Impact Pop-Ins

March saw the resurrection of the Impact Pop-In at the Grove Theatre and the team have been blown away by the response from our existing learners and new learners attending to enrol onto courses.

In addition to the overwhelming response from professionals, agencies and local services who want to share their advice, information and get involved in this once a fortnight,  energetic gathering.

A message from our Queen of Crafts, Nicky Storey;

Hi all you wonderful crafters out there! Firstly, thank you for making our little Craft Corner such a success. The feedback we have had has been brilliant and way beyond our expectations! Pom Pom making was great with Katie making a ‘cute’ green/cream, feather eared alien. It’s going to sit on the shelf with some of her dinosaur collection! And everybody loves a piccy to colour in over a chat and a cuppa!

If anyone has any donations to the Craft Corner, it would be greatly appreciated. Please contact us if you can help. We want it to become something fun but with varied activities and to be able to do that, we need an assortment of different crafty bits. Also, if you have any ideas of things you want to make, please let Deanne, Jackie or myself know.  Halloween is just round the corner so please put on your ‘spooky hats’ and come up with some scary ideas! And after that comes Christmas — need I say more?!

Thank you all so very, very much for making Craft Corner such a chilled, happy place! Someone even said to me that they wished the session didn’t have to end but could go on right through to teatime!

Have a great summer and we will all see you at the next Pop-In which is on the 28th August. And don’t forget — It’s at the earlier time of 10am until 12 midday!

Nicky Storey

Harry on Pop-In matters…

It was great news earlier this year that a way had been found to resurrect the Pop-In meetings model for ongoing face-to-face peer support. Thanks to a lot of excellent goodwill from our hosts at the Grove Theatre in Dunstable, we were given access to the spacious upper foyer area every two weeks, with some essential refreshments materials thrown in.  Within each two-hour session, former and current Impact YOU Programme & YOUR Recovery Pathways learners could visit individually or with their own course peers, to meet up in a comfortable, welcoming, safe and relaxed environment. An essential element to ensuring success for these events was the group of Impact volunteers that has united within the past year.

The facilitators have become so confident about the individual and team qualities of these former learners, who wanted to give back to the organisation that had helped them so much, that the running of the events have been placed in their more-than-capable hands. Now led by Jessica, with her organisational skills to the fore in providing guest speakers and encouraging table-talks, while Sammi, Matt and I are able to handle new inductees to our courses, with essential support from Carolyn when she isn’t ensuring the refreshments are topped-up! Lynne and Jeff providing a friendly and reassuring welcome at the registration desk and encouraging quieter visitors to mix and chat, plus last-but-not-least Nicki and Ollie creating a rapidly expanding Craft Corner, for creating that all important “flow” within our lives! I am already looking forward to the next Pop-in after the summer break and hope it will continue and expand as part of all the exciting Impact plans to come…

Harry Lindsay

And a final word from our new Volunteer Pop-in Coordinator; Jessica Hewitt

So far, the Pop-ins have been the embodiment of Impact’s ethos as a beacon to those just finishing their courses and looking for something more, and as a first point of contact for those “just looking”. In both respects, the Impact team has been welcoming, compassionate and well-informed, whether running table talks, helping with enrolments, or encouraging creativity. As Pop-In Coordinator, I’m very excited by the prospect of developing Pop-ins in the effort of making them a key feature in Impact’s kaleidoscope of services.

Come August/September, notable guest speakers will be making a regular appearance to discuss topics and issues important to YOU, and we hope to add some more and diverse activities to pique more people’s interests. This is an invigorating time to be a part of Impact, and I’m very grateful to be running such a living part of it with a dynamic team!

Over the seven Pop-In sessions since March, Impact have welcomed 170 attendees, averaging 24 people per Pop-In with a healthy 15% signing up for new courses!

 Jessica Hewitt, Impact Pop-In Coordinator