backstory
Me some 10+ years ago!
"My name is Natasha Steer and I am a Creative Practitioner based in Medway, Kent. I am the Founder of Creatabot which uses creativity for the benefit of health and wellbeing.
I first started connecting locally to people through making my own unique bags and entering these into exhibitions, such as 'Art in The Dockyard'. Don't be fooled, this was 100% alongside a lot of cleaning work and mystery shopping which paid for my bills, materials and later on, tailoring lessons! I wanted to connect with other creatives locally so reached out to Twitter where I found out about an online creative magazine called Creative Boom which had website hubs for certain areas but not the South East. I mentioned this to them and coincidently found myself as the editor for the new South East website and began connecting with the local network through a very cool networking event called Tuttle which then evolved into a physical coworking space on Rochester High Street called coFWD.
As the Creative Boom websites were slowly dissolved and with the support of the lovely network of people at coFWD, Creatabot was born. The name is a play on online bots being everywhere and me wanting creativity everywhere! Initially Creatabot was about connecting people, sharing bios, opportunities and events. However, with a background in advertising sales with a local newspaper, I knew monetising the website through advertising was not for me!!! So I ran it voluntarily and started to put on little events locally like film screenings of indie films, educational workshops and even a random site responsive immersive theatre piece called 'Survived'. I then started running creative workshops helping people to get creative - and well it just grew and grew. I became trained in mental health, health and safety, volunteered for various roles and realised I had a real love for health and wellbeing.
I was given a part time role as community engagement manager for a local arts charity called Nucleus Arts and set to develop their community engagement work which had never had someone fully dedicated to it time wise. I was there for 4 years whilst also developing Creatabot. In time I was able to develop a programme of community arts sessions at Nucleus Arts that required a team of 3 people to run and left to pursue running Creatabot full time.
I have been able to develop Creatabot into much more than I ever imagined, working for various organisations, charities and council departments. In order to up my skillset further, I am a Health and Social Care Undergraduate and have spent time as a personal assistant. Please take a look at my clients page to see who I have been proud to work with".
