Join us: New nature connection and gardening project

Through running our Walk and Talk project over the last year, we have found that spending time in nature can improve our mental health. Through increased positive feelings of wellbeing, in turn we can help our natural environment thrive. Therefore, we’re delighted to announce that we will be opening a new project based around nature connection and gardening, giving you a chance to learn from your environment, grow food and find wellbeing outside.

When is this taking place?

Every Tuesday from 17th May
Running from 10.30am – 1.30pm
All equipment will be provided
We will be running our project, Keep Going Keep Growing at various sites in Bristol, mainly at the Wellspring Settlement in Barton Hill and Boiling Wells in St Werburghs

Anything else you need to know?

• No referral or formal diagnosis required
• Adults only – you need to be over 18 to attend
• Advance booking needed – details & session location will be shared in advance
• Free to attend you don’t need to pay anything

What will we be doing?

We will combine nature connection and wellbeing practices, mindfulness, creative craftwork with gardening and growing food. Sessions will be based around the 5 pathways to nature connection:

1. Contact
The act of engaging with nature through the senses for pleasure e.g. listening to birdsong, smelling wild flowers, watching the sunset.

2. Beauty
Engagement with the aesthetic qualities of nature, e.g. appreciating natural scenery or engaging with nature through the arts.

3. Meaning
Using nature or natural symbolism (e.g. language and metaphors) to represent an idea, thinking about the meaning of nature and signs of nature, e.g. the first swallow of summer.

4. Emotion
An emotional bond with, and love for nature e.g. talking about, and reflecting on your feelings about nature.

5. Compassion
Extending the self to include nature, leading to a moral and ethical concern for nature e.g. making ethical product choices, being concerned with animal welfare.

We will combine these pathways together with the 5 ways to wellbeing, find out more about this set of ideas to make improvements on your life here.

Through connecting with nature, some benefits to your wellbeing may include reducing stress, improving creativity, reducing anxiety, better sleep, growing food, learning simple wellbeing practices and connecting with others.

Keep Going Keep Growing will be run by our Project Workers, Jen Witts and Charlie Baxter.

Email – growing@changesbristol.org

Telephone – 0141 536 0920

You may have seen Jen at one of our peer support groups. As well as running meetings, she also has many years experience facilitating groups outside, focussed on promoting wellbeing and connecting with nature. Jen believes passionately in the ability of nature to transform our connection to ourselves, our land and our communities in a physical, emotional and spiritual sense. She’s looking forward to exploring all of the ways to connect together and with nature with this group!

Bristol Befriending Week – 25th – 30th April

It has been two years since we started our telephone befriending service with the expectation of helping 20-25 people during lockdown. Since those naïve days this service has grown and grown, to date supporting 164 individuals (3322 befriending hours). Of this number, 109 members no longer require this service and are able to support their mental wellbeing independently or through attending Changes Bristol peer support groups.

Befriending is a free one-to-one service which is available to anyone who lives in Bristol, contact befriending@changesbristol.org to find out more.

Join our new campaign launching from the 25th – 30th April – Bristol Befriending Week. During this time we will be celebrating friendship, community and connecting with others.

A friendship that has meant a lot to you

We’ve been asking some of our friends to tell us their stories about a connection that has meant a lot to them. This could be a family member, friend or someone that they hardly know. You might recognise some of the faces on our video, we’ve been speaking to all sorts of Bristolians including Donna Speed, CEO of We The Curious; Prince Taylor, Trustee at the Arnolfini; Councillor Lorraine Francis, of Eastville ward; Joanna Holmes, CEO of the Wellspring Settlement and George Friend, digital creator and fashion influencer. We’re asking everyone to take a moment to think about a connection that has meant a lot to them.

Changes Bristol social event

The team at Changes will be running a social event on Friday 29th April from 12pm – 5pm at Eastville Park. This is free to attend and we will have some snacks and drinks available which have been donated by Asda Patchway but we recommend bringing your own lunch and a bottle of water. If you prefer to sit on a blanket rather than the grass, please bring one along as well as any games – we’re hoping to get a couple of teams for a rounders tournament. 

We will have our Changes Bristol gazebo set up on the top field in front of the basketball court, so you should find us there. 

Mental Health resources across our community

We recognise that most people would use a range of services to improve their mental wellbeing and make positive changes to their lives. We’ve added a list of charities and community groups in and around Bristol, as well as nationwide. 

Exhibition on Nature

We are enjoying the awesome power of nature through a series of photography walks. Here we celebrate our photographers talents with a gallery exhibiting their incredible images. These will be added to as the series continues, to view the seasonal transformation within this gallery space.

If you’re a Changes Bristol member and would like to connect with nature and find out more about our free photography walks, please contact befriending@changesbristol.org

Spring Photography Walk

Alessandra

Hannah

Lindsey

Shona

Meg

Walk around Bristol in a month!

Join us throughout March and challenge yourself to walk the circumference of Bristol. This is a virtual walk that can take place anywhere at any point during the month, celebrating our lovely city!

If you would like to take part in this challenge we ask if you can walk 110km (68 miles) from the 1st – 31st March. This length is the circumference around the city. You can take part in this walk anywhere you wish over a number of days / weeks as long as you start and end inside the month.

Walk details – 110km / 68 miles / 195,711 steps

Interested in joining this challenge? Register your interest HERE

How to take part

All you need to do is start walking and measure your distance. You can measure the length by remembering how many miles you’ve made; or if you would like to use an app, we recommend Strava, a Fitbit or pedometer.

You can take part in this challenge independently or get a team together and your miles can be added collectively!

You are also welcome to join our Walk and Talk team, we meet in green spaces in Bristol every Wednesday morning and in South Glos every Friday morning. All you need to do to join is register as a member and we’ll email you out our meeting places.

We’d love to have you on board. This challenge is completely accessible and costs nothing to join. All you need to do is register your interest HERE – we will then get in touch and send you one of our sports tops so you can show everyone what you’re walking for.

If you’re interested in fundraising for us, set up a JustGiving page HERE. Just press Start Fundraising and you can join the other fundraisers who are taking part. As a small community led charity, with very little in staff costs and overheads, your fundraising will directly benefit our mental health support services.

Any donations made will directly fund our mental health support groups and befriending service, helping people to make positive changes to their life and mental wellbeing.