(L-R) Sheila Brush (Record-Keeping); Julie Toepper (Chair); Karen Green (Meeting Snacks/Storytellers Coordinator/Meeting Notetaker); Denny Thompson (Past Chair); Kay Landers (Past Chair); Kathy Daniels (Librarian/Program Committee); Janis Lievens (School Liaison/SC Notetaker). Other Steering Committee Members not pictured are Nancy Bradfield (Program Committee); Cathy Lichty (Trainer/Liaison to Spellbinders National); Wynn Montgomery (Lead Trainer/Newsletter Editor); and Vicki Tiedeman (Data Collection)
Newsletters & Impact stats
To learn more about the Broomfield Spellbinders program, click on the following to read our latest newsletters:
Program Impact 2020-2021: Each year Broomfield Spellbinders® Storytelling Volunteers take the time to ignite imaginations, build literacy skills, and strengthen our communities. For the school year of 2020-2021, our ability to share stories was severely restricted by Covid-related restrictions on entering school classrooms and senior facilities. Here are the statistics, which are far below past years as you can see from the 2019 stats listed below:
14 Active Storytelling Volunteers + 11 who were inactive during Covid
12 Schools and 34 Classrooms Visited
5,588 Total Audience Reached
Program Impact 2019-2020: Each year Broomfield Spellbinders® Storytelling Volunteers take the time to ignite imaginations, build literacy skills, and strengthen our communities. For the school year of 2019-2020, here are the stats:
27 Storytelling Volunteers
18 Schools and 120 Classrooms Visited
24,124 Total Audience Reached
Broomfield spellbinders
★ Ignite Imaginations ★ Build Literacy Skills ★ Strengthen Communities ★
chapter LEADER: JULIE TOEPPER; lead Trainer: Wynn Montgomery
Broomfield Spellbinders is a program of the Broomfield Council on the Arts & Humanities (BCAH). It is part of a Statewide network of similar organizations dedicated to sharing and preserving the ancient art of oral storytelling. For more information about Spellbinders, please visit https://Spellbinders.org.
For more than 10 years, our Spellbinders® Storytelling Volunteers have shared stories with school children and seniors in adult care facilities. While Broomfield itself does not have a local school system, we share stories in schools and other venues in the City of Broomfield and many neighboring communities-Erie, Lafayette, Northglenn, Thornton, and Westminster. Our library in the Brunner Farmhouse contains a wealth of storytelling materials and is available to our storytellers to add to their "repertoire." To "meet" some of our storytellers and hear a sampling of stories, please visit these YouTube channels: “Spellbinders-Broomfield” and “Wynn Montgomery” (Pop Tales). The "Compendium of Favorite Stories" provides descriptions and sources of our tellers' typical tales.
Broomfield Council on the Arts & Humanities
Upcoming events and trainings
Monthly Meetings
When: 3rd Friday of the month (no meetings in June, July, or December)
Time: 12:45 p.m.-3 p.m.
Where: Brunner Farmhouse, 640 Main St., Broomfield, CO 80020
The Broomfield Spellbinders® Chapter helps support and encourage our members in the art of storytelling, by planning fun monthly meetings with time for fellowship, shared stories, and ideas as well as help in becoming better storytellers. We would love to have you join us for our monthly meeting and meet our Spellbinders® community! Before your first visit, please email our Chapter Leader Kay Landers at GaryandKay13@gmail.com to let us know that you are coming. If you would like to join us, contact either of the members whose e-mails appear above.
Covid resiliency: Members of Broomfield Spellbinders thrive on face-to-face interaction with young listeners—seeing their faces light up as they experience the joy of oral storytelling and being greeted like rock stars when they enter the classroom. After the schools' response to COVID prevented our presence in classrooms, a few brave souls shared stories using video conferencing and quickly learned that there are significant differences between live storytelling and virtual storytelling. So, the program focused on preparing our members to be effective and comfortable with virtual storytelling. These efforts began with monthly story circles in 2020 that allowed members to meet with other storytellers (via Zoom) to share stories and get feedback. Working with other Spellbinders organizations, Broomfield’s chapter leaders developed a four-hour training session that focused on how to adapt techniques and stories to address the unique aspects of virtual storytelling. This training consisted of two 2-hour classes a few days apart. It included a brief “homework” assignment and gave participants the opportunity to demonstrate what they has learned and received peer feedback. The training ensured that Broomfield Storytellers could continue to support local teachers by sharing stories with their students using the available technology until life returns to normal. Like everyone else, we hope that will be very soon!
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Broomfield Council on the Arts & Humanities @ 2013