The CWU recently held a Community and Wellbeing event at Bath Road Methodist Church. The event was sponsored by the CWU, Royal Mail and unionlearn. The event was organised by Sandra Absalom and Paul Horwood with help from Sandy Best, Phil Sutton and Ben Ryan.

The event was a family event and had activities for children such as face painting, messy church and a smoothie bike which encouraged exercise and allowed them to make their own healthy drinks. 

Sandra said:

We organised the event outside of work and on a Saturday because it gave people more time to participate on the day. It was good to go out into wider community with learning and promoted the other side of unions. A lot of people would not know about the good work unions do concerning learning. 

Nine therapists gave up their Saturday for the event offering Rikki, back massage, neck massage, mini nail treatment and information about personal training. Catherine Bailey (meditation Medic) held a forty minute workshop on ‘How to deal with stress and relax through meditation’. A workshop on ‘Easy relaxation tools for everyday life’ was provided by Julie Nicholls. Health checks were carried out by Swindon Borough Council, checking blood pressure, body mass, high colesterol, sugar levels and had a lot of good information on the hidden salt and sugars that food contain. There were two Midwifes that had a stall called ‘bumps of the world’ who offered advice and support during pregnancy.  

The Wilts and Berks Canal Society had a lot of information on canals that run through Swindon and John Farrow did a presentation. The Swindon and NE Wiltshire Ramblers promoted walking for leisure and health through guided walks most weekends within and outside the region.

New College offered information on courses at the college and the job clubs that helped people filling in application forms and CV. The CWU stall had a lot of health related leaflet that people could take away. Dr Bike was outside the Church giving free bike checks and doing small repairs. Dr Bike offered Bike Maintenance Courses and bike spares. The Salvation Army took care of refreshments and there were lots of lovely cakes as well as rolls and sandwiches.

Sandra added:

We had very good feedback from the people that attended who said that they really enjoyed the day. One family enjoyed it so much they tried to pay us, but we said it was a free event so they gave a donation to the Salvation Army."

Julie Townsend was at the event with her husband and four children and said:

The children had a lot of fun and loved the face painting."

Marie Hughes is Regional Education Officer with the SWTUC and attended on behalf of unionlearn. Marie said:

This was a great event with lots to try and plenty of ideas to take back to workplaces. The health checks were very popular, with blood pressure, diabetes and other tests which had a lot of people queuing up to get checked out and seek advice from the experts. Unionlearn and TUC Education have a lot of materials for workplace reps on health and wellbeing issues affecting workers, so its always a good idea to drop your local Union Support Officer a line if you’d like to put on something similar."

Sandra was very pleased with the whole day and already looking at ideas to do another event next year.