November has yet again been a fun filled and busy month and preparations have well and truly started for the festive period!
November has seen the introduction of our monthly awards! This is where we recognise the amazing efforts of our members and award them a certificate! So far we have had gardener and artist of the month. We are always immensely proud of the time, thought and effort that all our members put into their work each day.
This month we have been focussing on well-being, kindness and positivity, values that all our members embody every day. Part of this has been delivering random acts of kindness and this has included picking and bunching up bouquets of flowers, creating well-being boxes and exploring self-appreciation. At the beginning of the month Phoebe, Mel and some of the team visited the Andover foodbank. The staff there showed us how the food bank operates, gave us a tour and the members helped pack away several items ready for donation. We dropped off two shoe boxes full of children’s gifts that will be donated to those in need this festive season as well as three bags of Christmas food, nibbles and toiletries. There is nothing we love more than getting involved in these vital community projects and we want to extend a massive thank you to those who kindly donated.
Once the excitement of Halloween was over we were ready to celebrate Guy Fawkes and Fireworks night. We spent time learning about who Guy Fawkes was and the story behind bonfire night – we even created our own Guy Fawkes based on our own ‘Guy’ here at JP Andover!!!
After the success of our fundraising Pyjama Day, the Countess of Brecknock Hospice invited us to join them at their Christmas Fayre. Phoebe and Tracy went along with all our amazing handmade crafts and raised over £100 so a big thank you to everyone who spent the time creating these crafts and a big special shout out to Andover’s Louise for donating so many beautiful items.
This month our themes have included Community Week, Wellness Week, Pets Week and Horrible Histories Week and the members have enjoyed travelling back in time, taking some well deserved ‘me time’ and making tasty treats for their pets. Alongside our weekly themes we continue to run sensory, dance and fitness , gardening and cooking sessionswhich enables the members to be exposed to a diverse range of new skills and its been a joy to watch them fully embrace these new experiences.
Both staff and members have been busy preparing for our Christmas showcase which we are so excited to welcome you to. This will be held here at JP Andover on Thursday 11thDecember 14.30-16.00 and there will be short performances from the members, Christmas songs, stories and light refreshments. The members have been busy designing and creating cards and decorations which will be available to buy so don’t forget your pennies! The members have been working so hard towards this festive event so it would be wonderful to see as many of you there as possible.
We are all excited for the Christmas period here at JP and ready to take on a busy, festive December
