Welcome to The HOPE Centre newsletter for autumn 2016. We have news from Early Years, our Contact Centre, as well as previous and upcoming events and fundraising activities!
HOPE highlights from Autumn
Although Hallowe’en has been and gone and the dark nights are upon us, I can still see sunshine over the Malvern Hills as I write – not bad for this time of year! Since I last wrote a lot has happened here at the Centre and we’ve lots t
o look forward to as Christmas approaches, but before we do here’s a quick snapshot of some highlights since our last newsletter.
August was a quieter month due to the holiday period, although we cheered loudly when we heard that our contract as a Children’s Centre for the Bromyard area had been extended for a further 18 months. The future of Children’s Centres remains uncertain and we look to find ways to minimise reliance on external funding, but we know from all those who come and access our services that we provide invaluable support to many in and around Bromyard. Thanks to everyone who uses us – please keep coming! I’ve had some comments recently that not everyone knows what goes on at the Centre – the answer is lots so please spread the word and please come and visit us to find out!
In September we hosted yet another successful h.Art event and had more artists exhibiting at the Centre than last year. There was lots of interest and we are glad our resident artists for the week had a successful week. During the month, we also welcomed a member of the Family Court, Mrs Julia Stiles JP, to visit our Contact Centre and received a visit from Healthwatch Herefordshire at our quarterly Patient Participation Group/Advisory Board meeting. These meetings are a really useful partnership way of working that benefits organisations and service providers in the community and allows the sharing of good practice and news for the benefit of all.
In October the staff held a team training event with Wye Valley Mediation on Conflict Management. Other staff members have attended training in IT and in quality management and we have been working on acquiring ISO 9001 certification, which we should receive at the end of November.
The Local Sustainability Funding we received earlier in the year from the Cabinet Office is enabling us to work on internal projects – one of which is a database, a significant piece of work for HOPE, with the assistance of a business advisor. Sarah Kelly, Rachel Cross and I all attended the Bromyard Speed Festival party, which was held to celebrate the success of the inaugural Festival in 2016. We were pleased to be one of the beneficiaries and delighted to receive a cheque for £1500 on the night. We are also delighted that this year’s Bromyard Christmas Tree Festival has decided to share half of its proceeds with us. Support offered by local organisations and partners in the community has always been, and will always be, a key part of our role in the community and we are very grateful to continue to receive it.
The run up to Christmas will be busy as always. We are going to be recruiting new staff as we say goodbye to Sam (Family Support Worker) Rachel (Café Manager) and Michelle (Early Years Manager) at Christmas. Sam will be working with Looked After children in Hereford, Rachel has decided to concentrate on her speech and language support work and Michelle is taking a break from the world of work after Christmas. Thanks to them all for their contribution to HOPE over the years and our best wishes go to them all for success in the future!
We have welcomed some new staff to the team all of whom bring lots of enthusiasm, experience and knowledge to their roles: Heidi Mulholland has been promoted to Family Support Team Coordinator and Kayley Seymour joins us as Family Support worker. Lou Galloway has been appointed Contact Centre coordinator and we have also recruited some new contact bank workers to supervise the contact visits. Mandy Williams provides admin support for both departments as well as her work with Facilities. The Early Years team has also recently welcomed Carly Roper, Jo Hyde and Ali McLeod. Cheryl Balsdon has joined Maxine as part of the cleaning team.
We’ve also welcomed a new Trustee to the Board of Trustees in September, Dr Janet Stevens, a retired NHS Director, who will support the Board in matters relating to Health.
Recently Friends of HOPE held a hugely successful Bread evening in conjunction with Loafers Patisserie – our thanks to Darren and Sam, artisan bakers – a great night was had by all!
Thanks also to Ian Greaves, Treasurer of the Board of Trustees, who ran the Worcester City 10k run recently and raised several hundred pounds for the Charity. Many, many thanks to everyone for their support!
Looking ahead here are some dates for your diary: November 10th Curry evening; Christmas lunch at Oscar’s Café on December 14th ahead of term end for the Early Years department on December 16th; and we have our Annual Awards evening on January 20th. In Spring we are going to hold a Fundraiser fashion show in conjunction with Suz of Bromyard. In Spring 2017 we will be holding a Jobs Fair with DWP and Fortis Living, and also running some new cookery classes for with the Better Bun Company. Follow our social media on Facebook and Twitter for more information to come.
Autumn exploration in Early Years Education
Children in Early Years discover the insects and spiders hiding beneath the coloured rice. They look carefully at the pictures which leads to discussion about pumpkins, bats and Halloween.
Children are supported as they hammer golf tees into a pumpkin. This helps develop children’s hand-eye coordination and strengthens the hands – important for future writing.
Autumn exploration
Children were exploring the change of season. We see our young friend turning over the leaves and acorns while an adult tells him about the squirrels and how the leaves have fallen from the trees. He finds a spider and watches intensely as it crawls in and out of the twigs. These opportunities to discover the natural world help develop respect and understanding.
The children also felt the wind blowing their hair: they watch the wind pick up ribbons and leaves and begin to understand that although we can’t see it, we can see it’s effects! Exciting if you’re 3!
Autumn displays
Spooky sensory trays for the babies – look carefully and you’ll see the spiders and insects trapped inside the ice. Children try hard to get them out and watch mesmerized as they melt, freeing what’s inside. They feel the cold on their hands and watch how slippery the ice is on the tray as it moves around.
All these experiences develop children’s understanding of concepts about hot and cold and melting and freezing – hands on science.
What’s coming up?
Back to the woods this half term. Children will once again be taken to the woods on a Thursday afternoon for adventures, challenges, songs and stories and games. It will become their space: to take care of, to ponder in, to be still with, to form new friendships in. We’re hoping to have six sessions before the Christmas break and will invite parents and family to join us on the last session, so they can share in the experience with us.
Mud Runner 2016
Congratulations to all our Baby Room team who have raised a massive £787 so far to create a garden for the children at the nursery at the HOPE Centre.
The team ran in the Mud Runner challenge 2016 at Eastnor Castle and used JustGiving.com to raise funds.
Sarah, Amy, Briggi, Jo and Jackie… after running 5km on a cold but sunny afternoon in October in aid of our Baby Room garden. They all did so well and we’re very proud.
We will use the money raised to help fund our baby room garden – many thanks to all our sponsors!
Oscar’s Café News
A look at what we’ve been doing and what’s coming up at Oscar’s Café.
We’ve had two successful buffets for Wye Valley Brewery and Rowden House School, with lovely feedback.
We‘re holding a Gita Memorial Curry Night on 10 November – a night to remember our lovely friend Gita.
Christmas dinner will be part of our December festivities at Oscar’s. We’ll be serving lunch between 12–3pm on 14 December – please book in advance!
We will be holding a Grandparent and Grandchildren coffee morning every fortnight on a Thursday starting in November, with Soft Play and other activities. Watch our Facebook page for details!
Look out for our free Christmas treats with your coffee in December!
Oscar’s Café has free WiFi and disabled access.
News from Supporting Families
The Family Support team continue to be busy supporting families on both an outreach basis and within the centre.
The summer months have seen lots of changes within the team but we still managed to have lots of fun over the holidays. We had a Centre visit from Creature Class Animal Encounters, which saw so many of you coming along to meet and learn more about the animals. We also had several messy play sessions running throughout the holidays where we had fun making mud pies, decorating cakes and even playing with multicoloured foam and baked beans!
Over the summer we have given our groups and activities a long overdue redesign. There are new names, new activities and a different timetable that we hope you are all enjoying. Groups are an essential part of what we offer to the community as a Children’s Centre but also as a charity that supports people, strengthens the community and provides ways of socialising and learning development for children. It’s also a great way for adults to meet and socialise too!
Our trained staff and volunteers plan all the activities to encourage learning and development for your children and so while the children are having fun they’re also learning and developing social skills and understanding and experiencing new things. We like to encourage as many people as possible to come to groups, so if you know of someone who might enjoy spending time at HOPE please let them know about us.
We’ll soon be welcoming a new Family Support Worker: Kayley Seymour. Kayley has a lot of experience of working with children and their families and has most recently been an SEN teaching assistant. You will be seeing lots of Kayley as she will be taking over from Heidi to run our group timetable and she will be a welcome new addition to the team.
Our volunteer Tanya who many of you may have met in Bumps to Babies on a Thursday has recently started to run our Soft Play sessions on a Monday 10:45am–12:00pm and is doing a wonderful job. It’s been so lovely to see so many of you continuing to support this group.
Contact Centre update
Our Contact Centre has continued to offer regular support to families and non-resident parents and children. We’ve appointed Louise Galloway as our Contact Centre coordinator to manage the department.
Louise brings a wealth of practical knowledge and theory to this role and has been working at the Centre as a volunteer, student and most recently in our Family Support department. She has a great understanding of the HOPE ethos. We’ve also recruited a new contact worker and will be recruiting more in the New Year to cope with the requests we receive.
Funding can be hard to come by but we are pleased to receive ongoing support from Cafcass, which enables us to part fund some of the resources required for the children and families.
The HOPE Centre Winter Newsletter
Keep an eye out for our winter newsletter, coming in the new year.
