Open Mind Night is back!

OMN returns to the Frank Lee Centre on World Mental Health Day 2019 - join us for a night of live music, spoken word and visual arts.

UPDATE: DISCOUNTED PARKING NOW AVAILABLE FOR OMN2019 ATTENDEES! 

Simply use Car Park 1 at Addenbrooke's and have your car parking ticket signed by the organiser on the night to claim a £4 rate for the whole evening! Tickets must be presented at the customer service desk in Car Park 1 for the discount to be applied. 

For the fourth year running the CUH Time To Change Champions are putting on a variety show that celebrates the positive contribution creativity can make to well-being with a range of performances from artists with lived experience of mental health challenges. We aim to inform and entertain you, all while raising money to support this year's mental health charity: MIND, the UK's national campaign for better mental health.

Where and when?

• The Hexagon @ the Frank Lee Centre, Cambridge Biomedical Campus

Click here for Google Maps and here for tips of reaching the campus by public transport.

• 19:00 to 22:00, Thursday October 10th

The Frank Lee Centre bar will be open to event guests before and during the show. If you arrive early just tell the reception staff you are coming for Open Mind Night and enjoy a drink while you wait.

Open Mind Night 2019 is free, but we ask you to give £3 or more on the door.

Open Mind Night is open to all and booking is not required, but please register your interest via Eventbrite to help us plan our seating so that we don't have to turn anyone away on the night!

Our Performers

Alice Walker

Local legend Alice Walker is a sharp and searingly original singer/songwriter who will have you laugh, then cry, then both at once. Alice is a veteran of Open Mind Night and a star of the Essex and Cambridgeshire music scene who somehow finds the time to be a genuine lifesaver in her day job at Addenbrooke's too. She tells us she'd like to be a mountain when she grows up. We don't think she's joking. If you can't wait to experience Alice live then explore her work on YouTube or Soundcloud!

Broadside

Local band Broadside will be playing a mix of original music and covers of classic songs. Formed over a pint in a pub by middle-aged musos who couldn’t, but wanted to play, Broadside soon rose to become Saffron Walden’s 9th best dads’ band. We can guarantee they'll be 1st in class at OMN2019. Check them out on Soundcloud!

Leo George

Leo George, by most accounts, is an utterly delightful person and has found entering the world of spoken word to be a joyful experience. They find freedom in creativity and performance poetry has proved to be an excellent vehicle for being loudly queer and autistic. Leo George has self published a pamphlet and a few poetry zines.

Leo’s poetry is about the personal and the political, full of lyrical language with alliterative repetitive sounds in bursts and echoes and slipped into the in-between. Find yourself getting sucked in and hit in the feelings. If you're lucky they might slip in one or two poems about cats to take the edge off. Or they’ll end their set with controversial opinions about peanut butter - be warned, they do not mince their words!

Update: sadly, Leo is no longer able to attend OMN2019, but you should definitely still check out their work!

Roary Skaista

Roary Skaista is a queer autistic folk musician who writes songs on the themes of nature, love, gender equality, neurodiversity and mental health. For a taste of their work visit them on Bandcamp, and if you like what you hear, follow them on Facebook!

Campus Sound

Once known simply as the Addenbrooke's Choir, now reborn as Campus Sound, these a capella singers from the CUH family will be demonstrating the power of singing to transform your mood. See what they can do on YouTube and give them a follow on Twitter or Facebook!

Also featuring...

• comedy from Alex Jackson
• a visual arts exhibition from Cambridge Community Arts "Next Steps" clubs

About Us

Open Mind Night is organised by the CUH Time To Change Champions. Champions are people who use their own lived experience of mental health challenges to change the cultural conversation on mental health and illness. Ours is a workplace campaign that aims to eliminate the stigma around mental ill health and to lead the ongoing conversation on how our employer, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, can improve its support for staff.

You can find out more about the Time To Change campaign and the Champion role here and here. If you come along to Open Mind Night you will also hear the eastern region's Time To Change coordinator Yvonne Edge give a short talk about the work.

Follow Open Mind Nights on Twitter for news and updates on our events

Follow Time To Change on Twitter for the latest anti-stigma campaigns