On June 18th Debbie, our volunteer Recruiter, attended Thornbury Volunteer Fair with a stand to promote Home-Start Bristol. It was a good networking day getting a chance to chat with the Mayor of Thornbury and having partaken in a radio interview with Thornbury FM. Home-Start Bristol works also in South Gloucestershire and has a couple of volunteers based in Thornbury currently.
Every year Home-Start Bristol holds a summer BBQ event to thank our volunteers for all their hard work. This year the weather held out fantastically and volunteers, staff and trustees were able to thoroughly enjoy an evening of scrumptious food and drink and lots of chatter and catch up.
A big thank you to Helen Wilde for providing a most beautiful venue in which to hold this event.
Trustees Jenny Harris and Janet Gough, Senior Organizer Helen Stockwell-Cooke and Volunteer Recruiter Debbie Patterson all gathered in Yate shopping Centre last May 26th in support of Family Week which ran from May 25th – 29th.
South Gloucestershire council ran a couple of events during the week for families in the local community to attend. Home-Start were able to man a stall giving away free children activity packs and running free competitions of ‘Name the Bear’ and ‘Guess the number of Sweets in a jar’ to help promote the work of Home-Start.
The event was very successful as lots of families and children interacted with us at our stand and hopefully the message that Home-Start is here to help young families was spread.
Our A.G.M. took place on 16th July at Redland Green Bowling Club. It was a well attended and enjoyable event however, we did have to say a very fond farewell to Helen Wilde as Chairperson. Helen has served as Chair for the past 8 years and although stepping down she is remaining on the board of Trustees for the time being. A BIG thank you goes out to Helen from all the staff, Management Committee and Volunteer Representatives.
Home-start Bristol is offering Open College Network Accreditation to volunteers on the Volunteer Preparation Course from Winter 2008. The qualification will be at level 1 or level 2. It is proof of the ability to study at GCSE level. We would like to be able to offer this opportunity to existing volunteers. In order to complete the qualification you would need to refresh your learning from the preparation course and complete some written work.
For volunteers who would be interested in gaining this qualification we would offer three tutorials. The first would look at the process and what is required. The Second to review the work you have done and give you feedback to complete the written work. The final tutorial would be to look at the completed work and give any final feedback. The completed work is then taken to an external moderation meeting for the qualification to be awarded.
If anyone is interested in going through the accreditation process to gain the qualification please do give Jill or Helen a ring at the office.
Following a very successful talk from both Bristol and South Gloucestershire Children’s Library
Services at Februarys V.T.E. we are now in possession of these lovely books for all children aged between 15 and 35 months.
Although children of this age are entitled to the pack it became apparent that many children were not receiving them for a variety of reasons. If you are a volunteer and visiting a family with children between the ages of 15 and 35 months then the packs are available in the office.
Please do contact us and we can arrange delivery. Children are also entitled to a free book pack at 9 months and these are available from Health Visitors. The other age relevant to Home-Start is 4 – 5 as the children enter pre-school. If you feel that your family has not accessed their entitlement then please do contact us, the local library or their Health Visitor.
