On Friday 30th June, The Brothers of Charity Services celebrated their annual Heritage Day and Staff Awards at Lisieux Hall in Chorley.
The theme of the day was bringing people together; inspired by a quote from Canon Peter Joseph Triest, founder of the Brothers of Charity – “The love of thy neighbour? It is the love that should unite you by the means of bonds so strong that despite different origins or talents, you become one of mind, heart and soul.”
The final of the Health BOCS Football Tournament kicked off the event. The Thingwall Warriors, our Merseyside team, and Landbase FC, our Lancashire team, played each other for the BOCS Heritage Shield. OnCORE, a supplier of BOCS catering enterprises, provided half time refreshments for the players. An excited crowd gathered to watch the final hoping to see their team win.
It was a close match, with both teams giving it their all to be the champions. The end score was 3 – 2 to Landbase FC, scoring a thrilling goal at the end of the match.
While the football match was under way, the Heritage Day stalls outside the Voice for All room were starting to get busy with customers. The social enterprises had a variety of interactive activities and stalls for people to get involved with. The team at the Walled Garden showed people how to plant their own cress to take home with them. Crafty Uniforms put on a ‘make a bookmark’ activity with lots of art materials enabling customers to get creative, Inprint also had a stall selling cards and stationary items that they had produced themselves. Pets Corner’s animals proved to be very popular with visitors and received plenty of cuddles, whilst the Creative Arts team were kept busy painting customers faces! Claire Whittle also had a stall promoting Guide Dogs, a charity which is close to her heart, she had material showing how people see with different eye conditions.
There were also lots of fun games such as tombola, Hook a Duck, Bat the Rat, Hoops on Frogs. As well as the outside stalls, Roccoco Coffee Lounge was set up inside the Voice for All room, serving a delicious selection of cakes, fruit skewers, hot dogs and bacon butties.
Health and Wellbeing was another theme of the day with local gym, Active Nation, carrying out fitness test and seeing who could cycle the furthest in a minute on an exercise. Charlotte’s Tandems, a national charity brought tandem bicycles to the event for people to try out, the charity offers free tandem bike hire to people with disabilities.
Throughout the day we had the fabulous Tabu, a local band, playing a range of popular music for everyone to dance and sing along to. DanceSyndrome also joined us with a fantastic and motivate dance session; inviting everybody to get up and dance with them.
Heritage Day was a superb event that brought clients, staff and the community from across the services together to learn about and celebrate the history of the Brothers of Charity. It also gave everyone the opportunity to meet new people and to have a fun day out with their friends and colleagues.
The Staff Awards event followed on from the Heritage Day and took place in the Voice for All room. Read more about it here.