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exmouth stroke survivors club

Exmouth stroke survivors club community

Three years ago Stephen moved from Plymouth to Exmouth and saw a call out in the local paper for someone to run the local stroke survivors’ club. He applied and got the role. ‍ Stephen is a Christian and says he tries to support others from all different backgrounds “because I’ve been there himself”. I don’t ask what he means by that, but he does later say he’s had several strokes and TIAs. ‍ Initially, the group met in Exmouth Pavillion; then they used a council building. More recently, they’ve been using All Saints’ Church in Exmouth. The church hall is open two days a week until 3pm as a Warm Welcome Space. (Stephen calls it a Warm Hub.) Exmouth Stroke Survivors' Club space visitor ‍ “We felt sometimes people wanted it for longer so now people can come back from 6pm or 7pm. We have some entertainment. We’ve had Elvis nights and all sorts,” says Stephen. ‍ “We get food donated from Tesco and Marks & Spencer each week which we use for meals,” says Stephen. Other food donations go to people in the community who can use it. Volunteers at the Exmouth Stroke Survivors' Club ‍ On a Monday and a Wednesday, the Stroke Survivors’ Club gives a dinner, “at dinnertime”. The Club also delivers food parcels to people who can’t come to the meetings for whatever reason, charging a nominal £3 for delivery (waived for those who really can’t pay). ‍ Sometimes, club members check on others and offer advice, for instance on energy saving and payments. “People say thank you, if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t know what to do,” says Stephen, unassumingly. ‍ Funding has been an issue, but the Survivors’ Club charges a yearly subscription and they have held several fundraising events including a quiz and a gardening activity for which they were donated plants and soil. Sport England even gave them a table tennis table. ‍ And that’s not it: the Club teaches cookery skills to people on low incomes or those who’ve had strokes, showing them how to use vegetables and what they might have in the kitchen cupboard. ‍ “I want to make sure people feel looked after,” says Stephen. Mothers' Day montage ‍ The Club has grown from five or six people three years ago, to 75 club members today. It really is the most fantastic example of a space serving its community –