Our clinical team were very excited to take part in two days of Makaton Training. Held at The Movement Centre, a number of delegates joined us on the day.

Makaton is a language programme using signs and symbols to help people to communicate. It is designed to support spoken language and the signs and symbols are used with speech, in spoken word order. This can help to provide clues about what someone is saying. Signs can help people who have no speech or whose speech is unclear. Symbols can help people who have limited speech and those who cannot, or prefer not to sign.

Using Makaton in our sessions

We look forward to using Makaton at The Movement Centre. It will be great to be able to communicate with children in the sessions using signs and symbols. You can find out more about how you could learn Makaton on the Makaton Charity website. 

Why not watch Sarah and Curtis from The Movement Centre showing off their Makaton skills in this video?

The Movement Centre is very lucky to have some keen runners who are raising funds for us. 

One brave man is Darren Hall. He took on the tough challenge of completing the London Marathon on Sunday 23^rd April 2017. Darren, who works for Storage King, found himself one of the lucky runners to get a place in the London Marathon this year. He then decided he wanted to raise funds along the way. He finished the marathon in a time of 5 hours 12 minutes and raised over £500, a fantastic amount.

Oswestry Half Marathon

Another event that we have been delighted to be involved in is the inaugural Oswestry Half Marathon held on Sunday 30^th April 2017. We had discounted charity places offered to us by UK RunChat. They were filled by some great local people.

Emily, Jo and Leanne ,from NatWest Bank, are going to take on this challenge. They wanted to support a local charity. They have been fundraising and held cake sales, spinathons, and through a JustGiving page. Also running the Oswestry Half Marathon are 3 Movement Centre staff Polly, Sarah and Curtis.

If you are in the local area come along and cheer all of our runners through the gruelling 13.1 miles.

The Movement Centre’s annual Awards Party took place on Tuesday 11^th April. It was a fantastic day with lots to celebrate! Every child who completed a course of therapy in the last 12 months was given a certificate. It was wonderful to see so many of the families there on the day to collect the awards.

After collecting their certificates at the Awards Party, the children and their families had lots of time to let their hair down! The Venue at Park Hall kindly gave up the soft play area for everyone to enjoy. This was followed by entertainment including; facepainting, a magician, teddy-bear hoopla, selfie table with props and a visit from mascots Bella and Spot the Dog!

The Lady Trevor Award

On the day we celebrated the achievements of all of the children who have worked so hard over the last 12 months. There was also an award was presented for outstanding contribution to The Movement Centre. This year The Lady Trevor Award  was awarded to the Porter Family. Jeremy and Bethan’s son Jac has attended The Movement Centre since early 2016. Since then the family have held a number of events and activities to raise awareness of The Movement Centre and have fundraised an incredible £25000.

We would like to thank everyone who came along and help to support the day.  It was fantastic to see so many happy faces together in one room!

To see photos from the day you can take a look at our Facebook album!