Becky and her family enjoyed meeting lots of visitors at this year’s Charter Fair in Thrapston High Street. This year, the fair was ‘Caribbean’ themed (very appropriate, considering the seriously hot weather!). The high street had themed food and drink stands and also a brilliant live steel band from Luton (a member of which works at Headway Luton – small world!).
Our stand included a very popular tombola, gorgeous handmade shabby chic craft items, some very special spirit-bottle lights (made by one of our Marathon runners) and plenty of leaflets and information about our centre. Visitors were really interested and enjoyed reading about who we are and what we do! We made a nice amount of smile-money – £82.10 to be precise! – but more importantly, we managed to raise a lot more awareness of our charity in that part of the county of East Northants.
We were delighted to welcome colleagues from Headway UK to our centre back in June, who wanted to come along and see what we’re all about!
It was our pleasure to meet Rachel, Helen and Zak who’d travelled down from Headway UK’s base in Nottingham – they were interested to see the goings-on at one of the local Headway branches and chose ours. We enjoyed introducing Rachel, Helen and Zak to our clients, volunteers and staff members, showing them around our centre, and enabling them to see our varied, fun activities ‘in action’. We were also pleased to host lunch for the guys, too. Rachel tells us that all three thoroughly enjoyed their time with us!
Claire, Becky and Jonny, along with HEN Chairman, Dr Keith Jenkins, and fellow HEN trustee, Mary Lees, were delighted to host our ‘London Marathon Celebration Evening’ on Monday 3rd June.
Our talented facilitator, Freyja, designed and created this incredible ‘thank you’ banner pictured below, and we enjoyed putting together a ‘Photo Memory’ board, including runner quotes, for our guests to enjoy.
We were so pleased to see our runners again, and hear their stories and memories from that incredible day. It was inspiring to hear of the hard work and perseverance all our runners displayed, battling on through severe blisters, tight muscles and wobbly toenails (EEEK!) to cross the famous finishing line.
Once again – to each and every member of ‘Team HEN 2019 – thank you all so much for your phenomenal efforts for our charity. Together, you’ve managed to raise just over £50,000 – above and beyond expectation and enabling us to continue and enrich the services we provide to those living with ABI, and their families. You are all amazing.
Headway East Northants is delighted to welcome on board Eleanor Ciarciaglini, who will work as our new Client Facilitator and Community Support.
Eleanor joins us from the University of Hertfordshire with a degree in Psychology and will be working within the team to support our clients with their activities and outings, as well as offering support to clients within the wider community.
We are delighted to welcome Eleanor to the team!
Our facilitator, Frejya, enjoyed an amazing adventure back in March along with partner, Chris, and their choir, ‘A Different Direction’.
The guys successfully fundraised and jetted off to New York City where they performed live at the fabulous Carnegie Hall, having been headhunted!
You may remember ‘A Different Direction’ choir, as they performed with our Headway musicians back in October last year at the Ukulele Concert.
The concert, ‘Total Vocal’, was a celebration of contemporary ‘a-cappella’ for singers from all over the world, arranged and produced by creative dirctor, Deke Sharon.
An amazing experience for the guys!
We were pleased to help our deputy manager, Jonny, celebrate (or should that be comiserate?!) his 40th birthday, complete with handmade ‘Mini Eggs’ cake and a card packed full of signatures and good wishes from clients, staff and volunteers.
Client Keith and volunteer Dave also worked together to produce a lovely keepsake for this milestone, namely a painted, wooden ’40th’ plinth decorated with coins. Not just any old coppers, either – Keith and Dave made sure they were all ‘1979’ coins, and Keith took the time to individually clean and polish every single coin by hand. We think this says a huge amount about the friendships forged between us here at Headway East Northants. Happy birthday, Jonny!
Thanks to Jeremy Applegarth of Linde Material Handling East, Claire and Jonny have successfully completed a course on operating our brand new defibrillator machine.
Jeremy kindly allocated two places on the training course free of charge, and both Claire and Jonny are now fully qualified in operating the defibrillator, which is kept at our Irthlingborough centre.
Our thanks to Jeremy at Linde Material Handling East, for allocating the places. It is of course our sincerest hope that the machine will never be needed, but great to know we’re set and ready in the event of an emergency.
Claire, Becky and Kate were pleased to attend the Christmas charity awareness event back in December at Rushden’s Waitrose store.
The event, organised between Waitrose and Northamptonshire Carers, offered us a great platform to talk about who we are and what we do here at Headway East Northants and we met some lovely people including carers, NHS staff members, brain injury survivors and their loved ones, and fellow local charities, to share our stories.
We were delighted to have the chance to raise further awareness of Headway East Northants, and thank both Waitrose and Northamptonshire Carers for the opportunity to attend.
Our Admin & Fundraising Coordinator, Becky Lake, took part in the Autumn Run at nearby Stanwick Lakes back in September, along with her husband Wayne, to raise funds for Headway East Northants.
Becky successfully completed the 5k course while Wayne completed the 10k!
Thanks to generous donations, Becky and Wayne managed to raise almost £300 for our Irthlingborough Centre, to continue the services and support provided to our wonderful clients and their families.
Becky says: “I feel so fortunate to work with such a fantastic group of people, who really do make such a difference to the lives of our clients. It definitely made the highly dodgy leggings worth it!”
A huge thank you to all who kindly donated!
From 6.30pm at our centre, the Information Evening will be held for all of our Team HEN 2020 Marathon Runners to meet each other, ask
From 3pm, we welcome family members, carers, and friends to come down to our centre’s Open Afternoon. With a light buffet and refreshments on offer,
Come down to The Day Centre in College Street, Irthlingborough, where the town council are kindly hosting a Mince Pie & Bake Sale, with all
It’s our fundraising Christmas coffee morning! Please do come down to our centre between 10.30 and 12.30 for hot drinks, home-baked cakes/treats and some AMAZING
Please note that our last day open to clients will be MONDAY 23 RD DECEMBER 2019 We will then be CLOSED on Tuesday 24 th
If you’re finding yourself confused with any paperwork relating to PIP or ESA, come and see us and we’ll do all we can to help
61 High Street
Irthlingborough
Northants
NN9 5PU
Call 01933 652311
Registered Charity 1085311.
Company Registration 03788049
Affiliated to Headway UK– the brain injury association a Registered Charity