North City Library turned 20!
On January 4th, North City Library turned 20 years old and we celebrated this with a full week of activities from Monday 5th to Saturday 10th January.
The main event was on the Monday where we invited our regular Grand Day Out group of over 55s to join us as well as the Lord Mayor, local councillors, ex-library staff and any other customers who wanted to take part. We held a music quiz and a picture quiz linking to Manchester followed by a few rounds of Play Your Cards Right (won by none other than the Lord Mayor!) alongside a herb planting activity ran by the local neighbourhood team. We also had our archives team bring lots of images of the local area for people to view and they were on hand to help with the local images website if anybody wanted to have a look for themselves. You can search the archive collection here.
This was followed by a silent disco where the Grand Day Out chose the songs for the main playlist and enjoyed a good boogie in our meeting pod. Alongside this we had cake and refreshments for everyone to enjoy.
The wonderful staff at North City Library had made a photo backdrop, a selfie frame and three boards filled with photos of library activities from over the years and they provided party hats for the celebrations too.
We displayed 10 fantastic black and white portraits from the ‘Up North’ photography project taken by Rizwan Iqbal. The project took place at four of our local libraries in North Manchester and the display features a selection of the participants from all of the locations.
After school on Monday was our Comic Club where the group made their own mini zines. This runs twice a month on the first and third Monday, the next session will be on Monday 19 January at 3:30-4:30pm – if you’re aged 7-13 years old, interested in comics and having a go at creating your own, why not go along?
On Tuesday 6th our regular story time session for under 5’s took place with an extra special visit from the Bookstart Bear! This was then followed by our after school weekly Chess Club which runs from 3:30-4:30pm on Tuesdays.
On Wednesday, we welcomed local author and illustrator Emma Reynolds to help us celebrate with classes from Moston Fields and Mount Carmel. The younger classes had a session based around Emma’s book ‘Amara and the Bats’ where they learned all about what bats do for the environment and what they can do to protect them and help them thrive. They listened to the story and then they drew their own bat. The older classes had a workshop based around Emma’s book ‘Drawn to Change the World’; a book featuring comics by 16 different young artists all about climate and varying ways to help the world. They listened to one of the stories and then with tips from Emma about how they can change the world they created a zine of their own. We then gifted every class a copy of each book to take back to school for their class rooms or school libraries, kindly provided by Read Manchester and signed by Emma.
On Saturday 10th we had a variety of crafts for families to take part in including making collage bookmarks, dreamcatchers and party hats to help them celebrate. We also held a silent disco for them which they loved… one family who weren’t able to stay long even rearranged their plans so they could take part in the disco for lots longer!
‘That was amazing! We would do it again soon! Thank you.’
We also had RSPB attend the event to promote the Big Garden Birdwatch (it takes place 23-25 January, click here for more details on how to take part). We went for a nature walk first followed by a craft where the children made a bird finger puppet to take home. The walk to Boggart Hole Clough took place with three families where they learned all about native birds and plants and we looked for a few of them such as robins, blackbirds, brambles and grey squirrels. All attendees received a free bird feeder for their gardens to help the birds through the cold spells.
The children were very enthusiastic and super keen to learn and spot the wildlife. There are plans in place to put on another one in spring to observe the changes and see what nature may be blooming at that point. Why not head out for a walk of your own and see what plants and animals you can spot?
All in all, the week was a fabulous celebration and a great time was had by all!
