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Star News : All The Latest Headlines |
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A Thank You To Twining Enterprises The Star Centre would like to say a big thank you to Twining Enterprises for the donation of Computer Equipment that they kindly gave to us for our computer room. This Equipment is going to prove invaluable to us over the next year, as it will greatly improve our Camera group and our Admin groups respectively. It is donations like these that help us to offer services that are able to improve the lives of those who we are trying to help and for the service users to gain new skills with the help of the equipment that has been donated. Once Again… Thank You.
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Our New Service User Consultant Team We now have four new Service User Consultants who were elected by fellow service users. These new appointments will make a great deal of difference to how the Star Centre runs on a daily basis. All of the Consultants will be proactive in their roles and work alongside the staff team to develop new ways of helping people on a much more effective and structured way. They will attend Management Committee Meetings on a regular basis to put forward the service users’ ideas and help to implement more positive roles for all of the service users in order that they can develop the skills that can help with their day to day living. Our goal is to enable proactive service users to put forward the skills that they have and share these skills with others so that they can develop more self-confidence and maybe use those skills to enhance the quality of their lives. The staff team will be working alongside the service users who will help to run specific groups and be supported at all stages of development to ensure that no pressure is placed upon the individual at any time. This is a very exciting time for The Star Centre as everyone seems to be so focused on the new skills that are going to be brought in by the service users and for the staff team to work alongside them on an equal footing is something that we relish. The possibilities are endless. Watch this space. |
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The All New Women’s Afternoon The new women’s afternoon has turned out to be such an incredible success that it is now getting to the point of being one of the most popular groups that is running at the Star Centre. The diverse cultures and different backgrounds of the women who attend this dynamic afternoon are what makes it the success that it has become. Sham & Katrina are doing such an amazing job with this one and must be congratulated for all of the effort they have made to make Tuesday afternoons so dynamic. The scope of the Women’s Afternoon is vast, as new things are introduced on a regular basis and all of the women are bringing in their own skills and sharing them with all of those who attend the group. Anything may be discussed in this group. Everything spoken about within the Women’s Afternoon is totally confidential and this is an integral part of what makes it so successful. The activities on offer can be accessed by all who attend. The one thing that is different about this group compared to every other one that takes place at The Star Centre is that you do not have to have had a Mental Health problem to come along and be a part of this great afternoon that is solely run by women for women. Please contact either Sham or Katrina for more information as to how you can arrange an appointment and don’t forget to tell your friends about this one! |
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Self-Development Workshops The self-development workshops are going to be run by every member of the staff team to bring forward new skills for dealing with all of the issues that may stop the individual from moving forward into a more positive and meaningful life. The experience of mental ill-health can severely damage a person’s self-esteem. We hope to challenge this by working alongside service users who have gone through mental illness or are still working through their issues with strategies that will restore self-esteem to a more realistic level. We all at times doubt our own ability to achieve things or perhaps don’t even give something a try because we think we may fail or not reach the goals that we have set too high for ourselves in the first place. This series of self-development workshops is designed specifically to instill a better way of applying ourselves to given tasks that will encourage better self-esteem. All of the workshops will be based around practical ways of getting more socially skilled by developing interaction in a safe and enjoyable environment. This group is going to revolve around the needs of our service users and finding ways of getting the best from situations. We hope to make this a really fantastic group based on sharing the skills that we all carry as staff members and to use all of the skills that the service users have but may have either forgotten or felt too insecure to put forward so that everyone can learn from them. Each workshop will be based on a specific theme and run for a two week period so that after that time we can move on to other themes that will reinforce what we have learned. At this time there are many skills that service users have under their belts that we are all going to gain from. This will be seen in our ever changing timetable as those skills are put into good use. To all of those who have chosen to share their skills… Thank you. To any of you who would like to share some skills…. We would love to talk to you. |
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Admin Group As anyone who works in any kind of successful business is aware, one of the most important roles that is so important to a smooth running operation is the Administration. On this note we have formed an Admin Group that is going to help the Star Centre to be more effective at dealing with the production of leaflets, posters, flyers, documentation and so on. Service users will work alongside a member of staff to collate non personal documents, photographs, old historical data on the Star Centre and many more aspects that will enable us to be better placed to lay our hands on all the things we need to provide a fast and efficient service. Making hard copies of information that has been gathered by Compass over the last year will be a major task that will keep us busy for a very long time! But alongside this, people are going to learn new skills involving computer technology: working with Microsoft Word, Excel, Publisher, etc., and above all working alongside others and enjoying the interaction that will help their own self-confidence and self-development. We have service users who are really excited about being given this opportunity and our members of staff are on hand to fully support and guide them with all of the work that is at hand. This is just another aspect of what mental well-being is all about: empowering people with the belief that we can all achieve things together even in the most difficult of times and be equal to all of those around us no matter what background, ethnicity, culture or class we come from. We are looking for people who can help with translating our brochures and posters into different languages so that more people can be aware of our services. We are a charity, so would be unable to pay for this- but be assured that your work will go towards helping those who would either be unaware that our kind of day centre exists or, because of language barriers, be unable to understand what is written on the brochures. Please contact us if you would like to help. |
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Updated Feb 2010 |
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Congratulations To Our Award-Winning Volunteers Congratulations and a massive Thank You to Alastair, Dave, Kharnal and Ronnie for dedicating their time and skills to the successful running of the Star Centre. Their contribution and commitment is extremely important to us and has rightfully been recognised as part of the 25th anniversary celebrations of Volunteers’ Week. They received their awards in a special ceremony at the Paul Robeson Theatre in Hounslow’s Treaty Centre.
From left to right: Alastair, Ronnie, Kharnal & Dave.
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Summer BBQ 2009 Our annual Summer Barbeque took place earlier this month and, as usual, was a well-attended success. In a fine example of the unreliability of the British weather, after a week of blazing sunshine and clear blue skies, that Friday was somewhat overcast and windy, with a threat of rain which luckily did not appear until after we’d all eaten! There was music, laughter and plenty of socialising. It was a great opportunity for service users and staff to get together and have fun. As usual Farid, our chef, cooked up a feast. The food was delicious– a big Thank You to Farid for making the day so enjoyable. There are some photos of the Barbeque on our Photo Gallery page.
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