This week in our LGBTQIA+ Safe Space session we were discussing the necessary steps needed to gain accreditation to be an officially accredited safe space, to ensure we stand up for what's right and ensure our space is a space everyone can feel safe and welcome. We also started the month with our films throughout history season, starting with the Rocky Horror Picture Show from the 70s which is an absolute cult classic and means a lot to our LGBT community.
Tuesday's Nourish to Flourish session at Place of Contribution was about all of our shared experiences of Birkenhead, how we've all grown up here and how proud of it we are, including the highs and lows during the national lockdowns, as we're gearing up towards the transformation of our community shop Make it Happen on Market Street.
We were proud to stay open throughout such a difficult time for our community and we hope you all can be as proud as we are, because it takes a community to create what we have, and without your time, stories, and kindness all of what we do and set out to accomplish wouldn’t be possible. However our little shop needs some TLC.
We would love to see everyone who has a passion for change and a vision for the future of Birkenhead to join us, as we want the Make It Happen Shop and the Nourish to Flourish Project to be a big part of this! If you're feeling creative or want to gain some valuable experience, please feel free to come along to have a chat, some coffee, some snacks and to help us transform our space into something we can all be extremely proud of contributing to!
Seven volunteers attended the CARE Project sessions on Wednesday at Place of Contribution. A big thankyou for all of your ideas and contributions surrounding the 5 ways to well-being and our '5 Ways' Wall is not only going to look lovely but really convey to our community members our Make It Happen values and ethos! We also began to look at modelling a positive culture by beginning to explore compassionate communication. We culminated a list of all our local support organisations so that our volunteers are aware of what each organisation does, thus enabling them to signpost community members to the relevant support network.
At the Men’s Group we kicked off the session through the lens of a comedian who eloquently discussed men’s mental health and how societal pressure has an impact on our day to day lives. Things such as not being able to cry and convey our emotions without feeling judgement, which can be difficult and lead us to bottle up our emotions, which we agree contributes to depression, stress, anxiety and worse.
After this we had a frank talk about how it affects us personally, which is a lot for one person to carry with them, so we also discussed how we can cope and how society can do better - please find below a link to find out more about men’s mental health and wellbeing, please reach out to someone, you're not alone!
Creative Writing began with a discussion on what LIFE can throw at us sometimes and how when challenges and barriers need to be faced in a constructive and cathartic manner, rather than hiding from the reality of them. We then started writing and all came up with some great written work, including Steph, who wrote the alphabet and matched a positive word to the respective letter…
Everyone got a lot from the session and took great confidence in going forward dealing with LIFE on LIFE’S terms…
Canadian Breakfast Morning this week! Bagels, bacon, pancakes, bananas, blueberries, peanut butter and Nutella were brought to fly the flag of our Commonwealth Canadian cousins…
The bacon butties went down well - maybe too well- but 2 or 3 of the bagels and pancakes were eaten, including Anna, who enjoy them with a few blueberries and Nutella, and the vegan bagels went down a treat!! One of our visitors, David, got creative and ordered a bacon and banana butty, which we gladly made for him.
All in all, everyone was satisfied and went away with full bellies and ready engage the day ahead.
The Project Yourself group had a light discussion on 1920s photographs of Cammell
Lairds, Hamilton Square and Birkenhead Docks, and also looked into some of the Queen’s tributes which set the creativity for today’s experience of portraits.
Sayed, a journalist in his native country of origin and one of our very own volunteers and a participant on this course, gave us his experience and wisdom around portraits and the different angles that can be shot. He also informed us that the perception of an image can be misconstrued, with body language taken out of context to fit a given narrative… we put this into practice and learned to take images in Aperture Priority setting and Automatic on our Nikon D5-200.
We reviewed all photos taken and all understood how different settings would have a different outcome. Everyone felt they learned the difference between both settings and took away confidence with their new skill set and the learning experience was evident with everyone!
Community Cooking had an amazing team on board to make a diabetic friendly, well-balanced meal of vegetarian spaghetti including mushrooms, celery, carrots, tomatoes , and bolognaise sauce, all served with perfectly cooked spaghetti , and made a mushroom free version for a very fun guy!
The point of this session is to create cheap and easy well balanced meals on a budget that anyone can recreate at home, and we definitely achieved that today, well done everyone, see you all next week!
Place of Contribution was open again yesterday for the Saturday Social, and many members gathered in quite a sombre mood due to the sad news of Queen Elizabeth's passing during the week.
It was lovely to see the community rally together to support each other. Our white board has been turned into a message board for anyone who wants to leave a message for The Queen. At 1:30 team members and community members joined together in the laying of a wreath at The Town Hall in Hamilton Square.
There was a moment of silence followed by the reading if a poem written by members. Later in the afternoon, members shared stories over a cuppa. A Place of Contribution could not be prouder of the local community. R. I. P Queen Elizabeth II
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