Good Luck Lucy!

We are all very sad to say goodbye to our Access and Inclusion Manager Lucy Turner who is leaving the service today. She's been a key member of our team since the service's start just over a year ago and she's been an incredible manager, organisation queen, valued colleague and most importantly a wonderful and fun person to have around in all of Choices for Life's adventures.

We'll all miss you Lucy but wish you all the best for the future. Make sure to keep in touch with everyone at Choices for Life! 

Calling all poets

Calling all you budding writers! United Press are having a local poetry competition and asking people from Hartlepool and East Durham to submit poetry with the potential to win £1000. Poems must be no more than 25 lines and 160 words each. Previous winning poems have been about village life, a river, a tower, a country walk and local history.

To enter, send a poem about life in your own hometown or area to "Local Poem", Unites Press Ltd, Admail 3735, London, EC1B 1JB or www.unitedpress.co.uk or call 08448009177.

The closing date is December 31st.

Hartlepool's Beautiful Mind Finale

One of the biggest and best parts of our recent Beautiful Mind event was definitely the Finale event at the Studio Hartlepool. First off can everyone at Choices for Life give a huge thank you to all the guys over there who went above and beyond to make the event a huge success. They provided the venue to us free of charge and it was perfect for the event. Everybody was incredibly helpful, knowledgeable and took a lot of pressure off us rock and roll wannabes! A massive thank you in particular to Daniel Mccarte at the Studio for giving us the venue and enabling the evening to happen, to Phil Swinburne for being enormously helpful with his contacts, expertise and charm, to Hartlepool Community Studio for their support, facilities and expertise whilst recording the writing, to creative writer Bob Beagrie for his generous contribution of time to create the beautiful and moving creative writing and to all the staff at the Studio (especially the bar staff and sound technicians!) for making the event run so smoothly.

Another huge thank you to all of the guest speakers and musicians who provided their talents for minimal costs and made the event such a great night for everyone who attended. They were:

Alan Wright, talented broadcaster and journalist who compared the entire event and kept the jokes coming.
For more information please visit website www.myhartlepool.com/soundswrightday

Emma Wolfindale, practicing artist working in London with an interest in exploring issues of spirituality and the unconscious mind through different media. Emma, who has bi-polar disorder herself talked about the ways in which she deals with her mental health issues through art, music and unique coping techniques which she shared with everyone in an inspirational speech. We were also all wowed by Emma's beautiful singing voice in a stunning acoustic set.
For more information visit www.emmawolfindale.co.uk

Simon Richardson, co-founder of Totally Laughter Yoga who has worked in a variety of Mental Health and Educational settings with adults, young people and children. He is the owner of SNR Consultancy and Training which provides a range of services including Mental Health First Aid and Youth Mental Health First Aid. Simon gave an amusing and engaging talk about not just his experiences working in the mental health sector but also his own experiences of mental health.
For more information about Simon or laughter yoga visit www.totallylaughteryoga.co.uk

Fill, a Hartlepool based band including helpful chap Phil Swinburne have just released their new E.P. and are about to release their album A Thousand Colours which is available to buy on iTunes from 20th October. They finished the event following a fitting speech by Chairman of the Council Stephen Ackers Belcher and were really fantastic. The Choices for Life team were lucky enough to see them sound checking before the event began as we were setting up the venue, where they played lots of their songs so we got to hear them twice!
If you would like more information you can contact Fill through their Facebook page.

Mercedes, another local band who have supported and toured with the likes of Coldplay. They have just released their new E.P. The Wavelength which is available to purchase from iTunes. Mercedes were hauntingly good and we all felt very privelged to hear them playing live in an intimate acoustic set with just guitars, bass and Sharon's beautiful voice.
Mercedes can be contacted through Facebook or www.soundcloud/mercedesuk or www.myspace.com/mercedesmusic

Lee Madison + Nige Spavin and Bob Garrington. Lee is a well known singer songwriter in his own right and is also a Mental Health Nurse. He is currently in band Danny's House who released the album Upbeat and Melancholy in February 2012. On our evening Lee was joined by two band members, guitarist Bob Garrington and bass guitarist Nige Spavin. The album can be bought from iTunes and local outlets.
To see more of Lee Maddison and Danny's House have a look at www.facebook.com/dannyshouse or www.soundcloud.com/dannyshouse

 Lee Maddison, Nige Spavin and Bob Garrington

 Simon Richardson

 Emma Wolfindale performing (sorry for the blurring!)

 Mercedes

 Fill

Hartlepool's Beautiful Mind

Hi all! Apologies for the lack of posts during the last month or so. It's been a busy Sept/Oct preparing for Hartlepool's Beautiful Mind and everyone at Choices for Life had a lot to do with both the service and the event! It was a hugely successful few days and we were truly astounded by the generosity of everyone involved in the event, whether they were giving their time to have a stall on the Saturday or providing their services at incredibly low rates or completely free so we would like to give a huge thank you to everybody who got involved. Here's to next years event!

Here are just a few snap shots of some of the things Choices for Life provided for the finale event! We have our Big Draw Wall where people were invited to draw (or write if they really didn't want to draw) how they were feeling that day or what makes them happy, some of the wonderful willow sculptures created by the Choices for Life Art Club which decorated the site, the tranquility garden where Kirsten provided 10 minute shiatsu massages and later was the site for stone balancing with HBC's Arts Development team to promote Adrian Gray's Balance exhibition and our Wellness Tree that invited people to write promises and goals based on the 5-a-day for Wellbeing and hang them up on an actual tree.

World Mental Health Day Open Art Session

An exciting day of arts and crafts that will be on display in Middleton Grange Shopping Centre during Hartlepool's Beautiful Mind event!

Macmillan Coffee Morning

Come along for tea, coffee, tasty treats and fun arts activities. All to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support!

Olympic Event

Wow apologies for the lack of posting for the past few weeks. We've been busy bees over here at Choices for Life, making, packaging and branding all our exciting products in preparation for the Olympic event as well as running our broad program of activities and sessions.

We all had a loads of fun at the event, despite the terrible weather which meant we were stuck inside. From sports activities to tasty snacks, it was a great chance to meet people from other services as well as show off just how brilliant Choices for Life is!

The stall was a big hit and our products, especially the tie dye tote bags and bath bombs were really popular. The response about our future cafe and selling social enterprise was really encouraging and people from lots of other services were very eager to get involved in our future ventures. 

Here are just a few pictures of our gorgeous products on our lovely stall! More to come.