Creative care home residents are providing a colourful welcome to the hundreds of thousands of visitors expected at the National Eisteddfod in Wrexham.<\/p>\n
Members of the art club at Pendine Park care organisation\u2019s Bryn Bella home on the outskirts of the city have been busy making vibrant giant heart decorations and 50 metres of multi-coloured bunting.<\/p>\n
They will adorn the entrance way to the Maes at the site of the event at Is-y-coed, near Wrexham.<\/p>\n
Preparations are already well underway for the 2025 National Eisteddfod which will be held from August 2-9.<\/p>\n
Pendine, which is celebrating its 40th<\/sup> anniversary this year, will be sponsoring one of the main choir competitions as well as helping out with the decorations.<\/p>\n Owners Mario Kreft MBE, and his wife, Gill, established the Pendine Arts and Community Trust (PACT) to support the arts and community activities in North Wales.<\/p>\n Mr Kreft said: \u201cWrexham is rightly proud to be the host of this year\u2019s National Eisteddfod and we are equally proud to be supporting the event.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is one of the biggest cultural festivals in the world and all eyes will definitely be on Wrexham in August.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s fantastic to think that the decorations made by our brilliant amateur artists at Bryn Bella will be adding even more joy to the occasion. Well done to them all.\u201d<\/p>\n Pendine Park consultant Artist in Residence Sarah Edwards has been leading the workshops in which residents have been making the bunting and other decorations adorned with heart motifs and the word Croeso, which in English means welcome.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cOur residents have themselves made about 20 meters of bunting and we\u2019ve also had some fabric bunting made by our soft furnishing team.<\/p>\n \u201cI designed the main pattern and our art club enthusiasts have added their own individual touches to them.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the residents who is a regular at the art weekly Bryn Bella art sessions is Tony Ithell.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cI have made two of the large hearts which Sarah has designed. I started by painting the white background first then overlaying the colours onto it. It\u2019s taken me about four days in all, but it\u2019s been worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n The hearts, which are about three feet tall, will be unmissable at the entrance to the eisteddfod.<\/p>\n Sarah said she was proud of the enormously hard work put in by Tony and all the other residents, helped by Pendine Park\u2019s team of enrichment activity coordinators.<\/p>\n She said: \u201cThey have worked really hard on this, as we all determined to give the National Eisteddfod visitors a really big welcome to our home turf.\u201d<\/p>\n Some strings of bunting comprised heart shapes outlined in green with a bold bright red heart in the middle on a white background.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a simple design but it\u2019s surprisingly effective,\u201d said Carole Ball, another Bryn Bella resident who is a keen artist.<\/p>\n She also made a design of a traditional Welsh dragon. She said: \u201cWe\u2019ve naturally been using a lot of red, green and white in our paintings as those are the national colours of Wales. It\u2019s always good to know that our artwork will go on show and be seen by the wider public.\u201d<\/p>\n Fellow resident George Ullman also enjoyed making the heart shapes, while Wendy Powell used coloured pencils to decorate the word Croeso with an array of fun music themed motifs around it.<\/p>\n She delighted in the thought that her work would be seen by so many people over the course of the Eisteddfod week.<\/p>\n The event\u2019s honorary president this year has been announced as the acclaimed actor, Mark Lewis Jones, originally from\u00a0Rhosllannerchrugog.<\/p>\n Over a successful career he has appeared in an array of hit TV shows and films, including The Crown, Outlander, Game of Thrones, Chernobyl, Keeping Faith, Man Up and Baby Reindeer. He also played First Order Captain Moden Canady in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.<\/p>\n The first available schedule of the eisteddfod competitions and events is now posted on its website at <\/strong>https:\/\/eisteddfod.wales\/node\/4804<\/a><\/strong>, with further details to appear in coming weeks.<\/strong><\/p>\n