WINTER ISSUE 21Jan 13.Pub
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Frenchay Church is where Baking workshop is the best thing since sliced bread! Christmas really begins! Warburtons, the national bakery, offers free bread making/dough shaping/ sandwich Headway Bristol’s annual Carol Service on Sunday th making workshops to schools in our area, and - evening, 9 December, was a wonderful gathering of old much to our delight– we discovered that the friends as well as new ones. company had recently extended this service to The annual service has been held at St. John the Baptist include organisations such as ours. Church on Frenchay Common for many years. It is a major Hence there was much excitement when, on event in our calendar and it heralds the start of our 16th January, Warburtons school visit team Christmas festivities. St. John’s is the perfect setting for the arrived at Headway Centre to deliver a service, not just because it is such a beautiful church and is workshop for 13 of our service users. Our only a stone’s throw away from Headway Centre, but workshop lasted for around three hours and because many of our past and present members and involved an overview of the history of New Year message from the Chief Executive volunteers worship there regularly. Warburtons, a talk on healthy eating (the The event is very special for us because it is the time when eatwell plate) , a practical session, some taste Welcome to the first Newsletter of 2013. Christmas has come and gone – and thankfully, so has the snow! We had some Headway Bristol’s extended ‘family’ of friends, supporters testing, and questions and answers. wonderful Christmas activities such as the Christmas Shopping event, the Carol Service and the Christmas Party. All were successful and enjoyable and we thank everyone who attended, took part and supported us. and past service users come together. With the kind Afterward Mike, one of the service users, permission of Revd Stephen Pullin, Vicar of St. John’s, described his experience to me. “Lorna and The New Year has brought some new staff. Johnny Swithinbank joins us as our new full-time Fundraiser. Johnny has the service is delivered each year by our dear friend Revd Gemma from Warburtons began their session worked previously for Crisis Ministries and is looking forward to the challenge of helping to raise funds for the Neil Mobbs. Although now retired Neil still provides some organisation, so that we can continue to develop and grow our services. I am sure you will see him around – you can’t by telling us about their company and how they miss him, as he is 6ft 7in tall! Michelle Almey, Marion Gray & Georgie Moore have joined us as new Support/Outreach voluntary chaplaincy services at Frenchay Hospital, and his made bread. We had to wash our hands and warm, gentle manner endears him to everyone. Workers. Michelle has worked in Care for many years and has a wealth of experience to bring, Marion has worked at wear hats and aprons so we could make bread BIRU (Brain Injury Rehab Unit) for the last 8 years – and so is very experienced in our field and Georgie has been Others who are integral to the magic of our event are Alan shapes out of a ball of dough. I made a man, working for Team Brain Injury. Brown, Organist, who played for us again this Christmas others made a star or a mouse or a hedgehog.” It would be remiss of me not to mention that Brian Taylor joined us at the end of October last year as our new even though he, too, is retired, and the big-hearted “While we ate lunch our bread shapes were Apprentice. Brian is studying Business Administration (focusing on Marketing and Fundraising). He has particularly members of Dursley Male Voice Choir, patrons of baked for 25 minutes and then cooled for us to enjoyed selling Christmas puddings and helping out at our events. We are very pleased to have them all join our team Headway Bristol, who all travelled some distance to attend and are looking forward to working with them. eat. We also sampled pancakes, rolls and fruit the service and lead our singing. loaf which everyone loved. We all got to take Lucie Henley left during January as she was offered the opportunity of an Occupational Therapist role with Bristol City A highlight of every year’s service home a Warburtons product too. It was a really Council. We wish her well and I am sure we will keep in touch. is the musical contribution by some good session and everyone had a great day. I would like to take this opportunity of saying a few words about our wonderful paid and volunteer staff teams. of our music loving service users. We have grown considerably over recent years and our existing team (paid and voluntary) have welcomed the This year our group sang the lively For information about the workshops email newcomers, shared their wealth of experience and helped them settle in. Similarly, our service users have also been Calypso Carol. Their joyful voices [email protected] welcoming, sharing their personal stories – which have given the new staff and volunteers insight about how brain injury lifted the roof of the church and can affect people. I would therefore like to say a very big thank you to all our paid and volunteer staff - their hard or telephone brought big smiles to the faces of work, commitment and loyalty are very much appreciated. And thank you too, to our service users. They are all, quite 07713074311 the audience. simply, amazing - their strength, humour and resilience are both inspiring and humbling and it is a real joy working alongside everyone at Headway Bristol. The Trustees of Headway Bristol We have a number of events in the coming months and will be publishing a full diary shortly. The first event is the would like to thank everyone who Frenchay 10k run on 14 th April. We hope that many of you will want to take part – and those that are not able to can ventured out on that cold help by volunteering to Marshall or help with our stand on the day. December evening to share in the start of our Christmas We have Action for Brain Injury Week coming up in May. We will have raffles, tombolas, table top sales and our, now season. Thank you, too, to all those who contributed to the annual, Balloon Launch. The week will culminate on the 17 th May with Hats for Headway Day and will end with a collection after the service, and who then bought Christmas Barn Dance. Details are currently being finalised and we will let you have more information once things are confirmed. cards, puddings and raffle tickets at the reception at Headway Centre. Donations on the night totalled an I am also giving you a “heads up” (no pun intended) that we are planning to hold an Abseil event in September. This is a “once in a lifetime” opportunity to abseil down the Premier Inn in the centre of amazing £597.00 . Bristol – and also, hopefully, to raise money for us. Anyone interested in any of the events and fundraising activities, should contact Johnny or Brian. Publications from Headway UK We wish everyone a very Happy New Year and look forward to seeing you all at our upcoming events in the Spring and Summer. Headway UK has just released a new edition of the booklet Caring for someone with a brain injury . The content has been updated to take account of changes in the health, social care and benefits systems. Stocks of the revised publication will be available in the Resource Library shortly. You will find it in a section containing all of the Headway UK booklets. Please don’t forget to tell us if you are going to be away! A new factsheets is also available for download at www.headway.org.uk/factsheets.aspx . The factsheet, To any service user who is going on holiday, or who will miss a day at the Day Centre for an appointment, please entitled Coping with hemiplegia and hemiparesis , provides information and practical tips for coping with remember to notify us of your planned absence - with as much notice as possible - so we can predict numbers for paralysis or weakness of one side of the body following brain injury. activities, outings and lunches. Tel: 0117 3403771/ 07527 820051; email: [email protected] WINTER ISSUE WINTER ISSUE Is your home a healthy home? Thank you to the following The Bold Adventurer and Runners Headway Bristol News organisations for their grants Winter Issue The British Red Cross is currently offering FREE Healthy Homes and donations; In April and May a number of people will be taking part in Published quarterly by: Assessments with the aim of improving the safety and well-being of events to raise both awareness of Headway Bristol and some people in their homes. The short, one hour, friendly visits provide Clifton Down Probus Club; Staple much needed funds for the charity. information on areas including fire and fall safety, warmth, grants, Hill Probus Club; The Inner Wheel Headway Bristol In April the Frenchay 10K will be taking place with many people the brain injury association isolation issues and other available services. The visits are open to Chipping Sodbury; The Hoddell Charitable Trust, and The Annette running in aid of Headway Bristol, and then in May Yvonne ‘Von’ Headway Centre residents of Gloucestershire, South Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bath and North East Somerset.