My Voyage Award - Introduction

Having finished the Trefoil 'Stars Award' I have decided to partake in the bronze 'Voyage' award. The award consists of  five sections, Service, Explore my world, Myself, Teamwork and Skills. I am going to start with  Explore my world and Teamwork.

Explore my World - Walk the Suffolk Coastal Footpath

The Suffolk Coastal Path covers a distance of sixty miles. Although I enjoy walking I am not able to walk more than three to four miles at any one time due to osteoarthritis in my ankles. By splitting the walk into small chunks I hope to cover the distance by doing twenty separate walks. Some walks will bee done in reverse order due to parking and tides etc. My first walk will be from Landguard Point in Felixstowe.

Service - Volunteer at the Village Hall 

In 2019 our village hall was about to close because no one would volunteer to sit on the committee and help with the organization. As a last resort a public meeting was arranged for August and anyone interested in saving the hall could attend. Enough people agreed to be on the committee so another meeting was organized for September when the out going chairman and treasurer would pass the reins over to the new committee. At this stage I agreed to become the booking secretary. 
Covid stepped in, and nothing else happened at the hall until September 2022.

Move on to 2024. I now clean the hall on a regular basis so that it is clean when group bookings and private bookings use the hall.

I have helped with our book sale which involves several days of preparation and clearing up afterwards.

I help cut the grass and keep the garden tidy. 

I have helped paint the entrance lobby and the toilet block.

Myself - Develop a Skill

Many years ago when I was a T.A. I worked with a young lad who had very little sight. I first taught him to touch type and when his sight deteriorated it was necessary for me to learn braille. I passed my Grade I Braille.

Now my daughter-in-law has lost the sight in one eye and has poor sight in the other. Although there are various technological gadgets to help blind people today my sister-in-law and her daughter said they would still like to learn braille and would I help.

I intend to re-learn the Grade I Braille that I knew and move forward to work as far as I am able with Grade II Braille.

Teamwork - Warm Hub and Lunch

Last year I helped with warm hub sessions at our village hall in Layham from the end of November through to the end of March. The hub met every Tuesday morning from 10.00am - 12.00pm. Tea, coffee and biscuits were provided during the session. It proved very successful. We were awarded a grant from Babergh District Council to run the event.

Application for grants for the winter of 2023/2024 were not available until the end of December. No one from our village had come forward to run sessions for this winter. While listening to the news of how people were struggling over this period I decided to take the bull by the horns and put myself forward, with the backing of my husband. We got together with the treasurer of our village hall, and her husband, to talk through our ideas and to see if she would fill out an application for a grant and take charge of the money. 

It was decided we would do light lunches as well as the warm hub. I had worked out some costs for providing lunches for six weeks for twelve people but it was decided we needed to charge a little more per head.

Two other ladies had agreed to be part of the team and would help with the serving and clearing of dishes etc.

Our application for a grant was accepted and our warm hub would run alternate Mondays to the Social Club. Posters advertising the event were put around the village and a notice was sent out via the Layham News as well as being advertised in the Hadleigh News.

 I arranged to take my food and hygiene certificate before the sessions started.

Skills - Write an Online Blog

Although I already had a blog I wanted to keep a record of all the work that I have done for my Voyage award and a new Blogger post seemed the best place to do this. I wanted to keep the whole Voyage award in sequence to make it easy to follow for those viewing it. To do this I needed to change the way I had recorded in the past and therefore learn new skills to complete the process.

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