Our Celebration

News Archive

Come and drink the best coffee in the world - ever!!!

Ok we lied.   We can't guarantee that the coffee will be the best in the world, but we certainly CAN guarantee a great morning of socialising and fundraising!!

On Saturday 26th June, between 10am and 1pm there will be a fundraising coffee morning at CHRIST CHURCH, on Stockton Lane in York.  Entry is a mere £1, and includes a cup of tea or coffee and a cake. Probably the best quid you'll ever spend!

You will also be able to buy items from various stalls including cakes, preserves, handicrafts and books. 

All proceeds will be donated to Our Celebration to help us support people in the local area recovering from mental ill-health.   If you would like more information please contact us here to get in touch. 

UPDATE...The event raised over £600!!!  Thank you so much to everyone who organised the event, donated produce etc, ran the stalls, made the tea, and turned up on the day to support us.   (28th June 2010)

Ready….Steady….LIFE! Starts July 

As part of the COMIC RELIEF funded Young People’s project, Our Celebration will be launching a new course aimed at young adults who are recovering from mental ill-health.  Focusing on life, personal and employability skills, we are aiming to help people to get prepared for education, employment and everyday life!  The course will be OCR accredited, and starts 30th July. 

If you are interested in taking part, please contact us as soon as possible by clicking here quoting “Ready Steady Life”   (22nd June 2010)

Our Celebration is a UK Online Centre!

Following our recent announcement that Our Celebration has become York's latest "UK Online" Centre, we are delighted to have secured some Government funding to help us to roll out the training to people in the York area recovering from mental ill-health.  This compliments our existing ICT training programmes, and will significantly widen the availability of access to IT equipment and training for our service-users. 

Manager David Smith expressed his delight, saying "once again, Our Celebration has demonstrated that funders can trust us to deliver top quality projects which provide excellent recovery outcomes for clients with severe and enduring mental health conditions. We are very pleased that UK Online have provided this funding to help us to support even more people in the York area on their road to recovery from mental illness, and we thank them very much indeed."

The best news of all is that ANYONE can register free of charge with Our Celebration for free IT training through the MyGuide website!   Simply click here and follow the simple on-screen instructions, using the Our Celebration centre ID of 3420995.  Good luck!    (24th May 2010)    

Design and Print Studio getting better all the time! 

Our Celebration’s Design and Print studio received a boost recently, with a big thumbs-up from The North Yorkshire Learning Consortium, who provide funding to support clients in the studio.  We now have a much greater focus on providing work placements in the studio, with most people looking to move back into paid employment straight after their time there. 

The NYLC paid a recent visit to review the effectiveness of the Design and Print studio in helping clients to make the big step out into the working work, and they came away very pleased with what they saw.  As well as praising the day-to-day operation itself, the NYLC also recognised the excellent level of background support that we are able to give to our service-users.  Comments included:-

“It was clear to see that the learners see Our Celebration as a source of security and learning to help them on the pathway to a more stable life.”

Thank You

We would like to thank the staff and customers of Sainsburys supermarket on Foss Bank, who welcomed us into the store on Friday & Saturday 4/5th March for a collection. 

In total we raised £463, which was an incredible result, and we were delighted with the proceeds.  Many thanks to all who contributed, and of course to our fantastic volunteers who helped on the day!  We will be returning to the store in September and we will announce details on this site nearer the time.  

If you would like to know more about fundraising with Our Celebration, please contact us here.   (31st March 2010) 

Lord Mayor backs Our Celebration!

Our Celebration are delighted that Cllr Susan Galloway, who takes over as Lord Mayor shortly,  has selected Our Celebration as one of her adopted charities for the term of office (alongside the British Heart Foundation). 

There will be a number of high-profile fundraising events during the course of the year, and lots of opportunities to support us! Keep checking this site and the York Press for details.  (23rd March 2010)

York 10k run entries now open

On Sunday August 1st, the second Jane Tomlinson York 10K run will be taking place, and Our Celebration is looking for people willing to take part and raise funds to help local people recovering from Mental Illness.

Entries are open NOW, and will cost £26 for a general entry.  If you are willing to pledge to raise sponsorship for Our Celebration, we will be more than happy to help with your fundraising, set up a “Just Giving” webpage, and we can provide a branded T-Shirt for you to wear on the day. 

Please hurry though; the race is expected to be fully subscribed very soon! If you would like to know further details, please contact us here,  or telephone Ian Savage on 01904 643364.    (10th March 2010)

Our Celebration announces two new projects for 2010

We are absolutely delighted to be able to launch two brand new projects in 2010, thanks to the support of two very high profile donors. 

First of all COMIC RELIEF have pledged 3 years’ worth of funding to enable us to provide specific support to young adults (18-25) who are recovering from their first episode of psychosis. This can be an incredibly frightening and stressful experience, and is one which almost always happens in this age range.  We will be recruiting a Mentor to support these young adults as they recover, and there is a huge amount of evidence to show that early intervention of this kind can have a massive positive effect on a person’s mental condition throughout their lifetime. 

Secondly, the LLOYDS TSB FOUNDATION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES have provided a grant over the next 2 years, to enable us to better support our clients to move into paid employment. Many people make excellent recoveries from episodes of mental ill health, but often find making the transition back into the working world a very daunting experience.  We will be recruiting a support worker to guide clients though that process, and give them the help and confidence they need to get back into employment. 

We are really pleased that these two organisations have chosen to provide funding to Our Celebration, and we feel it is great recognition of the excellent work done here by all of our staff and volunteers.  We would like to express our sincere gratitude to both Comic Relief and Lloyds TSB Foundation for England and Wales for their support.    (4th Feb 2010)

We feel good! (about vounteering!) 

2010 is the National Year of the Volunteer, and Our Celebration is delighted to have been asked by the City of Your Council and York Council for Voluntary Service (CVS) to help design the logos and branding for the campaign in the City. 

We have a fully equipped Design and Print Studio here at Highcliffe House, in which we deliver work placements for clients who have recovered sufficiently from their mental ill-health to be considering moving into paid or voluntary employment.  This group of clients has been working together with local marketing consultant Ned Hoste of “The Big Ideas Collective” to come up with ideas for branding, logos and straplines for the campaign when it is launched in January. 

At Our Celebration, we always feel strongly that mental illness should NOT have to be a barrier to a full and complete life, and we are often able to help people to progress to full recovery, and a return to the working world.  We feel immensely proud of the quality of the designs that our service users have created, which you will be seeing across the city for the next 12 months!

If you would like to know about volunteering opportunities at Our Celebration, please contact us here    (January 11th 2010) 

THANK YOU! 

A huge thanks to Alison Pittard, who has decided not to send any of her family and friends a Christmas card this year, but has pledged to give all the money she would have spent to Our Celebration instead!  We think it’s a fantastic gesture and guess what? You can boost the fund too, by visiting Alison’s “JustGiving” webpage and making an online donation here. 

Alternatively, if you’d like to follow Alison’s lead and set up your own “JustGiving” webpage to do something similar, drop us a line here, and well help you to help us!     (January 6th 2010)

2010 Calendar now on sale! 

We are delighted to offer our superb 2010 Calendar which is on sale NOW at Highcliffe House.  The calendar shows seasonal images of York and the surrounding area, and makes a really lovely and great value Christmas gift priced at only £6.99 or £7.49 with envelope.  

If you are unable to call in to buy one, please contact us here to request prices for mail order. 

We would like to express our grateful thanks to Blackdogwhitewall Photographic group who have provided the photography and design free of charge.  

UPDATE 17th DECEMBER - Please hurry if you want to secure a calendar, we only have a few left!!   (6th January 2010)

EBAY Celebrity auction a great success! 

As part of the ongoing fundraising activity here at Our Celebration, a number of our volunteers spend a great deal of time working to collect items of autographed celebrity memorabilia which we auction on the EBAY site every few months. Most of the items are signed photos, although we also receive other items such as signed books or T-shirts.

The Winter 2009 auction has now closed, and we are awiting final totals on the funds we have raised.  We would like to thank all of the celebrrities who gave us items to sell, and of course all of the bidders.

Some of the famous people who donated memorabilia were:- 

Louis Theroux (Weird Weekends)

Sharon Osbourne (X Factor)

Henry Cooper (Boxer)

Richard Wilson (Victor Meldrew)

Terence Stamp (General Zod in Superman films)

Russell Brand (Comedian)

Derren Brown (Illusionist)  

Phillip Schofield & Holly Willoughby (This Morning) 

Nobby Stiles (1966 England World Cup winner) 

Tamzin Outhwaite (Actresss)

Ricky Gervais (the Office, Extras, various films)

Plus various others!

If you missed out in this occasion, please don't worry, because there will be further auctions during 2010 - please check back regularly for details!  We also hope to hold a live auction at a venue in York soon - details TBA! 

All of the proceeds of the auction will be donated to Our Celebration, and used to help our work in supporting people recovering from Mental ill-health in the York area.   (December 21st 2009)

THANK YOU! 

Our Celebration held our first street collection in York City Centre on Friday 30th October.  The day was a great success, and we raised a total of £180.35.  We would like to thank all the volunteers who came along to hold tins and buckets, and of course a MASSIVE thank you to everyone who made a donation. 

If you would like to know more about how you can help with our fundraising events, please contact us here.   (November 10th 2009)

Oh, we do like to be beside the seaside! 

A group of service users, volunteers and staff enjoyed the Our Celebration annual day out on Thursday September 24th, taking a coach trip to Whitby .  A fantastic day out was enjoyed by everybody, and we were extremely relieved to see the sun shining! We like to be able to offer our clients an opportunity once every year to "do something different" for a day, and of course the benefits of this on mental health are well proven.  We would like to express our gratitude to the Calmcott Trust who very kindly provided the funding to enable us to organise the trip. 

If you are interested in making a donation to help Our Celebration arrange a similar trip in the future, or just to help us provide extra support for people in the York area recovering from mental illness, please click here.    (October 15th 2009)

Look Out for us in the news soon!

We are delighted that The Big Lottery Fund, which is an ongoing funder of Our Celebration, have chosen us as their regional PR partner for World Mental Health Day in October. This means that Our Celebration will be participating in a number of features in the media, so don’t forget to watch out for us!
This is an excellent development for us, because we are always seeking ways of raising awareness about the work we do, and also the issue of mental ill-health in the York area.  If you know of any news stories we may be able to publicise, please contact us here. (October 1st 2009)

Welcome to the new Our Celebration website!

You may have noticed a few changes to the website, which we hope you will like.  There is now a "latest news" section on the front page, to keep you fully informed about what is going on here at Our Celebration. Please remember to get in touch if you have any suggestions about the website or improvements that you would like to see.   Also don't forget that you can subscribe here to our FREE email newsletter, which means you will always be first to hear about any exciting developments. (September 25th 2009)