Inspirational Activities Workshop with Bristol Bears Community Team
C&SW worked with Bristol Bears Community Foundation to bring this superb workshop to our local care providers. Over 40 people attended from a variety of community and residential services; everyone had a great time, going away really inspired with ideas on reaching out to service users .
The ‘take away’ message is that the foundation want to help care providers; they can run sessions in your service, they run community sessions, they want you to get in touch with them to see how they can help you achieve the wellbeing benefits from physical activity for all of your service users. Kris comments:
“Whilst we run commissioned provision in partnership with a range of organisations in both the disability and over 55’s sector, at the heart we are a needs based outcome driven charity - and we are all working together to achieve the same goals for our shared service users.” The Bears’ Spectrum programme manager also added “Where capacity allows , we are always keen to share our experiences , have some fun and ultimately learn as much from the organisations in the community as well.”
For further information and enquiries please email Kris Tavender ktavender@bristolbearsrugby.com
Getting back to the fab workshop; Kris, from the Foundation introduced the work they do and got everyone chair dancing as a starting exercise, explaining how these simple moves are suitable for all audiences, and because they are based on fun, how they benefit people physically, cognitively and emotionally in many ways.
We split into 3 groups, with each group doing two of the three workshops lead by Kris, Laura and Ian. As each session incorporated some of the dances and we danced again at coffee time and in the closing session,we ‘danced’ through most of the morning! The ‘dances’ are on You Tube, called ‘BRIZZLEY BEATZ’ and you can find them HERE. You can watch Brizzley doing his version of George Ezra’s Shotgun HERE.
In each of the sessions we had the opportunity to experience some of the activities that they use with service users. Ian focused on the needs of people who are more severely challenged explaining how the instructions and activities need to be layered thinly with tiny progression to make sure they are truly inclusive. Laura led us through activities suitable for more able service users, including curling and passing balls across the circle. Kris also covered circle work and beach volley ball using a net. In each session the team explored different balls and bean bags with different textures and different materials. We discussed using colour, using targets, and how these could be incorporated and to what effect. We discussed techniques for getting reluctant people to join in, taking a session up a gear and bringing the session to a close.
As well as the work with Kris’s team, Lisa Wood explained how Wesport can also provide support in this area:
“ We are your local Active Partnership and are here to support Inactive people become more active, and to support groups of people who by encouraging physical activity, can gain many benefits. Through our ‘Step Up’ programme, we can support you with whatever you need to get people moving!
It may just be a bit of funding to buy some equipment to use or it may be that you want to get the rest of your staff to attend some similar training. Please visit our website here and tell us what it is you need and we will help where we can!! If there is interest from a few organisations around training, we could run a further course as we have already done for Cintre.”
Active Ageing Bristol left leaflets and directories of activities in the Bristol area. Similar services are run by Age Uk in North Somerset; by Sirona in South Glos and another service is offered by health visitors in B&NES.
Contact details for Kris Taverner are below
Kris Tavender
Spectrum Programme Manager, Bristol Bears Community Foundation
t: 0117 958 1641 | m: 07766 446 572 | e: ktavender@bristolbearsrugby.com
w: bristolbearsrugby.com/community | twitter.com/bristolbearscf | facebook.com/bristolbearscf