Bright Green Penguin - Why Play?

Bright Green Penguin - Why Play?

I have been meaning to do this post for a while now, especially while we are in lockdown but couldn’t never quite think of the words

So a brief history of Bright Green Penguin (I will refer to it as BGP in rest of blog), I started this up on Twitter back in 2014, and it was all about championing the three C’s, creatives, community and charity. While I was building up Brighton Bricks, BGP took a bit of a back seat.

For anyone who doesn’t know Brighton Bricks is all about Lego, and how playing with Lego is great for all ages, kids and adults. I started it off as a social group for fellow adult fans of Lego and then developed to delivering workshops & events to a wide variety of organisations like charities, co-working spaces and the NHS

Then towards the end of 2019 i decided I wanted to revive BGP as I wanted to expand beyond Lego in the world of play. Brighton Bricks is always going to be about my love of Lego, but i want to use BGP to explore other forms of play, be it from board games (something I have been getting really into in the last couple of years) to video games to anything else which could be called play.

Part of me wanting to explore other forms of play is having a 2 year old, and playing with him, and watching him making up stories with his toys.

So What is Play?

Play according to the Cambridge Dictionary is “to spend time doing something enjoyable or amusing” as well as “to take part in a game or other organised activity” as well as “when you play, especially as a child, you spend time doing an enjoyable and/or entertaining activity”

When you google play a lot of the things which come up are related to children, and in my view society views play as a child’s activity and as we get older, we should play less and less. Through Brighton Bricks, as well as doing board game stuff I discovered play is so important for adults.

Benefits of Play for Adults

Play can help with some many things, from helping us relax, to giving us social opportunities as well helping stimulate our mind, and developing ourselves.

Check out this article from helpguide.org about the benefits of play

Bright Green Penguin - Next Steps

So what are my aims for BGP? I want to work with different people and groups to encourage more people to play. I want to explore play, and all the different things I could do. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions on what we could do please email me at nick@brightgreenpenguin.com

I want to do some blogs on the subject of play, letting you know some of my favourite games as a kid, promoting people who are doing great things