Nexus sept 2018

NEWS FROM THE HAMPSHIRE CVS NETWORK 

Action Hampshire

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Basingstoke Voluntary Action

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Communities First Wessex

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Community First New Forest

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Gosport Voluntary Action

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Hart Voluntary Action

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One Community

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Rushmoor Voluntary Services

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Unity

Popular film club in Leigh Park—p2 Fareham Shopmobility relaxes to harp music—p2 BVA interacting with local businesses—page 3

Unity Open Day— p3 Health Forum in Gosport—p3 Getting involved in Hart—p4 Eastleigh’s first Pride—p4

Leigh Park Residents Cycle Around The Globe!

A mental health awareness event took place on 10 September at Leigh Park Community Centre with over 150 people attending. Local people were invited to the Positive Living Event to find out about what services are available for people with mental health issues in the Havant area. Twenty agencies were represented, including Citizens Advice, Bereavement Centre, Mind, Parkway, Off the Record, Community First Youth and Training Teams, Chrysalis, Orion Centre, iTalk, SDAS, Making Space, Samaritans, Recovery College, Hollybank, Richmond Fellowship and Biscoes Solicitors.

The Positive Living event took place on World Suicide Prevention Day, helping to raise awareness about mental health and what services are available. A person dies every 40 seconds by suicide and up to 25 times as many again make a suicide attempt. At the event there was an exercise bike with attendees taking it in turns to cycle as many kilometres as they could. The challenge was to cycle 100km which would be added towards the global number of kilometres people were cycling on the same day around the world at similar events.

One person at the event said, “I wanted to attend the mental health day to find out about what help I can get for my 23-year-old son, who has depression. I have met many mental health providers and got some really useful Produced by Hampshire Councils for Voluntary Service, who would be delighted to have your feedback. Please contact Julia Allan 023 8090 2457 jallan@1community.org.uk Featured articles represent the views of the contributing CVS

information and now feel more confident about helping my son with his recovery. I also had a go on the exercise bike and cycled 5k!”

The event was organised by Community First’s Positive Pathways Big Lottery Funded Project, an initiative that supports people in the Havant area to volunteer in the community. Ina Allum, the Positive Pathways Coordinator said, “We had a fantastic day with great support from local agencies, with the Deputy Mayor of Havant, Cllr Diana Patrick, and Tim Houghton, Chief Executive of Community First, opening the event.

Cllr Patrick also had a go on the exercise bike (pictured front page), contributing to the 100k achieved by the attendees. I would like to thank all the agencies and local residents that came along to support this event and hope that if just one person got the information they need to help them on their mental health journey, then it was a great success.”

off each ticket in their party (up to 4x tickets per membership card). The Film Club is completely FREE to join, and extra membership cards can be made for the young ones so they feel part of the club too.

Voting has already begun for the next film showing in October for the community to decide the film they would most like to see.

Unsurprisingly, the most popular films put forward are Halloween-related!

Fareham Shopmobility Relaxes with From the Harp

Community First’s Family Film Club Proves Popular On Thursday 30 August, Community First once again opened its doors at Leigh Park Community Centre for a movie spectacular for the families of Leigh Park. With popcorn, sweets, a competition entry and a ticket to the film included, the Community Cinema is a way to offer an enjoyable and affordable family day out.

Leah Moore, Centre Co-ordinator said: “Showing the Disney classic ‘The Lion King’ you couldn’t tell who was more excited, the children or the grownups, but as the film began and the first few notes of the classic opening song played, the entire Main Hall, young and old, buzzed with nostalgia and joy.”

Since the Cinema's launch earlier this year, a Family Film Club has been created wherein members receive a host of benefits including £1 NEXUS PAGE 2

Community First’s Fareham Shopmobility customers enjoyed a wonderfully therapeutic and relaxing afternoon listening to and playing the harp, hosted by Alice, whose company From the Harp visits many people to allow them to benefit from and enjoy the magic of the harp. Tea and cake were kindly provided by Gracewell of Fareham.

The harp, with its soothing timbre and spiritual associations, has been revered as a healing instrument by many cultures for thousands of years. There is evidence to show that harp therapy can reduce pain and anxiety, and lower a racing heart and breathing rates. It seems as though we’re relearning the lessons from the past. These days harp therapy is used in hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, day centres, cancer centres, learning disability settings, mental health units and in the community.

This is one of a number of events organised throughout the year for Fareham Shopmobility service users. An Afternoon Tea Dance is scheduled for October.

Developing Business & Community Interaction

BVA’s interaction with local business has been a focus recently to allow companies to better engage with charities and voluntary organisations as part of their corporate responsibilities. This will be continually developed to allow hands on support where required with perhaps staff volunteering, projects or perhaps sponsorship activities.

Updates are being communicated to the business community regarding project opportunities and a ‘Meet and Match’ between Business and Charity representatives is planned again early in 2019.

Group Development has utilised the experience working with partners on the Mayor’s Charity last year to improve relationships with Rotary, Lions, Superstore Community Champions and other relevant representatives to initially create a Community Support Forum which will meet quarterly but interact online to maintain awareness of requirements, priorities and achievements etc within the local community.

BVA is also attending the Basingstoke Business Matters event on September 27 to raise awareness of its activities to the numerous business representatives attending and make introductions regarding CSR and volunteering activities. Additionally, links have recently been made with Basingstoke Together to further promote the work of BVA and seek improved interaction from the Business Community.

BVA was honoured to receive the Mayor’s Business Award in recognition of its work with the Mayor’s Charity and interaction with the Basingstoke & Deane Community.

Unity Open Day Unity, whose Andover office is found at the Andover Bus Station, is hosting a Community Open Day on Tuesday 25 September, 10am-2pm and is inviting groups and local people to come along and introduce themselves.

The Unity team is definitely up for a challenge and has thrown down the gauntlet by inviting people to come in and ask them a question about how to access local services or to seek details on other charities and groups in the community.

Terry Bishop, Chief Executive said, “We felt it was time to open our doors to show people and organisations what we are all about. We work with everyone in the community, from statutory services to the business community, but this is the first time since the Andover office was launched in 2014 that we have had the opportunity to invite everyone in and we would love people to pop along regardless of where they are from. We are even offering the opportunity for people to have a go on a mobility scooter if they are considering hiring or even buying one!”

Desks will be set up throughout the office to represent many of their services with staff and volunteers on hand to assist.

Gosport & Fareham Voluntary Sector Health Forum Gosport Voluntary Action held a Voluntary Sector Health Forum for Gosport and Fareham at St Vincent College’s Jervis Gallery on 6 September. The event was attended by representatives from 25 groups and organisations, and presentations including the Stroke Association, Cycle Gosport, Fareham College’s Memory Café, Surgery Signposting, Extra Care housing (Hampshire County Council), and Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks. The next Health Forum takes place in Fareham on 6 November.

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Is Life Too Fast to Get Involved?

“Hart in Hampshire has the best quality of life in Britain” – that’s according to a survey carried out by the Halifax Building Society. Published last December, the report once again claims that the area scores highly on health, life expectancy, earnings, crime rates and even the weather! Great news for house prices but what about our sense of community? How are our voluntary groups fairing? For some, not too well.

With volunteer numbers across the UK seeing a 15% decline over the last decade, Hart is proving no exception. High employment, long commutes, busy family lives, often with both parents working to afford the mortgage, bucket lists and not forgetting the 480 plus television channels to watch means that fewer and fewer people living in the district have time to volunteer.

Over the eleven years she’s been in her post, Hart’s Volunteer Centre Manger, Sue Vincent, has seen a steady decline in the number of people willing to ‘get involved’. Sue totally appreciates that people are busy: “Back in the 80s we had 3 TV channels, if we were lucky! No email or social media and, most importantly, most people lived close to their workplace, finished at 5pm and didn’t then have to endure a 50-minute commute home (and that’s on a good day!).”

She does however strongly believe that Hart residents can still get involved at a time and commitment level to suit them.

Mike Collen, from Fleet Lions, agrees.

“How will our current generation of 60 and 70year olds fair when they can no longer drive, are socially isolated and the organisation that they thought could provide a volunteer to take them to their GP appointment no longer exists? If we don’t act now, we’ll lose some groups entirely!”

On Saturday 22nd September, Hart Volunteer Centre will join forces with Fleet Lions to host the ‘Get Involved’ Volunteer Fair 2018 in NEXUS PAGE 4

the Hart Shopping Centre, Fleet. The event, with some 30 groups in attendance, will showcase voluntary groups that form the life-blood of the local community, from those recruiting for key events such as the annual Fireworks and Food Festivals to groups working to reduce social isolation for the elderly or engage children and young people in out of school activities, providing the opportunity for local people to find out what’s available right on their doorstep.

First Eastleigh Pride Eastleigh’s first Pride event on Saturday 8 September was a huge success and One Community was proud to be involved, conducting a survey of LGBT+ health engagement with funding from Hampshire Healthwatch.

One Community was also involved in the planning of the event and was able to use its contacts with local organisations to find a Knit & Natter group, based at Eastleigh Library, to create appropriately rainbow coloured adornments for the town centre statuary - the Railway Man and Victorian writer Charlotte Yonge.

Fifteen volunteers were involved in knitting the garments.

One Community staff spoke to hundreds of people attending the event, which is thought to be one of the biggest community events to Charlotte Yonge statue complete with rainbow shawl. be held in the town.