Thank you for a fantastic year at the Unity Hubb

2022 was another amazing year with our marvellous members, who make the Hubb a place of community, sharing and celebrating.

We have had such a great year, with lots of projects and events including crocheting flowers to give to local women to celebrate International Women’s Day in March, our super Happy Place Project at the allotments, and Chai and Chat is of course still going strong – we always have lots to talk about!

Plus we had a special Jubilee event in May, our summer celebration in August and in September a special service took place at St Margaret’s Church to celebrate the Queen’s life, ahead of the state funeral.

We also sadly said goodbye to a much-loved member of the Hubb community, Cheryle who passed away this year. Cheryle was a lovely lady, a great friend to many who had a smile for everyone. She will always be in our thoughts.

Cheryle loved coming to the Hubb and took part in lots of creative projects and events and we like to think we have done her proud with the some of the activities that have happened at the Hubb towards the end of the year.

To complement our regular wellbeing activities, we held wellness party at the Hubb, with sessions to promote wellbeing including mindfulness, chair yoga, aromatherapy and a strength and stretch taster. We also gave out 50 goody bags with a yoga mat, water bottle, skipping rope, notebook and a sweat towel to help our members on their wellness journeys.

We have also had two very successful events organised by Women in Business, including the Unity Crafters Market in December. The pop-up market was organised and run by local women at the Hubb, who showed off their skills with stalls selling handmade crafts including jewellery, vegan soap and personalised keepsakes, plus samosa chaat, cakes and bakes, a face painting stall and a nail bar. It was a great event and we hope to do similar events in 2023!

In November, the Bangladeshi Community Regeneration Association launched their project at the Hubb, which aims to bring the wider community together in recognising and celebrating Bangladeshi culture through arts programmes, training and community service. The launch event was fantastic and included a Bengali Bail singer performing live, a history of the Bangladesh Tea Garden, a workshop on Bengali clay jewellery making and Bengali street food.

We had a Bollymix night to celebrate the end of our Bollywood Dreams project. The project including some of our ladies learning how to play traditional Dhol and Dholki drums, cooking and recipe sharing with dishes where East meets West, and creating some beautiful table centre pieces.

To end the year with a bang we had not one but two Christmassy events. At the beginning of December, we had and event with Christmas fun and the chance to meet our neighbours. Santa visited and gave out presents to over 200 children, which were very generously donated by Savage Plant Hire. Everyone who came to the event got a winter wellbeing pack from Severn Trent and a jar of sweets, and there were lots of fun activities including cookie decorating, face painting and arts and crafts. Later in December we had our End of Year party, with members bringing food to share with each other.

As well as all these events we also had a visit from Severn Trent to share winter wellbeing packs and water saving tips, a very special afternoon tea to thank the National Lottery for the grant they awarded us, with member sharing poems and of course lots of cake!

Our members are a well of generosity, creativity and talent and without them sharing stories, food and skills the Unity Hubb wouldn’t be the friendly and welcoming place it is. Thank you to all of members, our community and the people who have helped make 2022 another amazing year! We can’t wait to see what happens in 2023!