Our Initial Project Outline

To keep you all updated we thought we’d post our initial project outline for all you tie-dye sock enthusiasts. Enjoy!

 

Project Outline

Our aim is to teach the clients of Homeless Action during their weekly activities session a creative skill that will result in the creation of a product to be sold in a pop up shop in Lancaster City Centre. All proceeds will be donated to the Homeless Action centre’s Theatre Group held in DT3. We are currently in contact with a number of potential companies to fund the project including Wilkinsons and LUSU.

 

Homeless Action

We will hold six 90-minute sessions over the period of six weeks in which the clients of Homeless Action will be introduced to the process of tie-dying as well being taught basic business skills that come with selling a product. Below are the 6 session outlines and their provisional dates.

 

WEEK ONE	Friday 17th January	– Introduction to the project – Each client creating a tie-dyed square in order to teach them the process (these will be made into a decorative patchwork for the action centre)
WEEK TWO	Friday 24th January	– Showing them the patchwork – Introducing the product and the initial stages of the process (begin creating)
WEEK THREE	Friday 31st January	– Tie-dye session – getting their creative input and help with the production
WEEK FOUR	Friday 7th February	– Tie-dye session – getting their creative input and help with the production
WEEK FIVE	Friday 14th February	– Basic business discussion of costing and packaging – Photographing the products
WEEK SIX	Friday 21st February	– Plenary and Feedback

 

Product

The product we will be creating is tie-dye socks. We’ve chosen this product due to them being low cost, its simplicity in creation and the appeal to customers. Our aim to have the cost of the socks and dyes to be funded by outside partners so all money made goes to the charity. Another reason why we’ve chosen this product is that if we have left over stock after the pop-up store they can be donated to Homeless Action. We wanted our chosen product to raise money but also benefit the clients. After feedback from the centre we came to the conclusion socks would be useful to them.

 

Pop-Up Shop

For this project we have the opportunity to open a pop-up shop on Wednesday 19^th February to Friday 21^st February in St Nicholas Arcade on Lancaster’s high street. This will be where we sell the product to raise money for Homeless Action. As well as selling the product we would also hope to have boards that explain what we are setting out to do and more about the charity. By doing this we aim to open a discussion with the community about the work Homeless Action are doing in the hope we raise more awareness.

 

In order to create a professional, yet creative look for the store, we are considering hanging the socks around the shop from string via pegs. This will not only create a decoration for the shop, but also an interaction for customers to decide on which product they wish to buy.

 

Press

We are aware that this project, especially in collaboration with the store in Lancaster, will have local and potentially national press interest. This is an exciting prospect to raise awareness of Homeless Action not only in Lancaster but also across the country. In addition to this we are also in contact with the University’s media outlets and local radio stations.