International Women's Day

International Women’s Day or IWD falls on March 8th and celebrates the achievements of women and celebrating everything about women that is great! Choices for Life teamed up with partner organisation DISC to deliver an entire day of activities and education all centred around women.

The day started out at DISC with female project members of Choices for Life joining members of DISC to look at food and mood for the female body which was hugely interesting and everyone even got to try out the foods later for lunch! Then project members were given a taster session about the Freedom Programme which helps women to take control and ownership of the relationships in their life. It was incredibly informative and project members were invited to take part in the course running from April.

After lunch project members (including men!) were invited to take part in a special Drop In session where snacks from around the world prepared with the help of project members that were part of the multicultural sessions.  A “Common Sense before Self Defense” session was delivered by Tang Soo Do  Master Charlie Featherstone and his apprentice Carla, which was followed by and a Relaxation  session by Jaki Savage the manager of Centre Yoga and Wellbeing who demonstrated breathing exercises.  Everyone had the chance to have a go, both sessions were really informative, beneficial and fun.

It was a really exciting and vibrant day and really helped people to appreciate everything that is wonderful about the women in their lives! Thank you to all who attended including all workshop leaders and partner organisations that helped to make it such a success.

Words of Inspiration

Words of Inspiration

There are people everywhere

Who, exactly just like you,

Understand the trials

And the pain you’re going through.

For, at some time in their lives

The have seen dark shadows fall

And have felt that there is no one

Who could answer to their call.

Yet, somehow they made it through

And found the strength within

To find acceptance of how things were

And to once again begin.

They are living proof that every cloud -

Even those of darkest grey -

All eventually pass by

To bring along a brand new day.

So, please just hang on in there

And keep tight hold of the belief

That beyond them there are rainbows

That very soon will bring relief.

These words were found and contributed to the newsletter by a Choices for Life project member.

Creative Writing

We just had another wonderful creative writing session here at Choices for Life. We were lucky enough to get talented writer Michael Edwards, who works for Creative Support in the North East to pop over and run a workshop that was inspired by food. We had a lot of fun final results that included Christmas dinner with a visit from a nun, a curry with Tommy Cooper and beer with Stephen Fry in Thailand. Hopefully we'll be able to share a few of the pieces once they are finalized and we look forward to working with Michael in the future on other creative writing projects!

Art Club

The Art Club have been producing some outstanding canvas work over the past few weeks with the aim being that once the Creative Cafe is opened that their work will be displayed on the walls. Inspired by the sea because of the vibrant colours and abstract shapes work was begun on paper using oil and soft pastels as well as acrylic to practice the use of composition, texture and colour (among other things!) before moving on to creating a canvas piece. With next week being the last week of canvas work it's obvious that we'll have an array of amazing artwork ready for when the cafe opens.

Also apologies for the lack of posts recently, we've all been so busy with the day service and sourcing content for our new monthly newsletter that we haven't had the chance to post!

The January Newsletter is Out!

The newsletter for January is now out! To get a copy call by the office, ask for one in sessions or get in touch with your key worker or a Choices for Life member of staff.

Merry Christmas

December has been a busy one at Choices for Life with lots of different sessions, events and activities going on. We'll get some blog posts up about what we've been up to in the new year and update everyone with the  newsletter but for now we'd love to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Hartlepool Choices for Life. Have a good one!

It's a Wonderful Life

Get into the Christmas spirit by coming to see the ultimate feel good Christmas movie. It's showing at the Town Hall Theatre on Sunday 16th December at 3pm. Meet at 2.40pm outside the Town Hall. Contact Sam on 07972107236 to let her know you're coming or for more information.