Click here to see the Chair of PCAP’s latest Annual Report to the Parishes and interested parties for 2020-2021
Author: Dawn Wilson
PCAP arranges family funday’s to drive away the pandemic blues!
PCAP arranges family funday’s to drive away the pandemic blues!
In April of 2019 an idea to arrange for some activities to take place at The Vale leisure centre for the 13 to 18 year olds was planned. Well the pandemic put paid to that. Wind forward to later that year and the Mental health impact of the Pandemic was being seen and felt at Pewsey Vale School. Following talks with the head teacher, PCAP supported the school to apply for £5,000 for a mental health triage team to help support those young people in the school. The funding came through the Pewsey Area Board and specifically the Local Youth Network funding for 13 to 18 years in January 2020.
PCAP also helped Pewsey Primary School to secure more computers and tablets for children learning at home before Christmas 2020 thanks to donations by a local recycling company called Green Machine, Pewsey Parish Council and PCAP.
Fast forward to 2021 and those Local Youth Network funds had been secured and PCAP began to arrange some funday’s for local families and young people for the summer holidays.
Sunday July 25th saw the Bouverie Hall Car park taken over by King Ramps mobile Half Pipe and demo crew and The Pewsey Craft Studio offering free sessions making bath bombs in the Main Hall.
Sunday August 22nd saw the mobile Climbing Wall owned and run by Wiltshire Outdoor Learning Team take over the Bouverie Car Park and again more crafting with the Craft Studio in the Hall.
Both events were well attended by an estimated 120 young people in total and much fun was had by all. We believe it lifted a few spirits and offered a chance to do something not usually available in Pewsey.
PCAP Community Memory Cafe Poetry Day
Memory Day Literature Works
Heather Holcroft-Pinn, Projects Officer www.literatureworks.org.uk and Claire Coleman joined us for the September PCAP Community Memory Café in Pewsey at the Bouverie Hall. We listened as Heather recited some well known and not so well known poems. Following a reviving cup of tea, the group then talked about being Lost then Found. Then the magic happened. We would like to thank Heather and Claire for their time. We hope to see them again next year.
Lost and found – a poem by the Community Memory Café Group Pewsey.
Sasha got lost on the way to this social.
Worse if it was for an interview!
We’d all feel anxious, pressured, stressed.
Some of can’t remember our left from right,
but Phyl says “I’m so old I’m very used to my left and right,
we’ve been together a long time.
We’ve all got memories of getting lost.
When Natalie was eleven, she had to find her way
to big school by the 3A bus, and back again
at the end of the day. She was all on her own,
“who do I ask? I can’t find the bus.”
At long last she found a man with books under his arm.
He knew it was the second bus stop.
When I got home they said
“where have you been?
Sasha once, when she was young, fell asleep
on a bag of royal mail on the train.
She went up and down the track all night
from London to Bristol!
Sue got lost in a forest, in Belgium.
It was in bright sunlight,
but she didn’t find her way back
until it was dark, lit only
by starlight.
Once Violet came out from the shops
and got in her husband’s white van.
A stranger looked at her.
She had got into the wrong van!
“It wouldn’t have been so bad
if he had been good looking.”
The old-fashioned way is to ask someone.
So when Fanny was lost she asked a lady walking her dog
if she knew the house she was looking for.
The lady replied “I’ve only lived here 37 years
and I don’t know where it is. Who lives there?”
“When I told her, she knew exactly where it was.”
Jo picked the wrong way at a crossroads
when she and Mum were on their way
to Singing for the Brain.
Mum says “stop panicking, I’m O.K.
I’m fine. You’d never make me
feel uncomfortable.”
Dawn says getting lost on purpose,
picking a direction with no destination in mind,
is the most fun you can have on your own,
because she has a smart phone.
In the end we can all find our way,
by asking a friendly person,
by the art of map-reading,
or by asking the App
“What Three Words.”
This tells us that where we sit
in Bouverie Hall
is “perfumed testy spiders.”
That’s us!
Created by the Pewsey group on 20th September 2021
PCAP community Memory Cafe canal boat trip with Bruce Trust July 2021
PCAP Community Memory Cafe Canal Trip 2021
We had chosen the hottest day of the year for our much delayed Canal Boat trip for our Community Memory Cafe members. July 19th 2021 proved to be very hot indeed.
We set off around 10-30 having loaded up with food and drinks as well as frozen flannels provided by one of the carers attending, which proved to be brilliant for cooling off in the midday heat.
Our Crew from the Bruce’s Canal Boat Trust worked very hard doing the locks and keeping us chugging along. I think they lost a few pounds along the way.
We sat back and enjoyed watching the world go by at a slower pace for a change. Swans with cygnets, herons, and ducks were seen. Alas no Kingfisher but by midday the heat was intense and we cooled off with strawberries and cream.
We made liberal use of the flannels for those who had spent too much time on deck earlier on and one or two had a go at steering the narrow boat.
Our thanks go to the Marlborough Lions Club who funded this trip a year later than planned. We look forward to another trip in 2022 when this group will again sit back and enjoy a trip on the Kennet and Avon Canal.
Click here to download the PDF report.