This was Joanne’s first coffee morning to organise for Rotherfed, just 5 weeks into the role. With a great team effort, she pulled it off! The event was well shared and was great that KC café and Mowbray Gardens Community library were happy to pop posters up and are happy to share any future events with posters being dropped off and/or emailed through to them.
Having received great feedback from those who attended including befriending recipients, people from different communities and professional colleagues who came along to find out more about what we are offering, share what they are doing and chat to all those who came alone. We had 38 people attend which was fantastic, Nic had to run out and get some more milk and cakes – which was brilliant.
The kids loved the activities, the shells and fossils went down well, it was nice they took some home with them.
Friends of Dalton, East Herringthorpe and Thrybergh Green Spaces are always on the look out for new volunteers and for people to attend the coffee morning that the group support.
Pam has attended the coffee morning with a view to engaging with the litter picks. She told us that it was something she was interested in as she likes to take pride in the area. The group at Warreners Drive quickly made Pam feel at home and she was laughing and joking with the group as though she had been attending for months.
Pam has now attended the Keep fit session that the coffee morning group engages and has joined in with a litter picking session. She told other volunteers that “it was just what she needed”, that she will now be attending the coffee morning on a regular basis and wants to visit the Re-Wilding project to see how she can help out there.
To know that a group that we support can have such a positive impact on just one individual really justifies all of our hard work.
Martin first encountered a person at a foodbank who was having difficulty with money issues and referred them into Citizens Advice. The referral was closed because Citizens Advice, despite three attempts, could not contact them. A few weeks later I saw the person, with their partner, at a social supermarket. They still had money issues but were mistrustful of ‘official’ organisations and feared they would lose their existing benefits.
I emphasised that Citizens Advice were an independent organisation with no connection to the DWP. I also stressed that any advice they gave would include an assessment of the effects of different benefits upon each other and the choice to apply for other benefits was entirely up to the clients. They agreed to another referral to Citizens Advice.
I heard the other day that they are absolutely delighted at the outcome of the referral. They are eligible for three extra benefits which do not affect their existing benefits.
It illustrates how trust building, awareness raising, and patience can have a dramatic positive effect on people’s lives.
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.
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