DEMOCRACY AND VOTING WORKSHOPS  Monday 6th December  2010

  In partnership with Democratic Service Department of Bracknell Forest Be Heard members were given opportunity to see and experience first hand on election voting process. After a presentation from two of the department officer and councillor Dorthy Hayes the members able to nominate themselves for various representative positions and give a presentation to the group why they should be voted for. Then using genuine voting booth and voting papers each member voted for the person they thought best for this position. The workshops aimed also to promote that it is everyone's right to vote in local and national elections.  

BRACKNELL FOREST ANNUAL PARTNERSHIP EVENT , Monday 26th July 2010

  Trevor supported by David attended this event which brought together lots of senior people from all sorts of backgrounds. The day had serious workshops where groups of people looked at what would be important in the lives of particular residents in Bracknell.  All the information gathered will then form action plan for Backnell Forest.

UNITED VOICES/ BE HEARD AGM,  Friday 19th October 2010
After lot of preparation a DVD was shown to the audience which had large number of activities Be Heard members had been involved with over previous year. There were also presentation by United Voices groups in Slough and Windsor. Louisa Jones was voted as member's member for the year and Alan Dale and Corrine Adams were jointly nominated as Development Leader's member.   After this over 20 Be Heard members  enjoyed the celebration lunch ,activities and music in the afternoon.

JUST ADVOCACY AGM  2010

  Several Be Heard members joined Just Advocacy AGM and Jamboree in Farnborough.  The audience heard about workshops that are available as well as enjoying an afternoon of music. 

SPONSORED WALK , Monday 11th October 2010

  Instead of one of the regular weekly meetings the members organised a sponsored walk to raise some funds.  Luckily the day was sunny and the event was enjoyed by everyone.           

ALISON TASKER FRON LINKs  , Monday,  26th July 2010

 Alison came and spoke about the role of LINKs and how it can help to make sure that both Health and Social services provision are the very best they possibly can be. They was no shortage of topics and conversation, Alison has offered to call back to the Be Heard group meetings regularly to share information. 

COUNTRYSIDE PARKS VISIT , Monday 26th July 2010

  Rose Wicks from Bracknell Forest came and visited a weekly members meeting to share with members what work she is involved in and also ask members if they could again be happy to get give advice and help.  There was no shortage of willing volunteers and we hope to have a similar success as gained last year by being awarded a Gold Award in recognition of our previous partnership working with the department.  

'GETTING IT RIGHT' CAMPAIGN June 2010  •   

During this week long event there was lots of different organisations represented at the Band Stand engaged in conversation with the general public. A lot of the Be Heard members enjoyed the sunshine and fresh air handing out leaflets and explaining what activities they contribute to. 

LONGHILL PARK FESTIVAL  , Saturday 19th June 2010     •    

  It was the first ever inclusive music festival at Longhilll Park in Bracknell. Many of the Be Heard memebrs spent time visiting the event which had a large variety of singers performing. 

 

 

 NATIONAL FORUM REGIONAL REPRESENTATIVE VISIT     •  

 

  Following Barabara's success being voted the co-regional representative on the National Forum  she invited the other successful candidate,  Dawn from Voice of Kent to visit Bracknell.  Dawn spend the day looking around Bracknell and then came to  Be Heard meeting where she was introduced to the rest of the members.  Dawn was able to explain the Voice for Kent was different than Be Heard in that it checked to make sure that all the self advocates in Kent were involved in their Parternship Board and was also a campaigning group.

SPORTS FUN DAY,  Wednesday 30th June 2010  •  

  The sun shone again for the annual sports fun day which was held at Bracknell Lesure Centre. There was a large number of contestants from Be Heard with several winning trophies. To make the day competitive United Voices had  won its trophy for the best overall team and this year it was won by Slough. Click here to see members in action.

Social Work Student on work experience  •   

Continuing our good working relationship with Thames Valley University Be Heard members welcomed Ruth, who is studying to be a social worker, to spend 20 days on work experience with them. Ruth was able to see first hand the lifestyle that people lead and also appreciate what is really important to them. With this first hand information and also with knowledge gained with Social Workers at the Community Team Ruth was able to successfully pass this part of her course.

 

 

JOHN WARREN TALKING TO EMMA HARRISON FROM BRACKNELL FOREST NEWS , Thursday 3rd June 2010

  Thursday 3rd June saw a large turn out at the Bracknell Voluntary and Community Sector Conference which had as topics 'The opportunities for young persons volunteering',' User Led Organisation' and   'Impact Assessment Toolkit'
Be Heard had already been selected as a group to be involved in the pilot trials for the impact assessment toolkit which enables voluntary groups to reflect on what they were doing and evaluating what difference they are making. it is easy for groups to say what they do but much harder in many cases to see the impact which very often does not have results you can see.
'There was a brief outline that Bracknell Forest needs to have in place a  User Led Organisation representing all groups with a disability by the end of the year which Be heard members have been doing research on recently.. 

PERSONALISATION AND BLACK & MINORITY ETHNIC CONFERENCE, Tuesday 25th May 2010  •   

 Tuesday 25th was  a busy and long day for Louisa,John and Keith who along with Ruth and David attended a Personalisation and Black and Minority Ethnic conference in London. The day was all about discovering the reason  why some groups of people do not take up or are unaware of opportunities available to them.

BRACKNELL FOREST EQUALITY AND COHESION FORUM, Wednesday 19th May 2010  •   

The meeting organised by Thames Valley Police was previously the Racial Incident Advisory forum.  However the meeting is now aimed at a broader part of our community and Dean was warmly welcomed to be the Be Heard representative on the evening.  

BRACKNELL TOWN COUNCIL AWARD,  May 2010  •  

  Chris Nuttall received a £200 cheque from Bracknell Town Council appreciating all the hard work the members are involved with. All the members have given a big thank you to the Council for this. 

QUIZ NIGHT, Monday 17th May 2010  •  

  Over 50  members, friends of Be Heard and United Voices attended the annual Quiz Night at the Boot Inn, Bracknell. The teams were very competitive  and the evening was greatly enjoyed by all.  For more photos click here

SOUTH CENTRAL NHS Health Self assessment validation , May 2010   •   

  Corrine and John attended this meeting in Newbury where the Primary Care Trust for East Berkshire was questioned on the services and experiences of persons with a learning disabiilty.  The content of the meeting was very hard but there were some very good challenging questions. There was a representative from South Central NHS that also came to a Be Heard members meeting the following week to share the report with everyone. 

TVU Communication Training,  May 2010  •   

 Over the course of 3 days 13 members from Be Heard went to Thames Valley University to talk to Social Work students on a variety of topics. John and Sophie spoke to students on their personal experience of having Asperger Syndrome. While 11 other members went and in small groups spoke to students on the importance of good, clear communication. 

SOUTH CENTRAL NHS CONFERENCE, Thursday 11th March 2010  •

 Having visited the Be Heard members at a weekly meeting the project manager invited members to participate in a days of consultation at Newbury. Geoff,Keith,Sophie,Louisa and Dean all volunteered and gave lots of really useful information on the day.  The main theme was appreciating that not only is there a need for good clinical care but also how important it is to have a healthy lifestyle which includes such things as meaningful activities and friendships.

SOUTH CENTRAL MENTAL HEALTH & LEARNING DISABILITY, Tuesday 9th  March 2010  •

John and Alan attended this event which saw several very important speakers from all over England highlighting the need for better care and support for persons with a learning disability when using the National Health Service.  The day also gave opportunity for attendees to sign up and volunteer to be involved with serveral pilot projects which were aimed at gathering information and evaluating where efforts are needed. Needless to say both John and Alan were very keen on making sure everyone was aware that all of the Be Heard members would be pleased to take part. 

KENNEY JOB SUCCESS, Monday 15th February 2010  •

    Following success at getting a job in Newbury members gave their best wishes to Kenney who will no longer be able to attend Monday meetings. We all hope Kenny keeps in touch and we get to see him soon. 

SWANWICK SELF ADVOCACY CONFERENCE, 31st January 2010  •

On 31st January a small group of members headed north  again to participate  in the Swanwick self advocacy conference. For Romaine and Joanne this was their first visit while Vivenne,Keith and Geoff had been once before. There was a range of workshops to participate in all of which had a theme this year of 'Making Choices', Vivivenne chose Art, Geoff  chose  Relationships and Family while Joanne, Keith and Romaine joined the Drama group. The workshops were an opportunity also to meet old and new friends from all over the country including Norther Ireland. But time at Swanwick was not all about work and luck was certainly on Be Heard members side. Everyone won prizes on the tombola, Geoff won £9 at bingo with 2 lines and a house out of possible 10 prizes which was then followed by him winning 2 prizes at the disco night prize draw along with Joanne who also won a prize.  There was no luck involved in Joanne being the winner of the drama group prize. As part of the drama group activities Romaine took a multi role of author, director and narrator of a short role play of someone making a choice which involved serveral other members of the group. 

                                                                      

KENNEL LANE SCHOOL  "LIFE AFTER SCHOOL" , Thursday 28th January 2010

  Sophie,Barbara and Dean attended this event speaking to lots of people about the activities Be Heard self-advocacy group achieves.  They saw lots of parents and students who took a lot of interest in what they had to say.

SOUTH CENTRAL NHS SPECIALIST SERVICES PEER REVIEW WORKSHOP, Tuesday 26th  January 2010  •

As the title suggest it was hard meeting for Barbara,Sophie, Louisa and as well as David who was supporting. But everyone gave very good views and opinions on how people in health services who help with learning disability could share information and support eachother to make sure that everyone gets best service. This was the first meeting and more work will be done

'YES WE CAN ' Conference LONDON, Tuesday 19th  January 2010  •

 Alan was supported by David to attend the 'YES WE CAN' conference which looked at why people from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds  are less likely  to be involved in sharing their views and opinions at the meetings such partnership board. There were lots of reasons given one of which was they dont want to contribute, but other reasons were because people did not know that they could and how they could do it. 

PARTNERSHIP BOARD HEALTH SUBGROUP, Monday 18th  January 2010  •

Vivienne, Louisa and Geoff attended new health group which will give information to the large partnership board . There have been two meeting so far but there is good progress being made by what the group will do and how they will do it. 

HELPING TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT PERSON, Tuesday 14th  January 2010  •

Several members have helped  a new provider of support services recently in Bracknell choose quality support staff that have applied for employment. This was done in a setting by having a game of bowling with all the applicants at the end of which Be Heard fed back information as part of interview process.                                                                                                                                                                                     

MEETING UP WITH CLASP IN WOKINGHAM, Tuesday 12th  January 2010  •

Two members Ginny and John went to Wokingham to share experiences of the Be Heard group with members of the Self advocacy group in Wokingham from CLASP. There was lots of friendly chat with a promise to meet up more regularly.