Looking Back on 2025: A Huge Thank You
Now that we’re firmly in 2026, we’re reflecting on 2025 at St Anne’s House, and want to say a huge thank you to everyone who was part of a rollercoaster of a year that, despite it’s challenges was full of joy, hope and laughter. A final parting gift from 2025 was some monumental flu amongst the team in December, meaning our round up of the year is later than anticipated!
Over the year, St Anne’s House continued to be shaped by the many people that take part in making it what it is, a shared, civic space for creative and local communities alike. Neighbours, artists, young people, community groups, tenants, partners, volunteers and visitors filled the building with activity, conversation and care, using the space and putting their stamp on it in various ways.
A difficult start, and a powerful response
2025 got off to a rocky start. In January, the building was broken into six times. Our team, community members and tenants arriving to smashed windows and doors, seemingly the efforts of one individual with no clear motive other than causing damage. Alongside unexpectedly high winter heating costs, this put significant pressure on the organisation and morale.
We launched an emergency crowdfunder to keep the building running. The response was extraordinary. Hundreds of people donated, shared messages of support and helped raise over £32,000, enough to enable us to weather the storm and keep the space up and running.
“St Anne’s House is an essential community resource. Much love and strength to everyone working so hard to keep it open!” – Supporter
This moment was a powerful reminder that St Anne’s House is not just a building, but a space held up by a wonderful community of people. The care, generosity and solidarity shown during this time carried us through the rest of the year, reinforcing why locally rooted, locally-led spaces matter.
Despite the challenges, 2025 was full of activity…
Creative workspaces and artists in the building
Supporting artists, makers and social enterprises remained central to life at St Anne’s House, and In January, we launched the Artists Wall in the café, giving workspace holders a space to display and sell their work. Across the year, featured artists included Ellie Shipman, Joe Tymkow, Will Wilford, Frank Morris and Jo Walter.
The artists and organisations based here continued to shape the space in many ways. A highlight was Cibomatto Canteen and the Community Pottery’s first birthday, as well as their wonderful joint Pasta Patera workshops, inviting people to make pottery pasta bowls and then make pasta from scratch, enjoyed over a shared meal from the handmade bowls. Open House saw work by artists spilling out of the building and the Community Pottery took over the vitrine in reception as a pottery shop, selling their ceramics and bringing making into the everyday experience of the building.
The sad news of MAYK’s closure at the end of the year meant the loss of a much cherished Bristol institution and key part of the fabric of the building, although the space will hopefully be full of the sound of rehearsals again soon.
Open House and shared celebration
Our annual Open House returned in 2025, welcoming over 1,400 people into St Anne’s House. Visitors explored the building, took part in dozens of activities and met the artists, organisations and groups based here. The event included a whole host of artist-led activities, community quilt making, food and fun. We were also proud to be a venue for the BS4 Arts Trail, a collaboration that goes from strength to strength each year.
Across the year, we also hosted a Spring Market, Winter Market, car boot sales, exhibitions, Thursday night film clubs and quiz nights – each offering different ways for people to come together and spend time in the space.
Youth creativity and voice
In 2025, our youth programme worked with children and young people aged 8–18. This artist-led programme centred creative process, giving young people the freedom to experiment, play and grow confidence, making mistakes and exploring their ideas collectively.
Across the year, young people worked with a range of artists and creative activities. Young people took over the exhibition space for a week as a collective of young ‘artists in residence’, resulting in a final exhibition open to the public showing off their work. They also explored zine-making from concept to print, and through zine sales raised funds to reinvest directly back into the youth programme, supporting future youth-led activity.
Food, climate and connection – clarified community focus
Our work with local people has always been rooted in local ambitions and ideas, and supports artists to take the lead. This year we clarified the themes that our community programme focusses on, building on the ideas that have come through the door to date. These are:
- Food Justice
- Climate and Nature Action
- Community Bridges
The Community Living Room continued to host a regular roster of groups throughout the year, offering spaces for connection, support and shared activity.
Through projects such as Batch Cook Club, free half-term meals, winter wellness talks and regular community lunches, people came together around affordable, nourishing food, building confidence and connection and exploring what the future of more food-based projects could look like in the space.
A commission for local artists connected communities with local green spaces, activating the priorities of the Brislington Community Climate Action Plan through creative activities. In December the Cold Moon climate gathering created space for people to come together during the winter period to reflect, share food and consider how we care for our communities and environment. These activities brought together conversation, creativity and collective thinking, reinforcing St Anne’s House’s role as a place for civic gathering, reflection and dialogue.
Throughout the year we celebrated the diverse cultures and communities in our local area, with local refugee and asylum seekers communities leading on events and activities. This included a community led Iftar and cross-cultural celebrations.
Caring for the building
Alongside programme activity, we continued to invest in the care and stewardship of the building itself. This included upgrading security following the break-ins, improving fire safety systems and integrating these with the building’s access system.
We also created a new bookable Wellbeing Room, designed for therapeutic practice, one-to-one work and small group sessions, and continued to explore ways to improve shared public areas so the building remains welcoming, safe and usable for all.
People behind the scenes
2025 was also a year of change for the team. We said goodbye to some much-loved staff members and welcomed new colleagues into the organisation.
Thank you to everyone who has been part of the team this year for your resilience, commitment, and generosity – kept the building open, welcoming and running.
New team members
With gratitude
Looking back on 2025, we feel immense gratitude for the community that continues to make St Anne’s House what it is.
Every donation, shared meal, workshop, exhibition, conversation, repair, event and act of care played a part in sustaining this place. Thank you to everyone who supported, participated, visited, volunteered, worked, created and showed up.
As we move firmly into 2026, we remain committed to supporting creativity, collaboration and community life in Brislington and beyond.
Support Our Mission and Community
We need your support to continue the amazing work of St Anne’s House in 2026 and beyond. Every donation and room hire directly funds the physical upkeep of this community space and the activities happening here.
Donate Today – Your contribution helps us continue to grow.
Book a Room – For an event, workshop, or meeting, your booking makes a real difference.
Stay in touch in 2026:
Sign up to our dedicated St Anne’s House newsletter here, for opportunities, updates, what’s on, and stories.
Follow us on socials: @bricksbristol for highlights, stories, updates, and opportunities.
