Autumn has arrived

What a summer we have had! There has been so much fun and a lot of hard work. I intended to keep this blog updated, but we still don’t ahve a secretary/admin person and I’m having to do it all……I’m not that way inclined, but I’m doing my best! 
Like most charities, we have had to work at keeping the funds coming in and we always try our best to do this in a fun way. One grant we were lucky to get has been for Sports England to bring dance movement to the community via Groove. A group of us have been going out to different organisations to encourage vulnerable people to join in. It has been a lot of fun. People are a little apprehensive at first, but it doesn’t take long before they are taking part and smiling. It has been wonderful to get to know other organisations in the community and have fun together. 
Our Bang & Crash group has grown and we’ve had to buy more drums, we still don't have enough djembes, but we’re closer to our target of 25. We have been fundraising at different venues and showing off how talented they are, in some venues they have been surprising people at how good they really are, which is always a pleasure to hear. We have finished with the summer set and are about to start our Christmas set list….yes, it’s that time fo year. We have welcomed members of Brainwave Lowestoft and Marlborough house who have fitted in brilliantly. 
Art Cafe has been out and about around the community along with group sessions in the Centre. This ever popular activity keeps growing in numbers and is free to vulnerable adults and £3.50 to others. The standard of art grows constantly and Lorenzo will be organising an exhibition soon.
Our karaoke sessions have been a big hit, whether you’re there to sing songs of your own, join in groups songs or just listen, it’s a great morning each Tuesday. We also end up doing karaoke at every party that we have….as ya do! What else can I say about karaoke….it’s fab!
In the Fort, we held a fantastic 24 hour live steam event to raise money, the aim was to raise enough to put on a free gaming weekend and BBQ. This was achieved very early on in the event and the fun weekend went ahead. We had over 200 people through the doors over the weekend….that’s a lot of burgers! Goals along the way were silly ones like Marcus wearing a onesie for a week, this just happened to be one of the hottest weeks of the year, but he still did it. I won myself £20 in gaming time, I still as yet need to redeem those and will be doing it live so people can see how rubbish I am….Hey, I’m not proud!….lol! 
Another venture we have started is podcasting. The aim is to get local organizations in to talk about themselves and have a chat and a laugh. We want to bring communities together and this is a great way of all joining forces. Eventually we want to let our members do their own podcasts, we need to get new equipment for that, so they can set it up themselves. 
We were lucky enough to be awarded 6 free. tickets to the Ipswich Lets Rock Festival, so we headed of there for the day and evening and what a day to remember. I am an old gal now, and the 80’s was my era so I had a ball watching bands from back in the day and danced for 8 out of the 11 hours that we were there…..yes I ached like mad for days, but it was worth it. 
Of course, the party’s have continued throughout the summer, we always find an excuse and our next one tomorrow is and 80’s theme to bring the festival vibe to those that couldn’t make the festival…so Ill be reliving it all over again….yeay!