week 109! 25 months 😎

Back home saw a swift return to life! But weeks ago a trip to London had been planned for me and Rose as a late birthday trip for her. Her love of art saw a trip to frameless followed by shopping and an Italian dinner along with some little impromptu drop ins as we travelled the city. I love spending time with her, she’s amazing company and I am blessed to have amazing friendships with my children 🤗🥰 she’s mending well and we can see the possibility of normal being a very real thing for her, her determination over the last 9 months has been inspiring ❤️

County meeting, dealing with clubs across the region and a couple outside who want to engage to resolve the issues around welfare officers, some safeguarding matters and getting ready to take on the Archery England Federation Crosses all keeping me busy when I have not been at work this week!

The news that my hard work paid of and I have passed my PBS course 🥳 is rewarding, and that I have been asked to be one of a handful of people selected to be trained in how to deliver the 1 day course across the business, makes it very rewarding but I have to say, if anyone ever suggests an intense level 5 course – consider with caution, it’s usually over 2 years for a reason and 5 months was incredibly had work 😱🤔😳 but worth it in the end and I can go back to concentrating on my level 3 and level 4 courses, lots to do and equally intense subjects, but hopefully by the new year I will be able to look back with some pride over what I have achieved across the 3 courses.

A little bit of finalising plans for the coming weeks and that allowed me to focus on Monday’s session at Kingswood Urban Development Project, grateful to be indoors as the heat was somewhat intense! As previously we ran bookable SEND sessions in the morning and drop in sessions in the afternoon. Caught up with people we had seen before and saw lots of new people two, across the day we catered for around 50 people, great to see everyone and hope to see them next month. Some great feedback from both sessions but particularly around the SEND provision which is always great to hear, it’s good to know we are getting it right, whilst we plan with everyone when working together, we only know if it’s working by hearing from those who come along.

I had been asked by several people to drop in to Lilleshall for a catch up and to offer support at this year’s youth festival. I did just that and was joined by Rob and Aidan from Kingswood Urban Development Project who hopefully enjoyed it as much as they said, they were certainly good company. List of great matches, lots of hugs and catch ups and I collected those badges I will be setting out to get in the post soon. 😊

Some intense hours at work over the next week as we support a young person going through an especially difficult time so please be patient if that impacts my time here.