It’s that time of the year again, when the people who make Medway better are recognised with nominations in the Pride in Medway awards.
We’re delighted that one of The Net and WALT’s joint volunteers, Jean Judge, has been recognised in the Volunteer of the Year category following her nomination by WALT.
An invaluable resource, Jean – seen above with many of the members – helps with shopping, home visits, taking people to medical appointments and social events, as well as bringing them to the hub to meet friends for a natter over a cuppa.
Jean says: “I feel extremely proud to get this recognition and I thoroughly enjoy doing what I do – it keeps me out of mischeif! I’m happy I can make a contribution to helping people stay socially active and not be left sitting indoors alone”.
WALT’s volunteer co-ordinator, Sharon O’Flynn, says: “Jean was our second ever volunteer and has been with us for two and a half years – now our longest serving. We love her to bits. She’s reliable and friendly and nothing is ever too much trouble. Nominating her for an award was a no-brainer, she absolutely deserves it.”
The awards are now in their 17th year and is made up of eight categories: Charity Fundraiser; Community Service; Good Carer; Green Champion; Health and Hospital; Young Heroes, Sports Coach of the Year and Volunteer of the Year.
Judges including Medway Council, Medway Messenger, Uniper, mhs Homes and Mid Kent College will meet to decide the winners, with the results due in the next couple of months.
Adrenaline seekers are invited to take part in a thrilling abseil challenge in Kent being staged to support us here at the Net Community Hub. This will be the only multi-charity abseil in Kent next year so do not miss out!
The abseil is being organised by the KM Charity Team and will be held on Sunday, March 17th, at Thomas Place in Maidstone.
Simon Dolby from the KM Charity Team urged people to take the challenge to support their local charity (that would be us !) and says: “This is a great opportunity for people to test their sense of adventure while raising money for this excellent cause.”
Specialists will erect two abseil ropes from the roof of the building to the ground, enabling brave participants to abseil down under the watchful instruction of the professionals whilst being cheered on by well-wishers and friends.
Participants should aim to raise a minimum of £75 in sponsorship. 70%t of sponsorship raised goes to The Net and 30% will go to the children’s road safety department at the KM Charity Team.
Click here to book your place. Use Discount Code MAID19 to get £5 off and choose The Net Community Hub on the supported charity box to ensure your support for us, and contact us at community@waldersladehub.org so we can send you a sponsorship form. Thank you!
The first KM Charity Team event in the 2019 calendar is the Big Quiz, which takes place on Friday, February 15. It starts at 7.00pm and is scheduled to end at 10.30pm. Doors open at 6.20pm.
It will be staged at The George Hotel in Chatham, so come and join in the fun and encourage your friends and work colleagues to join you.
We will be entering at least one team, so if you’d like to be in it, please contact Jaye via email at community@waldersladehub.org, or call 01634 319633. If we are oversubscribed we will enter another team – the more we enter, the bigger our size of the pot! However, we will need you to secure your spot with cash or cheque as soon as possible!
Along with taking part in a fantastic quiz you will receive substantial nibbles with a bottle of wine and a bottle of fizzy water on the table. There will also be a great raffle and the chance to win a fantastic on-the-spot star prize of 2 x Eurostar tickets. Remember you can bring along as much additional food as you like but please do not bring drink as this is where the money is raised for the event, with Barclays Bank doubling all spend at the bar. Also, there will be a goldfish bowl at the bar – drop your business card in for a chance to win a prize!
Teams of eight are invited to take part at a cost of £55 (use discount code KMVIP), which will raise funds for various charities including the children’s road safety service at the KM Charity Team.
If you would like to book your own team, here’s the link to the booking form. Please nominate us when you enter and we may win an additional prize! Thanks for your support!
They say things come in threes, and thankfully, it’s three lots of good news!
Following on from Tracey Crouch agreeing to be our Patron and the Co-op supporting us as one of their charities of 2019, came the news that the Medway Messenger has chosen us to be their KM Charity of the Year.
A trip to the charity team’s headquarters in Whitstable later, and I’m in full possession of a wonderful array of fundraising options and support courtesy of the group.
There will be numerous events coming up and we hope you’ll join us in taking part to raise much needed funds. We’ll update them here on the blog, but they will also appear under our Fundraising Events page, so do make sure to check back regularly.
Partnering with the Messenger means we’ll be able to reach a whole lot more people who will benefit from the activities we offer here at the hub, and we look forward to joining forces with you throughout 2019 to make this happen.
We received the most fantastic piece of news recently – the Cooperative has chosen us as one of the causes it will support in Medway in 2019!
The Co-op Local Community Fund helps to support local projects that its members care about. Since its launch in 2017, Co-op members have raised £39 million pounds for over 12,000 local causes. We’re delighted that we will now be able to access this funding opportunity, which will help keep our weekly cafe open for local residents to continue to meet their friends.
As a member, every time you shop at the Co-op, 1% of what you spend on Co-op branded products and services helps fund community projects. You can shop at any Co-op Group stores across the UK to raise money for our cause.
Please choose us by signing into your membership account or by calling the membership helpline on 0800 023 4708. We’ll be available for you to select until November 2019. If you don’t yet have a membership card, simply ask for one the next time you’re in your local store, and register to support us.
You can view our profile page here – considering we haven’t told anyone yet, it’s pleasing to see funds are already coming through!
I suspect we’ll be down at the Walderslade store in due course, helping you pack – make sure you come and say hello!
After our successful quiz in April, we’re holding another!
Thursday 6 December from 8-10pm (doors open 7.30pm) £12 per team (4 per team recommended).
We’ll have 5 rounds as before with prizes on offer, and a raffle. Bring your own drinks and nibbles. Hot and soft drinks will be available at usual cost – just 60p per tea or coffee.
With the release recently of the national Loneliness Strategy, we here at The Net Hub are keen to do our bit for the older people in our community and not only make our space available to them, but also make it as comfortable as possible.
We run a number of activities, from Chairobics to Time To Talk, a DIY Arts & Crafts Cafe, and an open cafe every week. We’d love to get the space open even more and to help this, we want the space to be welcoming to all.
Thanks to England’s temperate climate, most people can enjoy the space in relative comfort. However, during particularly cold or hot phases, the old wooden doors and windows can leave it either cold and draughty or humid and sweaty.
We’ve already got £1000 towards replacement costs, but we need another £3000 in order to install new pvc doors and windows with openings that will help to regulate the temperatures. This would also include a new back door, which currently cannot be opened from the outside and makes logistics a little tricky when we have a group meeting in the space.
Any help you can give us would be much appreciated.
We’ve signed up to the Give As You Live shopping site fundraiser!
You can help us raise more money to keep doing what we do – and it won’t cost you a penny over or above what you spend when shopping online! How simple is that?
Simply check out the Give As You Live website here on our dedicated page and start raising money for us today!
Tracey Crouch with The Net Hub committee members (l-r) David Brake, Nigel Capon, Ann West and Ruth Boyes
We’re thrilled that our local MP, Tracey Crouch, has agreed to become Patron of The Net Community Hub. Her role as Minister for Sport and Civil Society also now encompasses being Minister for Loneliness, the reduction of which is our key objective.
Hub Manager Jaye spoke with Tracey during her official first visit to the hub recently, to find out what steps are being undertaken to address social isolation nationwide and how hubs like ours can make such a difference.
“Firstly, thank you for asking me to be Patron, it’s a real honour to be asked. This is a hub that has developed over time into something amazing – I remember being here and painting it when it was first being turned into the community hub as it is now. At the time all I saw was a shell, and what you see now is a really vibrant community spirit with people laughing and giggling; there’s a lot of new people here making new connections that they may not have realised they needed to have.
“In terms of activities in this area, I’ve always been really fond of Walderslade, it reminds me of where I grew up in West Hythe – out of the main town so with a slight disconnect between some of the areas, quite often forgotten – so I’m really fond of Walderslade – the people here are hilarious and warm and because of that warmth, it’s easy to forget about the real challenges they face and that there are parts of Walderslade that face real deprivation. So just being able to put something back into the community, whether it’s a litter pick or supporting painting of a new community hub, is just something that’s nice to do.
“From a Member of Parliament perspective you see so many people in the community when they reach crisis point and sadly they’re not necessarily aware of some of the activities that are out there for them that may well have prevented them getting to that crisis point. This is why I think hubs like this are absolutely essential. I now see that on a national scale from a loneliness perspective and making those connections is so important.
“Locally, you can make a real difference. When I’m home and go out on a litter pick, something as simple as that, you can see the difference you’ve made; if cleaning graffiti off a wall, again, it’s an immediate difference. Sometimes, it’s very difficult as an MP in the national parliament and you’re working on national legislation, as you don’t necessarily see the difference you’re making due to the long implementation process of legislation you’re involved in. Here, there’s an instant change and working on the casework as an MP, with people coming in talking to me about the support they need, is actually the most rewarding aspect. Just this morning, I bumped into someone who wanted to thank me for something I did three years ago to help her, and she got quite emotional. It’s nice to meet the people we help, and it’s much more rewarding to be here and visible instead of just having a electronic or phone conversation.
“The loneliness strategy is out now and you will see in it a great deal of connectivity between service providers. Obviously you’ve got the council involved but actually what you want to see is more people being involved, like the doctors’ surgeries, making people come and connect to their local communities. 1 in 5 GP appointments are not medically based but actually driven by loneliness and actually if you can reduce that by encouraging people to come to a community hub, meet new people, learn new skills and do some exercise then that’s a great leap forward.
Tracey in conversation with Tricia Reilly of Walderslade Together
“The Chairobics and Time to Talk activities that the Net is doing are absolutely brilliant. I’m a big fan of talking therapies, mindfulness and meditation, and the sooner doctors’ surgeries begin to prescribe mindfulness to people the better. And sometimes, these smaller, cosy sessions work better than sessions in a big, more clinical space.”
Huge thanks to Tracey for her time and her support for the Hub. We look forward to playing our part in the overall national strategy.
The Net Community Hub 