Cheltenham Know Your Patch Check in and Chat
On Wednesday morning, GRCC hosted our first Cheltenham Know Your Patch Check in and Chat network meeting. An unstructured meeting offering the chance for a relaxed chat around anything that the attendees fancied. Have a read about how it went.
To give context, the Know Your Patch networks are multi-sector networks for anyone involved in the adult social care field, supporting older and vulnerable people to maintain independence and wellbeing. GRCC run the networks in Cheltenham and the Cotswolds. You can read more about these networks here.
We started off the meeting with some introductions. There were 10 people on call including GRCC staff and this was the sweet spot in terms of involving everyone in conversation. We had representatives from Hester’s Way Partnership, Men in Shed’s, Social Prescribers, Social Workers, Parkinson’s UK and the Isbourne Wellbeing Centre.
As Angela Gilbert, who was facilitating the meeting, said, this wasn’t your typical meeting. With no agenda, we were relying on members to join in discussions and guide the meeting.
We first started talking about the topic on everyone’s lips at the moment, which is restarting and re-opening. It was noted that whilst some organisations were raring to go, there were others that were taking a more cautious approach. For many older people, the first hurdle would be just getting out the garden gate with many having been shielding for over a year.
Other areas of discussion included how it has made life easier with meetings taking place online and a number concurred that they hoped some meetings would stay online after re-opening. A final point was about how venues re-open safely and stay open. It’s worth having a look at our community building COVID-19 guidance page, which has all the information about re-opening safely. You can view that here.
A further topic of conversation was around funding. This has been a topic in a number of our meetings recently and it’s certainly useful to have discussions around where there is funding available and tips for applications.
For Cheltenham funding, take a look at their community grants and funding page, where you can find details of the Community Resilience fund, Community Pride grant and Cheltenham Zero Community fund. Click here to view that.
Towards the end of the meeting, attendees shared news from their organisation with Men in Shed’s notifying us they’d re-opened and are taking referrals for new members and the West Cheltenham Community Pantry screensharing their website.
Overall, it was a hugely successful first meeting and we look forward to taking this forward! If you would like to join the Cheltenham Know Your Patch network, then sign up here. Our next overall meeting will be on the 28th April.