Join the Community at The GATHERing
Hosted by The Warnborough Foundation
Event Details
- Date: Friday, November 6, 2026
- Time: 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM
- Venue: Warnborough HQ, 18 Lower Bridge Street, Canterbury, Kent CT1 2LG
- Registration: Sign up via Google Forms
- Limited to 15 places.
Connect with creative thinkers, practitioners, and local neighbours at The GATHERing, a friendly meetup hosted by The Warnborough Foundation. It is an open space to swap perspectives, spark collaborations, and explore meaningful topics through open dialogue and attendee-led mini-workshops.
Writers, artists, therapists, and community members of all backgrounds are welcome. Drop in for a quick chat or stay for the entire session.
What to Expect:
- Free tea and coffee (bring-and-share snacks are always welcome)
- Informal networking and small group discussions
- Attendee-driven skill shares and presentations
Space at the venue is limited, so please reserve your free spot in advance.
Confirmed Speakers and Workshop Leaders
Clare Dash: Drawing Back into the Body
Clare Dash is an artist, registered art therapist, and workshop facilitator whose practice spans over 30 years in the UK and Australia. She works at the intersection of art making, somatic healing and creative living. Her clinical background includes two decades in NHS mental health settings, in acute inpatient wards and community mental health teams working with complex trauma and dissociation. She is a fully qualified trauma therapist whose heart-centred approach integrates art, spirituality, and parts work: the understanding that every aspect of ourselves, however challenging, carries meaning and deserves compassion.
Website: www.claredash.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clare-dash-b79617216/
Workshop: Drawing Back into the Body
We carry more in our bodies than we realise. Stress, tension and unspoken pressure often settle into the shoulders, the jaw, the chest or the gut long before we find words for them. Drawing Back Into the Body is a 30 minute introductory session for busy professionals wanting a different way back into their own bodies, not through more thinking, but through movement and art materials.
Steff Dowle: The Power of Positive Connections
Steff Dowle is the founder of Pathway Youth Mentoring and brings more than 40 years of combined experience in military leadership and education to his work with young people. After serving for over two decades in the British Army, where he progressed to Regimental Sergeant Major, Steff moved into education and spent almost 20 years working with children and young people. Most recently, he was Head of an independent specialist school supporting young people with Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs, including those struggling with engagement, behaviour, confidence and school attendance. Steff established Pathway Youth Mentoring to bring together the leadership, resilience and people skills developed during his military career with his extensive experience in education. Steff now works alongside a growing team of experienced mentors, supporting young people and young adults through one to one mentoring both in person and online.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steff-dowle-9b077838/
Website: https://www.youthmentoring.co.uk
The Power of Positive Connections
Steff Dowle’s Pathway Youth Mentoring work is based on the belief that positive, consistent relationships can make a lasting difference. Steff supports young people and adults facing challenges with education, confidence, behaviour, wellbeing and life choices, helping them build resilience and find a positive direction. In his talk, Steff will explore how mentoring can complement education and professional support by providing a trusted person who listens, encourages, understands and challenges when needed. Through his experience, he will share how human connection, consistency and belief in people’s potential can help overcome barriers and create more positive futures.
Kevin Groves: Radio Drama
Kevin Groves currently lives in ‘White Cliffs Country’, Dover, UK. A veteran of many local and national festivals including three Edinburgh Fringe runs to date, and numerous other fringe festivals (including his own at Dover Fringe Festival). His quirky suspenseful storytelling often takes the audience to surprising places filled with twists and turns. An experienced storyteller, writer, producer, and perfumer. His radio drama productions air regularly on BBC Upload and local radio. Between running Dover Fringe he is currently producing his first animated feature film called ‘Margaret And Alice’, a gothic horror: https://margaretandalice.uk
Storyteller at https://kevingrovesstoryteller.uk
Writer & Producer at https://batteredhatproductions.uk
Talk: Radio Drama
Radio drama and podcasts have been around for years, but since COVID, there has been a burst of interest in radio and podcasting. Kevin talks about the importance of this medium despite the wealth of video streaming platforms eclipsing this ‘simplistic’ media. He will explain how to go about setting up a podcast specifically focused on drama; the technology, the workflows, and broadcasting.
Kayla Lukehurst: Roll for Growth
Kayla Lukehurst (MBACP) (GTC) is a creative registered BACP therapist, founder of Healing Word Counselling. Kayla works creatively with clients of all ages but has a passion for working with young adults and has experience lending her therapeutic skills to the students of Canterbury’s East Kent Collage. Kayla is a certified Geek Therapist weaving together geek culture and Acceptance and commitment theory Kayla provides a unique counselling experience based around the tabletop game Dungeons and Dragons. Using Narrative storytelling and creativity to help therapy feel more familiar, less intimidating and accessible to those put off by the more traditional means of therapy. Kayla’s Character-building workshop was recently featured at the Sunrose festival. Kayla is passionate about creating a safe environment where people can be themselves. Her own experiences of being neurodivergent, being Pan/Demisexual and form the gypsy/traveler community informs her passion for inclusion and representation.
Roll for Growth: Dungeons & Dragons Therapy
Kayla will share her experience of using D&D therapeutically by taking on the role of Dungeon Master to help clients reflect on their real-life experiences. With challenges, character building and leveling up this fun therapeutic approach can provide narrative distance as a way of exploring difficult topics and accepting yourself. Kayla creates character sheets for both individual clients and groups to begin their therapeutic adventure. Exploring their whole self in a familiar safe space, clients can creatively, therapeutically build their character, paint sending stones, find familiars and explore a whole range of spells that relate to real life. D&D therapy improves communication, social confidence and connection, its structured storytelling creates a safe space for those both new and experienced in the world of Dungeons and Dragons.
Michi Masumi: Through the Lens
Michi Masumi is an artist-researcher, award-winning photographer, and founder of The Black Art Hub CIC and the Benjamin Zephaniah Library and Archive. A doctoral candidate at Canterbury Christ Church University, her multidisciplinary practice explores identity, cultural heritage, memory, representation and community storytelling through fine art photography, digital art, sonic poetry and creative technologies.
Michi uses photography and visual storytelling to amplify underrepresented voices and create meaningful connections between people, place and history. Her practice combines portraiture, documentary photography and community engagement to create authentic visual narratives that celebrate lived experiences and preserve personal and collective heritage. Her research explores the intersection of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), digital humanities and anthropology, focusing on how communities can create, preserve and share their cultural narratives through accessible digital practices.
Michi holds an MA in Photography (Pass with Merit) from UCA Rochester, specialising in fine art portrait photography and poetry. She received Student Silver Awards in Fine Art Portraiture at the London Photography Awards in 2023 and 2024, and has also been recognised by the Viewbug Peers Spring Awards.
Specialisms: Fine Art Portraiture | Documentary Photography | Digital Art
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michi-masumi
Website: https://www.michimasumi.co.uk
Instagram
Through the Lens: Stories, People & Connection
In this talk, Michi will share insights from her photography practice, exploring how portraits and documentary images can become powerful tools for storytelling, connection and preserving memory. She will discuss her approach to working collaboratively with individuals and communities to create authentic images that reflect identity, culture and lived experience. Through selected projects and photographic examples, she will explore how photography can move beyond documentation to create meaningful conversations,
strengthen community connections, and preserve both personal and collective heritage.
Elizabeth Sillo: Connecting through Music and Creativity
Elizabeth Sillo, British-Hungarian mezzo-soprano based in Canterbury, is a member of the BBC National Chorus of Wales and a former concert soloist in the City of Manchester Opera. She has participated in various international opera and oratorio projects performing with English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Hungarian and Welsh professionals including Verdi, Puccini, Lehar and many other famous composers’ musical treats. Elizabeth stretches the borders of Music and Art and she participated in a very successful ‘Brain research on stage’ scientific concert series in London and in Estonia with an internationally well-known brain researcher/neurologist.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-sillo-b5338265
Workshop: Connecting Through Music & Creativity
In this workshop, you can immerse yourself in wonderful operatic and folk melodies through interactive discussions and musical brain games.
Danielle Williams: Sharing Legacy Through Creativity
Danielle Williams, is a multidisciplinary artist based in Canterbury, with a passion for music and visual arts. Currently her work is focused on her pen and watercolour sketches that are usually created live at local music events. Aside from this, the subject matter in her work typically includes portraits and nature, while paying special attention to colour and light. As well as being a visual artist, Danielle is a vocalist and musician who collaborates with other musicians. Also, she created her original music. Danielle has been interested in art since early childhood, so after doing art and photography at secondary school, she went on to do a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at the University for The Creative Arts (UCA) in Canterbury. However, she eventually ended up with a degree in Animal Science, but soon after graduation began a consistent art practice.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daniellewilliams.art
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-williams-253007199/
Sharing Legacy Through Creativity
People can be creative for their entire lives, but their output is unlikely to stay the same. E.g. musicians are capturing a moment in time, especially when performing live as they hone raw feelings that create a unique energy on stage. As Danielle captures these moments in her art, she is also capturing people as they share their stories. There is a feeling of connection through storytelling because we all have our own individual stories, but we are also able to associate elements of our story to other people’s experiences. Someone may intend to create something to be personally remembered by but rather than looking at legacy as an individual idea, could it be something that we all share through creativity?
