Hello folks. I hope you are enjoying our intermittent summer? We have continued to be very busy on the CCP front with lots of activities and opportunities for our volunteers and beneficiaries. I wanted to give you a brief update on those, and the forthcoming activities.
The (not now so new!) Homelands Lunch Club which we started in January as a pilot is continuing to go from strength to strength and is very much appreciated and needed by the Christchurch community – both within and outside of Homelands, where it is held. It has been great to work with India and her team from the Friendly Food Club, and we also want to thank Sue for standing in for the summer whilst they were on a break. Thanks too to our CCP and Homelands volunteers who make it happen each week, and to Christchurch Housing Society for their continued support.
This summer has also seen the reintroduction of Wednesday CCP trips to a variety of venues including garden centres, tea rooms and pubs which our clients are loving, they are also enjoying the new Monday project of rides around Hengistbury Head which we are partnering with Cycling Without Age on which is great fun but obviously fairly weather dependent!
We continue to support both the weekly Greystones Lunch Club and Bure House seated exercise classes with our lovely new (ish!) minibus as well as taking folk to a whole range of other activities, thanks to our wonderful volunteer Neighbour Car drivers.
It is sometimes a struggle to deliver some of these activities though, as we really do need more volunteers; drivers and buddies in particular! If you have friends or colleagues who can offer even a few hours a month, we’d love to hear from them! You can find out how to join us on our volunteering page.
We have two upcoming events which we are particularly excited about. The first is the International Day of Older Persons (IDOP to us!) Cream Tea on Sunday 6th October. This was such a success last year (in marking the annual United Nations day to celebrate our older residents) that we are doing it again! We will again be simultaneously running three cream teas at our Coffee Connections venues: Homelands, Trafalgar Court and Bure House but with even more activities this year! The Funky Little Choir will be performing at all three venues at different times during the events, and there will be a display from the excellent D-Day 80th Celebrations provided by various organisations.
Last year we had whole families volunteering which was fantastic as it made it a really intergenerational event so we are hoping to replicate that!
The second (and very different!) event, is the 3rd Christchurch Soup on 21st October from 5.00-7.00 which brings the wider community together for a live 'crowdfunder' style event to enjoy Swing Unlimited, a bowl of delicious home made soup and the chance to support the young people of Christchurch. We are theming it around Youth Projects, so are hoping that our schools/ Guides/Scouts/youth clubs will come along and 'pitch' for the £1,000 pot of funding to kick start a project they'd like to deliver for their community.
We will need lots of volunteers for both events - to welcome, to serve, to wash up and just generally hang out and have fun with our community! Please get in touch if you would like to know more.
A few more events to tell you about too:
Coffee Connections - new location
Wiseguys, at 1 Stanpit (on the Purewell roundabout), are very
kindly giving us space in their café area, to host our latest Coffee
Connections group.
This happens on the first Wednesday of every month from 3pm.
Anyone in the area who would love to meet some new faces and
enjoy great cup of coffee (or tea) is welcome to join us (venue is
dog friendly). Please call for more information.
We continue to run monthly Coffee Connections events at Bure
House and Homelands Hall.
Volunteer Fair - 16 September 11am-2pm
At Christchurch Priory. If you know anyone who might be interested in volunteering with us please ask them to pop in for a chat
Regular CCP activities
Monday - Cycling Without Age
Tuesday - Seated Exercise Club
Wednesday - CCP Mini trips
Thursday - Homelands Lunch Club
Friday - Greystones Lunch Club
Monthly Sunday’s - Sunday Lunch
Monthly - Coffee Connections (CC)
Thanks for reading – please do get in touch if you would like to know more about any of our events. You can find out how to contact us here.
Rev Sandra Prudom
CCP CEO
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