On Being Knit-Wits

Hello! It's good to be back on the Age UK Sutton blog, after an incredible few months since joining as CEO.  You might have noticed we’ve gone a bit knitting mad recently, and today, I’m going to explain ourselves. We’re not really Knit-Wits - it’s all part of our current fundraising campaign, the Age UK Sutton Big Knit.

Part of my role here is to oversee the way we work with the national Age UK charity that you will be familiar with (among other things they deliver some services in areas where there isn't a local Age UK, support us local independent Age UKs to share ideas, and campaign nationally for the rights of older people across the UK).  

Age UK Sutton is a completely independent small local charity, here to support older people in the Borough of Sutton. We raise our own funds to deliver the work we do, and govern ourselves.  Although we don't get financial support for projects, the advantage of being connected to a network of other Age UKs  is that we get the chance to share ideas, and also sometimes, to work together on big campaigns and activity.

The Big Knit is one such recent activity we have taken part in with the national Age UK charity.  This is a fundraising campaign supported by innocent smoothies (yum!) where we produce little knitted hats, and in the winter, innocent sell their drinks with these hats on them.  This raises people's awareness of Age UK's work, and also raises funds as innocent makes a donation for every drink sold.

What's really great is that if we produce those hats here in Sutton, the funds raised by our hats come to Age UK Sutton to support our local work. We are aiming in this first year to raise £500 with our hats. It's not a huge amount, but as for all charities - every penny counts!  

This money could enable us to conduct an initial triage assessment for over 70 older people, enabling them to access opportunities, rights and income they might not have known about or been unable to do so before. It could allow us to set up 8 new social groups for people living with dementia, where they can make use of reminiscence therapy and just have a good chat and laugh (and tea and biscuits, of course!) 

This is our first year taking part in the Big Knit and we are loving it! I've re-learnt to knit - something I haven't done since I was about 10!  I've been surprised at how easy it is and now I can't stop (apologies in advance to all colleagues who will be getting terrible scarves for christmas).  Lots of our staff and volunteers have learned too, and we even have a lunchtime knitting group running in the office.

We can't do this on our own though.  It's been brilliant to see our local friends and colleagues taking part  - for example our Purls of Wisdom knitting group have produced hundreds of hats, our friends at Sutton Carers' Centre are on the case, and SCVS is hosting a 'Knit and Network' event for us in a couple of weeks time. We've been getting twitter updates from local people to show us their contributions , and enjoyed great support from local public figures including our new Mayor Jean Crosby and former Deputy Mayor, Nali Patel.  One local supporter, Jennie, even ran 10k for us instead of knitting! 

I've enjoyed seeing the creative efforts of such a wide range of supporters, and we appreciate  every second of time and effort that has gone into producing these wooly creations.  

As a relative newcomer to Sutton, the support shown by so many for the Age UK Sutton Big Knit is a perfect example of what an incredible community we have here - I am so proud to be part of this, and we are grateful for every knit, purl, stitch and pompom received.  I am looking forward to more community activity (watch this space!) that will bring us together again, creating opportunities to socialise, network, and raise funds together to support Age UK Sutton's vital work.

Until next time!

Yours, 

Nicola

P.S - if you haven't been able to take part in the Big Knit, but would like to know more about fundraising for Age UK Sutton, please get in touch! Email comms@ageuksutton.org.uk or Tweet me @nicola_upton