#lovetoREAD tips

With March being the month of World Book Day (3 March) and World Poetry Day (21 March), Voluntary Arts’s #loveto campaign could not focus on anything else this month than reading and writing!

Following the success of #lovetoUPCYCLE in January and #lovetoPAINT in February, which saw creative people sharing their art and projects on social media, March will celebrate and share the love of reading and creative writing with two campaigns: automated lyrics and office book exchange.

Famously used by David Bowie and key to many inspiring music moments in history, the idea of automated lyrics is simple: cut different words out of a newspaper, shuffle and randomly put them together into a poem. You can edit your strophes just as you please – get creative with the words! The length of the poem is totally up to you.

Share your poem with us on social media, turn your poem into a song and film yourself singing it or… make a social media favourite – a poem picture!

Set up a book exchange at work to share the love of reading and finally spice up those kitchen office conversations! How does it work? Each member suggests a book that they own and would like to share. Set up an area where small tags showing the front cover of the book can be displayed. On the tags’ reverse are the book owner’s details and where they can be found within the building. Like a book? Find the owner, have a chat and borrow it. When the book is borrowed, the tag is placed within the ‘out’ section. Brilliantly easy ways of getting to know your colleagues such as this are growing in popularity and we hope soon to find similar examples in banks, factories and schools worldwide!

Powered by Voluntary Arts, the #LoveTo campaign gives people a place to swap ideas and experiences, share in a nationwide project and celebrate ideas and successes throughout the year, focusing on different creative activities each month.

Using #lovetoWRITE and #lovetoREAD across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram showcase your creativity through photos, videos, blogs, quotes and links, and check out what everyone else is up to!