With the most challenging of years having come to a close, it can be easy to focus on all the negative things that have happened, but I’m sure, if you stop and think, there have also been stacks of positives too – they’re just a little harder to find. The doors may be closed to visitors but life at HHH has not stopped. Whilst we have not been able to do as much as we may have liked we have still being making progress on bringing our dream to reality.
At the end of March we had to shut our doors due to the virus and lockdown. This meant we had to cancel all our bookings from groups who use the House for meetings and activities including our own Meet U, Blokes and the newly formed Chill and Chat groups. The cancelling of Meet Up and Blokes meant it could affect those people who were most likely to affected by the lockdown, the elderly, vulnerable and lonely so we had to quickly get our thinking caps on and develop new ways to help, so during the time the House has been locked up we have changed the way we deliver to Meet Up and Blokes.

Meet Up
Our volunteers started by making contact with our participants, over 50 of them, via visits and telephone calls, gathering information on what was needed; picking up prescriptions, delivering shopping, and simply someone to talk to. We quickly put together our first newsletter, providing information on which shops were open and when, who was doing deliveries and contact numbers.
We also included activities for everyone, quizzes, exercises, and puzzles. A monthly newsletter has gone out since, with relevant themes, May was our VE Day edition; July was Keep it Local; September was Heritage Week; November – Remembrance Day and December our Christmas edition. We also began a weekly post on our Facebook page, with a weekly quiz, celebrating birthdays and ensuring people know we and other organisations were available to help if they needed some extra support.
In October we secured some additional funding from Power to Change and the National Lottery to provide our participants with a monthly activity pack, something to keep them occupied as daylight got shorter and the potential problems of ongoing restrictions and further lockdowns began to affect everyone’s well being. Our first, a Puzzle Pack, went out in November and our Mosaic Coaster pack went out with our Christmas Goody Bag to all our participants and volunteers.