Category: Health & Wellbeing

Stirchley Baths Table Tennis Club and Community Sessions

 

One of the great success stories at Stirchley Baths has been the development of community table tennis  since 2016, starting with a couple of tables and now with five tables – Community Sessions run on  Mondays 2-3.30pm and Fridays 2-4pm. These are open to adults at all levels and only cost £2/session. The sessions are very sociable and new members are always welcome. Thank you to Matt and Linda who are the volunteer leaders for the sessions.

The next step – In 2019  a few casual players decided they would like to have a go at playing more competitively so Stirchley Baths Table Tennis Club was formed and a team  entered into the local Birmingham league. Unfortunately the first season was interrupted by Covid but in the year following lockdown the club won the 22/23 Division 4 and were promoted- a great achievement for a new club! For the 23/4 Winter season the club progressed to having entering 2 teams – Division 2 and Division 3 – both consolidated their position plus Noel Dias was awarded the trophy for best stats in Division 3 at the League AGM in July – well done Noel! The club has also been successful with 2 grants enabling more equipment and 2 match tables to be purchased, as well as running Coaching Sessions on a Wednesday evening.

Carrying on the progression 2 teams have been playing in the Summer League this year and it is hoped to enter 3 teams into the 24/5 Winter Leagues.

Club Night is run on a Monday evening 7.30-9pm for team members.

If interested or for more information contact Karen Cheney – karen.l.cheney@gmail.com

 

 

Stirchley Baths – great example of good practice “Ageing Better”

Click on the above pages to open the newsletter  and have a read of some of the great opportunities and activities for over 50s that take place here at Stirchley Baths and find out a bit more about Ageing Better funded Selly Oak Constituency Neighbourhood Network Scheme.

You may also want to take a look at the Birmingham NNS blog site https://brumnns.wordpress.com

or www.birmingham.connecttosupport.org

 

 

A Visit To The Memory Cafe

On Tuesday 19th February I was invited to visit the Memory Café, a monthly event, initially set up as part of Stirchley Baths’ heritage programme in collaboration with Rachel Duggan and Carla Smith from Leaf Creative Arts. The event is held in the Cinema Room at Stirchley Baths. The Café provides a space for people with dementia, Alzheimer’s and other memory problems to engage with multi-sensory arts activities, to create and reminisce, with a steady supply of hot drinks and cakes.

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Stirchley (and much wider) – Investing in neighbourhoods and communities.

A day for 150 community activists, public servants and others to get the know each other better started with the cacophony of 75 simultaneous chats.   The speed dating started the morning by filling the main hall at the baths with a cacophony of conversation. What a racket….

Later the morning switched to feedback from a range of projects which had support from the Birmingham Community Safety Partnership Small Grants fund.

A number of people there talked about what they do and where they do it… simply to help people recognise what’s going on….

What does Springfield Project do?  Listen to Sarah Robbins on youtube.

Birmingham Community Matters runs surgeries to help small community groups and active citizens in the city – as Rhidi Kaleria explains…

Patricia Watson and Angela Field talk about the Brandwood Centre.

Birgit from Change Kitchen CIC Birmingham.

Ann Harkin and Dr Asha Patel of Innovating Minds CIC talk about their work supporting women and children who have experienced or witnessed.  This clip ends with a quite a wide range of how people can get involved – including volunteers.

Subah Rasab is chair of Balsall Heath Forum and talks here about their work.

Rebecca Debenham of the Northfield Community Partnership in South Birmingham on how starting with employment skills give them scope to provide a much wider range of help.

Sheila Hall of Allen’s Cross Community Association Birmingham on why they are their and what they do.

Oli Armstrong from Northfield Arts Forum.

https://youtu.be/8gUhqRjErPE

Helga Edstrom works for the Office for Civil Society – here she talks about finding better ways for funders, public servants and local people to work together.

John Grace recently set up Youth Work Europe in Birmingham, although he is starting in Bartley Green.