Springtime Skills and Success!

Football Skills with Stoke City Community Trust

During the Easter holidays we organised a series of Football Skills sessions ran by Stoke City Community Trust. Twenty-five children (girls and boys), aged between 5 and 12, took part in the sessions held at different outdoor locations in Stafford and Stone.

Radio Stoke came to one of the sessions to interview staff and children and find out what it was all about. The Stoke City FC Mascot, Pottermus, even made an appearance!

Sophie Breeze, aged 10, said “I came to the session because I love sports and football is a co-operative sport. It’s good to come and play with people I’ve never met before”.

There are more Football Skills sessions with Stoke City Community Trust taking place on 21 and 22 August 2013. Places are FREE and available on a first come first served basis to all children aged between 5 and 12.  For more information, or to book a place, contact the Community Involvement Team.

So What?

By putting on these sessions in school holidays we are engaging with a young audience and getting them involved in outdoor physical activity. We are jointly promoting sports participation with SCFC, lifelong learning and health and wellbeing. We have also created links into local schools opening up more opportunities to work with young people in the future.

Awards Update

SARH Community Involvement Team will find out later this week how we did in the TPAS awards mentioned last month – more news soon!

Taking Pride in Penkside!

Stafford Borough Council (SBC) organised a Community Pride Action Day where different organisations came together with the community to clean up the Penkside area in Stafford. The Community Involvement Team attended along with representatives from SBC, Streetscene, Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service, local Councillors and community members. The day involved litter picking, tidying up bus shelters and generally cleaning up the area. Over 15 big bags of rubbish were filled just in the morning and the appearance of the area was improved significantly!

So What?

The day encouraged people to take pride in their local community. By working together we strengthened links to other agencies and the community. 

* * * * STOP PRESS * * * *

Due to the snow last month the Meadow Road Community Allotment Grand Opening was postponed until Saturday 13^th April. See details below.

New Job for CRC Volunteer David Coghill

David Coghill has been a much valued volunteer at the Community Resource Centre over the

last 5 months; he first came to the centre to get support from the Job Club.  As a qualified trainer David is well educated and has tremendous motivation making him an ideal volunteer for the Job Club and IT/Job Search session that we run. 

After many job applications and numerous interviews David has gained a very interesting and challenging role at the Highways Agency in Birmingham which he started on the 11^th March. 

 “There are so many people who need support in the Job Club. Speaking from experience, I found volunteering very rewarding being able to offer something back.”

We wish David all the best in his new role and will be keeping in touch.

So What?

It is good we can offer support and opportunities to share skills. This builds the volunteers’ confidence and gives a better service to those using the centre as the volunteers understand the customers situation thanks to their own experiences.

Accredited Retail and Customer Services

The 12 week Accredited Retail and Customer Services course is well under way with 10 people working their way towards the qualification. Over the last few weeks they have worked on and developed skills such as recognising customers needs, responding to customers, using the telephone, advising customers and promoting services, dealing with complaints and returned goods etc. The course involves individual written work, group work, role play and much more developing communication and team player skills, too. See below for more upcoming courses.

So What?

The course is a recognised qualification that equips people with the skills to work in a retail or customer services environment.  The course has already built up people’s confidence and once completed it will boost their CVs and employment prospects, too. 

Customer Inspectors Update

The Customer Inspectors are busy working on their inspection of the SARH Independent Living Service and have so far spent time with the Coordinators (the new name of the wardens) and interviewing customers.  Later this week they are running a Focus Group for a group of customers who will get the chance to feed back a lot of information about their experiences opf living in an Independent Living Scheme and how things can be improved.

Hundreds of Customers are being given the opportunity to give feedback on a service they receive daily.  The feedback will be used to steer improvements for even more customers in the future.

So What?

The Customer Inspectors are giving a real voice to many customers' thoughts, ideas and concerns.  This all helps SARH deliver better services to our customers.

Easter Eggvent at CRC

The Community Resource Centre outdid itself once again by ensuring an excellent free event would be available for children across Stafford this Easter by putting on a craft event where young people made chickens, bunny and windmills!

So What?

By putting on these sessions in school holidays we are encouraging young families to get involved and make something they can be proud of!

COMING SOON!

* * * * STOP PRESS * * * *

If you want any more information about any of the events that have already happened or that are coming up in the future please do not hesitate to contact us on:

cp@sarh.co.uk or call us on

0800 111 4554