Annual Report
2023-2024
What a Year!
Yet another year has passed and what a year it’s been for this humble non-profit community arts organisation as we continue with our sayCRUD mission of nourishing imagination, inspiring creativity and empowering the artist within everyone.
In our pursuit to refine and expand what The Crud Muffins do, 2023-24 has presented an array of opportunities to support, connect and uplift various Fleshkin souls and in turn be supported and uplifted ourselves by the many generous Creative Recreation Until Dawn Supporters of this planet including volunteers, donors, stakeholders and other kindred spirits.
Our annual report is an opportunity to reflect on our achievements this financial year and give our gratitude to everyone who’s been part of the journey so far. So let’s celebrate what we’ve managed to joyfully bring into the world as we learn and grow!
Arts & Lifestyle Festivals
Our humble roots are deeply connected and forever indebted to the wonderful, wacky and wildly imaginative arts and lifestyle gatherings which inspired the ongoing evolution of our immersive creative spaces and interactive art installations.
The Crud Muffins had the pleasure of opening portals to the NadRad via the CRUD Space at 6 festivals in NSW and Victoria in the 2023-24 financial year, including Glowfest, Esoteric Festival, Third Degree, Antigravity and Roots (with a low-key renegade pop-up at Dragon Dreaming Festival).
We have a 16 generous CRUDS volunteers to thank for the time they donated to bump the CRUD Space in and out at these parties, as well as activate and maintain it over the course of these multi-day events to support visitors in feeling safe and welcome, guide activities as required, and keep CRUD contents and equipment tidy and secure.
Check out the photos below for a glimpse into some of the vibrant festival shenanigans and whimsical spaces we created together!
Local Pop-ups
Whilst there seems to be an abundance of playful absurdity at the arts and lifestyle festivals we open portals to the NadRad at along the east coast, there’s a noticeable shortage of vibrant whimsy in our local community… which is why we’ve been making a conscious effort to engage more with our local community here on the Central Coast, NSW!
We set up the CRUD Space at 10 local events on our home turf including the Central Coast Steiner School Spring Fair, Central Coast Christmas Fair, Central Coast Comicon, Float Your Boat, Words on the Waves Writers Festival, Blue Haven Summer Sessions, Coast Shelter Youth Week, and Sunset Sessions (including Space Rock’s special Lakes Festival edition and their Mega Jam at Naughty Noodle’s Funhaus).
These Central Coast based events have been an awesome opportunity to continue local engagement with the community in our area, especially families and young ones.
Take a look at the photos below for a peak at the fun times had at our colourful local pop-ups!
Creative Workshops
Informal artmaking and creative play is a staple in the CRUD Space but The Crud Muffins are equally as excited to deliver focused workshops to support participants to connect with their inner artist.
We were delighted to facilitate creative workshops at festivals and local pop-ups during the 2023-24 financial year including Plush Pals handsewn plushies and birthday party badge-making.
The Crud Muffins were also grateful to be invited to participate in Tuggerah Lakes Art Society’s Our Natural World Exhibition workshop program, facilitating a community art session at The Art House Wyong with residents from Kanwal Garden and Wallah Point Care Communities.
Moving forward we hope to deliver workshops and educational programs with increasing regularity, especially within our local community.
Scroll the photos below to get an idea what we got up to in our workshops!
Commissioned Art
Supporting the creation of collaborative art is an activity at the core of The Crud Muffins non-profit community arts organisation.
During the 2023-24 financial year we had the pleasure of facilitating the creation of 6 commissioned artworks created collaboratively including puzzle-piece collabs for three of our local pop-ups and a community-created fabric banner for Words on the Waves Writers Festival.
We also received funding from Charmhaven and Wyoming-East Lions Clubs to support the creation of a vibrant wishing well and a large site-specific mural for The Walkabout Wildlife Park. The mural was designed in consultation with the park to raise awareness about the ‘Safe Cat, Safe Wildlife’ initiative and facilitated as part of Tuggerah Lakes Art Society’s Our Natural World Exhibition workshops program.
Get in touch if you’ve got a creative project in mind you’d like The Crud Muffins to bring to life and check out what we co-created below!
Volunteer community
The Crud Muffins wouldn’t be where we are today without the community of kindred creatives and generous volunteers who take time out of their busy lives to contribute to the operation, continuation and enrichment of our non-profit community arts organisation. Even with two of our core co-founding CRUDS who voluntarily handle all the administrative and operational behind-the-scenes business a little more pressed for time while they awaited their first bub’s arrival, we still managed to organise and utilise volunteers’ enthusiasm and expertise to enrich our ever-evolving arts organisation!
During the 2023-24 financial year we took the time to expand our team of Bo Dangle’s Bodoption volunteer Birthkeepers with BDB Birthkeeper training days, hosted a number of working bees with eager creatives to facilitate the completion of collaborative projects, and had dedicated helping hands at festivals, community events and local pop-ups to set-up, maintain, activate and pack-down the CRUD Space.
Enjoy some photos of CRUDS volunteering their time below!
Show Me The Money!
There may be parts of the NadRad where money, as we know and understand it, doesn’t exist. But unfortunately that isn’t the case for us Fleshkins here on planet Earth!
As the creative dreamers we are, business and money stuff has been something we’ve had to work hard on getting comfortable with as a necessary reality of operating a community arts organisation. Crunching numbers isn’t as fun as illustrating zines, but we’re refining our skills in it just the same!
Read on to celebrate what we achieved financially in 2023-24 and don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’ve got financial expertise, accounting prowess or book-keeping know-how you might like to volunteer!
Donations and other Contributions
We’re incredibly grateful to have received donations throughout the 2023-24 financial year in the form of cash and material donations of various supplies including acrylic paint, yarn, canvases, fabric and craft supplies! This allowed us to provide art activities for free to visitors to the CRUD Space at the various pop-ups we opened portals to the NadRad at, as well as get new collaborative projects underway to contribute to our forever-evolving immersive installations.
We also received ongoing financial support totalling close to $900 from our generous patrons contributing monthly over on our Patreon, up $200 from last financial year. Once again, the most appealing perk for patrons and biggest incentive for new sign-ups was first-dibs on bodoptions.
Check out the different ways you too can become a Creative Recreation Until Dawn Supporter here! We can’t thank you enough for your continued support of our sayCRUD mission to share the uplifting, unifying, transformative, and empowering capacity of the arts with the world!
Social Enterprise
The Crud Muffins Inc is a non-profit social enterprise. This means that our community arts organisation uses the money we make from selling goods and services towards our mission of nourishing imagination, inspiring creativity, and empowering the artist within everyone. Although we employ commercial strategies, all profits remain within the organisation to further our cause rather than distributing surplus income to maximise profits for external shareholders.
During the 2023-24 financial year we made just under $7300 thanks to art merch sales, up $500 from the previous financial year! Much like the last financial year, the majority of this was thanks to Bo Dangle and his Bo-Me’s with bodoptions making up the vast majority of that figure, further solidifying Bo’s significance within our organisation.
Wanna get the warm fuzzies for helping our non-profit cover operational costs and get some hectic art and handmade items to bring a little more colour and whimsy into your life? Head over to our online shop today!
Workshops and Pop-ups
Opening portals to the NadRad via the CRUD Space at community events, festivals, and galleries is at the heart of we do. We’re passionate about creating vibrant immersive installations to provide a safe, supportive and inspiring space for visitors to explore their creativity, play, express themselves, and reconnect with their inner child.
In the 2023-24 financial year we received over $10,000 thanks to our pop-ups to cover the cost of transporting, creating and maintaining interactive creative spaces designed to nurture visitors’ wellbeing.
Workshops brought in an additional $1500, supporting both our art educational objectives as well as kindred community of creative professionals, talented artists and passionate arts educators.
We’re looking forward to expanding and refining our workshop offerings over the coming year and attending a whole bunch more events with the CRUD Space! Keep your eyes peeled on our What’s On page for upcoming stuff and don’t hesitate to get in touch to book us for your next event!
Moving Forward
The Crud Muffins non-profit community arts organisation is fuelled by big dreams, an active imagination, and a deep respect for the beauty we can create when we unite to manifest a collective vision. The arts have had a profound impact on the individuals who co-founded our whimsical collective and continue to be a meaningful outlet and transformative catalyst for positive growth, reflection and change.
The individuals who volunteer their time on the CRUDmittee and behind-the-scenes to make the CRUD magick happen are continually seeking to learn and improve, connect with others whose skills and expertise can benefit the organisation, and work on ensuring the continuation and sustainable growth of The Crud Muffins Inc.
Do we want to see the whole world transformed into a whimsical wonderland of multicoloured art installations which blur the distinction between material reality and the imaginative realm? Absolutely! But for now our sights are still set on leasing a commercial space so we can open a permanent public portal to the NadRad on the Central Coast, NSW for all to enjoy.
How soon we get there depends on how well we do financially moving forward…. so expect to see more merch, workshops, and pop-ups in 2025!
Join in the Fun!
You might be just what we’re looking for, the missing piece of the puzzle!
We’ve got this far thanks to just a handful of dedicated individuals volunteering their time to pull ideas out of the NadRad and manifest them into the material realm but we acknowledge our limitations, particularly when it comes to fields our core crew of CRUDS have little experience in such as finance, sales/marketing and administration.
Having only formalised our operations in 2020, when The Crud Muffins became an Incorporated Association and got to put ‘Inc’ at the end of our name, we’re a relatively young non-profit. If you’d like to get involved with shaping our community arts organisation in these formative years please contact us to start a conversation about how you might have a part to play in our story!