29/01/2021

Hello Everyone – hope you are all well

The Reach centres currently remain closed to volunteers (apart from Arne who is helping out with client transport, and the ‘composting loo brigade’ at Flower Pod Southwell who are doing a great job with the toilet construction!  Thank you all, it really is appreciated, as the weather hasn’t been kind recently). Thank you to all the volunteers who continue to attend the Zoom sessions.

We are however continuing to review the volunteering situation and will let you all know as soon as we feel it is appropriate for volunteers to return in person to the sessions. As you can see from the picture below, the clients are missing you all.

The staff at all the Reach sites have continued to offer sessions to clients and have been really busy with a variety of activities including Fun and Fitness, Music, Drama, Horticulture and Cooking.

On the subject of cooking, a big thank you to Newark Morrisons who, as part of their Community Champions project helped provide the ingredients for 45 cottage pies made by the cooking group.

Our Inspire course at Newark Flower Pod have had a fun week learning about the conservation of birds, insects, and amphibians in our gardens. The clients made fruit kebabs and seed fat peckers for the birds to enjoy !!

At the Southwell Flower Pod clients have been very busy in the Plant Hospital learning how to revive poorly houseplants, along with sowing seeds, willow weaving, pruning apple trees and recycling

Although all this activity appeared to exhaust Julia the cat !!!!!!!

A Big Thank You to Oliver and Family for their donation of a fruit tree to both Flower Pod sites.  Christine (Oliver’s mum) who set up a fundraiser called ‘Oliver’s Giving Tree’ said “I want to thank everyone who helped us to raise money for Reach at the start of such a difficult time for the charity. Reach is such a big part of Oliver’s life and it means so much to us to give a little back and hope by donating a tree to Newark Flower Pod and one to Southwell Flower Pod will bring hope and a lot of happiness for years to come.”

If you have a spare moment, please consider signing the petition below to prioritise vaccination for people with learning disabilities.

Prioritise vaccinations for people with a learning disability – Petitions (parliament.uk)

Once again, thank you for your help and continued support for Reach, we really couldn’t offer the service we do without you all. We all look forward to seeing everyone again soon.

If you have any queries or questions about volunteering at Reach, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Take care and stay safe

Wayne