Nora was referred to the befriending calls in May 2022. Nora’s husband sadly passed away 4 years ago but Nora hasn’t let this stop her enjoying and living life to the fullest. She loves to have a good chat with her volunteer.
Nora is a very active lady and aims to walk 10 miles a day on her treadmill, which amazed our volunteer whose attitude to exercise was not quite on the same page as Nora’s. Nora has now been able to convince her volunteer to try and get more active and has been constant support with how many steps they have both done a week, they now encourage each other to beat the last week’s step count. The record in one day for our volunteer was 27,462 steps!
Nora and her volunteer have talked about such a wide and varied number of topics, everything from the war in Ukraine and the weather, to how much Nora dislikes films (especially action films). They both also share a passion for motorbikes, Nora was a dedicated rider until her husband passed away. The anecdotes Nora has from her biking days are amazing and hilarious, for instance, trying to go for a wee when wearing leathers! They both share favourite routes, places to go and things to see. Their latest topic of conversation has been about the government and how they both should run for the government and put the UK back in order. Some of Nora’s ideas are a bit wild and crazy but it is amazing for her and her volunteer to be able to chat as they do.
Marie is one of our newer volunteers and she has been with us for about three months now. She does four or five calls a week on average, which she fits in around her family and home life.
Recently Marie lost one of her best friends and asked if she could take a break from making the calls. When we rang to check in and make sure Marie was doing ok, she said how grateful she was that we had bothered to keep in touch and asked if it would be possible for her to resume making the calls and to do extras because she felt that she needed to keep herself busy and fully occupied so she wasn’t sat dwelling on things. During the last few weeks, she has done up to ten calls a week. She has said the calls are keeping her in a good place with her mental health as she is keeping busy focusing on others. Speaking to such a wide range of people has made her feel less isolated in her grief.
As a result of this we are now aware of how much the befriending calls help not just the participants but the volunteers making the calls as they have a raised sense of self belief and achievement in helping others. She feels like she can always call Ffion or Nicola for a chat if things get too much for her. Marie has said RotherFed does outstanding work and she is proud to volunteer with us.
I have been working with this group now since November 2020 when I took over supporting the North of the Borough. This is a really pro-active group who have been running now for nearly 5 years and have 10 active members, they also have volunteers who help at events, with the planting of flowers around the village etc.
On Thursday 18 August, the group held a ‘Out of Covid’ event at the Civic Hall. This event was funded through the COMF funding from RMBC. The event was held from 12pm until 3pm and over 50 local residents, including residents from local care homes, enjoyed a pie and pea lunch supplied by the Honey Pot Cafe, a few games of bingo, some fantastic singing from Chantelle and Chloe and Sarah played the violin for them. It was a lovely afternoon, and it was so nice to see people enjoying themselves singing and dancing, the residents said how much they had enjoyed it. John Healey MP attended the event and joined in with the signing. The group are holding another similar event on Thursday 1 September to make use of the remainder of their COMF funding which need to be spend by 31 August. I will also support at this event.
As well as holding monthly meetings, many different events, the group also holds regular litter picks around the village, at their latest litter pick this week, there were 12 volunteers and they collected 17 bags of rubbish. The group had a stall at the Swinton ‘Party in the Park’ on Sunday 29 August to raise some funds for the group. They are great group who I enjoy working with.
Heart of The Community attended the Annual event Ferham Festival 2022 on 11th August this month. The festival always draws in a big diverse crowd from the residents and this year was no exception. A welcomed change was this year the festival was also supporting South Asian culture as to support the south Asian heritage month.
The Roadshow kicked off by setting up the stall ready for engaging with the community on a beautiful sunny day. The day started off slow but 30 minutes in and the festival was in full swing. It was an amazing day filled with cultural activities, colour, and good food.
At the Tenants Open Day all Rotherham Federation member groups were put in a draw to win £500 for their group. 3 Winners were drawn by the Mayor of Rotherham, which were:
Aston TARA
Rotherham Sanjeet Choir
The Lings Monday Club
All the lucky winners will have the money paid into their groups accounts.
Dayle Hill is the lead of the newly formed Canklow based group The Community Tree. In only our second meeting she came to us with the idea of creating a community picnic, a “world picnic”, where residents come together to share food that is important to them. The idea is that no matter who you are we all have a connection to food. Dayle wanted to work with this idea to help people recognize that we are all connected. We talked about how people could bring food that they could have a cultural connection to, their favourite dish, or even their signature dish, the one that must be at every family get together.
During further discussions Dayle said she would like the picnic to be the start of a whole week of events to improve and bring together the whole community in Canklow. Her aims were to Celebrate the diversity of the area, support families and help people to feel safer. The idea of having a community clean-up day and an event to round things off were also brought up. May quickly arrived and Dayle had formed a plan of exactly what she wanted to see from the week. Monday to open the week with the World Picnic. Dayle also had the idea to create Acts of Kindness bingo cards for residents and young people. Those wanting to be involved would fill out the card over the week and return at the final event to be entered into a prize draw.
Wednesday was to be a crafting day working with local social enterprise Casting Innovations. Residents could create their own heart out of Fimo that would then be cast into aluminium and then added to a giant heart, that will be displayed in Canklow. Residents also can work with Castings to make the heart themselves.
The community clean-up day was going to be on Thursday. This is planned to be a Litter Pick by the Friends of Canklow Open Spaces, a group that is part of the community tree, and a community skip that will be provided by RMBC housing.
Finally, the week would be rounded off with a community sports day. Delivered by partner organization Rotherham United Community Sports Trust, they will be delivering football-based activities as well as health and fitness advise in a fun event for everyone to get involved with.
During the planning for the event the local school were also engaged with. They not only promoted the event within their school but also had the young people create flags for bunting that will be displayed for the whole week of the events. The hope is then the young people will feel some ownership towards the event and encourage their family to attend.
The week came, AND WHAT A WEEK IT WAS!!! Every event had engagement from different aspects of the community. From a community that is known locally to struggle with anti-social behavior and has little engagement with services, everyone involved commented on how well they felt it went. The picnic was a mix of curry, sandwiches, pasta and sunshine, everyone who attended got the opportunity to sit, relax and engage with other residents.
On Wednesday we saw a dozen people drop into Casting Innovations to create the FIMO hearts.
On Thursday a skip was delivered for the community to be able to get rid of their excess waste thanks to funding from the local housing authority. Alongside that Friends of Canklow Open Spaces went out on a litter pick around with other volunteers from the area, more than 10 bags were collected, and several piles of fly-tipping were also removed.
A typical wet summer Sunday was the day for the Sports day. Despite the weather, plenty of people came down to the event. With an inflatable penalty shoot-out, small football pitches set up and skipping ropes, families had the chance turn burn off energy whilst being out in the open spaces the area has to offer.
Over the week we all took the opportunity to build up new relationships with residents and reconnect with those who are already aware of what we are trying to achieve for the community. Planning will be starting soon for next year, and no doubt Dayle already has in mind what she wants to achieve and will work hard to make it bigger and better.
One of the wonderful things about working at RotherFed is that it has ignited my passion for personal volunteering, I like nothing more than getting involved where I can. July saw a fantastic opportunity presented to me with the Women’s Euros. Four matches were to be hosted by the New York Stadium, home of Rotherham United. I saw an advert and volunteered my time, not truly sure of what I was letting myself in for.
After lots of training, the first match day came and I found myself in one of the amazing fan zones being hosted by RMBC, this continued through the four days of the tournament. It was truly wonderful, over 40 volunteers coming together to help highlight the best of Rotherham and oh, did we know how to put on a party! One shift was done in the heatwave, temperatures reaching 36 degrees, which was very hot. We were well looked after, and we ensured the Rotherham public was too.
By the end of match day four and over 40 hours of volunteering we all retired tired but happy to have been part of this momentous occasion for Rotherham. One memory that will stick with me is meeting a lovely Rotherham resident, who pops into town just for some company as he was lonely. I had a lovely conversation with him, and we chatted about all sorts, he kept popping back throughout the day to say hello and let me know what a lovely day it was.
Sally has been walking with the S62 group from Greasbrough Dam since the start, a popular member of the group who has a fascinating knowledge of nature (especially trees) she really opens up your eyes to things you do not usually take notice of. Recently she disclosed that she might not be able to continue with the walks as her trainers which were 5 years old were causing her issues. She could not really afford a new pair due to her hours being reduced due to covid and due to the rising cost of transport to get her to events. To remove this barrier and to enable her to continue we have provided a new pair of walking trainers for her to use with the caveat that if she continues to attend the trainers will be hers. Sally was overwhelmed as she really did not want to stop walking as it had an impact on her mental and physical health, this has removed a barrier and will enable her to continue.
Clarissa lives on her own, she used to be a nurse before she became a full-time carer to her severely disabled daughter. In recent years she has suffered with a number of bereavements, including the daughter that she cared for and her son. Her only remaining child also has disabilities and needs constant assistance.
Clarissa has previously volunteered as support for people whose children were also disabled and did a lot of work advocating for disabled people’s rights. She has found it hard to accept help, as she has always been independent and the one to help others, she is not used to receiving assistance. However, the befriending phone calls have helped her with her loneliness and the fact that there is someone who rings on a regular basis helps alleviate her isolation.
She has been speaking to the same volunteer for over 6 months. They both have a love of crafts and genealogy. They regularly spend the entire phone call saying how they could put the world right. The conversations that Clarissa and her volunteer have vary each week covering everything from the war in Ukraine and gardening to aliens and conspiracy theories. Both Clarissa and her volunteer benefit from the calls as they both enjoy the wide range of topics covered and feel like they learn something new from each other.
“The befriending calls are something I look forward to immensely, we talk about all sorts and I feel we can put the world to rights”
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