WI Centennial Fair proves a huge success
Monday 14 September, 2015
The WI Centennial Fair, which took place over the 3-6th September in Harrogate, was a huge success for all sorts of reasons.
For RLO, it provided a fantastic opportunity to speak to WI members and visitors about social care support – primarily for people with learning disabilities; to encourage awareness and information sharing to wider networks (such as family members) – especially in terms of recruitment; and to offer our services as speakers at WI meetings.
We can confidently say we spoke to over 2,000 people – total visitors to the fair were 13,380. We were keen to talk about the work that we do, that we would like to speak at WI meetings and how there are great opportunities to work with us.
The people we spoke to were very positive about our work. One visitor in particular made a beeline to the RLO stand, to tell us how the support her brother receives has made such a big difference to his life.
The feature of our stand was a large ‘Tic Tac Toe’ game mat (see picture above). The mat attracted lots of attention and provided some thrilling matches for those with the time to have a go. The mat now provides us with a fun resource that can be reused throughout RLO – for example at garden parties and other service events. Have a chat with Kevin Bannerman, if you’d like to use it at any of your own local events.
A large TV screen provided a scrolling presentation about RLO services, which was a highly effective way of standing out from other exhibitors.
We partnered with Insane Logic and were supported over the 4 days by speech and language therapist Dot Reeves, who introduced visitors to the MyChoicePad software.
A big thanks to the WI for the opportunity to take part in such a great 4 days. The RLO team on the stand was Anthea Sully, Toni Fyfe, Wendy Lee, Kevin Bannerman, Brian Hutchinson, Lynn Hobbs and David Wilkin.
