On Friday 29th June the Brothers of Charity Services celebrated their annual Heritage Day and Staff Awards at Thingwall Hall in Broadgreen. The theme of the day was Advocacy; inspired by a quote from Canon Peter Joseph Triest, “Listening to people is the starting point for involvement in their lives; it is their need, not our vision which should prevail”.
The day started off with a musical performance from Knotty Ash School, a specialist sign language school. The children thoroughly enjoyed being part of the day and we loved watching their performance!
The final of the Health BOCS Football Tournament followed on from the beautiful performance. The Thingwall Warriors, our Merseyside Team, and Gardening FC, our Lancashire team, played each other for the BOCS Heritage Shield. An excited crowd from both services gathered to watch the final hoping to see their team win. It was a close match, with the two teams giving it their best shot to become the new champions. The match resulted in a draw at 4 – 4, with both teams scoring some great goals!
While the football match was under way, the Heritage Day stalls in the training room and the garden shop were starting to get busy with customers. The social enterprises had a variety of activities for people to get involved with. The Walled Garden team had a craft stall for people to make their own wooden train. Crafty Uniforms had a stall of homemade jewellery and other creative objects, Creative Arts also had a stall of homemade objects which were very popular! Clare from our Lancashire Services also had a stall promoting Guide Dogs; a charity which is close to her heart. Our Voice for All Group set up an exhibition, ‘You’d Hear Them Jingle’ in the garden shop. The Resource Centre were selling homemade Jazzy Jars filled with sweets which went down a treat! There were also lots of fun games such as the Tombola, Hook a Duck and Hoops on Frogs.
As well as the stalls, our canteen on site at Thingwall Hall provided hot dogs and lasagne and Roccoco brought along a range of delicious cakes which were enjoyed by everyone. With the hot weather we were lucky to have an ice-cream van onsite; he was very busy with queues of people all day!
Greenbank Sports Academy joined us and set up a game of Inclusive Cricket for the people we support to take part in. They also kindly brought along a fantastic variety of bikes for everyone to try! Everybody got involved and loved the activities. Also throughout the day we had an amazing DJ, Dan Spellman, who played a range of popular music for everyone to sing and dance to.
Heritage Day was a great event that brought all staff, clients and the community from across the services together to learn and celebrate the heritage of the Brothers of Charity Services. It gave everybody a chance to meet and interact with new people and also have a fun day out with their friends and colleagues. Thank you to everyone who came along and shown their support and helped make the day so special.
What a great day we all had, raising an amazing £554! All money raised will go towards future events for the Brothers of Charity Services.
