the brierley hill project blog

Sharing and Networking

admin — Mon, 14 May 2012 20:54:56 +0000

This week we have visited residents in a care home, shared a meal with them and their staff as part of our Community Visiting Programme.

The “Open the Book” team had a great time in the local school sharing Bible stories with 65 children and staff, the children played parts in the story which was told in a simple fun way.

We have had our first Crystal Breakfast Club Network meeting, one of our team met with local business people and was able to share about our work at the BHP. At the end of the evening we were presented with a check for £190.00 towards our work, so a big thank you to them!

Welcome back!

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:26:51 +0000

After a good Easter break all of the sessions are back on: please come and join us!

Fitness, visiting and a rap!

admin — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 17:11:49 +0000

The keep fit group is doing a great job helping local people to be fit and active in a fun way, numbers have grown and another 10 week course will start in April.

The community visiting team has had some of their clients in hospital this week, so they went to visit them there. One man said it had made him feel a lot better as he saw them walk onto the ward, he said he’d missed the team and couldn’t find the words to say how much the visits mean to him.

One of our volunteers has been released to carry the Fairtrade message into schools. 10 different schools have joined together and have taken part in writing about Fairtrade and then a local rap talent pulled their words together into a rap song.

Good news!

admin — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:17:27 +0000

The BHP are delighted to say that we have been successful with a grant from the BIG Lottery for £8732!! This is to help us look at future sustainability now that our 5 year contract with the lottery is coming to an end. The money will be spent on a consultant to help with the restructure, various essential training courses for staff and a new website….

Fun, socials and work.

admin — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:12:45 +0000

The holiday club has been full of excited children in the last few weeks, playing lots of games, drawing, colouring and just getting to know one and other, and us. We have had some new children this year which is great news.

We held one of our community socials to create a relaxed space for people who live on the estate to gather together and chat while enjoying jacket potatoes and listening to live music.

Work on the graveyard has started again, the volunteers have enjoyed the sun, hard work and chips!

Teamwork

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:13:31 +0000

This last couple of weeks has had lots of activity including 7 volunteer staff from Juniper Training painting our drop-in area. A handyman gave up a days work to oversee things and a volunteer from the café also helped.

Community visiting is going really well, we have lots of wonderful stories from the volunteers visiting clients in their homes. We have also dealt with people who have incredibly difficult situations ranging from imprisonment, domestic violence, loss or delay of benefits, housing challenges and much more. These are intense situations that take a lot of time with one to one support from our staff and volunteers, often calling in partners from other agencies to give more experienced and skilled support in certain areas.

Happy New Year

admin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:26:20 +0000

These last couple of weeks have been busy with lots of activities back on, such as Keep Fit and Toddlers. We have seen some new families who have just moved into the area and we have had a steady flow of people with a variety of needs. It’s great to be open again for our client family here, on the estate.

Amazing efforts from Sainsbury’s as always!

admin — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 12:57:26 +0000

Sainsbury’s staff continue to amaze us!! There was a raffle drawn on 16/12/11 which has raised another £412.70 for the BHP. We would also like to say a massive thank you to Mason Metals who have contributed £60 of food towards the hampers which we have been able to distribute to a number of families around the local area

Happy Christmas!

admin — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:24:53 +0000

This week has been very busy with lots of people through the door. We have had great openings and opportunities to meet practical needs. Lots of children’s gifts have been donated through the Foodbank and DCVS, this has helped us support several families with clothes, toys and food. Community visiting was also productive this week, again we met practical needs through cleaning and household chores.
We had our BHP Christmas party last week that went down a treat, with staff, volunteers, trustees and some service users all mixing together in a fun night out!!
We as a BHP team want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

“Keep Fit” keeps running…

admin — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:29:12 +0000

It was the last Adult Learning Keep Fit this week which has been very successful, we may restart in January as we continue to develop our partnership. The tutor, in her own time, is kindly going to trial three weeks up until Christmas of Zumba/Keep fit for people who want to continue with this activity and the Brierley Hill Project.