regular members of the public’. Throughout the evening positive representations of mental health via the compere combined with ‘Time to Change’ and BrightSparks literature distribution. Free food for all attenders + performers with some free BrightSparks merchandise and other available for purchase.

Performers: Eight service users were paid to perform, who came from our Sounds Aloud funded Smoothie Sound System and Fosse Music Collective, alongside others from our writer’s and other groups.

There were eight members of the public who also performed with paid professional acts being a classical guitarist and a diabolist.

The evening was compered by a BrightSparks volunteer for free.

One member of the public enjoyed the evening so much she asked if she could join our mental health community.

Audience feedback:

• ‘Very friendly and inviting, a great evening’
• ‘I didn’t know what to expect, this is wonderful’
• ‘Can you do this for us every month?’

Everybody’s Reading Festival Open Mic at The Attenborough Arts Centre – 5th October 2019

Audience. Over 60 people from diverse backgrounds with good mix of mental health service users and ‘regular members of the public’. Throughout the evening positive representations of mental health via the compere combined with ‘Time to Change’ and BrightSparks literature distribution. Free food for all attenders + performers with some free BrightSparks merchandise and other available for purchase.

Performers: 17 ‘Sounds Aloud’ funded service users paid to perform alongside small number from the general public with two paid professional acts, one a band involving two service users.

This show has a big outreach as part of the Everybody’s Reading Festival with associated positive messages around mental health.

Audience feedback:

• ‘I really enjoyed this evening, especially the people with mental health problems performing’

Open Mic at The Donkey – 20th February 2020

Audience: Circa 60 people from diverse backgrounds with good mix of mental health service users and ‘regular members of the public’. Throughout the evening positive representations of mental health via the compere combined with ‘Time to Change’ and BrightSparks literature distribution. Free food for all attenders + performers with some free BrightSparks merchandise and other available for purchase.

Performers: Ten service users were paid to perform, who came from our ‘Sounds Aloud’ funded Smoothie Sound System and Fosse Music Collective, alongside others from our writer’s and other groups.

7 members of the public performed alongside a paid professional compere, musician and Indian Dancer.

Evening included Music, puppetry, stand-up comedy + Indian dance.

A member of BrightSparks died at the weekend prior to the show so the show was dedicated to his memory with a number of audience members there to pay tribute to him.

Audience feedback:

• ‘It’s a nice atmosphere, it’s entertaining, nice people, good food and drink’
• ‘I struggle with speaking but when I see service users on stage I find it so inspirational that they are so brave. It gives them hope and confidence. It’s so humbling. They may not be the greatest singers or musicians but to take that step is amazing.’
• ‘The sense of community in the room is very strong, and the event has given people a forum in which to remember their friend.’
• ‘I’d like to thank Tim for all his hard work, and BrightSparks, I’ve had a really bad start to the year, (problems with his band and his marriage) and Tim came along and said, ‘do you want to do an open mic night? And here I am.’