Dragonfly Arts Centre Opens in Waterlooville

Emily Dewhirst officially opened Dragonfly Arts Centre at Basepoint in Waterlooville on Thursday, January 30, 2025.

Transcript

00:00My name's Emily Dewhurst and I own Dragonflight Arts Centre. I've been running it for a couple of years.

00:05So it was just after Covid that I decided I'm going to start doing some classes and the evening

00:11classes they just went on and they escalated and I thought it's a dream of mine that I've

00:15had for about 15 years so I thought well now's a good time as any and I just decided I'm going to

00:22go for it. So I've ended up getting a lot of the furniture from the community so everyone's

00:29donated furniture so from the sofa to the coffee table to the rugs. I built the tree so it's a

00:34sensory tree and there's lights on the inside as well so that's all been bought by the materials

00:41have been sort of borrowed from different companies that are in this area so they've

00:46given me the boxes so I've built it all out of that and then the classes they're going to be run

00:52in the area sort of the mezzanine area so it's all in like a cottage theme so we've got the

00:58it's going to be birthday parties at the weekends and the dungeons and dragons in the evenings on

01:05the Friday so we've got lots of art classes and lots of different craft classes so we've got so

01:10much going on here it's it's going to be amazing once it's up and going up and ready and going so

01:15you know we're looking forward to it. Brilliant tell me just what the reaction's been like and

01:18and why you chose the base point here in Waterlooville? The base point here originally

01:23I'd got the regeneration grant but I couldn't find the perfect venue unfortunately and so it's

01:28a little bit out of my reach and I decided I'm going to go and have a look at base point just

01:34on the off chance and they showed me this this venue and it's just perfect it's got the mezzanine

01:39area it's got the the room for building trees and sensory areas so it was just it just felt right so

01:46that's why I decided I'm going to go for it and just see how it goes. It sounds like the reaction

01:50has been really positive. It's been really positive yeah I've had so many people contact

01:54me over the last few days just wanted to book classes in for their children birthday parties

01:59all getting booked up so yeah it's just going to be the perfect place for for the area I think

02:05we've needed this I think with the upcoming regeneration of Waterlooville the area has just

02:10been perfect just the right time to try and build something for our community and the whole

02:17community's just pitched in I've got involved with organising different events in the community

02:23so I know a lot of people in the area now so it's just been the great thing to do and it's part of

02:28the heart of Waterlooville. Fabulous I wish you the best of luck. Thank you very much.