Helping to raise vital funds to care for local seriously ill children and their families, we will be joining Intel, Nationwide, Imagine Cruising, Swindon Advertiser, the Swindon Wildcats, Jazzbones and the inSwindon town centre BID, as one of the trail sponsors. In support of Julia’s House, the Wiltshire’s children’s hospice charity, the pioneering balloon dog trail will bring thousands of visitors to the town next summer.
Harvey Fremlin, Managing Director of NSBRC, said:
“We are so pleased to be part of The Big Dog Art Trail! We believe in helping people live in better and more sustainable homes and we’ll be using our Swindog to help spread awareness of practical and affordable options to reduce energy bills for residents of Swindon.
“We particularly love the idea that families and friends will meet together, and get out and about, to find the different Swindogs around our community. The fact that our sponsorship helps support Julia’s House, and the astonishing work they do for local children and their families, is the icing on the cake for us! We’re super-excited to meet our Swindog and we hope they help spread a little bit of happiness.”
Harvey Fremlin, Managing Director of NSBRC
Chris Hyde, Project Manager for the Swindon art trail, added:
“We’re so delighted that Harvey and everyone at the NSBRC are joining the Swindog pack – it’s great to have such a successful and award-winning local business getting behind the Big Dog Art Trail. Not only are they sponsoring one of the eye-catching giant Swindogs, they are also generously hosting two of our key sponsor events early next year – our Sponsors Design Event in January and the Sponsors Activation Event in March. I can’t think of a better location to bring together all the local and national businesses and organisations who are going to be involved the trail.”
Chris added, “Sponsoring a Swindog, and joining The Big Dog Art Trail pack, will bring any company, local or national, some paws-ome benefits, helping boost brand awareness among the thousands of visitors who will visit the trail next summer – it’s going to be the most talked about event in Swindon next year. As well as engaging employees, customers and stakeholders, everyone involved will know they are raising vital funds to help Julia’s House continue to provide its lifeline of care for families in Swindon and across Wiltshire.”
Chris Hyde, Project Manager for the Swindon art trail
Don’t miss out on the big community event in Swindon in 2023.
Scamper over to The Big Dog Art Trail website to find out how to be part of this exciting art trail project. www.bigdogarttrail.co.uk/sponsors
Get in touch:
Sarah Tipping – Marketing & Communications Executive, Julia’s House
Email: sarah.tipping@juliashouse.org
Tel: 07810 317400
Laura Shack – Media & Communications Officer, Julia’s House
Email: laura.shack@juliashouse.org
Tel: 07850 928133
About The Big Dog Art Trail
More than 30 larger than life balloon dog sculptures – the Swindogs – are set to be unleashed across Swindon during the summer of 2023. The uniquely decorated sculptures will create the UK’s first-ever balloon dog art trail and will raise essential funds for the local children’s hospice charity, Julia’s House.
The Big Dog Art Trail will create a free walking trail through some of Swindon’s most well-loved and historic parks, landmarks and streets and will shine a light on art and culture in the heart of the town. As well as encouraging local residents to re-discover the town they love, the paw-some public art spectacle is expected to attract thousands of visitors from outside the town, providing a welcome boost for local businesses.
The Big Dog Art Trail will run from July 15 to September 3 2023 and end with a grand farewell finale where all of the two-metre-high Swindog sculptures will be brought together under one roof. The giant one-of-a-kind creations will then head off to their forever homes after being adopted at a special auction event to raise money for the children’s hospice.
The Big Dog Art Trail is being brought to Swindon by Julia’s House and global public art producer Wild in Art, who has previously hosted trails in cities across the UK and worldwide, including the recent elephant parade in Worcester and Cows in Cambridge.
Key dates:
- 1 November 2022 - Deadline for artists to submit designs
- Until December 2022 - Local schools and youth groups invited to join the programme
- January 2023 - Art selection event where sponsors choose their artist’s design
- 1 March to 1 June 2023 - Decoration of sculptures
- March 2023 - Sponsors’ activation workshop
- 15 July to 3 September 2023 - The Big Dog Art Trail is LIVE around Swindon
- 16 & 17 September 2023 - Farewell event with all the dogs in one place.
- 18 September 2023 - Auction event. Swindogs auctioned to raise vital funds for Julia’s House
About NSBRC
Founded in 2007 and celebrating its fifteenth anniversary this year, the National Self Build & Renovation Centre (NSBRC), remains the UK’s only permanent visitor centre designed specifically to meet the needs of individual self-builders, renovators and home improvers. Originally conceived by BuildStore (who remain a founding exhibitor in the NSBRC), since 2014 it has been owned and operated by ‘The Homebuilding Centre Limited’, an employee-owned business.
In 2017, NSBRC was named Wiltshire’s ‘Small Business of the Year’ and in the same year, it won a Build It Award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Self Build’. To complete a hat trick of awards, in 2017 they were highly commended by the Employee Ownership Association in their ‘Rising Star of the Year’ category, having also been highly commended in the same category in 2015. They also received the Employee Ownership Association’s award for ‘Business Resilience', recognising achievements during the COVID-19 pandemic, having been voted as the winner from a short list of thirteen companies NSBRC
About Julia’s House
Julia’s House is a local charity dedicated to supporting the families of children with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions in the heart of the community in Wiltshire and Dorset. Many of these children require round-the-clock care, which has a huge impact on family life.
Julia’s House provides bespoke care for every family it supports, with each family receiving around 200 hours of free care each year. Parents can choose when, where and how they receive their care – at home, in the community or at one of the charity’s two hospices in Devizes and Corfe Mullen – making it a truly flexible service. Julia’s House is there for the whole family, not just the seriously ill child, providing emotional support and social opportunities for parents, grandparents and siblings to help break the cycle of anxiety and isolation that can lead a family to breaking point.
This regular clinical care, respite and emotional support, plus emergency end-of-life care and bereavement support is provided completely free to families, thanks to the generosity of the local community. Julia’s House relies on public donations, fundraising and legacies for around 92% of the money needed to keep running its vital service in Wiltshire and Dorset.
Julia’s House children’s hospice cares for nearly 200 families across the two counties. Currently nearly 80% of the children supported by Julia’s House need two care team members present during their community sessions due to the complexity of their condition. And as more life-limited children are living for longer and with increasingly more complex care needs, demand for the specialist care that Julia’s House provides is expected to rise in the coming years.
The service that Julia’s House provides has been rated ‘outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission and the charity is a Sunday Times Top 100 Not-For-Profit Organisations to Work For.
Julia’s House is almost entirely reliant on donations to provide its outstanding care for the growing number of children with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions across Wiltshire. The charity recently launched its Together We Care Appeal to raise the £1.5m needed each year to continue providing essential respite breaks and support to local families.
For more information visit www.juliashouse.org
About Wild in Art
Wild in Art is the leading producer of spectacular public art events that entertain, enrich, inform and leave a lasting legacy. It brings together businesses and creative sectors with schools and local communities through the creation of uniquely painted sculptures.
Since 2008 Wild in Art has animated cities across the world including Manchester, Sydney, Auckland, Cape Town and São Paulo, and created trails for the London 2012 Olympics, the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Historic Royal Palaces and Penguin Random House.
Wild in Art events have:
- Enabled over £19.5m to be raised for charitable causes
- Injected £2.4m into local creative communities
- Engaged over 950,000 young people in learning programmes
- Helped millions of people of all ages to experience art in non-traditional settings
The Wild in Art apps are available to download from the App Store and Google Play.
