Summer Roundup
What a fantastic summer we’ve had. It’s been the longest sunniest period of time and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, sharing some amazing activities with our young people. Starting with the beach barbecue, Summer of skills workshops and ending with our fantastic weekend residential.
The afternoon beach barbecue held on Teignmouth beach, which is becoming an annual affair, went down exceedingly well. We managed to fit eighteen people on a stand up paddle board and introduced some young people to the delights of playing in the shallows. All attendees absolutely loved the experience and some continued on until the evening.
Having recently accessed our own resource centre, The Hub, we operated a drop in session one day a week for our young people. Giving them the opportunity to use the craft materials, create some beautiful items, and hang out and chat with other likeminds. We also did alot of cooking together, making tasty breakfasts and lunches - sharing recipes and food loves! The Hub has proved to be really popular, with more people hearing about it and coming in, and through this friendships have been made, skills learnt, and confidence gained. Which is ultimately what we’re all about.
And, because we’ve got this tremendous resource in The Hub, we were also able to host ‘The Summer of Skills Workshops’ - a 4 week long schedule of workshops targeted at 16 - 25 year olds, offering a range of activities. Covering life admin, CV writing, music, wellbeing, cooking and digital skills, there was something for everybody.
The Digital Skills and Cyber Escape Room was hosted by Devon and Cornwall Police and gave everyone an insight into how vigilant we need to be with our passwords and digital device security. A massive thanks goes to the Cyber Protect Officers at the Police who spent time with us.
We were thrilled to be a part of the Torbay Literary Festival. The week-long literary festival was hailed as a resounding success - with authors such as Kathy Lette, Christopher Biggins, Helen Lederer, John Hegley and Mike Pickering.
We're very grateful that the festival supported our cause and we congratulate Ben Tisdale on holding such a fantastic event.
And lastly, to round off the summer, we’ve just returned from a weekend residential at the Manor House Hotel in Okehampton.
We took 10 young people to the countryside and surrounded them with the most extensive range of sporting and crafting activities that any of us had ever seen. (alongside an extensive, tasty, never-ending range of food). We all totally loved it.
Our young people were able to experience things that they’ve never been able to do before - have a room to themselves and try their hand at sports such as Pickleball, Archery, Padel, Rifle Shooting, Ice Skating, and activities such as candle making, printing and resin casting. They demonstrated their independence and timekeeping skills, keeping up with the extensive timetable on offer.
We spent the evening playing bowls and spending time in the games room - the feedback has been that it was a resounding success and that the weekend should be at least another 24 hours longer.
To sum up….
We’re so proud of what we’ve achieved over this long summer - our young people have delighted us in their commitment to us and in turn, we’ve been able to give them assistance with their own issues - helping them manage their anxiety, give them a degree of self confidence and help them assert themselves.
Many of the young people would never have considered going to the beach for an afternoon let alone attend a residential weekend. They have learnt how to handle new things, spend time with people they didn’t previously know and it’s a testament to them and to our mentors that they not only attended, that they flourished and, rightly so, are proud of themselves.