The Talk About Trust Community Outreach through Pavilion in The Park April 2023 – April 2024
Part of the charitable remit of the Talk About Trust is to provide diversionary activities for young people and enhance community cohesion and engagement from its premises Pavilion in The Park ( PiP). PiP encompasses a revenue generating café donating any profits to The Talk About Trust, our office and a community room, all set in the beautiful surroundings of The Great Field on Poundbury. 2024 sees our third full year of operations.
The Community Room
PiP community room is well established as a place to come and meet friends or colleagues, enjoy family gatherings, hold business or charity meetings; it is firmly recognised as being a calm area for children’s clubs, events and for the local community to use.
During this year we increased our relationship with Miles King and the People Need Nature group, who held several weekly meetings and activities for social prescribing such as Mindfulness, Yin Yoga, Tai Chi, singing, poetry, knitting, foraging and art activities. We also provided time every week for the local NHS Midwives to use our space for local families to come and have their babies weighed and to talk about any concerns.
Our regular bookings include activity sessions for the Deaf Community, a well-established weekly Chess group (with children attending!) a Carers Support group, hosting the Space Youth Project and a new book club. In addition to this, our room is a regular meeting space for TADDS (Teaching Alliance of Dorset Special Schools), the local retired Magistrates and Dorset County Council, for example. In between more formal meetings we also enjoy welcoming our local community for birthday parties, social gatherings, baby showers and much more!
It is also a huge pleasure to be the hub for the weekly park run and the weekly junior park run which are so well supported what ever the weather!
Our community outreach
After School Art Club
We continued to host a very popular After School Art Club which runs every 2 weeks throughout term time. The sessions run for an hour and are supported by two members of staff from Damers School and our wonderful volunteers. The free sessions are available for children aged 5-10 years and a carer. Lead by our enthusiastic volunteers, families are encouraged to spend time together and have fun whilst engaging in art-based activities. Since September 2024 we have been joined by Lizzie, a volunteer from Art in Poundbury who brings with her a wealth of art expertise and Primary school teaching. The first few sessions this term have been even more successful, parents/ grandparents comment about how much they enjoy spending time creating art with their children. We are very grateful to Art in Poundbury for funding this wonderful creative outreach.
from other schools attend. Led by a teacher and parent liaison leader, with help from enthusiastic volunteers, families are encouraged to spend time together and have fun whilst engaging in art-based activities. We are very lucky that the sessions continue to be sponsored by Art in Poundbury and Parkers Estate Agents.
Senior Social - held 2nd Thursday of the month
Our regular coffee, cake and chat mornings for older local residents are well attended with new faces join the group every month. We offer an opportunity for people to socialise in a relaxed setting and so help reduce avoid loneliness and isolation. We have been delighted to see AGE UK bringing people to the sessions and in September of this year we were joined by Kay from Age UK who gave our guests some brain boosting activities which was very well received and enjoyed at our last session.
CREATIVE CLAY AND DIGITAL CHAMPIONS
This outreach project ran until December 2023 and we are actively seeking more funds to enable us to have additional sessions as it provides such a calm and inspiring activity. Debbie and her Creative Clay group provide a diversionary activity for parents, carers and seniors who enjoy coming together to share a common goal and get creative with clay. They have made some fabulous items which were displayed in the community room for everyone to enjoy and participants remarked that “these sessions were relaxing, calming and great for meeting new people” and “Creative Clay really helped with my confidence, talking and meeting new people”.
Coffee and Computers
The Coffee and Computers initiative was funded until December 2023 and gave a monthly home to Dorchester IT who were on hand to help with any digital questions and queries; people brought their own phones or tablets and could get expert help on the things that would make a difference to their lives.
We now have Digital Champions who have a place in the Community Room every Thursday and who offer free advice to anyone who may have questions about their smart phone etc and who would like to learn more about ordering items online or booking appointments etc.
HALLOWEEN
At Halloween in 2023, we organised a colouring competition ( with over 100 entries) and asked guests if they could find all the hidden spiders and skeletons in Pips café during Halloween weekend. Prizes were awarded for different age categories and we were stunned by the talent and enthusiasm of all ages!
In 2024 we hosted a Craft morning during Half Term week where families could make a lantern to take home. We also held the Art Competition again due to its success as it’s great to fill the cafe with all the children’s efforts!
Damers Christmas Lunch for the most vulnerable Poundbury families
Working in collaboration with Sandra Scott from Damers School who looks after vulnerable families, we organised a festive afternoon for families who may not be able to enjoy a Christmas lunch together and give them a joyful Christmas experience. Sandra identified families which would benefit from this, invited them to join us on December 18th and ensured that each family would feel comfortable with who they were sat with. PiPs welcomed 33 guests from Damers School and this was very kindly funded by The Rotary Club.
Families enjoyed a delicious turkey lunch with all the trimmings and some festive puddings too! The highlight of the event was seeing the children’s faces when they spotted a bearded man in red clothes coming towards Pips… Father Christmas kindly dropped in with a special gift for each child and he spent time chatting with the children, listening to their Christmas jokes from their crackers and having a good chuckle!
Christmas, Easter and Summer, HAF Clubs
During the Christmas, Easter and Summer Holidays we work with Dorset County Council Holiday Activities & Food Scheme which allow us to put on vital and enriching holiday clubs for families which have a HAF voucher code. These are families who receive hot school meals at school and who are automatically given a code which they can use at any club in Dorset which is funded by the scheme.
We are very lucky to have staff from Damers school and a team of volunteers who not only help to support families who would most benefit, but who also plan, provide resources and take care of the children on the day. The objective of the club is to provide a safe and engaging place for the most disadvantage children in our locality during the holidays, ensuring they are well fed (hot lunch provided every day), and engaged with fun activities and play.
We welcomed a range of children from Damers First School, Manor Park First, Dorchester Middle, St Mary’s Catholic School, St. Osmunds Middle and Greenford Primary. The children had so much fun with activities such as finger painting, scavenger hunts outside, Samba drumming, learning about healthy foods from the Friendly Food Club, making dens with tarpaulin, carrying out pond dipping activities, making marshmallows covered in chocolate and creating yummy Easter Nests too!
We were very kindly supported by our local supermarkets Dorchester Tescos & Co-op, Waitrose at Poundbury and Weymouth Asda who between them supported us with funding, craft & food items, Christmas gifts and chocolate Easter bunnies to take home.
Easter Event 2024
Our Easter Event this year centred around Easter Monday in collaboration with Discover Dorchester and their Big Easter Egg Roll on The Great Field. From 10am families were greeted at PiPs by the Easter Bunny who enjoyed waving and giving high-fives to all the children – some accompanying dogs were intrigued by our bunny too!
In the Community Room, children used their eggcellent imaginations to decorate boiled eggs ready for the big Easter Egg Roll on the Great Field.
Families were also able to come and complete our Easter Trail, indulge in some delicious Easter treats at the café and let the children relax with some easter colouring. Just before 11am the Mayor visited the Community Room where the children showed off their creations ready for his inspection at the Easter Egg Roll – he was very impressed with the efforts in which the children and their families had put in! The Easter Egg Roll was a great success and we were so pleased to be able to work with Matilda at Discover Dorchester to put on a free event; Matilda said “Thank you so much for a brilliant day! So many brilliant eggs came over to the egg rolling!”.
TEENAGE HANG OUT DAY AUGUST 2024
Our annual Teen Holiday Hangout day which we run with Dorchester Town Council on The Great Field was a great success! We had a slightly nervous windy and grey start with the weather
but that didn’t stop over 160 children aged 9-14 years old coming to spend the day with us!
Activities included inflatables, football coaching, henna painting and hair braiding, games, Creative Clay, various craft activities and not forgetting the hilarious Sumo Wrestling which was brilliantly led by William and Graham who were Volunteers from Waitrose Poundbury and who spent most of the day laughing along with all the Teens!
MUSIC AT THE PAVILION
We were very lucky with the weather at 3 out of 4 of our planned Music at The Pavilion events, we just had to admit defeat in September when it was a very wet Autumnal day. During the Summer we were entertained by Desafinado, Bev from Tom Browns Strummers, The Jammy Band, Nick Capaldi, The Puddletown Ukulele Group (PUGS) and Damaris who gave us a relaxing afternoon with some jazz, country, 60s, 70s and 80s and some soulful tunes. These are free events; kindly made possible through funding from Poundbury Community Trust and Dorchester Town Council Small Grant Scheme which will also go towards funding future family events.
SUMMARY
With the support of Kerry Smith, our part time community engagement manager, colleagues at PiPs, our trusty Club Leaders and committed volunteers – who have limitless energy and passion for helping our community – PiPs has been able to continue to improve its outreach programme and community events.
Our objective is to grow, be even more visible and supportive throughout the next year, thus welcoming more people into our ever-increasing and diverse community. The calendar for bookings in the Community Room has very few days in which it isn’t used; we would like to build on existing relationships we have and also look for new initiatives which can provide support and improvements to our local community.
November 2024
For more information please contact kerry@pipspoundbury.com