Beach Hut 332

Hut 332 has a traditional role in the Beach Hut Advent Calendar.  This is the hut that Cathy Watts owns and decorates and hut that the Dawn Chorus always sings at.  This year there was a choir of approximately 40 who all sang their hearts out for half an hour.








We were blessed with the first relatively calm, still night of the 2015 calendar as so far every night has been very windy and blustery.  The peace and the low tide helped to carry the voices of the choir as they rang out across the seafront for all to hear.





The carol they had chosen as their focus was Star of Wonder and so the hut was full of stars of various types.

Star of Wonder was written by Terre Roche following a deep sleep in which she thought she heard the notes of a tune which became this carol.  She had been searching for a way to write a song to honour a close friend who had died in the Lockerbie plane disaster, and this was it.







The Dawn Chorus is a morning community choir which meets in Prestonville and Shoreham.  You can find more about them here.







If you want to hear more of their singing, they are taking part in the Carol Service at St. Luke's Prestonville, this Sunday at 6.30pm.  You can find the church here.

The next hut is back down at Hove Lagoon and is number 410

Beach Hut 403

The theme this evening was Good King Wenceslas although there was no snow lying about deep and crisp and even as in fact the weather was quite mild.

Instead hut 403 had a floor covered in silver snow which glittered and glistened in the light.

The snow formed a landscape which swept up to the good king's castle on the hill.

The scenery and the castle itself all sparkled with tiny twinkling Christmas lights.

On the other side of the hut was the peasant hut which the king decided to trudge to with provisions during the cold and snow.

The good king himself was present in the form of a puppet who went around the crowd handing out chocolates and generally bringing good cheer, in much the same way as the king brought hospitality to the poor peasant living under the mountain.  

As the final verse of the song says:

Therefore, Christian men, be sure
Wealth or rank possessing
Ye who now will bless the poor
Shall yourselves find blessing 

The next hut is 332 and will feature the Dawn Chorus choir who will be singing for us.

Beach Hut 367

Another windy but dry night made it hard to focus on the theme of the hut which was Silent Night.  It was anything but silent on the seafront as the wind tugged at our clothes and hair and threatened to carry away parts of the thin cardboard display.

Add to this the sound of the waves crashing on the beach and the children running around and it felt like a very busy, noisy place to be rather than the silent haven envisaged by the writer of the carol.

The art in the hut was created from cutouts made in black card and placed against spray painted acetates which were back lit so that they glowed in the dark.

The patterns created around the central star, whirled and swooped around the hut making it feel as though the whole thing was moving.

Laid across the green carpet of grass on the floor of the hut was a host of little candle lights, helping to give the scene some warmth and movement.

We discovered that even when surrounded by a tall glass jam jar, the wind was still strong enough to blow out any tea lights so we resorted to using battery powered tea lights which gave a really warm feeling to the scene.








The next hut is just a few yards to the west of tonights as it is number 403 at Hove Lagoon.

Beach Hut 196

The beach hut display tonight needed protection from the wind by a couple windbreaks.  The wind has been consistently strong since day one and can cause a bit of a problem if the display involves anything flimsy or lightweight.

Tonights hut had the potential for wind damage as it was a dozen cardboard 'scenes' all rendered in paper and card (although it could have turned into a soggy mess if it ha been raining!).

The boxes depicted all the verses of the song The Twelve Days of Christmas.  The children of Elmgrove school had worked their artistic skills on each box to give us a vision of that verse using a variety of different techniques and styles.

There was a partridge in a pear tree, doves, swans, Lords a-leaping and many more, all created in beautiful detail.

The twelve days of Christmas is the season following on from the day itself and was the main festival for celebrating the birth of Jesus at this time.  Christmas used to be celebrated with a twelve day festival of rejoicing and celebration running from the 25th December until 6th January.

These days the celebration of Christmas mostly takes place in the days and weeks running up to the day itself and we don't do much celebrating afterwards.

You can see some of the illustrations of the verses here.

Our next hut is back up by the lagoon at number 367.

Beach Hut 191

In contrast to last night and the howling wind and driving rain, tonight was beautifully mild and calm, which was ironic as the theme carol for the evening was In the Bleak Midwinter!

Deepdene school created the hut and there was lots of detail to take in, all of it produced by the children themselves.

The whole hut was outlined with icy looking Christmas lights.


Lanterns and other wintry objects decorated the floor.

Some of the lanterns appeared to be made of felt or some other similar material and must have taken quite a lot of work to produce.

The children also produced 'snowscene artwork' to cover the back wall of the hut.

 The next hut is very close to this one as it's hut number 196.

Beach Hut 418

While the people of Carlisle were struggling with 30cm of rain in 24 hours, the weather forecast promised to us in Brighton was for a mostly dry, overcast day with the odd chance of a shower.   Unfortunately this was very wide of the mark as we had persistent rain all day along with fairly strong winds - not exactly perfect weather for opening a beach hut.




Despite that Michele, Debbie and Chris created a fantastic hut on the theme of 'Away in a Manger'.

This was the work of Kidz Klub, a Brighton charity which runs youth clubs for kids in some of the most deprived areas of the city.  You can find out more about them here.

The stars in the bright sky (each made by the children and illuminated by disco lights and lasers), looked down where he lay.





We even had a baby Jesus asleep in the hay (even though we all know that this was a bit premature as Jesus is born on Christmas day).


Despite the wind and rain, people still came down and there was a steady trickle of visitors throughout the hour.







This included one young man who was exercising along the seafront and stopped to see what was going on only to realise that he used to attend one of the Kidz Klub clubs when he was younger and was pleased for the opportunity to thank Chris and Debbie for their care of him so many years ago.



So as to make the serving of drinks and mince pies more comfortable we set up the refreshment table in one of the seafront shelters which formed a cosy little serving area.

The forecast for Monday 7th December says cloudy but dry, let's hope that's the case for hut 191 and Deepdene school.

Beach Hut 449

Hut 449 is the most westerly of the huts involved in the Beach Hut Advent Calendar and it's over a mile and a half from yesterdays hut 44 beside Hove Lawns.

The plan had been to make this a prayer hut during the afternoon so that anyone who was walking past might take the opportunity to stop for a few moments of quiet to reflect, meditate and if desired to pray or write down a prayer.




Unfortunately the weather was howling a gale all afternoon and the conditions were not at all conducive to being quiet, meditative or prayerful.  The artist and her steadfast volunteers spent most of their time trying to get the hut set up with everything blowing all over the place unless it was nailed down!


Fortunately the wind subsided a little during the evening and Julie had been able to create a beautiful tableau of the virgin Mary being visited by the angel Gabriel who announced to her that she was to bear a son and call him Jesus.


Julie Carroll was the artist and she was inspired by the prayer of praise that Mary uttered on hearing this news.

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,

for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

The next hut is also up by Hove Lagoon and is being put together by local Kidz Klub who run youth clubs across the city of Brighton & Hove.

Beach Hut 44

Tonight was a special night as we knew that many of the delegates from The Art of Ritual conference would be coming down to the hut as part of their programme for the day.  So we pulled out the big guns and asked Beyond team member Kirsty Tyler to get her creative thinking cap on and produce something wonderful for us all to see and she exceeded all our expectations.

Hut 44 beside Hove Lawns became the home of a beautiful, hand-crafted nativity scene built entirely from cardboard.  Not only was the scene gorgeous to look at, but it was also animated via a series of handcranks and cams which made the various figures come to life when someone chose to turn one of the handles.

The angel on the roof opened and closed her wings.

The donkey nodded in the direction of the baby Jesus.


The star twirled in the sky like a dancer pirouetting.

T

The wise men seemed to have got mixed up with a lost sheep.




At the heart of it all were the holy family, bedded down in the straw and trying to focus on the wellbeing of the baby rather then being distracted by any guests.

Tomorrow we're at hut 449, right beside Hove Lagoon.  Another one of our team, Julie Carroll will be at the hut throughout the afternoon, offering to pray for you or with you.  Please drop by any time after 2pm to join in with this and the official opening time will be 5.30pm as usual.

The Art of Ritual

Today Beyond hosted The Art of Ritual conference with support from the Westminster Faith Debates.  I brought together artists, celebrants, ritual practitioners, event designers and performers to look at the boundaries between all these roles and the place of ritual and art in contemporary human experience.

It was a fascinating day covering all sorts of interesting topics which we hope to blog about in more detail later.  But for now, here are a few photos from the event to give you a flavour of our day.





The opening ceremony encouraged us to focus on the creative spark in each of us.











Turning the remains of the sparklers in a creative bubble.

Cole Moreton invents a 'human sparkler' ritual.

Such happy, creative people!

Beach Hut 404

In the blustery windy weather we found our way to Hut 404 focussing on In the Bleak Midwinter.  Hut owner Tanya Somerset had imagined the cold winter personified in the figure of an ice queen, poised in the middle of a frosty scene.

Tanya is a bespoke couture costume designer who brought all her skills to bear in creating a fantastically magical hut.






To go with the wintry theme we could also listen to music from the Narnia soundtrack which related to the snow queen imagery.

There was also an altruistic motive to the hut tonight as Tanya Somerset of Bolli Darling is raising money for Heart Research UK and in particular their Aortic dissection division as she lost her husband to this 3 years ago.

Despite the high winds on the beach there was a steady stream of visitors and the table with mince pies and mulled wine was kept busy most of the evening.








 The design featured lots of white feathers which made up parts of the queens costume and included some birds wearing their own feathered costumes.








This hut was beside Hove Lagoon and we head to almost the other end of the one and a half mile stretch of huts all along Hove seafront.

The next destination on our Advent pilgrimage is hut 44 and the work of Beyond artist Kirsty Tyler.

Beach Hut 225

Tonight was all about Christingles both large and small.  Hut 225 had been turned into a giant Christingle and was full of lots of small Christingles made by the children of St. Andrew's school in Hove.

Christingles can be traced back to a Germany in the mid 1700's but only really took off in this country in 1968 when the Children's Society ran the first Christingle service.  Now lots of churches hold them and you can probably find one at a church near you at some point during the Christmas season.  The church which is now the home of Beyond will be holding a Christingle service on Sunday 20th December at 5pm if you would like to come along and make your own.  The service will be at St. Luke's Prestonville, 64 Old Shoreham Road, Brighton, BN1 5DD you can find a map here. 

Christingles are full of the symbolism of the Christmas message.  The main part of a Christingle is an orange which represents the world.  This has a red ribbon wrapped around it which represents the blood Jesus shed for the world.  There are four cocktail sticks with dried fruit or sweets on them, these represent the four seasons and the fruits of the earth and finally the whole object is topped off with a candle which stands for the light of the world.

Some of the St. Andrews school children also came to the hut to sing, ably accompanied by some of the teachers on guitars despite the cold wind blowing along the seafront.

At the end of the event everyone got to take their own Christingle home with them which will remind them of the true meaning of Christmas throughout this Advent season.

Our next hut is number 404 down near Hove lagoon.