President Penelope Robbins was invited by Sue Marlow to help members from Arts without Boundaries to “get stuck” into the Arty Farty Lantern Workshop. It was a fun afternoon joined by members from sister club SI Tunbridge Wells. Lanterns of all shapes and sizes were being created for the Winter Lantern Parade taking place on 8th February starting at 5:30pm from 17 Calverley Road Tunbridge Wells. We were delighted to take part in the workshop and in continuing our partnership with Arts without Boundaries please do check out our website for more details of the charity and their Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/artswithoutboundaries.org.uk/ https://sigbi.org/sevenoaks/what-we-do/

This month club members Ann, Pauline, Jenny and Penny had the great pleasure of helping prepare and serve the homemade cream tea, sandwiches and with lots of cake! at Monday Afternooners. What an amazing and inspiring group they are.   Club member Ann HInes explains about the group – Monday Afternooners is a club for adults with physical disabilities, mainly Cerebral Palsy.  It was set up originally by Bromley Scope, but some years ago was included in Bromley Mencap as a much larger organisation. They could offer MA members access to more services. The club meets monthly on the last Monday of the month.  They go on outings, meals out, and speakers or entertainment on the Mondays.  They always meet for outings or use a room at the care home Durham House in Bromley.  One of the members lives in this home, others independently or

We welcomed Sue Marlow of Band without Boundaries to our club meeting on Tuesday 8th October. It was a great pleasure to present Sue with instruments for the band that we had purchased with monies raised from raffles we had held earlier in the year. Band without Boundaries currently meet at Amherst School in Riverhead and borrow their instruments, so we are very pleased to be fundraising for this wonderful band to have their own instruments for practice nights and for various gigs/events that they attend. Please check out our Link to our club page explaining more about the charity https://sigbi.org/sevenoaks/what-we-do/ and their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/artswithoutboundaries.org.uk/

Each year the club chooses to acknowledge 2 UN Days – this year it has been Literacy and Mental Health Awareness. The club held a meeting to discuss issues surrounding mental health and well-being during Mental Health Awareness week in May. Breaking down barriers to Mental Health issues.  To continue this we invited Lucy Adams Community Development Director and Katie Moss of West Kent Mind to speak at our October club meeting on 8th October – this was the nearest date to International Mental Health Day 10th October. Lucy and Katie spoke about the mental health charity and the services, advice and support that they give in the community. They offer counselling, supported housing, Well-being activities and groups, workshops, training and more. Some of the other wonderful work that they do is Mental Health for schools – “Working to equip teachers with knowledge and skills

We were delighted to welcome 2 Girlguides Eleanor Keen and Sruti Rehman from 12th Tonbridge Senior Section and their families to our Sept club meeting. Back in the summer we had help to sponsor them for the London and South East Region (LaSER) international expedition. Sruti took part in the Thailand expedition along with 11 Senior section members and 3 leaders and Eleanor in Mongolia. It was great to hear all the adventures and experiences they both had. Eleanor had volunteered at the Child Smile Hope Centre in Ulaanbaatar supporting the disadvantaged children, organising and running educational activities with the younger children, teaching English to the older children and renovating a school building. Eleanor took part in cultural activities at the weekend and evenings such as sleeping overnight in a traditional gur and met the Mongolian Girl Scouts. Here is Sruti’s account of her expedition

The club held a “Journeys through Literacy” event in celebration of the United Nations Literacy Day 8th September 2019 jointly with Sevenoaks Library in their gallery. https://www.un.org/en/events/literacyday/ The event could just have easily been called from ‘Global to Local’ as the 15 minute presentations covered ‘Literacy in a pre literate society’ working with an indigenous tribe in Brazil given by Margaret Alford and ‘Bloom where you are planted’  an English speaking programme delivered by Sevenoaks Welcomes Refugess to the Syrian refugees living in the Sevenoaks area. We were so pleased to welcome two refugees, a father and daughter who spoke of their experiences and feelings of coping in a new country. ’Success in a turnaround school’ by Sally Quirk Head Teacher St, John’s Primary School, Sevenoaks. This was a story of a failing school which now has a waiting list, and ‘Inclusive Learning that changes lives’

President Penny collected the new club roller banner from Marc of Kallkwik Sevenoaks. We are all excited and cannot wait to use the new banner at our next event in the Sevenoaks Library on 20th August. Thank you so much  Marc and Julie for arranging the production of the banner so efficiently, great service. We are very pleased with it!  https://www.kallkwik.co.uk/sevenoaks/roller-banners/  

Volunteer Garden Club Members were invited by the Sevenoaks Town Council Open Spaces and Leisure Committee to the attend King Henry’s Walk Garden Islington trip as a thank you for volunteering on a monthly basis at The Vine Sevenoaks sensory garden and herb garden.  This was a most informative trip and we all came back with lots of ideas for gardening in small spaces, creating a woodland area, trails and signage. “King Henry’s Walk Garden is an award-winning green space in the Mildmay ward of Islington, created by the local community, for the local community. The Friends of King Henry’s Walk Garden were honoured to receive a visit from HRH The Duchess of Cambridge on January 15th to see how the project brings people together through gardening and food growing.”  https://khwgarden.org.uk/about-the-garden/ Please do take a look at the photo album of our trip https://photos.app.goo.gl/rBe2EvaEP51qkMgU7  

Club members held their annual Summer lunch at The Chaser Shipbourne with a raffle in aid of Camfed and Arts without Boundaries.   We all had a most enjoyable time in a lovely courtyard setting – it was such a hot day Assistant Manager Liam very kindly drew across the canopy to provide us with shade.  The staff were most welcoming and accommodating and the chef did a sterling job to produce such delicious fresh food on a scorcher of a day!  Thank you to the Chaser for donating a raffle prize too.  http://www.thechaser.co.uk/  

SI Sevenoaks club members attended the SI South East Region June Meeting where they celebrated and acknowledged World Ocean Day by wearing blue. World Oceans Day takes place every 8 June. The concept was originally proposed in 1992 by Canada’s International Centre for Ocean Development and the Ocean Institute of Canada at the Earth Summit – UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Wikipedia .  Why Celebrate World Oceans Day? https://www.un.org/en/events/oceansday/ “We celebrate World Oceans Day to remind everyone of the major role the oceans have in everyday life. They are the lungs of our planet, providing most of the oxygen we breathe. The purpose of the Day is to inform the public of the impact of human actions on the ocean, develop a worldwide movement of citizens for the ocean, and mobilize and unite the world’s population on a project for