Mental Health For All

 Reflections on 2020

It has been an unsettling year as the world faced the pandemic of COVID-19, a disease unknown to us all. The consequences have affected health, employment, the economy, and sadly the loss of loved ones. The times of uncertainty financially and socially has increased many people's stress levels and creative arts and exercise participation has increased. Writing for the sake of self-analysis is a tested tool to help make sense of our lives and situations. This Friday World Mental Health Day 2020 under the theme of Mental Health For All, we (Jo Robinson, Anita Kelly, and myself) are hosting a writing for wellbeing workshop for a few people to come together to talk and write about the challenges faced over the last few months and how they may have surmounted the problems.

Here is the link to book yourself on to the workshop:

Eventbrite

How to improve your Creative Confidence- National Writing Day

A short story during the lockdown and some tips

On this scorching morning, a collective of emerging writers arose to the sun's rays. Their minds in sync, overcoming the fear of coming out as a writer on national writing day,  the hottest day of the year of 2020. They logged in to ZOOM one by one, the natural order of the day nowadays on lockdown. Stories shared, and the passion of creativity connected the participants. In suspense, we as a group of promising writers now wait to see the outcomes from today, as they churn away creating their works.

Lessons for the Write Mind

Mental Health Awareness Week

Writing Webinar
led by Amanda Epe, Jo Robinson, and Anita Kelly

The past week with kindness as a theme for mental health awareness week, my colleagues and I began the week with free delivery of writing for wellbeing webinar, as a therapy to cope with the lockdown.

An intimate group of 13 participants joined the webinar to reflect and write about their resilience in overcoming struggles in the past, delivered by Mental Health Trainer Anita Kelly. Writing workshop facilitator Jo Robinson talked about lockdown learning, what have people learned about themselves, looking at the positives, and how they have been kind to themselves prompting the writing task.

Pros and Cons of Writing a Memoir

Best time to write

Fly Girls Wellness - Writing Coaching

During this lockdown period, many people find they can use their time for things they've always never found the time to do, such as more reading and writing. The Mirror compiled a list of the best travel adventure memoirs to read during the quarantine period and A Fly Girl Travel Tales book was fortunate named number 6 on this list, yay!

Reading other authors' memoirs can surely inspire the writer in you to tell your story and start writing. Whether it's a travel tale or another significant area to reflect on, it's a grand time to put pen to paper. Here are 6 Pros and one Con of writing a memoir:

Run Together : COVID-19

Stay Socially Connected

Fly Girls UK - Stronger Together

On Tuesday going on information by our governing body England Athletics and Public Health England we suspended our social meetings, run activities and so forth until April because of COVID19. It was disheartening to hear that the epidemic would cancel our meetings until further notice and social distancing is the order of the day. Our members had recently returned to join the Spring Season Sunday meetings after long-term injuries and were looking forward to exciting expeditions along the canals and further afield.

Over the years members have made friends and bonded and also made Fly Girls Wellness Sunday morning activities their routine. In the same vein, emerging writers and others who attend the writing workshops for wellbeing enjoyed the benefits of meeting each other and new people to share writing and discuss topics they write about in a trusting space. So the news of postponed activities hit everyone hard.

How we celebrate IWD 2020

Each for Equal with Fly Girls

We are in our favourite period celebrating International Women's Day, Week, Month and looking forward to the year 2020 for the Fly Girls Wellness project.

On Sunday 8th, International Women's Day Fly Girls be active walk & run group met for Sunday celebrations after our regular run, to share stories and have a healthy drink, it was cheering to all who took part in the Vitality Big Half Marathon, and a special cheers to three of our first time half marathoners.

Our first-timers are still smiling since the 1st March, they say running uplifts you and we know that buzz you get afterward. However, our team are feeling on a high for their achievements, Jackie a very easy going gentle paced runner had recently started training for the event and had a smashing time of 2hrs and 34 mins, running most of the race and walking the last 3 miles.

National Storytelling Week

Celebrating Multicultural Stories

Amanda Epe at Rich Mix

The first of February marks National Storytelling Week, a great tool for building confidence and self-esteem. We are more familiar with storytelling as a vocal art, and then as the written art. Telling is to speak to the public, the receivers of the story being listeners, similarly, readers say of tales and literature "the story is telling us..." so we can agree that storytelling is telling stories through public speaking or writing.

The mission of storytellers are to spin a sequence of events from beginning to end with an underlying message, mission, and solution. We all love to tell narratives of our own, as "everyone has a story in them," alternatively sharing other people's stories and folktales are highly popular for storytellers. We cannot define storytelling in this correct way or that way, each culture has its own version of telling. Great vocal storytelling, however, uses other art forms to make the delivery more interesting and entertaining, such as gesture and movement, and writers "show and don't tell" with their words.

National Reading Day 2020

Book Chat and Book Recommendations

Happier by Tal Ben Shahar

At the start of the new year we set goals to do a number of things to improve ourselves in personal or professional development. One of the goals I've set over the years is to read more, did I set time aside? That's another question. A smart goal is to read a book a month especially if you are in a book club that have monthly meetings. So being in our book group it is mandatory to read at least one book a month. Within the Creative Writing Workshop and Book Group at SEIDs Hub, Wembley we discuss books that we've read and enjoyed and want to share it/them with others.

The Borough of Cultures 2020

All Rise

Join us for RISE- the opening event of Brent's year as London Borough of Culture on Saturday 18 January at Wembley Park. RISE will be a spectacular family-friendly outdoor show, with a local community cast of hundreds, telling the story of Brent through dance, theatre and projections, set to an incredible soundtrack, against the backdrop of Wembley Stadium. Brent is the home of Rachel Yankey, Riz Ahmed, Zadie Smith, the Grunwick strikers, legendary family businesses, famous Irish pubs, trailblazing young poets, Metroland Brent 2020, London Borough of Culture architects, great roads and the builders of the biggest Hindu Temple in Europe. Like Brent they did, and do, things in their own way.

Come rain or shine, ALL RISE!
Saturday 18 January 2020 Performance at 7pm Olympic Way, Wembley Park www.brent2020.co.uk/programmes/rise/