Welcome one and all to our first blog. I’m Emma, I have been volunteering for the NT LIFE Recovery College since its early days back in May. Some of you will have seen me at groups or taking notes at the drop in sessions. Some of the feedback we got at the drop in sessions was that people would like a newsletter/blog of some sort and while this will in no way be perfect please bear with me, whilst in my own unique and probably odd way, to sum up what an amazing first few months.
If you don’t like statistics please jump this paragraph, but for those of you who, like me, are fascinated with them, here are some numbers. Since we started we have now had over 900 hours of student participation. We have also had over 140 hours volunteered by our incredible facilitators and we have registered over 130 people. Many of the groups have been so popular that facilitators have run additional sessions meaning we have nearly doubled the number of sessions provided from what we had originally planned. We have successfully run 13 courses and things like our Christmas Crafternoon sessions were so popular that the spaces filled up within days of it being announced.
You will be relieved to hear I will stop with the numbers now, but what I really wanted to say in amongst all that was that none of this would be possible without you! The people reading this who have attended sessions or run a course, those who are new to us and just finding your feet, thank you for your involvement and making this all happen. I hope that you got something out of the experience and hope that come January when the courses resume we will see you back, trying new things or continuing with courses that you already enjoy.
So, let’s celebrate what we have achieved so far. Here are just a handful of pictures we have gathered since September.
These are some of the dogs who join their humans on the weekly Dogs and friends walking group. The group met on a Tuesday morning and went out and about together on walking adventures.
Here are some of the Christmas Crafternoon creations. The group met for four weeks in November and December on a Wednesday afternoon, listened to Christmas music and made different Christmas themed items.
On the left is one of the pictures from the writing group which met every Tuesday morning. While to the right is a picture from the art group that met on a Tuesday afternoon.
FEEDBACK
We always want to hear what feedback everyone has. If you think there is anything that we could do better or any courses you would like to see us running please send an email to ali.donkin@dev.voda.org.uk. In addition if you have had a good experience could you please leave us some feedback on the Healthwatch North Tyneside website here. This is so that people who search for us online will get a better understanding of who we are and what we do.
Thanks
Emma
