If you or someone you know would like to be part of our Jury for Joy but face any barriers to take part, be this due to features of your identity related to ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, age or disability, mental or physical health, economic circumstance, homelessness, then please do get in touch at info@everyonehere.org. All you need to say is I’m interested in chatting to someone about taking part in the Jury for Joy, and we’ll get back to you. In 2026 we plan to do an open recruitment for anyone to join our Jury for Joy, but at the moment we are focusing on people who might feel that it is in some way difficult to be a member.
The beginning of a joyful journey for Claire
This month we wanted to take time to highlight one of our Jury for Joy members Claire – we’re so happy she is part of our joy filled project.
When we were setting up Jury for Joy a big part of our mission was to think about the people who might not respond to an invitation because of where they live, or didn’t live, and how they communicate in the world. We wanted to make sure those that were under represented had a voice and felt comfortable to take part.
One of Everyone Here’s focuses is on disabled communities in West Cumbria and thinking about how to find ways of supporting people from these communities to make choices about the kinds of creative activities they would like to experience.
Claire is disabled and took part in our activities both online and in person at Moorclose Community Centre in May. Claire feels proud to be a Jury member and is going to come to all of our jury creative trips throughout the Autumn. Claire feels a special part of Jury for Joy and enjoys talking about her experiences and is thinking about bringing a friend from West House along next time!
We worked closely with Claire and her Access Worker Sonja to make sure Claire could communicate in the way she wanted and got the most out of the Jury for Joy experience. Sonja said that actually after the first day Claire was happy to attend the Jury without her, and in the future she will sometimes take part on her own. Going to the Jury and enjoying it and meeting new people gave her the confidence to go back.
“The best part was talking about our ideas and mixing with people” – Claire
To help Claire think about what creative things could happen in West Cumbria that she and the communities she knows and belongs to would be happy with, she was also supported by our own Unique Spencer, who is now our Director of Access and Equity as well as Co-Lead Facilitator of the Jury for Joy.
“Working with Claire on Jury for Joy was so exciting, she had amazing ideas and inspired others to think about access in a fun way. ” – Unique
Everyone Here is inspired by organisations like West House, Prism Arts and Lakes College who work tirelessly to connect with Neurodiverse and Learning Disabled communities across Cumberland and we want to help join up creativity and culture with these amazing organisations.
We’re so happy that Claire feels comfortable enough to carry on as a member of our jury and we hope that it inspires more people from communities that might not normally take part in projects like ours to come forward and join us on our mission to make more creative joy filled things happen in West Cumbria.