the brierley hill project blog

As many will know on Thursday 4th June we held a fundraising night here at the BHP, it consisted of two music acts a raffle and an auction. We can now confirm that we raised over £600 during the night and we would like to take this opportunity to congratulate and thank everyone who came along and attended and those that donated gifts for the raffle/auction. It was a fantastic night and we look forward to seeing everyone again soon,

The BHP team

Tonight at the BHP we are holding an Easy Listening Music Night that will feature live performances from Matty Jay and Leigh Maddison. This is sure to be an excellent night that will be enjoyed by all.
The doors open at 6:30pm and it starts at 7:00pm finishing at 9:30pm.
Aswell as the live performances there will also be a raffle, auction and light bites available to purchase.
Tickets cost £3.
It would be great to see everyone there as i’m sure you will all have a great time,
The BHP team

As most of you will be aware, on Saturday the 2nd of May we held 1st Birthday Party for the BHP here at the BHP. It was a great success and, as promised, there was Inflatables, face painting, sports activities a bbq and much much more.
We would like to say a massive ‘thank you’ to everyone who came along and made it such a success. There were around 200 of you and you played a massive part in it all.
We would also like to say a huge well done and thank you to the volunteers who gave up their saturday to help us out. It couldn’t have been done without you all.

We are now back into the swing of things and even after one whole year, we are still going on from strength to strength and expanding,

We would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone who has helped us out, visited us, or just been around over the past year, you will have made such a difference even if you don’t think you have,

Thanks again,
The BHP team

Its hard to believe that the BHP opened its doors one whole year ago. And so much has happened in this past year, that you can read about in all previous blog entries.

In April 2008 we opened our doors to the community for the very first time, and now, on Saturday 2nd May 2009, we invite you all to come and join us for our 1st Birthday Celebration. This will take place on the Lawyers Field (behind the graveyard) from 11am til 2pm.
There will be so much to do from bouncing on giant inflatables to the much loved BBQ.

You will be able to see some of our workshops in action, with live acts ranging from dance, music and MCing.

There is plenty to do for all ages, and we would love to see you all there
Plus….it is FREE!!!!!!

LET CELEBRATE THIS BIRTHDAY IN STYLE. TOGETHER.

From the bhp team,

hope to see you there on the 2nd May

Here at the bhp we hold many tabletop sales. So we thought we would put up the dates for you on here, so here goes:
(These dates are all on Saturdays)
March 21st
April 18th
May 16th
June 20th
July 18th
August 15th
September 12th
Octber 17th
Noember 21st
December 12th

Bookings for the tables are now being taken. Places are limited call Andrea on 07749452431
Refreshments are available on the day
Come pick a bargain and support one of your local community projects

As promised in the heading, there is also a bingo night on soon.
On Friday 13th at 7pm til 9pm the bingo night will be at the Brierley Hill Project and will cost ONLY £1 per adult!
There are many prizes. Refreshments will also be available. So please come along

For more information on either of these contact Andrea on the number above or the BHP on 01384 572227

Thanks alot, hope to see you soon,

The BHP team

It doesn’t seem that long ago since the last school holiday, but here we are again. Throughout this week we have already seen loads of different people come into the project. From primary school kids upto any age really.

For this week we have had to come up with a system so that the project doesn’t become unmanagable. So at 11 o’clock primary school kids have to leave and then at 1 o’clock secondary school people need to leave. This has proven to work and everyone has respected this, which always helps

This morning there were some of the regular primary school kids waiting outside at 8:55!! They were here before me!! But this is definetly an encouragment.

On Tuesday the cafe was very busy, with people trying to find a place to sit, which i always a good problem to have.

We look forward to a good and positive rest of the week, and we hope that you have a good one too,

The team

We are pleased to announce the arrival of two new signs for the South Street Cafe. These are placed on the main road at the top of South Street. Hopefully they will bring on more awareness of the cafe.
Pleel free and welcome to come to the cafe,

Good food, Good prices,

We look forwad to seeing you and serving you.

A quick update on the foodbank, while we’re here. As you can imagine with the current financial issues in the world at the moment the foodbank has gone through the roof with many more people using and needing it. This is, of couse, a great thing to have, the only problem is that this means that the food is moving very quickly.
We would be very grateful if anyone could possibly donate some food for the food bank to keep it running,
Here’s a list of what we’re particularly short of or actually out of:

Noodles, the cheap 10p ones
Potatoes, tinned and dried
Rice Pudding, tinned
Milk, UHT 500ml & 1litre
Fruit, tinned
Fruit Juice, UHT
Pasta / Cooking Sauces, tinned / jars or sachets
Breakfast cereals, large or small- the variety packs we split to feed 2 single people (4 boxes each)
Biscuits, large & small packs
Tomatoes, tinned - I never thought we’d run out of these
Healthy Snacks, raisins / cereal bars etc

Obviously we are grateful for anything that anyone can give or help us out with just thought some guidelines would help

Well, here we are at the start of a brand new year! At times like these we normally look back and reflect over the past year, but in this case so much has happened in 2008 that I could not possible fit it all on here, but as an overview there has been:

Cheap meals, free meals, sports days, chilled days. Dance schools, fitness work outs, youth groups MCing. Parents and toddlers, weddings, foodbanks, accomodation finding, getting people onto course, helping people get jobs, christmas meals and a santa!

Now if that doesn’t sound like a good year, I don’t know what does.

Last year was an amazing year but we are now looking forward to this year and looking with great anticipation. 2009 promises to be a great year.

Bring on 2009!

Thursday the 11th December saw the Brierley Hill Project hit the streets and flats with vouchers. These were not any ordinary vouchers, when produced at the South Street Cafe on Monday 15th December, they enabled the holder of the vouchers to receive a FREE Meal!

As you can imagine, this brought round alot of people. There were over 40 people there, who each received a free meal, from all different ages and background, to name just a few,
There were:
• Families
• People on their own
• Homeless people
• Drug addicts/Ex-users
• Recently released convicts
• Pensioners

As you can probably tell, this lead for some very interesting and encouraging conversations, where people could relate and just talk to someone else. Everyone who came voiced their opinions and said how happy they were with what they had been given.

The people who came and used this opportunity were informed of the other activities that take place here at the Brierley Hill Project and those that are relevant to them. Some actually managed to use some of these resources and we started to help two homeless people get accommodation (a process of which, I believe, how recently been finished!)

Some people who are regular users of the Project also helped to clear up after it had finished, which was a great and much needed help.

Of course this would not have been a success without the help of many contributors, who provided advertising amongst other things for us, some of which are:
• Hawbush Primary School
• Nisa Shop
• Emporium gym
• Hair dressers

To name just a few. So a big Thank You to all those that were involved in this day at any level, you were all a great help and made this run smoothly and successfully.

The bhp sports week finished on Friday 31st October with different games of football and basketball.
The original plan was to go over the field but due to weather this was not possible, so it took place
on the muga again, which worked well.

On Tuesday 28th October we were supposed to be playing basketball, but the weather did not permit us to, however, we still saw around 20 young people in the youth provision, which is still very encouraging!

Overall the week was a success and went well, with us seeing over 25 different young people throughout the week
dispite the weather.