Journeys to health » South Essex http://www.journeystohealth.org Journeys to Health is changing volunteering in health and wellbeing Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:37:29 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Back from Scotland… http://www.journeystohealth.org/back-from-scotland/ http://www.journeystohealth.org/back-from-scotland/#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:18:49 +0000 Harp http://www.journeystohealth.org/?p=478 So the crew went on their merry way to Scotland, unfortunatly I was really unwell so was unable to go…. I was upset but everyone was excited about their working holiday!! They left late Friday evening  and got there safely. I spoke to them during the week and they said it was beautiful – the scenery and even the weather. Outside their two cottages there were stags every evening – I did advise not to approach them! They spent the week planting scottish trees and cutting down the non-native trees. All of them said it was hard work but it was a good team so was good fun.

Being left at back at home I had my thinking cap on and started to spread the word about needing clothes donations.  Anyone who cames in donating I have been advising them we take clothes also. So we are really now starting to see more donations of clothes – ultimatly means we are filling up more green bags to send to the textiles company to make more money!

When the guys have settled in back home then we will be able to brainstorm….

]]> http://www.journeystohealth.org/back-from-scotland/feed/ 0 We won! http://www.journeystohealth.org/we-won/ http://www.journeystohealth.org/we-won/#comments Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:57:04 +0000 Harp http://www.journeystohealth.org/?p=455 Hello All,

This is the first of my six blogs. I begin our journey…

After all the preparation with the volunteers but especially Graham and Paul we arrive at Runwell to present our pitch. I could tell Graham was especially nervous but we all agreed that just getting as far as we had was great. We presented our pitch and spent some time with the Timebank team and had a delicious lunch… Paul even tried sushi for the first time! We all left feeling like it had gone well but definitely did not feel like we had won. Overall though Paul and Graham got alot from the day, they had their chance to express their life stories with people listening intently… it was nice to see them on a natural high for the rest of the day! When I got the phone call from Nancy on the Monday it was the usual busy manic Monday and Nancy left an answerphone message. When I listened to it and heard we had won, I screamed. After reassuring all staff everything was ok I was quick to call Paul and Graham, they were over the moon ( I swear I thought Paul screamed too!). We then told the volunteers, it was just delightful to see everyone so happy we had won.

After the initial excitement died down I sat with Paul and Graham and we discussed the ideas from the day. As Scotland was only in a month we decided to focus on spreading the word about ‘Tress for Life’ and once we got back we would spend time on longer initiatives.

I have to say since we pitched our idea Graham is now volunteering, he drives the minibus and helps out at our day centre.  And surpirsingly Paul as we speak is unloading food from our van from a collection/presentation he did at a local school. So already we are using our volunteers more wisely.

Scotland is 2 weeks away so my next blog will be full of our fun we had up in the higlands and we will be moving forward with all our ideas we have….

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