We held a St Davids Day afternoon tea at The Hope Centre on 1st March this was a fantastic event and was very well supported. A massive thank you to all who attended and helped out on the day, it was a brilliant success and we are already looking forward to next years!

We held a fantastic spring bingo at Carew Memorial Hall on Saturday 12th April thank you to all that joined us in making it a great evening!

On the 23rd May we had a visit from Henry Tufnell MP to the Hope Centre, it was a great opportunity to inform him about all the amazing work we do here at the Hope Centre and to also ask for his support with securing money for our wonderful charity!

On the Friday 6th June we held our 40th Anniversary at St Clements Church in Neyland in the evening. It was a wonderful celebration of the Hope Centre and a massive thank you to Neyland Ladies Choir for making the evening a great success.

On the 24th November 2024 we hosted a bingo night at the Hope Centre. Thank you to all that attended we raised over £700!

Sarah Arthur ran the London Marathon in April 2024 and raised over £4,000 for Hope! Amazing achievement! Thank you Sarah.

On the 13th April 2024 we had another bingo night!

The 14th June we had an open day at Hope, it was lovely to see old and new faces coming to the centre.

Friday 23rd August 2024 we had a quiz night, brilliant evening, lots of fun and money raised .

In July 2024 St Oswalds VA School did a litter pick and talent show and the proceeds came to Hope, totalling an incredible £1,063.22! Thank you.

Magi Arthur, 7 years old, was keen to do something positive during the Covid-19 lockdowns so she decided to set up a Tabletop Stall selling items from outside her house in Cresselly. She cleared out and sold a range of items raising funds for the HOPE Centre. Magi’s grandad John Parry has Multiple Sclerosis and comes to the Centre regularly. Magi wanted to “raise money to help people walk and be active” and is keen to support a local charity. Magi even sold her baby toys, bikes and a range of books resulting in a tremendous £202 for the special fund. Pictured below is Magi handing over the cheque to the HOPE Centre with her Grandparents John and Maureen Parry and Centre staff and therapists

Our thanks to the Rotary Club of Tenby for their recent donation of £100 to the HOPE Centre which will be put to good use now that the Centre is open again for the three days a week. Chairman Ken Brombley is shown below after having received the cheque.

We are all looking forward very much to seeing some of our Members tomorrow when they return to the Centre for their therapies. Many of them have felt the lockdown keenly as it has affected their mobility and we thank them for their confidence in coming back to HOPE. Those of you with MS might like to have a look at this information which includes dates of forthcoming Wellbeing Webinars.

MS Society (spopessentials6.com)

Our thanks to the Milford Haven Port Authority for its recent grant of £414.72 from its Community Fund – this money paid for some of the new parts for our oxygen therapy equipment in our Oxygen Barochamber. All the equipment was renewed back in September to ensure compliance with our Covd-19 protocols and procedures.

This may be useful.

There is a new directory of small, independent care and support services which you can see here: https://www.planed.org.uk/catalysts-for-care-directory-of-care-and-support-services-in-pembrokeshire/ This page explains the directory; click on the red rectangle at the top to see the actual directory as a PDF doc that can be printed out. Please note that this PDF doc is updated regularly to reflect the availability of services as well as new services that join as appropriate.  

Hopefully this could be a useful resource for people looking for a care or support service. In particular, the first part of the directory contains a list of ten ‘home help’ services that support people to live independently at home and get out into the community to do what matters to them. You can view the ‘home help’ services on this map to see the ones that are close to you: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/d/viewer?mid=151lt8zq7AOYyGroIgMvXyY27CTnKU13H&ll=51.83959522958418%2C-4.885162050000007&z=10 You can also see some of them give a 2-min introduction to their services in this video: https://www.facebook.com/101317194791154/videos/656018118447045

The whole point of this directory is to showcase small, independent care / support services, who have set up independently because they want to provide a highly personalised service in the their local area and build a real understanding and relationship with their customers. All of the services on this directory have committed to a code of practice (for instance having a customer contract, insurance, DBS checks, registered for tax etc.) and have support through the project to uphold this. You can see the code of practice and find out more about the directory in the first link above.

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and look forward to a New Year where we can all start to get back to normal. The Centre will be closed from the 23rd December, reopening on Tuesday 5th January for our limited oxygen and physical therapy sessions.

Once again our Centre is open for a limited number of oxygen dives and physical therapy sessions. All the Centre rooms have been streamlined and are constantly deep and steam cleaned as part of the various Covid-19 protocols we have had to put in place to ensure our Members’ safety which include the mandatory wearing of masks and PPE, social distancing and regular temperature checks. It has been so lovely to see those who have taken the brave step of returning to the Centre and we look forward to welcoming many more in the near future.

After so long, our Centre has re-opened for two mornings a week to deliver oxygen therapy. A lot of work and expense has gone into making the Centre and our oxygen barochamber Covid-19 compliant in order to safeguard our members, volunteers, staff and visitors and we are now working hard to make the visit to the Centre as nice an experience as it can be given the restrictions we have to comply with. We have introduced temperature screening, health questionnaires, sanitiser stations, track and trace qr code, personal protective equipment for all who wish to use it, one way systems to allow for social distancing, face masks and visors, brand new hoses and attachments for the oxygen stations in the barochamber and protocols and procedures to formalise our precautions. It was lovely to see some of our members this week after all this time. We have to thank Lynne Houlston once again for her fundraising which has really helped with the cost of re-opening – read her story below.

If you want to read our Covid-19 operating procedures click here