Hello, families and friends - how are you?
We hope you're keeping well during yet another uncertain December! We have a feeling we've travelled this path before!
Being responsible, we've reverted to 'Christmas Party Plan B'!
We don't want to risk anyone's Christmas, so we've cancelled 'Plan A' on 18 December as our face-to-face celebration for families, and we're taking it online instead! We've put together some fun games and the afternoon will feature videos from Singing Hands and Mr Tumble - Santa will also make an appearance. Please check your email for details, mums, dads and carers!
By holding a zoom party, our more vulnerable children won't miss out on the fun - and they won't miss out on the presents either as Santa's Elves will be flying door to door on Saturday with gifts to hand out!
Lucie has put so much effort into making the party happen and we know everyone was looking forward to getting together (so were we!). We're so sorry to have to make these changes.
Guidelines. We have continued to follow the guidance (maintaining distancing, hand hygiene, and face coverings throughout), so our centre's procedures require little change, although we now ask everyone to wear a mask in the corridor at Iona School. We shall, of course, update families if anything changes.
We close on Saturday 18 December and reopen on Tuesday 4 January 2022.
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Exciting news! We have achieved the Charity Excellence Framework Quality Mark again, passing eight out of eight categories, despite all the challenges. As a small charity, this achievement is a big deal as the Quality Mark helps to assure funders, families and volunteers that we are trustworthy and strive to be the best we can be.
The CE Framework is our annual organisational health check. It allows us to monitor our impact and social value and assess how well we keep our beneficiaries, staff and volunteers safe from harm. It also allows us to determine how well we are doing strategically - income generation, governance, developing our team and ensuring policies and procedures are up to date: safeguarding, health and safety, data protection, and discrimination.
The Quality Mark is our charity's gold star, and it's made us all very happy!
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Trying times! Since Abbey left us (almost a year ago), we remain a Conductor down. Because we're such a small team, it's caused some headaches, particularly around isolation and staffing, affecting the number of children and parents we can support.
Unfortunately, Conductors are in extremely short supply nationally because of Brexit (most qualified/qualifying Conductors are from Hungary). All CE centres in this country are experiencing the same difficulties.
Very slowly, Conductor graduates from Birmingham City Uni are emerging, but not enough to fill the need. So, thankfully, we've got Lucy doing her Uni Conductor placement with us, plus Karen and Nathalie, who are both doing the Multidisciplinary Conductor Course (as well as their other jobs!), and Jo, our Conductor Assistant.
Interviews for a Classroom Assistant are on 12 January, so we're hopeful!
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Max and Jesse with Erika and Kirsten, our Conductors.
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The good news is that we have the most amazing 'newbies' in the office! Amanda, our first-ever full-time Business Support Officer (and worth her weight in gold), and Sophie, our fabulous part-time fundraiser covering for Andrea (covering for Emma-Jane, currently on maternity leave). Then there's Claire, our 'super volunteer' who helps out with everything and is presently the go-to person for Starbucks support. Starbucks even invited us to open their branch in the new Sainsbury's store at Colwick! How brilliant is that?
Our volunteers sometimes support us remotely too. Based 'down south', Vicki Poole founder of VSP Marketing, gives her time and expertise to help us understand rapidly growing technology and how to use it.
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Developing our service!
Gym Club is a weekly group session for children aged five to eleven with cerebral palsy or other physical impairment. The aim is to help [the child] develop, practise and maintain the physical skills they need as they get older to integrate into mainstream education and take on all the challenges that broader society puts in their way.
The education team recently consulted parents whose children are eligible to attend. The response was that a weekday session after school is preferable to a Saturday when other family activities are planned. So, our final Saturday Gym Club will be held on 18 December.
Our new Gym Club induction session is arranged for Tuesday, 11 January, after school. The session will be led by Erika, supported by Kirsten and Karen. By offering Gym Club on a Tuesday, we can, at last, invite more children back into the service. We're excited about this new development - it also helps reduce the ever-expanding waiting list.
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Seventy-eight families attend or are waiting to attend our service. But, crucially, there would be no Footprints without the funding support we receive. To help cover the costs we need to find £101.88 per child for every weekly session.
Conductive Education works. We provide a comprehensive package of support for the child from six months as we believe that early intervention is the key to success, and we involve the parent every step of the way. We also work alongside other agencies involved in the child's development.
We are entirely reliant on donations - like the £500 cheque received today from Howdens in Arnold, with the message, " Thank you for all you do to support our community. We hope this donation comes in handy! Merry Christmas". It's heartwarming to receive letters like that in the post! And Karla Jones, who donated the cost of Christmas cards to our charity - we're so grateful.
Our remarkable friend and ambassador for Footprints, Lisa Fox, posted on the Little Footprints group page: "2021 has been so hard for everyone in many different ways. So I am pretty darn proud to announce that I have raised £36,747.87 for @footprintscec this year. Taking fundraising for them to over £85k since 2016." Lisa, we are proud of you, too, for tirelessly supporting Footprints; you make a positive change to the lives of others.
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Thank you to our regular donors - those who generously set up a monthly donation and parents and former families who continue to make additional monthly gifts to help fund our work.
Also, the Trusts and Foundations that invest in our projects; the most recent being the Star Trust, which held a cheque presentation surrounded by Ferrari's! Claire, Lucie and Sophie took their boys along and they LOVED it.
You all make a difference, and we are hugely grateful.
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We're looking forward to a new year of fundraising activity, with a few things in the bag already! Lucie's Afternoon Tea is almost sold out, and there's lots of interest in running the London Landmarks Half Marathon. If you'd like to take part, please get in touch.
Alternatively, if, like Challenge Life Fitness, you would like to organise an event to support our small charity, we would greatly appreciate your help!
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This event was so popular in 2021 and our ten runners had an amazing time. We have more charity places for the London Landmarks Half-Marathon on 3 April 2022! So if it's on your bucket list, please run for Footprints.
For details, please email sophie.underwood@footprintscec.org
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Challenge Life Fitness aim to fundraise for Footprints in March 2022 by walking 100,000 steps (43 miles) in 24 hours. Thank you - we can't wait to find out more!
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Before you go - we would appreciate a moment of your time.
Would you please nominate Footprints Conductive Education Centre to help us win £12,000?
The link is https://bit.ly/SEIBgiving and
our charity registration is 1093006.
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Wishing you and your loved ones a safe and happy Christmas.
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