Oh the weather outside is.....

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow....

Here we are again. Nearly a month later than I would have liked to have seen the snow for a white Christmas.

For the second Wednesday running the surrounding conditions have meant we have cancelled groups for safety reasons.

As ever, it's about taking the positives and finding new answers to the new questions. Fun :)

What ideas can you think of? Photography if snowy scenes. snowball 'fights'. sledging, warm fires, hot chocolate, knitting a cosy scarf....the list goes on.

This picture made me chuckle (it's also very sadly true for me!)

Be safe out there!

Success for Volunteer at Mold Crown Court cafe!

From the North Wales Training Facebook page:


Well done to Emma who is currently taking part in the Employability Skills Programme. We are delighted you are enjoying your placement with Kim Inspire in Mold Courts and that they have just retained their 5 star food rating. Keep up the good work!!

Week 1 of the KIM 4 Him 'Mancraft' pencil portraits

Windows to the soul....

This is this first week (of 6) of Mark running his pencil portrait group.

All the men are developing new skills and building on the photography portrait work we did last year.

The group started with each man having their portrait photo printed before Mark asked them just to draw to see what hidden skills they had.

Mark said all the men had started with the position of "I can't draw"...however, the early results have been fantastic and it just shows we can achieve things when we believe and give it a go. A little encouragement can go a long way!

Men at work

Here are the starting photos...I wonder what the finished drawing will be like in 6 weeks time?

Tim

Shane

Colin

Neil

The early works...

First Week Back

Hello 2019!

KIM staff enjoying the sticky pudding.

First week back is always hard when you have had a couple of weeks off. The thought of coming back to 200 emails and getting up early in the mornings again is not appealing!

After trying to get back in the spirit of working again, and trying to get organised for the groups starting back next week, we decided to have a team meal today. Arianne and Paul volunteered to cook for the staff. They made chilli, chips, rice, guacamole, tortilla chips and for dessert they made sticky toffee pudding. We were very surprised that Paul could cook and we are hoping that he cooks every week for us! 

It's always good to find new skills about people - have you got any skills that you have not shared with other people before? Maybe talk about these to friends, family or in KIM groups. We would love to hear about everybody's skills, hobbies and interests, please feel free to post your thoughts below.

Please check our website for all the latest groups. We are looking forward to seeing you all again soon.

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

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!"

This article is about the phrase. For other uses, see Let them eat cake (disambiguation).

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]

Continued vandalism at KIM - story covered by Deeside.com and the Evening Leader

Story on Deeside.com

Story by the Evening Leader

Having a community space comes with certain risks....vandals.

Sadly, we have had over 6 months of damage to our Men's Shed building. We can no longer afford to pay for the on-going repairs. The young people have got more and more nonchalant in their destructive behaviours as the Police have been powerless to take any action - despite knowing the individuals concerned.

We continue to work closely with the local Police and have offered a restorative building project if the young people wanted to make some different choices and start building something here, rather than destroy things.

The safety of our staff and people we work alongside is paramount. To reduce the chances of the vandals coming back we have taken down the shelter they were using to congregate. We will be able to re-use the materiel in one of our other projects and we have pop up shelters for the Men's Shed to use. There is always a plan :)