• June 22, 2017

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  • By aissagallie

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The annual community event, The Big Lunch, joined forces with the Great Get Together, in memory of Jo Cox. The event is simply about bringing people together, enjoying good company and good food! The Harrogate Progress Group had their own Big Lunch, and as you’ll see from the report below, it was GREAT!

This Year’s Big Lunch event

… What an amazing day enjoyed by all!  Where do I begin other than to say that yesterday’s Big Lunch was the perfect example of how Progress Group provides an opportunity for everyone to come together including staff, customers, volunteers and other agencies who all came together at yesterday’s event from start to finish to ensure the Big Lunch was a success!

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Big Lunch

Volunteers Shaun and Lloyd made delicious homemade stilton and broccoli and tomoto and basil soup.  So delicious and so cheap to make.  Lunch also consisted of cold buffet of donations from ASDA and donations from Foundation Young People’s Pathway which consisted of fresh fruit and light refreshments. Bananas, oranges, nectarines was today’s fruit option which were all on offer at ASDA.

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The event was also an opportunity for customers and volunteers to showcase what they had accomplished throughout the year and share ideas and plans for the future development of the Progress Group where staff, customers and volunteers plan to take Progress Group outdoors once a month to provide cycling and walking groups.
The additional outdoor events will also offer opportunities for young people to access training and work with other agencies as part of the outdoor ventures.  I feel I can speak for the whole of Progress Group which is made up of staff, customers, volunteers, peer mentors and other agencies who feel enthusiastic about what has been achieved so far and look forward to the future development of the group.  The Big Lunch event was also an example of how customers and volunteers were empowered to pull all of their hard work together which they had been working on for a number of weeks leading up to the event.

We would like to share The Big Lunch event with you in the hope that we can also promote this to other teams as well as encourage customers to come along to the amazing group which has so much to offer from employment to housing, to anxiety self-help and smoking cession advice (SCA).  Something for everyone, staff can even access SCA and resources available.  Progress Harrogate are already looking forward to next year’s Big lunch and Big Walk, to help build up an appetite!

ASDA

Angela received a huge Thank You from Progress Group for all her hard work and the kind £20.00 of groceries donated towards the Big Lunch event and who is also available to offer support to progress Group with future events.

APM

Helen from APM and who also attends progress group to offer employment support and advice to customers attended yesterday’s Big Lunch event and presented a cheque for Progress Group for the amount of £250.00.  Lauranne K kindly agreed to receive the cheque on Progress Group behalf who were all delighted to receive the kind donation from APM.  Helen and APM received a huge Thank You by staff, volunteers and customers at yesterday’s Big lunch.

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Foundation – Selby

So nice to meet with Anne from Selby team who attended yesterday’s Big Lunch event and was provided with a range of information about the Progress Group with a view to rolling this out at Foundation Selby.  Yesterday was also a great opportunity for staff and customers from other teams to come together in a positive way and to be offered a tour of Progress Harrogate and the positive achievements and outcomes achieved so far.

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Richmond Fellowship

Steve from Richmond fellowship attended yesterday’s drop-in where he met with a number of customers regards employment advice etc.

Smoking Cessation Advice

Emily attended the Big Lunch where she continues to offer weekly smoking cessation advice and support to customers, staff and volunteers.  This is already proving a positive success as one person has recently stopped smoking with the support and advice offered by Emily.

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Next year will be the 10th Anniversary of the Big Lunch – we hope that all teams in Foundation will join in the event!

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