Centre Update May/June 2021

1. Introduction – Jacquie Winning MBE, CEO

If you are a regular reader of our Centre Update you will know that this report is all
about keeping you up to date with Centre News. I can confidently convey the
growing sense of hope and optimism both in my team and our Centre Partners that a
better time is coming.

Our Centre is now partially re-open to the public and it’s so good to see some
familiar faces and some new visitors to our Café Tiki and our colourful, yarn-bombed,
Sensory Garden.

We are absolutely delighted to welcome new staff to our team over the next few
weeks. Sara Burns, our Energy Redress Co-ordinator will be supporting anyone who
wants to find out more about saving energy costs. Sara is fully conversant in BSL,
having graduated from Heriot Watt University with a linguistics degree. Tom
Hutchens is back working alongside Carol in our Café and has not lost his fabulous
baking skills during lockdown – look out for his superb lemon drizzle cake. Kim Grant
is joining our team to drive forward our brand new Employability and See Hear
project. Kim will be working with job-seekers and employers to increase awareness
of the benefits of recruiting employees with sensory loss, and the incentives
available. Rowan Ferguson will be starting a new position as our Customer
Engagement Assistant, welcoming visitors and helping to increase our social media
presence. Rowan will also be gathering feedback from visitors to help us ensure we
offer the best service we can.

We are about to embark on an exciting transformation of our centre entrance, to

create a more accessible welcome point and seating area for people awaiting
appointments. Work is scheduled to begin on 28 June and will take a couple of
weeks to complete. Please bear with us during the upheaval. I’m sure the disruption
will be worth it. Staff will be on hand during the works to advise on any temporary
changes to access. Once the work is complete, the Centre will once more be open
and we will start to gradually re-introduce our popular groups and services, including
access to the Sensory Room. Please keep checking our website for up to the minute
details: www.forthvalleysensorycentre.org

Big congratulations to our Centre Cook David Black who recently won 2 awards for
his bitesized fitness videos which have inspired people to stay active during
lockdown. Thanks to FVSC team members for supporting and producing this brilliant
series of short motivational videos which you can view on our website.

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 I hope you enjoy reading the latest updates provided by FVSC team members.

2. Centre Groups and Activities – Linsey Stocks, Activities Co-ordinator

It is lovely to once again be welcoming some socially distanced, in-person groups

back to our café. So far we have managed to bring both our Art Group and our
Knit and Natter Group for sessions. We know that many people have been
missing their groups and we hope to be able to continue to bring more groups
back as restrictions continue to lessen.

Our Youth Group has also been a tremendous success since we’ve been able to
welcome a small number of young people to meet outside for some fun activities.
We are working with Grace Cameron from Falkirk Community Learning and
Development on a variety of different projects including creating a totem pole!
Keep an eye out for more colourful changes to our garden coming very soon!

Speaking of colourful changes to our garden our Knit and Natter group’s yarn
bombing is looking amazing and has attracted a lot of admiration. We also have
an art exhibition on display in our Café Tiki showcasing some of the tactile work
our Art Group created lockdown, featuring weaving and embossing.

The online Social Group meets on the second Monday of the month at 3pm-4pm
via Zoom. Participants are enjoying getting together to have a blether and
hearing from a variety of speakers! In May, Kelly from NHS attended to speak to
the group about changes happening to Urgent Care and asked for feedback on
how this might affect our group members. In June we welcomed back Bryan
Mackie from Police Scotland to speak about Doorstep Crime and Fraud
awareness.

Our history group meetings online have been a resounding success with the
group enjoying hearing from different speakers. In May we invited Andy Kerr from
Scottish Football History Museum to tell us about the Football podcast that he
produces. Andy also gave us a whistlestop tour of Falkirk Football Club’s history
as well as some other local football teams. This month we look forward to
welcoming back Sean Szmalc from Titanic Honour and Glory for stories of the
Titanic!

The book group has been flourishing online and has doubled in size. We recently
read ‘The Girl with the Amber Comb’ by Linda Finlay, and we are now reading
‘The Flat Share’ by Beth O’Leary. The group will be taking a break in July but will
return in August with ‘Shuggie Bain’ by Douglas Stuart. We source our books
from RNIB talking books which can be sent out on memory stick if required.

Talk and Sign Group has been thriving online, meeting on Zoom for a Social
Group on the first Monday of the month from 7pm-8pm. Talk and Sign also

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 provides BSL Practice sessions on the third Monday of the month from 7pm-8pm.
Please note that the BSL practice sessions will be finishing up at the end of June.
Voices Off evening class will be re-starting with Stephen Joyce from the 16 th
August, hopefully in the Centre from 6:30pm.

A long anticipated new group is our Tinnitus Peer Support Group which met for
an inaugral session on 27th April. Colette Bunker from British Tinnitus
Association(BTA) attended the group to answer queries and let the group know
what the BTA can do to help Tinnitus sufferers. The group met again via Zoom on
the 1st June at to discuss different apps that can help people manage their
tinnitus. We are considering starting an evening support group for people who are
working. If this would be of interest please get in touch with Linsey. Both of these
groups will be taking place online for the moment, but we have a waiting list of
people who would prefer to meet in person when it is safe to do so.

The lip reading class is available online. Tutor Jill Bradshaw is also able to offer
one to one sessions for people who would prefer this. The current block runs until
25th June 2021, we are still accepting registrations of interest and plan to restart
the group face to face at the end of August.

Braveheart Walking Group are now able to accept walkers who were not
previously registered with them. This group leaves from the Sensory Garden
every Friday at 11.30am, it is open to anyone and is a gentle guided walk which
lasts for approx 45-60 minutes.

Our partnership with RNIB continues to expand. As well as our monthly Music
Quiz, we have plans to plant a tree and create a time capsule that will be going in
our Sensory Garden! This project will be coming to fruition in late summer/early
autumn.

If you would like to learn more about any of our groups or would like to put
forward a suggestion please contact Linsey at
linseystocks@forthvalleysensorycentre.org.

3. Publicity - Martin Allen, Fundraising and Publicity Manager

What price a broken tap? During May the social media side of our publicity reach
went wild over a new tap. Almost 10,000 people were reached as we appealed
for a plumber to fit an outside tap to help us water the garden. This also led to
one kindly member of the public, who wished to remain anonymous, donating
£60 to help cover the cost. A great gesture which demonstrates the power of a
good reputation and solid social media support.

The centre was also featured in an NHS Forth Valley Case study about our work
during lockdown which is available through their website. You can find out more

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 by clicking on the link: NHS_CaseStudy_FV-Sensory-centre.pdf
(nhsforthvalley.com) We have continued to support our partners and other third
sector organisations with various projects, including contributing to a Historic
Environment Scotland equality Report and Dementia Awareness Week with
British Deaf Association.

We have also had a number of news stories with good coverage across Forth
Valley especially our Deaf Awareness Week with The Howgate Shopping Centre
in Falkirk which has continued to support Deaf and Hard of hearing customers
with additional music free hours, thanks to FVSC. News about our partnership
with Dial-a-Journey was also given a good level of coverage as we move to a
new model of providing safe, efficient transport for Centre Users.

4. Fundraising

We received a boost for our new Employability Project from Chance to Succeed
who awarded us £5000 towards the cost of employing a Co-ordinator.

We are still awaiting the result of a funding bid to provide cooking classes from
NHS Forth Valley (£500). However, we are delighted to have won £2724 to
provide iPads and mobile internet connections for the Deaf community thanks to
the Fairer Falkirk fund.

As always, we continue to search for new opportunities. The Communities

Recovery Fund was one such possibility but after careful review, we decided it
was not something the Centre could approach without help. However, we have
spoken with Forth Environment Link and there may still be a way for us to access
funds just through a different method. Watch this space. We are also in talks with
Blindcraft Trust and are considering Thomas Pocklington Trust as another
potential funder in the coming year.

Our Centre User Fundraising Group continues to deliver great results. Most
recently Terry Robinson undertook the ‘Virtual Kiltwalk’ on behalf of the Centre
raising a much appreciated £380. Terry has also suggested another fundraising
activity linked to his hobby of Amateur Radio. You can hear a podcast from Terry
here: https://www.forthvalleysensorycentre.org/terry-talks-to-the-world-
competition/ to enter the competition to win a £20 Etsy voucher you simply need
to guess the number of Amateur Radio enthusiasts Terry will contact during a
non-stop weekend of Amateur Radio activity. Recent online events, especially the
Afternoon Tea, wonderfully delivered by Carol from the Café, have received
excellent feedback. There are more activities planned over the coming months
and as you have been hearing, we hope we will soon be able to return to indoor
events.

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 A group of students from Denny High have chosen Forth Valley Sensory Centre
for their Youth Philanthropy Initiative project. The students have a chance to win
£3000 for their chosen charity should they win the competition. They have been
busy researching the Charity and speaking to some of our Centre Users. A big
“Thank you” to Ian and Cathy Carmichael who took the time out to speak to the
girls recently all about the centre and how life has changed for Deaf people over
the years. We hope that team Denny HS will be able to persuade the judges that
we are worth of a win.

Energy Redress Fund

A definite big win for the Centre is the Energy Redress Funding which has
enabled us to continue with our work to make energy information more
accessible. This replaces the Climate Challenge Fund which came to an end in
April.

The Energy Redress project is different to CCF in that it focuses purely on

Climate Change and helping people understand the steps they can take to
reduce their carbon footprint and lower our impact on the planet. The CCF project
did include this work but also had a specific element targeting food waste and
helping people get grants through Home Energy Scotland. While we will still offer
support for people seeking grants, we will no longer be carrying out home energy
surveys ourselves, instead Sara will be working with community groups and
people with sensory loss across Forth Valley to provide accessible information,
classes, talks and workshops on the climate crisis, its impact and our individual
role in preventing or sadly enabling it.

The previous CCF project was a great success, dramatically lowering the
environmental impact of the Centre as well as helping increase our profile across
Forth valley. We think that the Energy Redress Project will build on our success
and bring about even bigger positive change.

5. Volunteering – Caroline Storey, Volunteer Co-ordinator

We have been reviewing our Befriending calls with a view to winding these down as
COVID restrictions are lifted. Centre users are now welcome to come into the café
and meet informally and have a catch up and also take advantage of some of the
activities available. We are still calling a few of our Centre Users who have not
managed into the Centre, albeit less frequently. More often than not we are actually
finding that people are less available for a telephone chat, which is good news as it
means they are gradually getting back out and about.

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 Our volunteer led Talk and Sign Group, is doing very well with regular sessions once
a month and a BSL practice session in between. It is wonderful to see people keen
to keep up their BSL skills and also to keep in contact with each other. Last week,
our Talk and Sign group organiser Laura Stewart won an award from CVS to
recognise the fantastic work she does with this group. We say – well done Laura!

The kitchen garden is now being lovingly cared for by Windsor Park school pupils
and a regular volunteer, Nichola, from Our Place Camelon. It is great to see it being
looked after and used. In the sensory garden our community groups are also
planning their raised beds – volunteers from Caledonia Services, NHS Forth Valley
and Carmuirs Primary School are all busy painting seed boxes and planting up.

We have some Firetablet refresher sessions currently being delivered by IT Tutor

Tom. The Firetablets were donated by RNIB and Amazon. Due to COVID
precautions these are small sessions for one or two people at a time in the Tech
Hub. A further two ipads were allocated to BPS Centre users under the Connecting
Scotland scheme. Big Thanks to Tom Paterson for all his time and effort to get
people connected.

We are delighted to welcome a new volunteer with BSL signing skills to help out with
our youth group which is now able to meet face to face.

Monthly Volunteer zoom is going from strength to strength with a regular attendance
of 12-15 volunteers each session. Last week Pat Reid, Chair of our Trustee Board
spoke at our Volunteer Thank you event, on behalf of Trustees, staff and Centre
partners to offer a vote of thanks to each and every volunteer. Pat also took the time
to write to each volunteer to send a personal thanks. Thank you too Pat, you also are
a volunteer. We recognise that whilst things have been tough, our volunteers have
been able to continue to provide support in different ways. We commissioned a
special live with Laura podcast, a poem from one of our volunteers Lawson Eades
and a commemorative film produced by volunteer Jenni– these all showcase the
fantastic skills, effort and talent that our volunteers bring and are happy to share.

6. Climate Challenge – Watch this space…look out for an action packed update
from Energy Redress Co-ordinator Sara Burns next month.

7. Summary

Thanks for reading our report. I hope you share our optimism and the “sense” that
things are starting to improve. We are proud to work at Forth Valley Sensory Centre,
and to be able to work with so many inspirational people who face and overcome
sensory challenge on a daily basis. We have lots more opportunities to look forward
to and we are keen to explore and develop these opportunities with you.. If you have

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any questions, suggestions or requests, I would be delighted to hear from you.
Please get in touch.

Think positive.

Jacquie

9 June 2021

e-mail: jacquiewinning@forthvalleysensorycentre.org

www.forthvalleysensorycentre.org

@FVSensoryCentre