Crickey! I can’t believe it’s been a month since I last wrote to you. People told me that the school term would go quickly but I wasn’t expecting just how quickly! With half term fast approaching it’s a good time to reflect on the last few weeks and a chance for me to sit down with a nice cup of coffee! It’s been a whirlwind of a month for the Dementia Disco and here is a run down of what I’ve been up to….
On the 18th September I attended the Stockport Hub Volunteer Fair, organised by Sector 3. It was a wonderful event with loads of fantastic organisations in attendance, letting the good people of Stockport know about the many and varied volunteering opportunities that are available. I met so many people and gave out loads of flyers and chocolates! It was an extremely worthwhile experience as I have already heard back from several of the people I met who are interested in volunteering. As a result of this I have booked in a new mobile disco and I now have the volunteers required to open a new venue based disco in the centre of Stockport so watch this space for more news on that soon!
I also attended the Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme Primary Care Network Dementia Event on 25th September. It was a great opportunity to meet people living with dementia and their carers and tell them all about the Dementia Disco and I’m hoping we’ll have a few new people attending our discos very soon. I had a lovely time sitting next to Elmira and Matthew from Visiting Angles who provide bespoke care at home. I have since been and had coffee with them at their office in Cheadle and we discussed the possibility of a disco right in the heart of Cheadle village. I am looking at possible venues at the moment and hopefully we’ll be able to open one up soon.
On 26th September I attended my first Proper Good Business Club who offer free-to-access business support, networking, training, investment-readiness support and social investment to help you establish and grow your social enterprise or charity. It was a truly inspiring morning where I had the privilege of listening to Caitlin Atherton from Plastic Shed about how Stockport’s plastic bottle top mural came about with a huge amount of help from the local community. I also heard from Brian Pendlebury from Cera Cycloan about supporting sustainable travel by helping employees to be bike confident. I loved what they are doing so much I took my soon to their workshop at the weekend to donate his old bike and they found him a Team GB BMX to replace it with which he loves!
On Tuesday 8th October I had the honour of attending a Peer to Peer Networking dinner, organised by The Fore. It was an opportunity to meet other organisations who have been funded by The Fore and share ideas and any challenges that we’re currently facing. I met Roman Dibden from RISE UP, Phyllida Swift from Face Equality International, Iyabo Fatimilehin from Just Psychology CIC and Martine Delaney from TalkFIRST Mediation.
Roman made an excellent point about the “collaboration, not competition” philosophy which was certainly in full force that evening. We discussed ways that we might be able to support each other and the challenges of applying for funding. We even had a dive into the intriguing and sometimes scary world of AI!
We have 2 mobile discos coming up this week, 1 at Lisburne Court and a new one at Adswood Care Home, both in Stockport. It’s a truly wonderful thing being able to take the disco into care homes and get people dancing, if they are able to and smiling and laughing. I will be writing a post soon about our experiences of running the mobile discos so stay tuned for that!
Ok I think that’s it for now and as we’re in full Strictly Come Dancing mode it’s a good time to say keeeeeeep daaaaaancing!
Until the next time!
Kate
