Centre Report – September 2024

Centre Report September 2024

 

 

Introduction – Jacquie Winning, CEO

It’s been a busy couple of months at the Centre since our last update report. It was great to catch up with some of you who were able to attend our Summer Fayre in July.

In this report we summarise some of the news, events and activities that have taken place over the summer and let you know what we have coming up in the next few months.

We have a few staff changes to report. I am delighted to introduce Abi Matheson who has recently taken up the role of p/t Deaf Awareness Advisor. Abi, who is a BSL user, will be working alongside Laura Cluxton our Sight Loss Ambassador and Susanne Robertson, our Youth and Family worker, to reach out to people of all ages with sensory loss across Forth Valley and raise awareness of the activities and services we can offer. Jack Spiers, our Deaf Advocate has moved on to another role out with the Centre. Linsey Stocks, our Activities and Group Co-ordinator has also moved on to pastures new and we want to take this opportunity to wish both Jack and Linsey well in their future endeavours. We are in the process of recruiting a new full time Activities Co-ordinator and look forward to introducing them to you in the near future.

Earlier this month we hosted an event entitled Awakening the Senses through Cooking. Experienced blind chef Kim Jaye travelled up from Bolton to work with our very own David Black and they both presented an action packed, interactive cooking demonstration for 24 blind and partially sighted people. Our Braille group are currently planning a collaborative art work to celebrate the introduction of Braille in1824. Look out for some #Braille200 information on our social media. We have been invited to host a film show to Celebrate BSL History for local school children at our Centre on 11 November (tbc). We have lots to look forward to.

 

  1. Recent Feedback Summary

We received some welcome positive feedback regarding our previous Centre Newsletter from one of our Clackmannanshire volunteers who said: “excellent work at a very busy time for all, providing this valuable five-star service.” We thanked this lady for her kind words and passed on her compliment to the rest of the FVSC team.

We experienced some Wi-Fi issues with connectivity in different areas of the Centre. Concerns were raised by members of our IT Group and one of our Centre Partners. Jamie, our Welcome Desk Assistant, contacted our Wi-Fi provider and arranged for Wi-Fi booster to be installed. These issues are now resolved. We recommend that Centre users report any concerns about the building to Welcome Desk staff so that we can resolve these quickly.

Talking Newspaper Federation’s chose to host their UK Roadshow event at our Centre at the end of June. The event organiser contacted us after the event to say a “huge thanks” to Centre staff for hosting this highly successful event. They also passed on a special thanks to Tom, our Café Assistant who was on hand to support with the event throughout the day, Tom assisted with room set up, catering and ad hoc requests always with a smile, he was: “a star and very helpful”.

 

  1. Community Fundraising Summary – July/August 2024

Our Garden Party took place on Friday, 19th July. This was the first garden “party” we have hosted in our garden and it was a huge success! We laid on an ever popular tombola, bottle stall, buffet and funfair style games as well as information stands for local sight/hearing loss organisations and craft stalls from local businesses. We were hoping to raise around £750 from this event, based on what we raised at last year’s BBQ but we were surprised and delighted to smash that target by raising a whopping £1351.51! Nearly double our original target.

The event was enjoyed by all who attended, including regular and new Centre Visitors, MPs, Local Councillors and the wider community. A special thanks goes to our dedicated volunteers and staff who ensured the day went smoothly. Thank you to everyone who came along, joined in the fun and donated. This is very much appreciated by all at FVSC. Can’t wait to welcome you to our next big community event which is our Winter Fayre which will take place on Friday 29 November – Save the Date, more details to follow.

We launched our Summer Hamper Raffle at our Garden Party. In total  we had four fabulous hampers and a gift voucher. Caesar and Howie Solicitors for Older People donated a lovely hamper containing sweet treats, fancy savouries and even a bottle of fizz, their Parent Carer Support Service also donated a hamper specially designed for young people, including toys, games, gifts and more! One of our Centre Users generously donated a hamper and we also put together our Summer Essentials picnic hamper! Our lucky winners, Terry Robinson, Gordon McNeil, Gordon Lumsden and Andrea Arrol and Eileen H were announced via our Facebook page on Friday, 23rd August and the total amount raised by the raffle was £212. Thank you to everyone who bought tickets and well done to our 5 lucky winners.

Our Paralympic Welcome Desk Fundraiser helped us to raise some much needed funds for new café equipment. The lucky prize winners who each won a gift voucher were Alec Ferguson, Emma Laughland and Stephen Smith.

We are planning an Adult Halloween Party this year for adults with learning disabilities/sensory loss. After the success of our Easter event we decided to host a similar event on Thursday, 31st October from 11am – 1pm. This event is open to adults with additional needs/learning disabilities, their carers, support workers, friends and family! The event is free to attend and will include a number of activities to keep both attendees and support staff amused, including tombola, Halloween themed bake sale, apple decorating, spooky crafts and much more. Fancy dress is encouraged and centre staff will be joining in the day so why not get in contact for more details and share with anyone you think may be interested in attending!

 

  1. Groups Summary July/August 2024

Despite some of our groups taking a summer break, there was still a lot   of activity during July and August. The Stirling Visually Impaired Group were visited by Brianna Robertson-Kirkland, Lecturer in Historical Musicology at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland who delivered an informative and fascinating talk. The History Group visited Lys Hansen’s “Live It Paint It” exhibition at Callander House and the BSL OAP group visited the Burrell Collection and had a visit from the Scottish Parliament’s BSL Communities Officer who gathered their feedback on his department’s new BSL Plan.

The Book Group met to review, “The Giver of Stars” by Jojo Moyes which was enjoyed a positive response. They will be reviewing Khaled Hosseini’s, “And the Mountains Echoed” next.

Our Clacks social group welcomed Kelly Tulloch from Health Improvement Scotland NHS who explained the different options for blind and partial sighted people to provide feedback on their experiences of the NHS.

Our Knit and Natter group continued making blankets and hats for the NHS Maternity Unit and hearts for the stroke ward. They are now focussing on creating items to sell at our Winter Fayre.

We were pleased to introduce a new Sequence Dance Class over the summer, led by experience dances Brian and Avril. It takes place in Bonnybridge Community Centre from 1-2pm on Tuesdays and costs £5 per session and is in addition to our Thursday evening class at the Sensory Centre.

We also introduced a new registration process for our Cookery Classes which will allow us to make them even more tailored to individual needs, making the experience for participants even better.

Our Choir, Lip Reading, IT and Lego classes all restarted in August. The Choir have already started practicing for their Christmas events.

Looking ahead, our new Art Group starts on the 18th September from 1030h-1230h and Talk and Sign will return on 23rd September at 7pm,

If you would like to find out more about any of our activities or classes please email sensory@forthvalleysensorycentre.org or T 01324 590888

 

  1. Attendance Figures

During July and August 2024, 319 people used the Sensory Room and our groups and classes welcomed 1769 attendees. Cafe Tiki was visited  1263 times and there were 650 visitors through the door for NHS Appointments. These numbers break down as follows:

July August
Groups and Classes 824 945
Sensory Room 189 130
Health Clinics 333 317
Café Tiki 692 571

 

  1. Volunteering Summary July/August 2024

We have been hard at work behind the scenes with volunteering over the last couple of months. We welcomed some new volunteers who are taking to their roles like ducks to water. One of them is Becca who is helping David in the kitchen with baking and keeping the kitchen spic and span, and another is Fiona who is throwing herself fully into harvesting produce in the garden and starting to get us ready for the winter season. Around here, it isn’t just our catering team who plan early for Christmas!

We’ve also been catching up with all of our current volunteers to make sure they’re getting everything possible out of their volunteering with us and to see if we can offer them any other support or opportunities. There’s been nothing but positive feedback so far which we are delighted about. We will be sure to collate the main highlights that have been fed back to us in our December volunteer newsletter.

We’d like to take this opportunity to say another massive thank you to our volunteers for all their support before and during our Garden Party we hosted in July. We wouldn’t have been able to make it the success we did without all of their efforts. Our next fundraisers will be for Halloween and our annual Winter Fayre. Let us know if you would like to attend either of these events as a volunteer. They’re guaranteed to be a fantastically fun time as usual.

We currently have sensory awareness sessions planned with Active Travel in Clackmannanshire, and The Doubletree by Hilton in Dunblane and Caesar and Howie Solicitors. We’re very excited to begin and continue our relationships with these organisations and to make as many places as accessible as possible. We’ll be sure to keep you updated on how these sessions go.

We are very excited to let you know that we feature in ‘Capturing Volunteer Stories’ exhibition which CVS have organised to highlight the amazing role performed by volunteers from the Falkirk area for the last forty years (1984 – 2014). The aim of the exhibition is to shine a spotlight on the importance of volunteering by telling the largely untold stories of people who have shaped the development of Falkirk, purely out of a sense of community instead of for financial gain. As we are unable to run the Centre without our reliable and earnest volunteers, we wanted to ensure that we took part in the exhibit and told the stories of some of our current volunteers and longstanding volunteers who have unfortunately passed away. We will be inviting our volunteers to join us for an exhibition visit on Friday 20th of September.

 

  1. Youth and Family Update

 

During July and August, The Youth Group enjoyed a wide range of activities including:

baking, painting, picnic, football, frisbee, den building, games night, movie night, visits to Glasgow Science Centre and Innoflate.

 

One of our highlights was our football coaching session.  This was led by Central Football Academy and provided our group with lots of fun skills and activities to develop their confidence and persistence.

 

The trip to Glasgow Science Centre was an exceptionally fun experience with so much to see and do.  Our young deaf people could let their curiosity go wild and worked well together to create a water dam and build an arch. Thanks to Falkirk Schools Funding for providing us with a contribution towards the cost of our engaging activities.

 

In August, we had an exciting visit from Edinburgh University to conduct a science workshop with us.  This was food themed, and every young person was able to complete their own experiments, learning new skills.  As two of the demonstrators are deaf and use BSL, with the third demonstrator interpreting for us, our young people had the opportunity to see other positive deaf role models and learn some general and science based BSL.

 

After a break during the summer holidays, our Peer Support Group (for parents and carers of children who are deaf or have hearing loss) met again in August.  Look out for details of our next meeting.

 

We are very keen to provide a similar service for blind and partially sighted children and their families. If there are any parents and carers of children and young people who are visually impaired and would be interested in attending a peer support group, please contact susannerobertson@forthvalleysensorycentre.org to register your interest.

 

  1. Sight Loss Ambassador

Over July and August our Sight Loss Ambassador Laura has kept her calendar full. She began July meeting with Forth Valley Disability Sport and discussing the need to make their social media posts more accessible. This was one of many meetings for Laura over the period, she also continued her meetings with the Licensing board, meeting with one of their trainers, Gordon Emslie, to discuss including sensory loss as part of his training slides on accessibility. She attended the Community Health and Wellbeing Fund Steering Committee meeting, the Digital Citizens Partnership conversation café and the Stirling Voluntary Enterprise Breakfast which was a networking and Information Session.

Laura also had speaking engagements over this period: keeping it brief at the Sauchie Community Group to raise awareness of the Centre and it services while later in August she acted as a speaker and presenter at the prestigious Scottish Women in Sport Conference as a representative of Scottish Disability Sport before serving as a panel member for their Q&A session.

The centre had some notable visitors over this period, such as Local MPs Euan Stainbank for Falkirk and Brian Leishman for Alloa and Grangemouth with Laura providing tours for both, she commented on how lovely it was to meet both and appreciated their genuine interest in making accessibility a priority. Laura also led tours for a student nurse and Clinical Support Worker with the Community Mental Health Services who was keen to bring their clients to our Sensory Garden.

Some other highlights of this period for Laura included manning Info Stalls at our Garden Party and Sterling Mills Market Street event allowing her to engage with people in the Clackmannanshire area we may not normally reach. She also visited Tom’s Garden taken one of our Deaf Centre user’s Cathy Carmichael on a quiet day when it was more accessible with her sighted guide Caroline acting not just as a guide but communicator. She also attended a JAWS webinar on using the accessible software with the internet and continued her volunteering with the centre’s monthly Lego Group, whose theme in August was the Paralympic sports and Paris.

If you would like to arrange a centre tour or have an event you would like our Sight Loss Ambassador to speak at, please contact Laura by email lauracluxton@forthvalleysensorycentre.org

 

Summary

Thanks for taking the time to read our latest report. I hope this has given you a glimpse into what we provide at FVSC. It would be great to see you at the Centre, why not come and visit us soon to find out more about what we offer or take part in one of our activities. Café Tiki opens Monday to Friday 9 – 3:30 and offers fresh home made soup, fairtrade teas and coffees and a selection of home baking. Our Sensory garden is always open during the day when the Centre is open. We look forward to welcoming you.

If you have any questions, suggestions or requests, please get in touch.

Jacquie Winning MBE CEO, 17 September 2024

e-mail: jacquiewinning@forthvalleysensorycentre.org

www.forthvalleysensorycentre.org @FVSensoryCentre

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