Frock Up Friday Festival. Dressing for Dopamine

Aim

To provide activities which are free to the public to our 2024 festival, creative workshops, entertainment and mental health support.

Who are we?

Frock up Friday - Dressing for Dopamine began its existence, and still runs as a private social media group set up by Bevali Francis and Susan Simms. It was created as a reason to get out of your pyjamas and get dressed up to meet your friends (in the group) in the the first week of the covid 19 lockdown. Within 3 weeks the group had gone from zero to 10,000 members, friends around the world inviting one another to give themselves a break on a Friday, what happened from there is a beautiful example of the force of human nature.

Where some might feel that giving yourself compassion is a self indulgence, narcissistic or a weakness - we give a space for this and heavily encourage it. Giving space for this has almost given people permission to shine in their authentic selves and the self esteem of our members has soared! Ergo, because one life has completely changed, members pass on compassion, gratitude and joy to support others; and the group - without being asked - naturally became a mental health support network, a community of free thinking, unique and fabulous people from all walks of life and all around the world.

We have had three festivals in Hastings and St Leonards annually since 2021, not only bring our online members together but also to spread the ethos of the online group outward into the community. When humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers created face to face workshops, he writes that over time group members felt both a keen sense of their own power and a sense of close and respectful union with all other members. Power among the group members was shared as they let each other  just"be" without any inclination to judge or manipulate anothers thoughts or actions and thus members become extremely creative and resourceful in changing their own lives. He adds that being brought together created a harmonious psyche that's  almost spiritual in nature (1995). This was absolutely the case when we brought our community face to face!  For the local people who have come to our festivals who are not already part of the group EVERYONE reports feeling this enormous sense of community, acceptance, connectionand love in the air, a feeling you could almost touch. We carry no burden of social constructs, we are all equal.

Impact

We began in lockdown and for apparent reasons, self care and something to look forward to being our initial idea, but although the traffic in the group slowed down due to people going back to their every day lives our group is still very much needed and enjoyed. People are still isolated, people are still of different abilities, people are still living secret lives and trying to manage their way through it, people are still lonely, and people still find incredible joy from making things or putting together outfits and having fun with clothes. 

There are masses of stories of how the group has impacted people in the most incredible way. A singular story from our first festival for example is of a wife and mother who was scared, sitting on the train coming on a trip alone to meet the community, she felt bad in herself and her confidence was slipping away. We knew she had been learning how to sign and invited her to sign along to our motivation speaker at a welcome breakfast, later that day she joined the speaker on a big stage on the large open space at the Stade in Hastings, she was shining. Now two years later she is a professional, qualified BSL person and regularly works in theatre and we are grateful to have her sign for us at our events.

Coming to a face to face event has meant having the confidence to add some colour to wardrobes; to show up in a dress for the first time in transitioning and to feel safe; to chat to others about about very specific health problems; to be free in a non judgemental place; to learn to be inquisitive rather than accusatory in others life choices/cultures/abilities that we don't understand; to also fill the town with colour, vibrancy, creativity, music and love. 

Essentially we break down barriers within ourselves and within the community, beginning with self care.

Why are we crowdfunding?

We have been running since 23/03/2020 and although rewarding it is a very difficult and time consuming project to manage without funds or means of income.

We believe the biggest benefit that could have an effect on the wider community outside of our online group are face to face events. We have plans to run some smaller, free events to give an educational, fun and consistent space for our local community, but our biggest asset which is huge for our local economy is the annual festival. 

In our festivals we provide sections which members of the public can join in with for free which we find very important, not only because of the cost of living crisis but also to give members of the public a sense of this wonderful community spirit. We invite them to have fun, join in with the dressing up, parades and workshops. So far we have had a regular second line parade, vintage and makers markets with live music, an annual swim in the sea and Sunday discos and karaokes which have all been free of charge. 

We would like some help with funding to be able to organise this so ticket sales pay for paid events only and so we can use our time connecting parts of our community together to create bigger, better free events for everyone. 

How we’ll spend the money raised

Monies raised will pay for free entertainment in town on the weekend of our festival; for marketing and advertising campaigns so more people hear of the project and who we are; to manage time spent linking various local groups together making sure that those who would benefit most from Frock Up Friday are reached and counted;   

This project successfully funded on 15th December 2023