Kingston members shared their health and wellbeing tips with the group recently, capturing a wonderful range of positive activities they do to stay happy and healthy. We love the fact that attending Dyscover’s groups, taking part in our activities and being a Dyscover ambassador were all considered important wellbeing activities for our members!
We fulfilled an end of term request from our Thursday AM group and hosted a wonderful pottery painting session, kindly provided by Angie, owner of Happy Glaze Ceramics, a pottery painting café in Epsom.
It was Angie’s first-time meeting Dyscover members, knowing little about aphasia before the introduction, she was so impressed “I can’t tell you how rewarding I found the session. They are all superb, brave and amazing characters and I enjoyed every minute!”
The Kingston group bid a sad farewell to volunteer Dzen. Dzen has volunteered with the Kingston group since 2019 and will be much missed by members, volunteers and staff alike. She has also been SLT Barbara’s skilled assistant for all the Irish Heart Foundation Courses we’ve run to-date. Dzen is moving on from Dyscover to take up a full-time role as a Speech and Language Therapy Assistant at Charing Cross hospital and we wish her all the best in her new role.
At Dyscover we support whole families affected by aphasia in a variety of ways, including Conversation Partner Training. During Carers week this week we held one of our regular family support meetings and were delighted to welcome our youngest attendees to date, with a multigenerational family presence from two of our families.
Members of the Thursday AM group had a competitive game of Boccia in June. Red and blue teams remained seated to aim at the white ball, using their non-dominant hand. We captured a wonderful action shot of John launching a red ball, which can be seen mid-air.
Kingston Members were delighted to meet Dyscover ambassador Sarah who shared her own experience of aphasia. Members were fascinated to hear about Sarah’s teaching career and her love of the French language and France, which sparked several conversations on common ground interests. Everyone was particularly impressed by Sarah’s experience of leading a reading group at Dyscover and her recent return to driving and were inspired by her positivity and resilience.
Thursday Morning Members were treated to a fascinating talk on Chris’s recent travels to South America. Chris was supported by volunteer Pat who read out parts of Chris’s travel journal that had been compiled by her travel companion. Members enjoyed looking at maps, tickets and souvenirs that Chris had brought back from her travels. These included a beautiful shawl made of alpaca wool from Ecuador.
We celebrated Volunteers’ Week with a lunch to say thank you to all our wonderful volunteers. The staff team made some cakes and sandwiches, and everyone enjoyed the sunshine in our beautiful courtyard garden (which is also maintained by a team of volunteers!) Kingston Volunteer Danni also got to see our brand-new banner in which she stars! If you would like to find out more about joining our volunteer team, please do contact our Volunteer Coordinator Liz lgrace@dyscover.org.uk
Huge thanks to Jane, our Assistant Administrator who kindly stepped in last week and attended a Mole Valley Charities promotional event in Dorking. Unfortunately, the event wasn’t well attended but never-the-less Jane produced a wonderful set up and took our new publicity banners on their first outing! Jane reports ‘huge banner kudos’ as ours was the only one not to fall over!
At Dyscover, we support whole families affected by aphasia in a variety of ways, including Conversation Partner Training. During Carers’ Week, this week, we held one of our regular family support meetings and were delighted to welcome our youngest attendees to date, with a multigenerational family presence from two of our families.
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