The Burrough Harmony Centre, Bridport’s mental health and wellbeing centre, is celebrating after being awarded £299,086 in funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK.

Harmony will use the funding to continue the development of their mental health and wellbeing services to meet local needs. It will take on more staff and improve facilities.

Ali Cliffe, Harmony Trustee, said: “Thanks to this National Lottery funding supported by National Lottery players, we can develop our capacity and, working in partnership with other local organisations, provide a better mental health and wellbeing hub for the benefit of the whole community”

Carrie Gamble, Harmony Services Manager, said “This is great news. We have worked with people from the local community who have connected with our services in many different ways to develop a vision of a truly community focused service that supports mental health and wellbeing for everyone. It means that we will be able to develop the dreams and aspirations we have to create a vibrant and welcoming place for everyone to access when they need to. This will make a big difference to the wellbeing of our community and people’s lives.”

 

Amongst other activities, Harmony holds regular Drop-In sessions on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 10 – 1pm and runs the Community Front Room Thursday to Sunday 2.15 – 9.45pm for people who feel they need some crisis support from its premises in Gundry Lane, Bridport. For more information click HERE.

 

AMAZING DRAWING FESTIVALS

The hall at the Youth and Community Centre was filled to capacity by parents and children of all ages on Tuesday for the first of two Amazing Drawing Festival events this week.

The wonderful day of drawing based activities was organised by Jo Burlington of Oops Wow Messy Art. It was a free/donation event for the local community involving several local artists who offered their time and magic for free, and several wonderful volunteers helping to make it happen.

It was a brilliant event, with many people staying for hours, popping out for lunch and coming back for more! I went along with my wife, daughter and granddaughters and we all got stuck in and had a great time. Have a look through the photos below to see what they got up to.

And now it is your opportunity to have a go. On this coming Saturday, April 15 from 1.30 – 5.00 the hall at the Youth and Community Centre is throwing its doors open to host an adults Amazing Drawing Festival. Just like the day for families this will be a celebration and playful exploration of all things Drawing.

Everyone needs to play!

There will workshops and ongoing invitations running throughout the afternoon of Saturday 15th April in the big hall at Bridport Youth & Community Centre from 1.30 til 5pm.

It’s free and no booking required.

Timings yet to be confirmed but all of these AMAZING artists are going to be there:

• Flying Drawing & Tape Drawing with Jo from Oops Wow
• ‘Draw a Paper Garden’ with Claudia Dharamshi
• ‘ What’s in The Box’ with Louise Riley
• ‘A Journey Through Natural Form’ with Helen Garrett
• ‘Drawing with Dust’ with Claire Nuttall
• ‘Naughts & Crosses’ with Angela Latham

Whether you think you can draw or not, Jo and the other artists are guaranteed to release your inner creativity. It could be messy so come suitably dressed!

The event has been made possible with funding from Dorset Council Culture & Community Fund and West Bay Car Boot Fund.

SMITH & SMITH – charity fundraising fashion show

On Thursday afternoon Bridport’s Town Hall was transformed into a catwalk for a fundraising fashion show in aid of Fortuneswell Cancer Trust hosted by West Street’s Smith and Smith.

The fashion show showcased Smith and Smith’s women’s and men’s spring and summer collections all modelled by some familiar local faces, myself included.

The sell out event was a roaring success and the audience were suitably impressed by the garments on show and the swagger with which the models showed them off as they sashayed back and forth along the catwalk. A great time was had by all in aid of an extremely worthy cause. My thanks to the staff at Smith and Smith for putting it all together in such a professional manner.

Fortuneswell Cancer Trust is a registered charity that seeks to improve the services to cancer patients in Dorset, mainly through Dorset County Hospital. They have no paid staff – the Trust is run by Trustees and a Committee with other volunteers helping out when necessary.   Running costs are minimal so donations really do help cancer patients locally.  The Trust has the full support of Dorset County Hospital Management.

Thanks to the funding support provided by Fortuneswell Cancer Trust Dorset County Hospital now operates a new chemotherapy outreach service at Bridport hospital. To learn more click on the image below.

New Chemotherapy Outreach Service at Bridport Hospital

It is looking like the Fashion Show raised just over £1,300. If you would like to see that total rise to at least £1,500 you can add your donation to the Fortuneswell Cancer Trust by clicking on the image below.

Donating

AND FINALLY -Emergency Testing Alerts

 Don’t forget to mention to family, friends and your wider community the EMERGENCY TESTING ALERTS scheduled to take place on 23 April at 3pm. It is an important test, but in order for people, particularly the more vulnerable to avoid being caught out or worried about the exercise – spread the word please.