Eden Valley & Jigsaw Hospice - Health and Wellbeing, April 2017

It has been an excellent day at the hospice.

It was our health and wellbeing day for staff and volunteers to attend a variety of activities and sessions taking place across the hospice.

There was plenty on offer, ranging from an early morning Spring meditation or a more gentle yoga session later in the day.

The chance to try Laughter Yoga or have a go at Indian dancing.

Time to take in some Reiki, Reflexology or a gentle massage.

An opportunity to find out more about personal resilience from Bill Mumford, our Chief Executive.

Bake Easter cakes with the kitchen crew.

Or for those with a preference for the great outdoors, some got wellies on and helped transform the pond. 

There were a couple of sessions on Makaton (sign language) after a suggestion from a member of staff. It was well attended and run by our terrific Jigsaw activity co-ordinators.

For those who enjoy general knowledge, there was a quiz hosted by Doug McGarr, Facilities Manager.

I ran a session on origami and my students Doug and Jan (our fundraising volunteer) looked to have caught the bug, both took away extra paper to practice making more peace cranes, now they know the folds!

There is a lot of work that goes on to run these events. We benefit from the generosity of kind local folk who happily come in and run sessions. The admin team, receptionist, Chaplain and HR Manager are involved in the prep and planning to make sure the day runs smoothly and can be enjoyed by all.

There are many benefits of running health and wellbeing days and investing time and resources to support staff and volunteers is worthwhile. It is good to see staff and volunteers mix in with each other, many meeting for the first time and learning a new skill, or revisiting an activity from years ago. During the day there is a real sense of community, positivity and time spent learning in a relaxed and informal atmosphere. There is a real buzz about the place and lots of smiles and laughter too.

We will start to plan our next event after reading every piece of feedback (we ask for comments from participants at each session) to make improvements and add new features for the event scheduled for Friday 29th September.

Please do let me know if you want to hear more about what we do, would like to get involved, or have tips and advice on sessions, it would be great to develop this in future years.

Thanks for reading

Chris