Notes from February Hear Us Heroes Meeting

Hear Us Heroes | 25th February 2025

Notes from our last meeting: 

  • 44 people attended our meeting on Tuesday 25th February 2025.

  • Fatiha welcomed everyone to the meeting. 

  • We welcomed Anthony Carr, Senior Health Improvement Officer from Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council Wellbeing Service and Re:fresh.

  • Anthony said that he today he wanted to share the Activity Timetable with us and said they would like feedback on the timetable.

  • First we began with some fun activities. Anthony told us about a game called Boccia and invited The Mayor (Councillor Brian Taylor) to be the first person to come up to have a go. There was a target with holes in (a score wedge), each hole had a number and you had to roll the balls into the holes. Each person got 3 balls and the person that scored the most points won. We had 3 teams; Rovers, Clementines and Snowballs - the winning team that scored the most points was the blue team, Rovers! Each team member won a prize - a stress ball from Re:fresh.

  • Anthony said the game does not feel like exercise because it is fun. It is a gentle easy way of exercising and also is a bit competitive. Boccia is on the timetable of activities run each week by the Re:fresh team.

  • Anthony asked us for feedback on the timetable. He showed some videos of the activities and said that the Re:fresh team were looking to create more videos so that they had a video of each activity on the timetable. 

  • Anthony had 2 questions for the group: Is the timetable easy to understand and what would we change? We made the following suggestions:
    • Make the writing bigger
    • Black writing on an orange background is difficult to read
    • Make the A5 leaflet double sided to make each session bigger and use bigger pictures
    • Explain what some of the activities are more clearly ie Multi Sports – define what the activities are
    • Have contact numbers to ring before the session
    • Times conflict with activities at Blackburn Library
    • Have easier access to the buildings used including car parking
    • People wanted Archery to be back on the timetable (however, due to not having a member of the Re:fresh Team qualified in Archery this is not currently possible). 

  • The sessions on the timetable are for people aged 18+. A question was asked if they provide any activities for children being home schooled, unfortunately they do not due to being an 18+ service.

  • A discussion also took place around swimming and availability of disability swimming and swimming lessons for participants who cannot take part in scheduled swimming lessons. Anthony agreed to forward some information onto Michelle regarding swimming sessions.

  • Anthony asked if he could come back to the group once the Activities Timetable had been updated to get our feedback. It was agreed we would invite Anthony back to a future Hear Us Heroes group meeting.

  • Mark Pickup asked Anthony if he would be willing to go along to Hopwood Court (where Mark works) and have a session like today with the Boccia game and share the activities timetable.

The next Hear Us Heroes meeting will be on:

Wednesday 2nd April 2025

PLEASE NOTE THE MEETINGS WILL NOW TAKE PLACE ON THE FIRST WEDNESDAY OF EACH MONTH AND WILL COMMENCE AT 11.00 AM.

Meeting Dates for 2025:

  • Wednesday 7th May
  • Wednesday 4th June
  • Wednesday 2nd July
  • Wednesday 6th August 

Please arrive at 10.45am for a prompt 11am start.