News from UNACC
Happy New Year!
Many thanks to everyone who supported and attend the Christmas Fayre. Our mutual efforts resulted in over £500 for the UNACC coffers which is wonderful.
The Christmas Lights trip was a brilliant success as were the fabulous Christmas lunches, another December highlight.
So it’s goodbye to 2011 and positive “hello” to a happy and healthy 2012 and a warm welcome back to our lovely Centre.
Full of Life 2011
UNACC art class members were involved in a community art exhibition called "Full of Life" at Fairfield Halls from 26th September until 7th october. Ken who runs the art class on Tuesday mornings says our members have made great progress from not being able to hold a paintbrush to now displaying their work in Fairfield halls!
New
Chef
We now have a new chef. Mark has had years of catering experience, is providing good home food, all fresh and cooked from scratch.
mark will also be making cakes for us to sell, so if you fancy some afternoon tea or have friends and family coming to visit, why not make it easier for yourself and buy some homemade cakes to share out?
The other service we can now offer is a meal to take home with you. The food is all fresh and home cooked, so is a much healthier alternative to the ready meals you could buy in the supermarket. You could eat them for dinner the same night, or put them in the freezer for another day when you didn’t fancy cooking. Remember all the money made goes back into the club, so by eating well you are supporting UNACC at the same time!
Waterside Open Day a great success
The Waterside Open Day on 19th August was a great success and we raised £784 in profit. Thanks to Leigh Armstrong for all his help and support, and for all the volunteers who worked tirelessly on the day.
We were very lucky in the weather, which enabled us to have the various stalls, not to mention the steel band, in the open air. Some of our members had a go at playing the steel drums.
Holidays 2012
It's that time of year again! We are looking at holidays for 2012, and think we've found two great venues: Bembridge Coast Resort on the Isle of Wight for the summer holiday, and Littlecote House Hotel for the Turkey and Tinsel break.
All suggestions and comments are welcome in the office!
Buy a brick and save your centre
Ken
has painted a mural featuring 200 bricks, and to keep UNACC running
in the way in which we all want it to, we will be asking everyone to buy
a brick to save UNACC!
‘Bricks’ are £10 each, and you can buy as many as you like, all support will be acknowledged and if we sell all 200 bricks it means £2000 for UNACC to help maintain its services to you.
Please support us as much as you can, and spread the word to friends and family who may be able to support us too!
Thank you.
Latest news: thanks to the generosity of UNACC members, friends, and family, we have so far raised £1,170. Thank you to everyone who has bought a brick, but please help us reach our target of £2,000.
Bad news and good news
As most of you will know, we were burgled on 13th August. The office was ransacked,and we were unable to open on Monday 16th owing to the amount of damage that was done. Money, projector/DVD, laptop, camera, mobile phone were stolen and many items were broken. Thank you to two of our members who gave donations: their kindness restored my faith in human nature. We were insured, though whether we recoup all of our losses remains to be seen. An update: suspects have been arrested and are on remand awaiting trial.
On a better note, I am very pleased to tell you that we have been successful in securing funding from Croydon Council. It is a lot less than we hoped for; we will need to make cuts, and look elsewhere to make up the very large shortfall, but I am very pleased that we are one of the Council's preferred providers, as so many others have not been funded at all and will have to close as a result of the decision: my thoughts are with them at a very difficult time.
Nikki Wells
The Big Lunch
Trying out the wares on the hat stall: Leigh Armstrong (Manager of the Waterside
Centre),
Peggy Burnett (one of the lucky raffle winners), and Nikki
Wells (UNACC co-ordinator).
Photo courtesy of Croydon Midweek Advertiser.
UNACC hosted "The Big Lunch" here at the Waterside Centre on Friday 16th July. Doors opened at 10.30am and there was a steady flow of visitors who enjoyed browsing and buying from the many stalls featuring bric a brac, jewellery, shoes, handbags, clothing, cards, books and DVDs. Most of the proceeds from the stalls were kindly donated to UNACC. In total we made £545.50, including £25 from the Name the Dog competition, £94 from Eve’s cards, and £69 from the UNACC raffle.
The Name the Dog competition was won by Jean Lubinska, who named the dog Petra. Well done Jean! The dog was kindly donated by Leigh Armstrong. Leigh made £29.10 on his Waterside stall, and his mum Ann made £75.40 on her knitting stall.
We were lucky enough to have Croydon’s Mayor Avril Slipper in attendance, followed by all three South Norwood Councillors (Jane Avis, Kathy Bee and Wayne Lawlor) and the Croydon Guardian and Croydon TV came to interview staff and members.
UNACC welcomed 50 people of all ages for a fish and chip lunch, which was enjoyed by everyone. It was wonderful to see all different members of the community coming together and bonding over lunch and a chat, and many new friends were made that day!
There's more about the background to The Big Lunch on another page.
Croydon Pop Service
Croydon's POP Bus visited UNACC on the 29th of March. If you haven't taken advantage of this valuable service it is well worth making sure you are here the next time it visits.
Full
of Life week
UNACC took part in Croydon's "Full of Life Week" with a full range of activities on Monday the 19th of October.
