Taking the fun forward!
Wednesday afternoon and the GreenCloud gang met, the final group before the NHS Embrace team take over from Growing Better Lives (aka Rex and Vanessa!). Candida and Sam will be facilitating the group, but Rex and Vanessa will still be in some of the sessions (probably making trouble…)
Different platicons chosen at check-in: sadness and pain, anger, but also being comfortable and steady.
We moved onto our ‘sharing nature’ spot and enjoyed a wide variety of photos people had taken! This woodcarving of a hedgehog (?) taken in Bracknell’s South Hill Park by Sam, and a beautiful view from Eversley with that hint of autumn!
And a very cute Robin, taken by our courageous bird-phobic Vanessa (maybe to turn into a Christmas Card!)
However, nature is so resilient and can be found everywhere! This is shown in the photo of how plants can survive even in pavement cracks. Maybe a moral here that nature can overcome bleakness 🙂 And even more – we can grow new plants from things we often just throw away. Eat an avocado – and with patience you can start a new plant from the stone, as Candida showed us very proudly!
At GreenCloud we always come back to our animals. Here is one of our feline members!
And Rex showed us this amazing video of a ‘spotty horse with spotty dog’.
A quick break, then a blast to the past with our game this week – a board game version of “Blockbusters”! Ok, we had to explain this to our younger members but soon got going with our ‘White’ and “Blue’ teams. Since we were equal in gender split Rex insisted we did ‘Men v Women’ and then got upset when the men promptly lost the first game! They equalised on the second though so no hard feelings…
GreenCloud started up in the midst of Covid Lockdown (our first trial session being on 2nd April 2020). Now we are moving forward with it becoming a weekly regular session as part of the NHS Embrace/Hope College/Enabling Town Slough team! It has been so valued, a few comments from people being:
“When you come into the group you know you will be leaving feeling better”
“Greencloud has given us a wonderful opportunity to get together to talk about all things green, bright and beautiful! This group really is right up my street, being a natural born animal lover! I really do look forward to Wednesday afternoons to see what everyone has been up to over the week, join in some fun and games, whilst all the while learning something new and exciting.”
“Green cloud for me has been a great shared experience, always uplifting and inspiring sharing our photos and experience of nature for the week, plus a quiz or game played with good humoured fun”
“Greencloud means laughter in the bad times smiles in the sad times. A safe space, a trusted place”
And all the above was reflected in our Planticon check-out with Daisies (Playful & Fun) and Seedlings (Hopeful, promise of progress) protected and safe (Willow tree) although circumstance are still ‘Difficult but Worthwhile’ (Flowering Thistle)
