Stepping Stones Norwich

Thanks to the Great Plumstead Bowls Club for another fantastic bowls session - this years competition saw new winners take the trophies...

Congratulations to AJ & Eleanor for winning the team bowls trophy and to AJ for winning the solo trophy!

We have just added some fantastic new products to our online store, so please take a look:

www.steppingstonesproject.com/shop

All products are designed by our students and are signed by the artists!

Some of our students and tutors recently returned from a 3 day camping trip - a lovely time was had by all; fry ups were cooked, marshmallows were toasted and they even managed to fit in a bit of disco dancing! 🥳

A special thanks to our tutors Nina and Shathy for organising, staffing and ensuring everyone had a great trip.

Life skills development, with a smile...great work Katy! 👏

Last week we were delighted to host the Bishop Herbert Lodge Norfolk Freemasons who presented a donation to Stepping Stones for £2000 - most welcome funds when you have just moved and have plenty of new plans and ideas from the students!

Thank you Peter and others for your support and we look forward to welcoming you back to the new centre soon for more cake and conversation!

We had a wonderful trip to the Cambridge Botanic Gardens to take part in their Curious Adventures in Nature smartphone photography workshop.

The students and staff had a lovely time learning how sensory stimulus of sight, scent and sound provides a therapeutic space to explore the principles of visual art practice - plus, we got to smell the orchid that smells like rotting cabbage!!

Thanks to Louise and Graham at the Botanic Gardens for a fantastic day and to AVIVA's Access to Nature fundraising support to allow us to get to and from Cambridge.

A great first week at our new centre - today we tried out the new kitchen for the first time and thankfully, not the new fire alarm system too 🥳

It has been lovely to get out in the local community and checking out our new allotment space. 🪴🌻🌞🌸

Today is our last day at 52 Magdalen Road before we open on Monday at our new centre!!

no.52 has been a fantastic home over the last decade & more and we will really miss the community who have always been so supportive and welcoming with our students and events.

We have been busy completing dilapidations painting everywhere inside & out before we hand it back to the landlord, so a massive thanks to our wonderful team of volunteers, tutors, parents, friends & the local TESCO team who have all chipped in with the painting & a thank you to Pips Skips & fitzmaurice for their waste & removals support too - we have a bit more painting to do, but we are nearly there...

Also, today is a double celebration - Martin, our project assistant is celebrating 30 years of being involved with Stepping Stones - congratulations Martin!

Tomorrow we will be at Heigham Park selling our note books, cards, tote bags, T-shirts, jams, cheese rounds 😋 and dog biscuits!
We hope to see you there!

Tomorrow, Stepping Stones will be part of the Heigham Park Centenary Celebration 🥳

Come visit us to have a look at our new collection of notebooks, beautiful cards, vegetable tote bags and our delicious jams and chutneys...but most importantly we will sell hand-made dog biscuits tested and approved by our Figgy.

We will be there from 11am until 4pm on Saturday 15th June so please come on down to support what will be a fantastic event!

We are very excited to be part of the Opening Doors event tomorrow at The Forum, Norwich - we will be hosting a flower themed workshop, so please come on down and support a wonderful event and join in the fun!

It's Volunteers week, so we would like to give a massive social media shoutout to our fantastic volunteers who give their time, skills and brilliant support to our students and tutors each week, thank you 👏 💜

A massive thank you also to the Virgin Media team who have been helping get our new centre at Heartsease Lane, ready for opening on Monday 1st July - 👀🥳

Yesterday we tried out the seed snail technique as seen by our wonderful volunteer, Ali on by . Great fun!

Two weeks until we set up our Enterprise stall at Heigham Park - Norwich.
Come to have a look at our new collection of notebooks, beautiful cards, vegetable tote bags and our delicious jams and chutneys...but most importantly we will sell hand-made dog biscuits tested and approved by our Figgy.
We will be there from 11am until 4pm on Saturday 15th June

In 3 weeks we will be part of Heigham Park's Centenary Celebration. We are still finalising new designs but we will definitely sell new hand painted cards, inspired by student Rory's artwork. We have new batches of our delicious jams and chutneys as well as famous cheese rounds!
Save the Date, we hope to see you there - Saturday 15th June from 11am until 4pm

We feel so proud of our students who volunteered at some really lovely events as part of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival the past 2 weeks - great work all round! 👏🎭🎸

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We are doing an impromptu BRIC A BRAC sale today at 52 Magdalen Road to help lighten up the load of boxes to take to the new centre. There are books, DVDs, Art and Craft supplies...We will be outside until 3.30pm, if you are around, come and take what you want, give what you can.

The students were delighted to have been asked by Investing Ethically to produce some artwork for their place of work, themed around the Swallowtail butterfly - please see the lovely write up about the project on the link below!



https://www.investing-ethically.co.uk/swallowtails-and-stepping-stones/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2TLm89ewtDtJEe-0XfO5wpbm3ZyoD1O-UxDka1CDASXfjDbWfwZaAKxKA_aem_Aff8RK28Jgs3pOk1eh76A7ywXSZKWNuYWr2m4Op_80c1Iu20ecqlrbSLEn4ISf_qUm9GDQxeVC1C-D1j7aliumCW

Swallowtails and Stepping Stones - Investing Ethically We were delighted to welcome some of the Stepping Stones students and staff to our office for the grand unveiling

Today we say goodbye to Angel Road, which was used as our life skills training home. The students have loved being in this space and have learnt many new skills and even cooking a few afternoon teas independently.

Thanks to Norwich Consolidated Charities for supporting the project and to Brown&Co for being great landlords throughout.

Our next job is to get the new site ready...

We have some very exciting news...Stepping Stones is moving! 🥳👏

We are delighted to announce that we have purchased the Heartsease Lane Methodist Church in the area of Norwich and we will be leaving our base on Magdalen Road by mid July.

The new building is fantastic and gives Stepping Stones a permanent base to build upon and allow us to grow over time - it even has a stage to meet all of our performing needs 🎸🥁🎭

We are of course sad to be leaving the community who have been so accepting and supportive over the years, but it has always been a dream of Stepping Stones throughout its 35 years to have its own building and no longer rent, so we are incredibly thankful to be in this position.

We will release more detailed information soon and share with you the process, plans for the future.

Naturally, please come forward if you would like to get involved with the decoration of the building, it is just short of 7000sq ft so plenty for us to do and the budget is tight - if you are a tradesperson or know anyone who can help - please get in touch at [email protected]

Stepping Stones is now officially 35 years old! 🥳🌱🍲🎬🎼🎨🎂

Founded in 1989 by Bob and Angie, Stepping Stones continues to thrive, grow and offer a vital service to the people we support, their families and the wider community.

Thanks to everyone who has been involved with Stepping Stones during those 35 years whether it is students, volunteers, tutors, managers, trustees, founders, friends, funders, parents/carers, families - together we have made Stepping Stones a very vibrant and special place to be. 💜

Also, stay tuned for some VERY exciting news we will share early next week....🧐👀

We are excited to say we will be hosting a *free* card making workshop at the Norfolk Makers Festival on Thursday 18th April - 10:00 - 16:00 @ The Forum, and suitable for all ages, under 10's to be supervised please!

So please come along and support our work, meet some of our students and tutors, and of course, make a colourful, layered paper flower card!

The students would like to share their newest music production - Easter time - available at Bandcamp on the link below for £1.00 upwards!

https://steppingstonesnorwich.bandcamp.com/track/easter-time

Also as a reminder, we will be closed as usual over the Easter bank holiday period, re-opening on Tuesday 2nd April - from all of us at Stepping Stones, have a lovely Easter/bank holiday!

(artwork created by our students AJ & Rory)

Just a regular day at Stepping Stones 😊

Today we went to . The weather was ideal and we enjoyed spending time with the animals.

Thanks to Ellie and Shane Sports Foundation for organising a tour around Carrow Road stadium for our students who completed the Realising Potential course.

The students had a fantastic time and were also presented with their Realising Potential certificates. OTBC!

As well as catering for the upcoming Norwich Seed and Plant Swap event on Sunday 11th February at the St Mary Magdalene Church, we will also have some seeds to hand out, straight from our allotment.

So come on down between 13:00 - 16:00 to celebrate a fantastic event, purchase and eat some delicious cake (whilst making a donation to Stepping Stones) and enjoy being served by some of our students!

Stepping Stones will by catering for Norwich Seed and Plant Swap on Sunday 11th February.
This year we are adding savoury snacks to our list of well loved classic cakes.
The event will take place at St Mary Magdalene Church, Silver Road, NR3 4TF between 1pm and 4pm.
Bring along your surplus packets of seeds, potted plants or gardening books to swap with others. There will be stalls from local gardening and horticultural groups and a guest appearance by Bob Flowerdew.

As we near Christmas and the New Year, we would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who we have worked with and everyone who has supported Stepping Stones & our students throughout 2023.

A special thanks to our fantastic team of tutors who always deliver engaging and meaningful sessions for the students and also to our team of volunteers who give their time and skills to support our work.

2023 has been a really great year for the students and service, from hosting a 2 hour - BBC Radio Norfolk & Suffolk show at the start of the year to our December Festive Fun event at the Norwich Arts Centre, it has been a year of collaboration, creativity, vibrancy and most importantly, fun.

From April 2024, Stepping Stones will be celebrating its 35th birthday, so we will be sharing exciting news, events and plans for this in due course! If you or anyone would like to fundraise for us as we turn 35 in 2024, then please get in touch.

Our last day open is on Wednesday 20th December, and we re-open on Tuesday 2nd January.

We hope you all have a lovely Christmas and New Year and we look forward to what will be a special year for Stepping Stones in 2024.

🎄🎁❄⛄👏🤘🥳👏

For the past 12 or so weeks our Monday Stepping Stones students have been on the Community Sports Foundation 'Realising Potential' programme - culminating in a Christmas shoebox appeal on the 4th December.

The students had a lovely time throughout the programme playing a wide range of sports and taking part in various team building activities. Thanks to Ellie and Shane from CSF for their support throughout and a special thanks to long time friend of Stepping Stones, NCFC legend, Wes Hoolahan who came to see the students hard at work!

Read more here: https://www.communitysportsfoundation.org.uk/news/realising-potential-christmas-shoebox-appeal/