What a weekend!!!
After waiting for 3 years to get this eagerly awaited advanced floristry workshop running we finally got to hold it in the beautiful grounds of Moreton Morrell College at the end of June. Three inspirational days of designing and creating has been just what the doctor ordered for our attendees.
Our minor panic 3 days before the event was Tor Gundersen telling us that he had unfortunately come down with Covid BUT the BFA team rallied and the wonderful Iza Tkaczyk was miraculously free! She jumped in last minute to save the day. Although we were so disappointed not to see Tor this time, we know he’ll be back and we look forward to welcoming him in the future! Get well soon Tor!!
Our designers for the weekend were:
Dominique Herold
Dominique delighted us all with her beautiful bridal work design followed by a foam free arrangement design which could have multiple uses depending on the situation. The subject of composition and respect for material was high on the list which lead to interesting group discussions as well as challenging the classes to really assess their motivations for each placement of flower.
Dominique was inspiring and generous and the creations she also made for demonstrations were a delight to watch
Iza Tkaczyk
The wonderful Iza! You would not know that Iza had just jumped on a plane with her magic suitcase of goodies to run a workshop and demonstrate with flowers and sundries meant for another designer. The attendees were delighted and in awe of her colour compositions and Iza’s ability to “Blow your socks off”, which she informed us all was her intention.
The classes were able to design structures for many uses including a Hand tied frame or a hat leaving plenty of time for some exquisite demonstration pieces using a mixture of pre ordered flowers, flowers from the cutting garden as well as seeds, pods and grasses collected from the grounds.
Premysl Hytych
Cool and considered Prem! His construction technique was fantastic for all our attendees who love a bit of hands on drilling and free stand structures. This class was about dynamic lines and space. Creating the designs required thought, balance and pre planning all resulting in epic shapes, colour combinations and a little Tetris puzzle to get the design home!
Premysl demonstrated using found materials from the grounds as well as pre bought materials to amaze us all. His designs were large scale, simple, elegant and powerful.
And finally…….
Thank you to all the amazing people behind the scenes without whom the event could not happen:
- Tracy Tomlinson: BFA’s Manager and organiser extraordinaire
- Jane Benefield: Organiser and Moreton Morrell tutor
- Heather Marshall: Helper and Moreton Morrell technician
- Frank Tomlinson: Photographer
- Claire Hammond: In charge of catering, teas and biscuits!
- Laura Leong: Helper and World Skills competition trainer
- Clara Agnew: Helper and World Skills Squad Competitor
- Matilda Nowler: Model
- Jane Sked-Connop, Sarah Roberts, Amanda Stagg: Conditioning and separating materials for all the classes
Thanks to our Sponsors who sent product over for us to use in every class:
- Anthura wonderful Orchids and Anthuriums which delighted us all including the two new and frost resistant varieties
- Just Chrys supplying a colourful range of Chrysanthemum which were both beautiful visually and for their quality.
- FloriGuard who provided our fab aprons!
And last but not least our corporate members who we used to buy our flower for this event. They provided excellent quality flowers as we are sure the attendees will agree.
We cant wait for EFS 2024! Already our attendees are emailing to say how much they enjoyed their time like Claire and Sally from Miss Pinks Florist who say……….
“We would like to say a massive thanks to you all for such a fantastic event over the last few days – it was our first Floristry School and you certainly didn’t let us down! We have made such wonderful memories and learnt such a lot from everyone, not just the outstanding designers. It was a truly inspirational course, so well organised and full of fun, as well as instruction and ideas, and you can tell Iza that she really did blow our socks off!”
Class of 2022.
Photographs copyright of Frank Tomlinson Photography
