Just written our first bid for money!

That was an interesting experience! We have just completed and submitted our bid and will hear in late August whether we have been successful. With a couple of friends, I am part of a Team called Write Out Loud. This all began over a year ago now when we got some funding from BBC Voices....

BBC Voices Making History was formed in 2006 when author, Sue Welfare (BBC Radio's first ever Story Laureate for the BBC Radio Norfolk project 'This Norfolk Life') and two UEA lecturers, Andrea Rippon (School of Education & Lifelong Learning) and Mary-Jane Cullen (School of Literature & Creative Writing), devised a workshop enabling participants to use creative writing to tell their life stories. They delivered workshops, on behalf of BBC Voices, for a range of groups including young offenders, severely physically disabled people and women experiencing cancer. When BBC Voices funding ended, the Team continued with the same format and is now called Write Out Loud.

We've done one job since then and are hoping to get some funding to do some more. It's fantastic work - incredible to see how people realise that they do have something to say, they can communicate it and they can do it in such a way that people will listen.

Fingers crossed for a successful bid!

Certificate in Counselling Skills course at UEA

If you're interested in doing the Daytime Certificate in Counselling Skills at UEA, starting on 27 November - you should apply on line now!

At last - the holidays!

Approaching the end of the final day of the school term and already I can feel the tension in my shoulders begin to release. Both kids moving on to new schools in September, so it's a significant ending for them both. But all of us like being freed from the clock - not having to be somewhere on time is going to be fabulous. I've got a few meetings - new business and networking; - we've got lots of fun stuff happening, starting with Latitude - and there's a few jobs to be done. But otherwise, lots of mooching around, being with friends and family and eating the veggies that have had a good watering in their veg patch today. Love and light to all - that's you Amy - my one follower! xx

June Counselling Theory course finishes

It's been an amazing course - only 20 hours to combine Rogers' Personality Theory, his Person Centred Approach and everyone's personal experience in a way that was safe and rich in learning. But I think we got there! Everyone worked so hard - listened so well to each other - and were prepared to get out of their comfort zone now and again. The feedback was really positive. This one struck me:

"Thank you Andrea for the course. I think it's made me feel more focussed than I have done in a long while. I feel able to talk more openly to my friends and family. I feel like I've come together as it were - a bit more in myself but also where I'm going."

Next Introduction to Theory course starts 24th November, 2009!