This autumn, we completed our first set of Tenants Talks since November 2019! We were so happy to be back engaging with our tenants face to face again. Housing Management staff Nigel, David, Eve, Donna and Mo visited a total of 58 tenants in Cardiff, Wrexham and Newtown to catch up about life after lockdown, Health and Wellbeing and many other topics…..
Lockdown Lives
Most of the tenants were upset that they couldn’t see family, although some did mention that they missed the pub! Now that lockdown restrictions have eased, many of them are back to seeing family and friends and having a nice drink.
A lot of the tenants found that they were walking around more, painting, reading and gardening. Many of our tenants have also started to connect with others online, with many of them receiving new tablets and laptops thanks to the hard work of Dave and Digital Communities Wales who were providing equipment to help people become more included.
Health & Wellbeing
Eve, our new Health & Wellbeing Coordinator attended the Cardiff Tenants Talk and introduced some health and wellbeing topics that were beneficial for the tenants.
All tenants completed a Health and Wellbeing survey about how they like to spend their time, what they like to eat and other lifestyle questions. Their answers will help First Choice gain an insight into how we can help improve tenants' wellbeing in mind and body.
Future tenant events
Housing Management have been hard at work organising and planning further tenant events that were introduced to the tenants. Some of these events include bowling, discos, and more tenant talks.
We also opened the floor to suggestions from the tenants about what kind of event they would like to see in their area in the future. These included a bonfire party, the Elvis festival, beach parties, zoo trips, extra discos, quizzes, walking and cookery lessons. Housing Management will look into organising some of these events in the future.
Raffle
In the past all of the raffles have included sweets and chocolates. This time, we introduced some healthier options such as pedometers and educated tenants on how to use the new equipment.
Gig Buddies Cymru
Dave and Nigel had the honour of introducing Gig Buddies to many of the tenants there for the first time. Gig Buddies Cymru is a befriending scheme that matches people with a learning disability in South Wales and North Wales with a volunteer who shares the same interests, so they can go to gigs and events together.
Tenants with First Choice can be a part of gig buddies so sharing that information with tenants will hopefully allow them to go out to events that they may not have felt comfortable going to before without a buddy.
Community Involvement Grant
We handed out grant forms that offered funding for community events, one off sporting events and other activities that benefit the community. This will allow First Choice to financially support some activities and events in the areas tenants live in.
Tenants’ Voice newsletter
Finally, we handed out previous newsletters and spoke to tenants about how they can get involved in contributing stories, hobbies and recipes to share with other First Choice tenants.
We were really pleased to hold our Tenants Talk meetings and see our tenants face to face again. We are so thankful for all of the tenants that attended and hope to see them back for the next events we hold along with some new faces.
