Monday 17 December 2018

Our Favourite Moments of 2018

As we come to the end of another year, below is a selection of our highlights from the past 12 months:

January

The KIM 4 HIM service was established in Flintshire thanks to The Big Lottery Fund, securing KIM's support for men’s mental health for four years.


Members of the KIM 4 HIM group enjoying a BBQ in The Hub's garden.


February

The young people from Coleg Cambria's decorating department came to brighten up The Hub with lovely new colours.  Our building was transformed.  Thank you!
Mike Dodd from Flintshire County Council delivered a great social enterprise workshop and we had a visit from our local Assembly Member, Hannah Blythyn.
Alison Hulmes from BASW (British Association of Social Workers) visited us and invited KIM to deliver a workshop to their National Conference in Cardiff, which we did in June.

March

We held KIM's Co-Production Day with Mark John-Williams at the Holiday Inn in Northop, attended by 105 people.

April

We had great news from The Steve Morgan Foundation who kindly gave us three years funding for EVOLution, our volunteering support and development project.
The Co-Production project at Greenfield Valley started producing the Wellbeing leaflet.

May

We settled in at 'The Spoke', KIM's new outreach office in the Luke O'Connor Resource Centre in Hightown, Wrexham.

June

We went on some outings; a theatre trip to see Priscilla at Theatr Clwyd, a cinema trip for young people and we went to Storyhouse in Chester.  Everyone traveled to the venues independently and a great time was had by all.
BBC Radio 4's 'All in the Mind' presenter Claudia Hammond and her sound engineer Pam visited KIM to record a feature after Hannah nominated us.  We went on to win the 'All in the Mind' Community Group category and went to the ceremony in London.  The award was presented to KIM by Dame Kelly Holmes.


From left to right: Annie, Hannah, Dame Kelly Holmes, Amy and Rachel.

July

KIM Community Choir sang at The Llangollen International Eisteddford for the fourth year running.

August

We hold out annual Summer Garden Party with Macsen (father and son duo Mike and Josh).  Lots of fun and delicious food!
The BBC Radio 4 Listening Project recorded Rachel and Jade for a BBC Children in Need special at The Hub.  The programme was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 twice and again on BBC Radio Wales over the next few months.

September

KIM hosted the 'Small is Beautiful' conference with the Wales School of Social Work Research from Swansea University.  Commissioners from across Wales attended the talk about the future of commissioning for small charities as well as the Welsh Governments Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Chris Jones.

October
KIM gave a presentation and delivered a workshop for the Steve Morgan Foundation's first ever conference at The Carden Park Hotel in Cheshire.


Amy and Annie speaking on stage at the Steve Morgan Foundation conference.

November

Mark Isherwood AM visited KIM and spoke to the team about the work we do.

December

Eight women from our Welsh Language and Culture course achieved Level 1 OCN Accreditation.  Well done all!

Finally...

IT'S CHRISTMAS!
Many thanks to everyone who has supported KIM over the last 12 months and a special thanks to all KIM's fantastic volunteers.  See you all in January!

The KIM Team




Friday 14 December 2018

Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!

The title translates to Let them eat cake! 

See the excerpt from Wikipedia at the bottom of this post.


The Flintshire KIM Her groups wished to take part in some seasonal activities. Sian thought this would be an ideal opportunity to bring the different drop in groups together, to step out of their comfort zones and learn new skills. Christmas cake decorating ran for 4 weeks and the feedback from this included; 'Really enjoyed it and had a go at something I wouldn't normally do. Getting out made me feel so much better!"

The phrase is commonly attributed to Marie Antoinette
"Let them eat cake" is the traditional translation of the French phrase "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche", supposedly spoken by "a great princess" upon learning that the peasants had no bread. Since brioche was a luxury bread enriched with butter and eggs, the quotation would reflect the princess's disregard for the peasants, or her poor understanding of their situation.
While the phrase is commonly attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette,[1] there is no record of her having said it. It appears in book six of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions, his autobiography (whose first six books were written in 1765, when Marie Antoinette was nine years of age, and published in 1782). The context of Rousseau's account was his desire to have some bread to accompany some wine he had stolen; however, feeling he was too elegantly dressed to go into an ordinary bakery, he recalled the words of a "great princess":[2]
At length I remembered the last resort of a great princess who, when told that the peasants had no bread, replied: "Then let them eat brioches."
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions
Rousseau does not name the "great princess" and he may have invented the anecdote, as Confessions cannot be read as strictly factual.[3]